iOS Devices

That picture above is pretty interesting, right?

It features professional model, Olivia Price, one of a series of shots taken by Lee Morris during a high-end fashion shoot, complete with sylists, make-up artists, and others. And all the images were captured with an iPhone 3GS.

@Arnold Kim notes this amazing story, in which the photographer tells us all about how he assembled his team, including people to capture a video of the whole thing (below).

Admitting he used Photoshop on the original images, the professional lensman says:

Yet another MobileMe improvement slipped out the mothership overnight – a new breed MobileMe Calendar app, now available in beta (want it? Shoot to me.com/calendar and click

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V2rhMnncZQ&w=700&h=555]

I know you wanted to check this out, here

Clayton Morris reports on an official Apple statement in regards to the impact of July 4th’s supposed iTunes “hacking.” As we reported that day, Thuat Nguyen under his development company, “mycompany” compromised iTunes accounts in order to purchase his applications. It is assumed he did this in hopes of a major spike in revenue which correlates to bringing his apps to the top of the App Store.

This turned out to be a complete failure as only hours later we discovered that Apple completely booted him along with his applications from the iTunes App Store.  

This morning we reported that Engadget got vague official words confirming the occurrence of said incident. Tonight, we have been given the most specific information yet through some simple answers from Apple’s public relations team.

Apple has gone on record to say that only 400 users were impacted by the incident which is only 0.0003% of the 150 million iTunes accounts. Additionally, Apple iTunes servers were not compromised in any way. 

This still leaves doubts in Apple’s iTunes security system as information as to how even 400 people were impacted is yet to be officially revealed. We along with many others presume that this is connected to online fishing scams. This is connected to people using the same email and password combination on multiple online accounts. 

Last week we reported that a very rough version of a Firefox 4.0 beta hit the servers and today Firefox has released an official beta.

New Features in 4.0:

-Updated User Interface with Tabs on top (Safari 4 beta, Google Chrome style)

-New Add-ons manager

-WebM video support (HD quality video)

-Amped up HTML 5, Privacy, and CSS support.

Coming in later releases:

-Sync all your passwords, bookmarks, and settings across devices

-Speed Improvements (Probably something like iPhone 3G to iPhone 3G in terms of web browser speed) 

And the best part… That flashy new UI is not currently available in the current Mac and Linux beta release so stay tuned. 

Tech Restore has done the coolest unboxing/disassembly we’ve yet to see using the stop-motion image technique. The video uses a whopping 1784 super high-res snapshots to create this awesome take on an unboxing. Enjoy the throwback to our good friend Gumby:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkcLLI6Yv8I&w=640&h=385]

They fixed things that should have worked in 1.0. That is all.

Today, Apple has released an update to their popular MobileMe iDisk application to include iPad compatibility. The free app is now a single universal binary that works to its full potential across all iOS devices running iOS 3.1.3 or above. 

Apple also beefed up the iPhone version with multitasking, retina display, and iBooks support among other small enhancements:

The iDisk app was originally released almost one year ago and is now at version 1.2. To use the app, you must be a MobileMe subscriber which normally costs $99 per year. 

AT&T might be throttling upload speeds of iPhone users already becoming accustomed to the disappearance of their unlimited download deals.

This morning sees US iPhone 4 users telling MacRumors of

On July 4th we reported that iTunes may have been hacked by Vietnemise developer, Thuat Nguyen. Later in the day we updated that Apple had removed the developers applications from the App Store, and today Engadget brings us an official statement from Apple:

As you can see in the statement, Apple has “vaguely confirmed” the incident by simply stating the removal of the developer. Apple also states, that if users did get swooped into the horrible scheme they are urged to contact their bank or credit card company to work out refunds.

Users are also encouraged to research safe password practices and change their iTunes password immediately. 

Brace yourselves for yet more confusion and uncertainty as The Beatles Apple Corp. announces it has made its album catalog available to digital download services — but music from The Beatles remains absent, even as Apple and Google prepare for music in the cloud. And does anybody out there care any more?

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The European Union has launched a new initiative called the “Digital Agenda” which hopes to expand the ways in which companies can violate anti-trust laws; especially in environments where standards have yet to be defined.

It defends its arguments by stating that where there is no interoperability, competition is lost. “Since not all pervasive technologies are based on standards the benefits of interoperability risk being lost in such areas.

The Commission will examine the feasibility of measures that could lead significant market players to license interoperability information while at the same time promoting innovation and competition.”

The Antitrust suit specifically targets Apple disallowance of developers to use Flash to create application on Apple’s market-leading iOS. EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes curtly states “We need to make sure that significant market players cannot just choose to deny interoperability with their product.” This may force Apple to allow iOS developers to use other Programming suites such as Adobe’s Flash.

Full quote below:

User data is moving more and more into the ‘cloud’ and people are getting their music, videos and applications digitally (for example through iTunes) instead of buying them in physical media.

We need to make sure that significant market players cannot just choose to deny interoperability with their product. This is particularly important in cases where standards don’t exist.

Under the Digital Agenda for Europe, we will examine the feasibility of introducing measures to make big market players license interoperability information.

InteroperabilityThe lack of interoperability information was at the heart of one of her most high-profile battles with ICT giant Microsoft, which cost the company a $1.3 billion fine in 2008.

This is not just about Microsoft or any big company like Apple, IBM or Intel. The main challenge is that consumers need choice when it comes to software or hardware products,” the commissioner insisted.”Any kind of IT product should be able to communicate with any type of service in the future.

EurActiv Via RethinkWireless

http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/x9wu33_prince-kiss_music

The artist formerly known as squiggle who we all still know and love as

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAKhftX0cjk&w=700&h=555]

Mongoose Studios think the unthinkable while the rest of the world thinks

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKQUZPqDZb0&w=700&h=415]

Looking for a musically-diverting look at the impact Apple

This coming Christmas sees another chapter in the increasingly intense war between Apple and Google for the future of music in the cloud. Both firms are expected to introduce cloud-based music services for the holiday period, but why can’t we all just get along?

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Tests taken across a small (24-person) sample group suggest reading eBooks remains slower than reading paper, with the iPad being faster to read than a Kindle device.

Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group set out to determine reading speed differences between the different platforms (book, ebook, iPad etc).

His initial findings are that there are significant speed differences. Participants were required to read a short Ernest Hemingway story on their device.

Using an iPad to achieve this worked out to be 6.2 percent slower than reading the story from a book, while using a Kindle 2 was slower again, 10.7 percent slower in fact.

Test subjects disliked using a PC for reading, giving this a satisfaction score of 3.6. iPad scored 5.8, Kindle 5.7 and the book — the book threw a 5.6.

The researcher notes,

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INcUV8ygIjo&w=640&h=385]

Here

Update: We’ve just discovered that all applications created by “mycompany” (the developers behind these shenanigans) have been removed from the App Store. It also appears that the App Store “Books” section is back to normal. Reports also have emerged that other applications have been fraudulently downloaded, so stay on the lookout and protect your iTunes accounts.

We’ve been hearing tips and all over the web from articles on Engadget, The Next Web and twitter that the iTunes store might have been compromised. Apparently a Vietnamese developer might have juiced the “Books” section of the App Store, as well as several iTunes accounts. As you can see in the screenshot below a plethora of the books in the Book section are these oddly named titles (eg: Conan 1, Conan 2, 7 Vien..) with icons stolen off the web.  Have a look (iTunes link)

With this information, it seems that the developers might have compromised user’s iTunes accounts and falsely purchased their books with stolen artwork. We’ve heard many reports of users getting holds on their bank accounts for the price of several books. We’ve even heard cases of users having holds in the hundreds of dollars range.

The developer’s iTunes Development account even seems very sketchy as his website leads to www.home.com and so does the support page for each product of his.

Frash is a port of Android‘s Flash implementation built by Comex for jailbroken iPads.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adouTnXgelE&w=700&h=400]

BGR reported this week an email chain purportedly between an iPhone 4 customer and SJobs (or whomever answers his emails).  It was pretty strong on both sides.

For the first time in memory, Apple PR went on record saying to Fortune and later Engadget (emphasis ours):

“Asked on the record whether Steve Jobs was the author of any of these statements, a top Apple spokesman emphatically denied it.”

The headers look pretty legit and Boy Genius was given access to the original leaker’s Gmail account where he logged in and confirmed the emails were from the sjobs@apple.com account.  

He is claiming that they are legitimate and that the only way that Steve Jobs didn’t author them is if Jobs really isn’t answering his own emails…which wouldn’t be that surprising.

Either way, an interesting story…we’ll see if anything else develops.