Apple

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Siri has seen many cool hacks, from using it to control watching videos on Plex to starting a car. Today, another clever mind shows Siri controlling a piano to play tracks on an iPhone. Yamaha specifically develops the hack for the Disklavier piano, and it uses a special MIDI version of the music file to stream to an AirPort Express. The hack even uses the foot pedals and the piano’s keys.

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There are fewer options for speech recognition these days, and now there are even fewer with Nuance announcing they acquired Vlingo for an undisclosed figure. Following multiple lawsuits related to patent infringement, the two companies apparently came to what CEO of Vlingo Dave Grannan called  “a good outcome.” Grannan elaborated in a prepared statement (via AllThingsD):

Vlingo and Nuance have long shared a similar vision for the power and global proliferation of mobile voice and language understanding. As a result of our complementary research and development efforts, our companies are stronger together than alone. Our combined resources afford us the opportunity to better compete, and offer a powerful proposition to customers, partners and developers.

Vlingo is notably used in various voice-controlled Android apps, and it is viewed as competitors to Apple’s Siri built into the iPhone 4S. However, Siri, also used it prior to it being used by Apple, before switching to Nuance…

In an interview with 9to5Mac, Siri co-founder Norman Winarsky said Vlingo was originally used as the speech recognition component of Siri before switching to Nuance. He noted: “Theoretically, if a better speech recognition comes along (or Apple buys one), they could likely replace Nuance without too much trouble. ” The full quote is below.

9to5Mac: How important is Nuance speech recognition to the Siri technology?
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Similar to the Complete My Album feature that debuted on iTunes in the summer of 2009, Apple today launched a similar offering for television shows aptly named “Complete My Season Pass”. As you know, iTunes Season Pass lets users buy an entire television show season and have individual episodes automatically downloaded up to 24 hours after they air on the tube.

So, let’s say you previously purchased individual episodes of Desperate Housewives and now want to upgrade to the entire season, but without having to re-purchase the episodes you already own.

Well, per MacRumors:

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UPDATE [Wednesday, December 21, 2011 at 7:25am ET]: A Samsung spokesperson chimed in, providing us with the official statement, included at the end of this article.

After Samsung confirmed the addition of four more complaints to its German patent offensive (two are standard-related patents, the other two being utility patents) on Monday, Apple this morning fired back by extending its Australian patent complaint to include Samsung-made cases for Galaxy tablets and smartphones, according to Bloomberg.

Apple issued the notice of infringement to Samsung in Australia over the cases, and will file a statement of claim, Apple’s lawyer Stephen Burley said at a hearing in Sydney today. Samsung’s lawyer Katrina Howard said at the same hearing the company was served with the notice that the cases infringe at least 10 patents.

The two companies are embroiled in a complicated legal fight that already includes more than 30 lawsuits filed against each other across the globe. The exact nature of Apple’s patent infringement claim concerning smartphone and tablet cases is not known, but 9to5Mac can’t help but wonder whether it has something to do with this.

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UPDATE [Wednesday, December 21, 2011 at 7:35am ET]: Apple has made some backend changes fixing the App Store bug. Users of iThings running iOS 3.1.3 are apparently able to download App Store apps without a hiccup. Let us know if the bug has been fixed for you down in the comments.

As you know, Apple launched a replacement program last month addressing the overheating issues stemming from defective batteries from one of their suppliers. The company told the public to stop using the original first-generation iPod nano and have it replaced free of charge. Surprisingly, it appears Apple is issuing the current-generation iPod nano replacement units, because they have apparently run out of refurbished first-gen models, according to MacRumors.

Several users have reported over the past few days that they have received emails acknowledging shipment of their replacement devices and checking the serial numbers of the replacement devices on Apple’s support site has shown them to be sixth-generation models.

We were able to confirm that some people have already received their sixth-gen iPod nano replacement units. Robert, from comments:

FedEx just dropped off my new Nano and it looks like the latest Gen. I forgot about this and to my surprise I have a new nano. So merry Christmas to me from Apple.

Dave, too:

Just checked my new replacement serial number too — it also shows a 6th gen ipod. Sweet!!!

In the meantime, some iOS 3.1.3 users are reporting issues downloading apps from the App Store.

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Analytics firm Millennial Media, the second-largest mobile advertising platform behind Google, on Tuesday, released its monthly Mobile Mix report for November. Similar to their October survey that saw Android’s growth slowing (and iOS gaining). Compared to the summer period for November, both Apple’s and Research in Motion’s respective platform grew at the expense of Google. Specifically, Android went from 56 percent ad requests in October to 50 percent in November.

Meanwhile, iOS went from 28 percent ad requests in October to 30 percent in November. The BlackBerry platform recorded the biggest gain of all mobile platforms, increasing its share of ad requests from 13 percent in October to 17 percent in November. Because both iOS and BlackBerry grew their combined ad impressions by six percentage points, the same amount Android lost in the period, it is safe to assume that Apple and Research In Motion gained traction at the expense of Google’s mobile platform.

The findings are in stark contrast to the seemingly unstoppable Android growth that appears to have slowed down during the crucial holiday sales period. Android in November doubled iOS in ad impressions, but last month – its respective share changed to 50 percent for Android versus 30 percent for iOS. The Kindle Fire vs. iPad adoption figures and more info graphic charts are available below.

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From 9to5Toys.com:

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Affiliate partner MacUpdate today offers their new $49.99 Dec 2011 Bundle headlined by TechTool Pro, TotalFinder, Postbox 3 and FontPack Pro Master Collection and seven more quality apps for $49.99.  TechTool Pro, which retails for double the entire bundle price, includes a bootable DVD disk for disk repair and diagnostics.

8 of the 11 100% Mac OS X 10.7 compatible apps are available as demos, which can be downloaded in a single dmg from here. (TechTool Pro 6, FontPack Pro Master Collection, and Neverwinter Nights 2 do not have demos)

As a bonus, the all-new IconBox 2.5 goes to the first 15,000 buyers. $49.99 at MacUpdate

Full rundown below:
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International web standards organization W3C last year created the Web Events Working Group to create a standard for the way touchscreen enabled devices interact with web content. The standard is known as the W3C Touch Events Specification. Now, according to Opera browser developer Haavard, Apple is delaying the process by using “invalid or irrelevant patents” to buy time, something the company has apparently done in the past.

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Although T-Mobil USA wrote in the September letter to customers that they were “interested in offering all of our customers a no-compromise iPhone experience,” the fact of the matter remains that the carrier’s network bands are not supported on the iPhone 4S.

T-Mobile’s 14.4 HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) GSM/UMTS network operates on the rather odd 1700/2100MHz frequency bands that are incompatible with iPhone 4S and other UMTS phones supported by standard 850/900/1900/2100MHz bands. However, some unlocked iPhone users are detecting 3G signals on parts of T-Mobile USA’s network utilizing the 1900MHz bands, according to Tmonews.com:

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Pictured above: The Paradox iPod nano watch kit

The New York Time’s Nick Bilton, who reported in October Apple’s alleged television plans describing “large parts floating around” Apple’s supply chain that looked like they “could be part of a large Apple television,” is back with a new story. He recently implied Apple’s researched prototyped small and wearable devices.

According to the article published last night, both Apple and Google have worked for years on wearable computers that interface with smartphones (having the ultimate goal of selling more smartphones):

A person with knowledge of the company’s plans told me that a “very small group of Apple employees” had been conceptualizing and even prototyping some wearable devices. […] Apple has also experimented with prototype products that could relay information back to the iPhone. These conceptual products could also display information on other Apple devices, like an iPod, which Apple is already encouraging us to wear on our wrists by selling Nanos with watch faces.

Interestingly, a year ago, Apple hired wearable computer wizard Richard DeVaul. He is believed to be developing secret wearable product prototypes under the guidance of Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of industrial design. Specifically, aNew York Times story described a curved glass iPod:

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Analyst Andy Zaky overestimated Apple earnings by 20 percent last quarter.

Here’s his take right after: Why Apple’s big miss doesn’t matter. This miss is just a minor blip due to analysts getting overzealous with their estimates.

Today, he wrote: Apple Fiscal Q1 2012: The Biggest Earnings Blowout in History

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As noted by RazorianFly, Siri can now help users retrieve the best deals for consumer electronics and gadgets sold at Best Buy. How does she handle this, you might ask? Well, Siri gets some of its answers from the acclaimed answer-engine Wolfram|Alpha.

Wolfram Research announced yesterday they are leveraging data from Best Buy’s public application programming interface, allowing users to browse more than 35,000 appliances and consumer electronics products sold by Best Buy.

Third-party applications and services that integrate with Siri automatically benefit, so Siri is now able to deliver answers to your product-related queries sourced from Best Buy’s vast database.

In addition, taking into account Wolfram|Alpha’s clever decision-making and analysis engine and Siri’s natural-language interface, you can ask her to, let’s say, list plasma TVs larger than 50-inches. Even though Best Buy-sourced answers are laid out as any other information Siri sources from the web, Apple could -in the future- take advantage of Best Buy’s public APIs to produce rich results sporting product images, categories, more meta data and so forth.

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The iPhone 4S is one of the first devices to support Bluetooth 4.0. Today, the first accessory to take advantage of the new technology is a new Kickstarter project called Find My Car Smart.

Find My Car Smart uses a Bluetooth 4.0 powered dongle to transmit the location of a car that can then be picked up by an iOS app, letting a user find a car in a busy parking lot on a map. Due to it being a Kickstarter project, it will need to get enough backers to see the light of day. It’s pretty cool, nonetheless. So, if you’re interested make sure you pledge.

Microsoft is also getting in the Bluetooth accessory game with the release of a new tablet keyboard. The Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 5000 is portable and it will hook up with an iPad, Android tablet or any other device that supports Bluetooth.

Microsoft makes the Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 5000, available for $49 on their hardware store. If you can’t look past that Windows logo, you could always just buy an Apple wireless keyboard for $68,or even try Apple’s iPad Keyboard dock.

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A new hack by a Chinese manufacturer will allow a user to make an iPhone 4/4S’s Apple logo glow. Much like the MacBook’s, the logo will glow once you turn the device on.

K.O. Gadget, the maker of this mod, said it can be done at home in less than five minutes. For $42, K.O. Gadget will send you the kit to perform this hack, but it would void an iPhone’s warranty.

The mod is easy because all you’re doing is replacing the back panel on the iPhone. The backpanel has a transparent Apple logo that allows light to pass through, but the key is the “light strip” that is added in. You can see the addition in the video below.

The light strip and custom backing doesn’t add any thickness to the device, because it uses the same glass material that Apple uses. K.O. Gadget also said there isn’t any over heating issues or battery life issues.

If you’re the adventurous type, this is something definitely worth checking out. Check out the install process below:

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Apple’s iPhone 4S hit Chile and Brazil this evening, and boy is it overpriced. The company’s online store has the R$ 2,599 price tag attached to the 16 GB SIM-free version. The 32 GB/64GB versions of the popular smartphone sell for R$ 2,999/R$ 3,399. The exchange rate of Brazilian dollar is approximately R$ 1.71 to USD 1.00… so you get the picture.

Just to give you a little feel, the unlocked 64 GB iPhone 4S in Brazil sells for three times its $849 United States asking price, or a whopping $2,000. This slideshow cleverly depicts what this amount of money can buy folks in Brazil. Turns out you can get a decent fridge, a big screen Sony Bravia TV or even an entry-level Ford car for the price of an unlocked 64 GB iPhone 4S.

So, why those exorbitant price points?

A comparison of approximately two times higher iPhone prices in Brazil compared to the U.S. The chart is courtesy of The Next Web.

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Avatar, a 2009 epic sci-fi flick written and directed by James Cameron, has marked a major technological breakthrough and ushered in a new era in digital effects. Although development on the movie began in 1994, when Cameron wrote an 80-page scriptment for the film, the director soon found he would have to wait for the necessary technology to become available if he were to achieve his vision of the film.

Beginning Dec. 20, a special edition of Avatar is landing on Apple’s iTunes Store packing in interesting iTunes Extras unavailable on other platforms. According to the press release, these interactive digital enhancements let fans:

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As the rumored early 2012 iPad 3 release draws closer, Cydia Blog discovered a part for the iPad 3 on TVC Mall’s website. What you see above is apparently a replacement part for the microphone on the iPad 3, and shows some pretty major changes compared to the iPad 2’s microphone — namely the shape. The apparent dock connector and ribbon cable for the iPad 3 also leaked this summer. Cydia Blog reports:

The new part, when compared with iPad 2, shows a different arrangement in internal circuitry, hinting a major re-design. The tail end of the part makes a “U-turn”, whereas the iPad 2′s Microphone Mic Flex Cable makes almost 90-degree turn both ways. Except for few details, the leaked part so far doesn’t offer a tantalizing tease.

The iPad 3 is rumored to launch early 2012 — maybe February — with a rumored higher res display and thicker form-factor. Other specs are rumored to be a dual-mode wireless chip for both CDMA and GSM, Apple’s A6 processor, and more RAM. Citi’s analyst Richard Gardner says he’s heard from sources that a February launch is coming, but some have pointed to mid-summer. The updated mic form-factor above could point to pretty major internal changes. It should be worth noting, however, that manufacturer replacement parts aren’t always in the final version. (via MacRumors)

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As originally reported on our sister blog, the search Goliath has published its annual list of top search queries, a tradition that started eleven years ago. It comes as little surprise that ‘iPad 3’ and ‘iPhone 5’ were among the fastest-growing search terms of the past year. More specifically, ‘iPhone 5’ was the sixth fastest-growing search term on Google.com in 2011, while ‘iPad 3’ ranked tenth.

Feverish iPhone 5 speculation hit its highest point in search the week of September 25, just a week ahead of the October 4 iPhone 4S presser. Searches for ‘iPhone 5’ rose 1,658 percent between 2010 and 2011, easily outnumbering those for the iPhone 4S, as seen in the above chart from the Zeitgeist site. Searches for ‘Steve Jobs’ grew 982 percent in 2011, enough to score the ninth spot.

Called Zeitgeist, the project “sorts billions of Google searches to capture the year’s ten fastest-rising global queries and the rest of the spirit of 2011″, per the official Google blog post. In a testament to the popularity of the Kindle Fire, positioned as an inexpensive iPad alternative, Amazon’s tablet placed ahead of Apple’s new phone, the iPhone 4S, which ranked second in the fastest-rising consumer electronics category, followed by the HTC Sensation, the Samsung Nexus Prime, Sony NPG and the yet-to-be-released iPad 3 (#9).

Two unreleased products piquing such a commanding interest – the cell phone that never materialized and the forthcoming tablet – wow, talk about the power of the Apple hype machine. More below the fold.

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Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs made the list (mark 1:50) was the ninth fastest-growing search term on Google.com in 2011.

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Apple has just released an update for the 2nd generation Apple TV, version 4.4.4 (9A406a). As of now we know the update brings bug fixes, but we’re checking for more. Hit up your Apple TV to download the new firmware or hit up the direct link.

Update: Apple has also released a small update to the iPhone 4S, bringing it to version iOS 5.0.1 (9A406). Hit up the the direct link.

Update X2: Apple has dropped a note saying that this update fixes SIM card issues on the iPhone 4S.

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Apple opened up its proprietary 30-pin dock connector to third-party developers back in 2008, with iOS 3.0 APIs enabling hardware accessories to communicate with your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad via dedicated apps. The way it works today, plugging in your accessory puts up a prompt telling you to automatically download an appropriate app. This is supported only by some accessories so in most cases users are required to navigate their way around the App Store and find that app themselves. But Apple’s penchant for providing simple and seamless solutions once again becomes evident in a new patent application filed in June 2010 with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

Entitled “Method and System for Locating an Accessory and an Application for Use With a User Device”, it describes a plug-and-play system where plugging in your accessory automatically produces a list of multiple compatible apps that go with it – not just that one companion app from your accessory’s vendor. Additionally, the invention would work the other way around to allow easy discovery of hardware accessories compatible with the apps you actually have installed on  your device by utilizing an in-store kiosk, pictured in the above patent drawing.

Speculating further, the proposed solution would pave the way for a new (and lucrative) market where accessories play nice with apps.

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