A 3D model of Las Vegas Strip created by Apple purchased C3
Since the original iPhone’s debut in 2007, Apple’s iOS devices have made use of an Apple-built Google Maps application to provide users with a quick glance at driving directions, traffic, route guidance, current location information, and details about destinations. Like with most sections of Apple’s business, the company is continually innovating, looking to take products to the next level.
A few years ago, Apple set out to seemingly reinvent this iOS mapping experience. As 9to5Mac reported in 2009, Apple scooped up their own mapping software development company called Placebase. In the summer of last year, Apple went one step further in their obvious pursuit of a completely in-house mapping solution and acquired a 3D mapping firm called Poly9.
Charlotte Observer is reporting that Apple has begun work building a 174 acre solar farm to power their new Maiden, North Carolina data center. The data center, located in Catawba County, was revealed by Steve Jobs during the iOS 5 keynote at WWDC this year, and will be partly responsible for powering iCloud. It was revealed earlier this year that Apple was purchasing land around the data center. Now we know why.
Permits issued by Catawba County show that the Cupertino, Calif., company has been approved to reshape the slope of some of the 171 acres of vacant land it owns on Startown Road, opposite the data center, in preparation of building a solar farm.
The plans are called “Project Dolphin Solar Farm A Expanded.” Project Dolphin was the code name given Apple’s plans to build a $1-billion data center in Maiden.
There are no specific details on who exactly will be building the solar farm. For Apple, and many other companies, it has become important to build data centers with clean energy. Google is one of the companies that does this very well, and it looks like Apple is headed that way too.
“It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”These are the exact words of Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs, as revealed in the just released authorized biography by Walter Isaacson. In his own admission prior to his death earlier this month, Jobs was working on “an integrated television set that is completely easy to use”, a solution which would be “seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud”. The quote served as the basis for Piper Jaffray’s resident Apple analyst Gene Munster, the most outspoken proponent of an Apple-branded television set. Munster wrote in a note to clients that Apple is already building prototype TV sets, according to a Fortuneblog post:
A significant hurdle to a full-fledged Apple (AAPL) television set (as opposed to the Apple TV set-top box), Munster writes, is combining live television with shows previously captured on iCloud. “Perhaps this code is precisely what Jobs believed he has ‘cracked,'” Munter suggests, adding that Apple could use the new Siri voice activated system “to bolster its TV offering and simplify the chore of inputting information like show titles, or actor names, into a TV.”
If it eventually becomes a reality, the analyst speculates, the rumored product could cost up to $2,000, which is at least double the asking price for a typical 40-inch television product. In addition, Apple’s will likely require users to sign up for an iTunes TV Pass subscription service in order to enjoy bulk television programming, costing anywhere between $50 and $90 a month. It’s unclear whether the strategy stands a chance at a time when Internet providers are capping bandwidth. All told, the Apple television sounds like a pricey proposition…
When iOS 5 came out, Google got caught with its pants down because for most users Google Voice wouldn’t even start up without crashing. We’re not certain what the Voice team was doing during that beta testing window (maybe the last minute Siri inclusion threw things off?)
All of that is water under the bridge right now because Google Voice is back in the App Store and works great on iOS 5.
Remember back in 2007 when Apple first told developers that to develop for the iPhone, they’d need to build WebApps for Safari? Well, that really was the plan. At the time, Jobs said:
The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. They can make a call, they can send an email, they can look up a location on Google Maps.
And guess what? There’s no SDK that you need! You’ve got everything you need if you know how to write apps using the most modern web standards to write amazing apps for the iPhone today. So developers, we think we’ve got a very sweet story for you. You can begin building your iPhone apps today.
The App Store came later and apparently as a reaction to jailbreakers and developer backlash.
The App Store nowadays is arguably the most vital app community on any platform, but Steve Jobs initially resisted the idea of users customizing their iPhones with third-party programs, later to become known as apps. The revelation is another of the many interesting nuggets to leak from the upcoming Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, which goes on sale Monday. According to the Huffington Post which obtained an early copy of the book:
Apple board member Art Levinson told Isaacson that he phoned Jobs “half a dozen times to lobby for the potential of the apps,” but, according to Isaacson, “Jobs at first quashed the discussion, partly because he felt his team did not have the bandwidth to figure out all the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers.”
Some other tidbits: Jobs informed Cook on a flight to Japan that “I’ve decided to make you COO”. Also, the initial lukewarm reception to iPad “annoyed and depressed” Jobs.
As for Apple’s seemingly unstoppable mobile application bazaar, Jobs – of course – would later embrace the App Store fully as it had become the central theme around Apple’s famous iPhone commercials featuring the “There’s an app for that” tagline. Upon releasing, the original iPhone immediately captured attention of the hacking community which had begun tinkering with the product. Soon thereafter, popular tweaks ensued which added more functionality to the device despite the lack of the official software development kit.
I have a feeling the next couple days are going to be busy as the Steve Jobs bio comes out in bits and pieces. Next up, according to the AP, which bought a copy Thursday (where can I get one?), Jobs had extremely harsh words for Eric Schmidt and Google after Android started looking more and more like iOS.
Isaacson wrote that Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the touch and other popular features of the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-laced rant that Google’s actions amounted to “grand theft.”
“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”
Jobs used an expletive to describe Android and Google Docs, Google’s Internet-based word processing program. In a subsequent meeting with Schmidt at a Palo Alto, Calif., cafe, Jobs told Schmidt that he wasn’t interested in settling the lawsuit, the book says.
“I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.” The meeting, Isaacson wrote, resolved nothing.
So it is fair to say Jobs is not a fan of Android. While I can see why he’s upset about Android, the jab at Docs doesn’t seem to be as obvious.
Yesterday we posted a story about the possibility of new features being implemented in a future update to Siri. However, if you don’t feel like waiting, today the guys over at Techland have put together some tips and tricks for getting the most out of Siri and accomplishing tasks that aren’t currently built-in.
While text message charges will of course apply, here are a few tips for updating Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ by redirecting them through SMS. You can head over to Techland for many more Siri related tips and tricks including searching with Bing and Yahoo!, dictation tips, and how to “teach Siri hard-to-pronounce names”.
The keynote went a little bad over in Hong Kong with both the Facial Recognition and the Quick Response features not working or crashing the device. Overall though, there are some interesting new features that certainly differentiate Android from iOS and Windows Phone 7.
As for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone, it has a 5-megapixel camera which has to be a letdown when compared to 8 megapixel cameras that are standardizing on the high end across the industry. Its most impressive feature (unless you are trying to squeeze it into your pocket) has to be the 4.65-inch 720P display. Although Pentile, which means not every pixel gets RGB dots, it does get close to Apple’s 326 PPI Retina display with a 316 PPI density. Like the as yet unpopular Honeycomb tablets, it doesn’t have any front facing buttons but has screen buttons that shift around as well as all of those new Android 4.0 features.
Update: He’s wrong. We’ve heard from an impeccable source that Google plans to have invites out “in the next day or so” and there is no patent delay.
We reported earlier that Google and Samsung were delaying the release of the new Nexus Prime phone and Android 4.0 “Ice cream Sandwich” out of respect for the passing of Steve Jobs.
“We believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing,” the companies said.
But according to often (but not always) correct blogger Eldar Murtazin, there are patent issues at hand which need to be addressed before the devices and OS ship. Specifically, Google is slicing out features which may be subject to Apple’s Patents…
See Steve Jobs introducing multi-touch in 2007 below, saying “Boy have we patented it!”. More coverage at 9to5google.com Expand Expanding Close
Here’s the official statement from Google and Samsung:
“We believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing,” the companies said.
They are likely to make an announcement on the launch late next week. The new Google phone is built by Samsung and is rumored to have a 4.65-inch, 720P display with dual core 1.5GHz Samsung processor, NFC, 1GB of RAM and other speeds and feeds. It will likely be one of the stronger competitors the iPhone 4S faces this holiday season.
Apple co-founder and visionary CEO Steve Jobs has passed away at the age of 56.
Apple posted the following statement on their website:
Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.
Below are pieces of remembrance from some of the people surrounding Steve Jobs.
In case there was any question, we’ve heard directly from Apple PR that there won’t be a webcast of Apple’s iPhone launch event. Last Year’s September event was live streamed but for unspecified reasons, Apple has chosen to keep this one off the airwaves. They will provide a live closed feed to the UK for European journalists however.
We’ll still be covering the event as it unfolds so make sure to stop by at 10am PT, 1pm ET or your local varient.
What’s most interesting about these fake iPhones is that they were made from real iPhone parts. The assumption is that the companies that made supplies for Apple would make additional parts and sell them to third parties who would somehow assemble a Frankenstein of iPhone and non-iPhone parts together and sell them at double the cost.
The cost to make one fake iPhone, which used some genuine parts, was around 2,000 yuan ($313). It was sold on unauthorized markets and on the Internet for around 4,000 yuan, only a few hundred yuan cheaper than the real iPhone, the newspaper said.
The fake iPhones had the same functions as the genuine ones but had a shorter battery life, it quoted the police as saying.
It would be interesting and surprising if they got iOS working on these. I’m guessing a flavor of Android with a iOS-like skin was used. Apple would have a big problem on their hands if iOS was being pirated.
The iPad application Take One – Movie Clapper is a great solution for anyone into film or making movies that wants a cheap and simple way to keep track takes, which assists in keeping filmed video and audio in synchronization. The major difference between Take One and its competitors is price and ease of use. Take One costs $2.99, compared to its $9.99 and $24.99 competitors – but offers an easy-to-use solution and all the necessary features one would expect from a Movie Clapper.
Google Plus (iTunes) iOS users will see a big update in their App Store today with lots of new features and improvements that were detailed earlier this week. Most notable is the ability to start and join video hangouts from a mobile device. In brief testing on both an iPhone 4 and an Android device on Wi-Fi, the Video conferencing worked great. It should work over 3 or 4G but the results obviously won’t be as good. Also, this version changes Huddles to Messenger and you can now send picture files through the messenger application.
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes, Apple (and Dropbox) have joined up with the Digital Due Process group which seeks to modernize digital surveilance laws.
In April we launched “Who Has Your Back”, a campaign calling on major Internet companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft to stand with their users when it comes to government demands for users’ data. Today, we’re pleased to see that two of the thirteen companies highlighted in our petition, Apple and Dropbox, have agreed to one of our requests: that they stand up for user privacy in Congress by joining the Digital Due Process coalition.
Digital Due Process is a diverse coalition of privacy advocates like EFF, ACLU and the Center for Democracy & Technology and major companies like AT&T, eBay and Comcast that has come together with the shared goal of modernizing surveillance laws for the Internet age. The DDP coalition is especially focused on pressing Congress to update the woefully-outdated Electronic Communications Privacy Act or “ECPA.”
The timing of the announcement would seem to coincide nicely with Apple’s iCloud release in the coming days. Now that Apple is a Cloud vendor (OK MobileMe, .mac, eworld were all Cloud too), it would be good to hear where they stand on giving private data to law enforcement or foreign governments. Expand Expanding Close
As part of the Senate Judiciary hearings today, former FTC official (and new Google employee) Susan Creighton, testified under oath today that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! all bid to become the default search engine on iOS’s Mobile Safari Web Browser. As we know, Google won, and as we can infer, Apple gets some revenue from Google for making it its default search engine. As we know from Apple being Apple, the quality of the search results was probably as big a part of the decision as the relatively small bits of revenue.
But as part of the testimony, Creighton said briefly (before she was cut off) that 2/3rds of mobile search comes from Apple iOS devices. That’s pretty interesting considering the share of Android devices in the market. But not altogether surprising considering the web browser market share which includes those millions and millions of iPads.
Video at 2:24.00 (during very interesting testimony around Apple picking Google as default search)
Among a bunch of Google+ improvements announced today, Google said it would bring Hangouts to mobile phones including iPhone (and iPad 2 and 4G iPod likely). We’re big fans of Google Hangouts and having it on mobile is going to be really great. They are also offering Hangout broadcasts which might be fun ways to broadcast a keynote for instance :D
Google announced a bunch of other big Google Plus stuff including open invitations today. Check full coverage on 9to5Google.com Expand Expanding Close
We’re not sure exactly what caused today’s spike, but Apple stock had a huge day ending up 2.8% at $411.65 a share for a Market Cap of $381.62B against a down market. It had reached as high as $413.23 from a morning low of $395.20. Notably, Apple is now worth over $23B more than Exxon and is approaching the combined value of Microsoft and Google.
Google has announced on the Chrome Blog a new release on the Chrome stable channel. The new release has been available to developers in the dev channel since August, where developers got the chance to use the full-screen mode (Ctrl+Shift+F) and overlay scrollbars inside of Lion. Today, these features have landed for everyone; download it here.
Also landing in the new version are two new technologies for developers: Web Audio API and Native Client. Web Audio API adds the ability for developers to use different audio effects, but even better, Native Client brings the ability to execute C and C++ code in the browser. Check it out in the video after the break:
According to Brand Finance, a London-based research firm, Apple is now second to Google in brand value after a 33% increase to overtake IBM, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and GE for the first time. The firm attributes Apple’s success to “innovative design, loyal consumer base and well-executed marketing activities.”
Google, sitting in the top spot with a brand value of almost $48.3 billion was up 9% among the top 30 U.S. brands analyzed by the Brand Finance. Other top companies other than Apple and Google all seen a significant drop including Microsoft down 9% to $39 billion, and IBM and AT&T both experiencing decreases from the year previous.
Google’s Translate service is relatively accurate and smooth to use, but taking the time to type in what you’d like translated or even clicking the microphone button each time is a pain — especially in real-world situations. A new app that was announced at TechCrunch Disrupt, Vocre, lets you instantly translate foreign languages through voice, even when the conversation is going on. Vocre uses Nuance technology to translate speech in a three-step process.
Being in a foreign country, this app could be great for when in a coversation. As seen in the video above, it’s quick and allows the conversation to flow freely without taking the time to type words you don’t know how to spell in a search box.
The only downfall we can see to this app is the likelihood of needing an expensive data plan when travelling overseas. But for those times you do have data: useful!
Vocre is free in the iTunes App Store. Updated: As pointed out by our lovely commenters, the app comes with 10 free translations, and after users will be charged $.99 for an additional 10 and $8.99 for an additional 100.
A 3D model of Las Vegas Strip created by Apple purchased C3
