9to5 Staff

It is that time of year again.  Summer is in full swing.  The north polar ice cap is melting away, the Yankees are making a run at the playoffs and 9to5mac is hearing from Asia on this year’s iPod lineup.  First up is the Nano which will appear in multiple colors…not multiple color versions but each one will have a plethora of colors.  The storage will double and new features will be added….

We can’t exactly elaborate on everything we’ve heard but more will be forthcoming…keep an eye on this space.

(btw, the image is just meant to illustrate the idea – not a real picture…we found it on the web)

digg_url = ‘http://9to5mac.com/rainbow-iPod-nano’;

 New app, recently added:

Description:

"Ad Hoc Helper lets you email a copy of your device’s UDID (unique device identifier) to developers so they can add you to their Ad Hoc distribution profiles. This allows them to create a special version of their apps that can be run on your iPhone outside of the normal AppStore channels. Ad Hoc distribution is perfect for Beta testing as well as for small in-house projects with an limited distribution group, of up to 100 iPhones and/or iPod touches. To run, just tap the icon. A message immediately opens in your Mail application with your UDID information. Address it to the developer in question and send it on its way." Try it?

Thanks to PinchMedia

Expect faster, cheaper and better Macs as Apple uses price to maintain its growth spike, the analysts at Needham & Co. said, revealing slightly reduced estimates on the company stock,.

Analyst Charles Wolf notes Apple easily beat third quarter consensus estimates, reporting earnings per share of $1.19 on revenues of $7.46 billion, observing, "But the stock was crushed after the release by gross margin guidance that was materially lower than the historic numbers both for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2009. Our take is that Apple wants to continue the Mac’s momentum and will use pricing to do so."

The purported plan follows a stupendously strong Mac sales quarter, Apple reached 2.5 million unit sales, up almost three times the market growth rate. 

Apple’s proposed fourth quarter margins sent some investors into a tizzy. Apple’s gross margin was 34.8% in the third quarter.  But Apple expects it to fall to 31.5% in the fourth quarter and to average around 30% in fiscal 2009. "This guidance sent a shockwave through the investor community," Wolf notes.

"Our take is that Apple appears willing to accept a lower gross margin in exchange for continued Mac market share gains and faster revenue growth," he advised. "The guidance for 2009 suggests that Apple may reduce the prices of its high volume iMac and MacBook lines to continue their surge."

"We’ve raise our 2009 Mac shipment forecast from 12.9 to 14.2 million units. We’ve cut our  2009 earnings per share estimate from $6.95 to $5.95 solely because of 

the expectation of a lower gross margin than we previously anticipated. We continue with our strong buy rating. We are maintaining our $240 price target for now," the analyst said.

 Buried beneath the hype surrounding iPhone and Apple’s growing Mac market share, the company still offers server-grade solutions that are making some dent in the high-end research markets – and now one of the company’s early champions is adding another Apple server farm to the collection.

Virginia Tech has deployed a new 29-teraflop Mac supercomputing cluster that’s based on 324 Mac Pros, it has been revealed. The cluster is at the Center for High-End Computing Systems (CHECS) within the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The system would have been ranked in the Top 100 systems of the June 2008 Top500 list of supercomputers.

Ensuring the Macs are all talking to each other, Mellanox Technologies’ 40Gb/s InfiniBand technology has been deployed to interconnect the machines.

Thad Omura, vice president of product marketing at Mellanox Technologies, said: "In 2003 we partnered with Virginia Tech to build the first 10Gb/s InfiniBand large-scale cluster that was ranked number three on the Top500 list at the time. We are excited to partner with Virginia Tech for the first large-scale cluster installation using 40Gb/s InfiniBand."

“Our mission is to build computing systems and environments that can efficiently and usably span the scale from department-sized machines to national-scale resources, and will meet the day-to-day needs of computational scientists,” said Srinidhi Varadarajan, Director of CHECS at Virginia Tech. “Mellanox’s 40Gb/s InfiniBand technology brings the necessary capabilities to our research activities and will be the focus for the design and deployment of the next generation of high-end systems.”

Yet more movement in the enterprise with news today of the Sybase iAnywhere, an enterprise class solution that now lets  iPhone 3G users access wireless email from Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange email systems. 

Sybase iAnywhere provided iPhone users with wireless email access to Lotus Domino in a release earlier this year, now its iAnywhere Mobile Office offers iPhone 3G highly secure enterprise email that uses native applications.

 “Since the release of our wireless email product for iPhone earlier this year, we have seen strong interest from customers and partners – showcasing the demand for iPhone within the enterprise,” said Terry Stepien, president, Sybase iAnywhere. “We are excited to be part of the iPhone ecosystem and are focused on providing companies the ability to support the iPhone for secure wireless email usage along with other mobile devices, such as Windows Mobile and Symbian.” 

 In the near future, Sybase iAnywhere expects to enhance iAnywhere Mobile Office with additional components such as push email, contacts, corporate directory access and calendar.

A 30-day free trial is available.

We showed you how to do this before and yes it is much nicer with 3G speeds.  Tether your your laptop (and others if you wish) through the iPhone’s 3G connection.  Nate Tru has the details on his blog.

Basic steps as follows
– Jailbreak your iPhone 3G
– Install 3Proxy and Terminal
– Create an ad-hoc Wi-fi network using your laptop
– Join the network with your iPhone
– Find the iPhone’s IP address

– Open Terminal and run the proxy program
– Open Safari on your iPhone and open a web page
– Configure your browser to use the proxy

Just off the wires from Tim Cook, iPhone hitting 20 more countries on August 22.  This will bring the total to over 40 worldwide.  Fifa watch out!

Apple did better than expected in Q3 but guides lower.  The Quicktime stream is still going on but here’s the PR:

Apple Reports Record Third Quarter Results

“We’re extremely pleased with the growth of our business and the generation of almost $5.4 billion in cash in the first three quarters of fiscal 2008,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $7.8 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $1.00.”

The New York Post has set out more concern this morning at the health of Apple CEO Steve Jobs.  Market manipulation?  You be the judge.  Apple’s stock is significantly down on the news.

Apple will reveal its quarterly results during a conference call this afternoon at 2pm (PDT), but, according to the report, people meeting him in recent weeks appear concerned at his "thin appearance". "Apple’s hedge fund investors are very worried," a Wall Street source who has spoken with some of the company’s stakeholders told the newspaper.

Concerns at the health of the Apple co-founder emerged last month after a thinner-looking Jobs took to the stage at WWDC to introduce the iPhone 3G. Responding to these concerns, Apple later said Jobs had been suffering from a "common bug", from which he was expected to make a full recovery, blaming his weight loss on the antibiotics he had to take.

Reports from the Disney side of Jobs’ life also fret at health worries, the report explained: "Another source close to Disney, who spoke with executives after the board meeting, said they were remarking on his weight loss," the report explains.

Behind all the concern lies Jobs’ bout with cancer in 2003, when he was apparently cured by the removal of a pancreatic tumour.

Concerns at the health of Apple’s visionary co-founder are exacerbated by the company’s seeming lack of a successor in wating. These worries are bound to mute Wall Street’s response to what should be a blow-out quarter for the company, which recently rose to become the third-biggest computer seller in the US, surpassing Acer for the first time. Apple is expected to deliver a profit of $1.08 per share on revenue of $7.36 billion, according to First Call.

 Woah! So – if Disney and Apple got together to design an iPhone for members of the Mickey Mouse Club, would it really look like this? Probably not, we’re convinced this is no more than an amusing fake, particularly on account of the inclusion of a ‘proper’ keyboard on the purported device – after all, hardware keyboards are just, so…well, opinions differ.

Returning to the image, published by blogger Jan Chipchase, it appears to show a hybrid Apple/Disney phone, complete with the familiar Apple logo, and Mickey Mouse on the back. We think this is an interesting notion, but would a Disney Apple iPhone look like this?

Yeah, of course even with its 2.0 glitches, the iPhone still is the best you can get…it would really be nice to see some worth competition for the iPhone however.  As much as we like the idea behind the OpenMoko, it doesn’t appear to be the iPhone killa….

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/1366042 w=400&h=302]
OpenMoko Train Wreck from Dave Fayram on Vimeo.

Wow…If you wanted to wait out the lines and pick up an iPhone this week, we have some bad news for you.  It probably ain’t going to happen.  Of all of Apple’s US stores only four still have iPhones left...and each one of these only has one model.  If you are looking to pick up the 8Gb iPhone you might want to get your plane ticket not because the only store selling them is  the Honolulu, Kahala store in Hawaii. 

Not to worry though, if you want a 16Gb black one.  Just head to Pleasonton, California….

Oh and if you are looking for a white iPhone, just queue up at the Apple Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York.

Woops – New Hampshire has a few left as well.

Otherwise, you are SOL.

Thanks DFB

It is finally here.  In the words of the iPhone Dev team:

Thanks for waiting :)

Here you go. [appears to be down for now, we took link down until we can revive the poor wounded server]

We’ll be releasing a more official announcement soon, but we wanted to get the tool out there. We sincerely hope you enjoy using it as much as we enjoyed making it :)

Update 1: Just to clear up some confusion over what this actually does: yes, it jailbreaks and unlocks older iPhones, and jailbreaks iPhone 3Gs and iPod Touches. We only support the 2.0 firmwares.

Update 2: It looks like there aren’t enough TCP ports on that server, so _BigBoss_ has generously offered to mirror it.

Update 3: If you get Error 1600 from iTunes (or if you see in your log a failure to prepare x12220000_4_Recovery.ipsw), try: mkdir ~/Library/iTunes/”Device Support” ;  if that directory already exists, remove any files in it.  Then re-run PwnageTool.  

Update 4: Here’s another mirror.

Update 5: If DFU restores are giving you trouble, another route to pwned 2.0 for 1G owners is to use our first pwnage at 1.1.4.  Once you are pwned there, you  can do a normal recovery-mode restore to your custom 2.0 ipsw.  BTW the iPhone does *not* need to be pre-pwned to be able to DFU-restore into a pwned ipsw — it needs to be pre-pwned only for normal recovery-mode restores of custom ipsw’s.

Update 6: Mail application not working at 2.0?  Please restore to your custom ipsw (you don’t need to DFU restore if you are pwned, normal restore will work now too) but then select “Set up as a new iPhone” when iTunes asks.  Your first sync will bring back all of your settings anyway.

Bloomberg reports that Motorola is suing Apple for hiring a Motorola Exec who  " disclosed its trade secrets to aid in the marketing of Apple’s iPhone. "  Could Motorola prowess help Apple’s marketing?

“He was privy to the pricing, margins, customer initiatives, allocation of resources, product development, multi-year product, business and talent planning and strategies being used by Motorola,” according to the complaint.

Michael Fenger, the executive in question, left Motorola for Apple after working there for six years as vice president for the company’s mobile-device business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He is now Apple’s vice president for global iPhone sales.  Admittedly, this is a very similar job description and iPhone and Motorola’s phones could be said to be competing.  We almost bought the Q instead of the iPhone…

Fenger signed a two year non-compete agreement with Motorola stating that he would not work for the competition.

“He was privy to the pricing, margins, customer initiatives, allocation of resources, product development, multiyear product, business and talent planning and strategies being used by Motorola,”

Motorola seeks a court order barring Fenger from working for Apple.  They also seek to recoup more than $1 million for Fenger’s alleged violation of company stock-option agreements.

Good luck with that…

 Looks like Apple is moving to accelerate its delayed laptop range upgrade, according to reports emanating all the way from Taiwan.

Seems the company has put out a major order for components for the new MacBooks, reportedly requesting 20 per cent more circuit boards for them than it requested in spring.

Compeq Manufacturing, Gold Circuit Electronics (GCE), Nanya Printed Circuit Board (NPC) and Tripod Technology are the four manufacturers Apple’s claimed to have approached for the new boards.

Sure, this doesn’t mean new models are definite, but we’ve expected them a while, and believe their introduction to have been delayed when Intel hit some last minute processor production problems with Centrino 2.

Centrino 2 was scheduled for release at Computex Taipei 2008, which took place on June 3 – 7, 2008, but was delayed until July 14, due to problems with integrated graphics and wireless certification. 

 Analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group is a frequent Apple critic, and his comments against the iPhone are perhaps good advice.

He’s warning business users not to be too quick to adopt the iPhone 3G, warning that any flaws in the product may take time to surface.

Oh, but he’s always good for a soundbite, check this from VNU:

"Apple is one of those companies that could sell refrigerators to Eskimos, but that does not suggest that Eskimos should actually buy them," he said. "The problem is that Apple tends to lead on hype and does a good job controlling initial product reviews."

Pretty true, but the business-friendly iPhone offers support for Exchange, Cisco VPN security and GPS – and word is many business users are tempted by the gadget.

Caution, advises Enderle, "It would be better for employees and their companies if purchases of the iPhone 3G were delayed until at least September," he warns.

Read more.

Steve Wozniak says education was one of the key uses he saw for computers from the beginning. Filmed at Blackboard Inc.s Las Vegas conference this week, here he talks about his passion for education and the early days of Apple.

http://p.castfire.com/MfFMz/video/17080/video_2008-07-16-125209.flv

 Sega of America president Simon Jeffrey has some pretty nice things to say about the iPhone, describing the Apple mobile as being as "powerful as the Sega Dreamcast".

Jeffery also said he’s delighted with how the iPhone version of Super Monkey Ball has been received, "Were deliriously happy," he said, interviewed by Kotaku.com.

He spoke a little on the relationship between Sega and Apple, "Our relationship with Apple is such that they talk to us really early about their gaming plans," he said. "We’re one of the small number of publishers with content on the original iPod," he added. "It’s very gratifying our content is so popular…we think the iPhone is everything that the N-Gage wasn’t, as a device," he admitted.

Jeffray is disparaging about most mobile phone games played on tiny screens, admitting he personally doesn’t see the attraction – but he does with the iPhone.

It gets better, though – the Sega exec’s confirmation that the iPhone is as powerful as a Dreamcast is followed by the revelation that, "we’re looking pretty sensibly at what we can do on the iPhone and what we can bring to that market. Bringing across some of the Dreamcast games to the iPhone makes perfect sense.

Jeffrey also confirmed Sega to be working to bring many more games to the iPhone, including "some pretty cool stuff". He predicts the iPhone gaming market will become extremely actve, "every games company is moving to it," he said.

Gartner and IDC just released their most recent numbers on PC Marketshare and Apple, as expected, climbed up the ranks again.  Depending who you ask they are either slightly ahead or slightly behind the Acer/Gateway/Packard Bell mashup which puts them around tied for third place.  The interesting thing is iPod touches and iPhones aren’t counted as computer sales.  Should they be?

• iPhones have the same specs as laptops had about 5 years ago.
• They can do most of the things a full computer can
• They are as functional as UMPCs which are tallied in the total.
• They are used in much the same way as computers, replacing computers much of the time for people on the move
• Unsubsidized cost?  I’d venture to bet 50% of Dell and HP machines are less expensive that unsubidized iPhones
• Some pretty smart people say they are computers

If you do count iPhones and iPod touches…you get a whole new ball game.  That three million computer lead that HP and Dell have on Apple starts to shrink.  Apple sold a million iPhones last week.  iPods are also flying off the shelves and with the 2.0 software, they do Exchange, Cisco VPN, Office apps, IM,  and have 1000 3rd party apps waiting for them.  That is a pretty good computer platform if you ask us! 

As these things converge with computers, Apples marketshare should explode!

Apple’s apps continue to pour in as they approach a total of 1000.  For common things like crossword puzzles, there are a few choices that range from mediocre to amazing.  In this particular case, the best crossword puzzle is easily 2across by Eliza Block.  Perfectly done.  You can download both paid crossword puzzles like the New York Times or hundreds of quality free puzzles (Village Voice, The Onion?!). 

The interface is almost perfect.  You can move smoothly between puzzle, questions and split view.  It even lets you check your answers or cheat.  Of course, we can’t vouch for this feature because we haven’t needed it :/

Eliza says she has many updates coming down the pipe though it is very hard to see how she can improve this application.  We are looking forward to the surprises ahead!

Download it here (iTunes  Link) – 6 bucks well spent!  Screenshots below.

 Here’s the Apple apology over MobileMe problems and the promise of a 30-day extension for the rest of us.

“We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.

Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running.

“Another snag we have run into is our use of the word "push" in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe "cloud," changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word "push" until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.

“We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.

“We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.

“Thank you,

“The MobileMe Team”