9to5 Staff

More glitches for owners of Apple’s latest MacBook Pros that sport Sandy Bridge processor and the new Thunderbolt connection. Latest reports have surfaced indicating problems with the machine causing flickering on external displays. Additionally, it seems the notebook is crashing under heavy load for some.

The latter comes via MacRumors’ discussion forum where the affected owners flocked to report unresponsiveness, spinning fan and freezes when the computer is under load. It’s especially evident when users throw heavy computational tasks that strain both the CPU and GPU. Not everything locks up, though, as one user reported being able to SSH into the machine.

A handy wiki explains this into greater detail, suggesting a software fix related to power management or graphics driver could easily fix the glitch. Display flickering issue seems to stem from buggy drivers as well.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGMsT4qNA-c]

Watching this clip of then two-year old Bridger working an iPad effortlessly as if it was second nature to him gave me a pause. His dad Mike says that “his speech, understanding, word recognition, and even hand eye coordination have improved within just a short while.” Bridger often cracks a smile, his eyes lighting up with excitement when exploring the device. To me, this is why Apple’s winning – they own these toddlers. A new generation of kids are growing up as we speak with an iPad etched in their memory. For me and you, it was a SNES or probably old school plastic elephants, turtles and giraffes. For your kids, it’s a shiny, easy to use toy with wonderful apps that respond to touch. Check out two more videos included below.

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If you happen to own a Google TV-branded product, the official remote app released last December on Android devices is now available free on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad running iOS 3 or higher. Sporting a plethora of buttons, the program packs in channel surfing, DVR access, voice search and other features from the Android version minus the ability to push web pages from your iPhone to a Google TV device. Check out Google’s quick video tutorial for more features, embedded below.

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It would seem that AT&T is finding new ways to discourage people from jailbreaking their device in order to avoid paying for a tethering plan that come in $15, $25 and $45 a month varieties. Mac blogs are abuzz with a purported text and email messages that the carrier has allegedly sent out to some customers.

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Unlike the App Store mobile bazaar which is the home to 99-cent quick sellers, with about one third free items, inexpensive software takes a back seat on the Mac App Store. According to a Distimo study based on an analysis of major application stores, less than one in eight apps on the Mac App Store are free of charge and games comprise 29 percent of all submissions.

Less than two months since launch the Mac App Store has 2,225 applications versus 8,099 iPad apps two months post-launch. Mac applications on average cost $11.21 – seven times the average selling price of iPhone apps ($1.57) and almost three times higher than on the iPad ($4.19). I have a feeling price drops on the Mac App Store are inevitable and here’s why.

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As the debate over whether Apple will put an NFC chip inside iPhone 5 continues, a new report hints at interesting possible uses that go beyond contactless payments. Specifically, an iPhone 5 with this chip could double as a portable login system allowing you to run your purchased Mac App Store applications on a guest Mac system as well as access, edit and save your documents remotely via the MobileMe cloud, an unnamed insider told Leander Kahney in an exclusive Cult of Mac story:

According to our source, who asked not to be named, when a NFC-equipped iPhone is paired with a guest machine, part of the user’s profile includes the apps they’ve purchased through the Mac App Store. The icons for their apps appear on the remote Mac, but aren’t downloaded, our source said. But if the user opens an app, it is downloaded temporarily to the computer for use. When the NFC connection is broken, the apps are deleted and the computer returns to its previous state.

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As if today’s pay wall announcement from the New York Times Company wasn’t enough, the news broke that an iPad-exclusive newspaper, The Daily, will begin charging for access next week. Unlike the Times’ entry-level $15 a month subscription for reading online articles on smartphones, the privilege of enjoying The Daily on your iPad costs just 99 cents per week, or forty bucks per year. Rupert Murdoch’s digital-only newspaper is slated to launch in Western Europe by summer, The Guardian reports. The exact release depends on when Apple’s new iOS subscription service becomes available in the country.

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Last night, an update to Angry Birds HD dropped on iPad with fifteen new levels, a new golden egg and a “feature” that has immediately angered loyal fans – adverts. No, not the unobtrusive types of an AdMob or AdSense variety seen in some apps. In Angry Birds HD, a “news section” – a nicer word for advertisements – hits gamers in the face upon reaching the pause screen.

It pitches the official merchandise, forcing gamers to wait for the promotional animation to finish, thus hindering their ability to restart the level and resume the game as quickly as possible. The move backfired as agitated fans began posting despicable comments in iTunes reviews. Here’s what one avid fan wrote:

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Switzerland leads the pack with an estimated 17.61 percent Mac OS X market share, followed by Luxembourg and the United States with 15.79 and 15.36 percent local market share, respectively. This eyebrow-raising survey by uptime monitoring company Pingdom is based on desktop operating system market share data from StatCounter, obtained by tracking visitors on more than three million websites. Interestingly, Iceland comes ahead of Canada with a 15.18 percent Mac OS X market share versus 14.03 percent for Canada. The most Mac-friendly region is North America, followed by Oceania/Australia and Europe.

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According to a Blaze study stemming from 45,000 Android and iOS tests, the Android browser on average loads web pages 52 percent faster than mobile Safari. The results are inconclusive, however, because it’s unclear whether Blaze’s measurements take into account the new Nitro JavaScript engine that comes with iOS 4.3. The report was completed before this complaint was made public and Blaze is arguing that the lack of Nitro boost can “slightly” skew the results given that “JavaScript only accounts for a small percentage of the total load time.”

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The New York Times made the announcement today that marks the end of free news on their website. From now on, you will be able to access up to twenty online articles per month free of charge. Reading the news on your smartphone will set you back fifteen bucks a month and five more bucks if you’re accessing their content from a tablet. They also offer a combined $35 per month plan that buys you full access to the New York Times website via the web, as well as smartphone and tablet apps.

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3G and GPS are supposedly the only notable differences between WiFi and 3G models of iPad 2. Alas, the WiFi model records higher-quality audio than its 3G counterpart. Mind you, it’s a design deficiency rather than a feature. iLounge did some testing and discovered that WiFi units evidently record better-sounding audio.

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An engineer with Mozilla hinted that the final Firefox 4 build will be ready for public consumption the following Tuesday, March 22. It’s set to ship on multiple platforms, including Windows XP. Following up on a recent Release Candidate build, Damon Sicore, Mozilla’s senior director of engineering, mentioned the March 22 release date in a Mozilla Development discussion on Google Groups.

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An unknown portion of the latest MacBook Pros with Sandy Bridge processors and high-speed Thunderbolt connection appears to be affected by an issue where the computer has trouble maintaining connection with iOS devices, even with the latest iTunes 10.2.1 installed. And if more than 215 posts in a thread on Apple’s Discussion forums are an indication, numerous 2011 MacBook Pros are plagued with this issue.

From what we’ve hearing, it’s a software issue easily patched with an upcoming software update (10.6.7). Here’s what the affected owners are saying.

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Apple has rolled out three new iPhone commercials that introduce an interesting twist to the formula. Rather than stick with the familiar “There’s an app for that” catchphrase, the new commercials take the opposite angle.

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Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs has sent out an email to the company’s team in Japan to share the message of support and help local employees cope with a series of terrifying disasters that have brought the country to standstill. The Macotakara website first published (and MacRumors confirmed it) the contents of Jobs’ email, posted here in its entirety.

To Our Team in Japan,

We have all been following the unfolding disaster in Japan. Our hearts go out to you and your families, as well as all of your countrymen who have been touched by this tragedy.

If you need time or resources to visit or care for your families, please see HR and we will help you. If you are aware of any supplies that are needed, please also tell HR and we will do what we can to arrange delivery.

Again, our hearts go out to you during this unimaginable crisis.

Please stay safe.

Steve and the entire Executive Team

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Life is definitely good in the land of iPad. In 2016, sales of Apple’s tablet should top more than a hundred million units annually and half a billion units cumulatively. It’s projected to grab the biggest chunk of an estimated 60 million slates in this year, another indication that 2011 and 2012 will be the years of iPad. This notion is shared by analyst Jennifer Colegrove who says tablet PCs are “the fastest growing application for touch screens.”

A simple armchair analysis suggests cumulative iPad shipments nearing a whooping half a billion units by the end of 2016. Yes, five years is too long a time for crystal ball peering, but even the most outspoken naysayers coming out of the woodwork should acknowledge the iPad’s enormous potential for Apple’s fortunes.

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The Pusetic brothers, the brains behind the stupendously addictive platform jumper Doodle Jump that has amassed ten million paid downloads, have just released a brand new game that introduces an interesting twist to the original formula. It’s called Doodle Jump: Hop the Movie and is available free for the iPhone and iPad.

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Mobile games developer Gameloft is launching Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard for the iPhone tomorrow and to mark the occasion they’ve put together a pretty awesome interactive trailer that lets you play the embassy level by clicking on the hotspots to choose between several possible directions. It’s kinda cool, reminds me of those laserdisc games from the 80s, such as Dragon’s Lair, which has been ported to both the iPhone and iPad. Note that the above clip works on PCs and Macs, but those watching the trailer on their iDevice won’t be able to interact with it. The official site has more information about this promising looking release.

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Mac database application Bento has been updated with several noteworthy features and made its Mac App Store debut. Additionally, companion iPhone and iPad apps, each costing five bucks, have been enhanced with support for Bento 4 for Mac and the ability to record voice memos and sync iCal tasks. Mac folks who own a previous Bento version can upgrade for just $29 with a $20 instant rebate upgrade and newcomers are free to download Bento 4 from the Mac App Store for fifty bucks. Here’s a quick rundown of the new stuff.

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As you know, Apple has finally brought wireless tethering functionality with iOS 4.3. Called Personal Hotspot, it allows you to share your iPhone’s 3G cellular data connection with other devices over its WiFi connection. It’s one less reason to fork an additional $130 for a 3G iPad even though some people are willing to pay the premium for its GPS features. Well, guess what, your WiFi-only iPad inherits GPS positioning capabilities when you tether the tablet to an iPhone via the Personal Hotspot feature.

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