iOS Devices

Browsing is the #1 thing we do on our smartphones so this is important.  

http://www.viddler.com/simple_on_site/dace7852

Even though the Droid loses, we have to admit: 9.3 centimeters diagonally and 480 by 854 pixels  is a lot of screen area.

Part of Apple’s 10K released this morning was news that iPhone revenues moved from around 5.68% of Apple’s total sales in 2008 to 18.48% in 2009, a 300% increase.  That translates into a dollar increase from $1.6 billion in 2008 to $6.2 Billion in 2009.

Fortune fired up the old Excel graphing function to create the charts at the right.  Notice the purple iPhone slice of pie is growing at such a fast rate that the other pieces of pie (iPod and Mac) may not be larger in the coming years.

Interestingly, revenues for both Mac and iPod were off slightly even if unit numbers were up on Mac products, most likely due to decreasing margins.

iTunes sales were also up significantly most likely on the strength of the App Store.  Software sales were also up slightly while Peripherl sales were down slightly.

Apple’s stock price is down today 2 points to 193, that’s off 14 points from its all time high from last week.

Google today introduced a new (kind of amazing) Navigation app for Android 2.0.  This application is only avaialble at the moment as a beta for the Droid phone on Verizon but Google is apparently working with Apple on bringing it to the iPhone.

According to CNET it isn’t just the iPhone,

Google isn’t ruling out licensing the software to makers of portable navigation devices used in cars throughout the world, said Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google for mobile and developers. The process involving Apple is slightly different from the usual App Store submission process, because Maps is a built-in iPhone application, he said.

One has to wonder how valuable a service like this would behave on AT&T’s network.  How will this app react to holes in service?  Will there be any caching of the map (perhaps in the initial routing phase)?

Seems Stephen Fry will get his wish for mobile projection devices for European iPhones on news that display technology developer Microvision has received an initial purchase order from its European distributor for its SHOWWX™ laser-based pico projector to be sold by one of the world’s top mobile phone operators.

The initial quantities of Showwx are expected to be deployed within the next month in Europe and at that time more details are expected to be provided by the carrier.

We suspect this reflects the situation in Europe in which competition between carriers for new iPhone customers will demand better deals at the same price and extended solutions-based approaches to attract new users.

Microvision’s Made for iPod Showwx laser pico projector, based on the PicoP display engine, delivers a colourful, vivid "big screen" viewing experience from a device about the size of a mobile phone.

“We are extremely pleased to welcome our first global mobile phone operator as a SHOWWX launch customer for 2009,” stated Alexander Tokman, Microvision President and CEO.

“Carriers serve as the frontline to mobile subscribers and as a result often influence mobile handset designs to include new features that delight their customers and help achieve a broader subscriber base and higher revenue per user. We believe that interest from one of the three largest carriers in the world in this application and specifically in Microvision’s PicoP laser projection technology is an important first step towards future accessory and embedded opportunities.”

Users of the Showwx can also connect to other portable media players, mobile phones and notebooks to spontaneously share movies, YouTube, photos, presentations and more with their friends, family or business associates.

The Showwx can project images up to 200 inches across, depending on the ambient lighting conditions, without the user ever having to adjust focus.

Walt Disney Co is getting involved in the iPhone, promising a bunch of free iPhone and iPod touch applications, giving fans access to Disney content – with some interesting interactive features.

The free app offers bonus animations to users who follow clues to take pictures of characters from movies such as “Up,” ”G-Force,“ ”Ratatouille,“ and ”Wall-E“ on the site.

Taking the correct picture unlocks  exclusive video and downloadable content such as frame images that can be overlaid on photos, or wallpaper images for. Disney is calling the feature “Click2Life,” because it makes characters captured in photos appear to suddenly become animated in one’s hand.

It’s just a beginning: as Reuters explains, a teenager may one day see a poster of an upcoming "Pirates of the Caribbean" film in a mall, snap a picture of the poster with an iPhone and then generate video content related to that picture or character.

The new app organises Disney-branded content, lets users interact with characters through customizable photo frames and audio greetings, listen to Radio Disney live, watch music videos and buy Disney music from iTunes Store. This app costs $4.99 and should debut on iTunes today.

If you want to know what those Droid phones (which BGR says are coming on November 6th) are capable of, Google has put out a video detailing the major new features in Android 2.0 messaging APIs. They are killing us softly with the unified inbox.  Apple? Care to respond?  Please?

Apple appears to be getting ready to launch its fourth Manhattan Store (just in time for the holiday shopping season).  This week the scaffolding was pulled back to reveal a red curtain covering over the structure.  The sign says "Opening Soon, Apple Store Upper West Side".

The new 67th St. and Broadway Store has been called "The most spectacular store in the chain".

The image of a red curtain hides the construction of Apple’s latest store. (Credit: David Carnoy/CNET)

iFoAppleStore has some renderings and a flyover video pasted below.

ifoAppleStore says:

the glass is 54 feet tall, 75 feet wide, and 30 feet deep and that when the plastic film is peeled off, the storefront will "present a blue-green, filtered view into the store, which building permits indicate will be one level above ground, and two below ground." A circular glass staircase will link the street level to the first basement level, while the sub-basement will house back-of-house operations, tipsters said.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6754816&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1

Flyover during construction

Metallica have teamed-up with Tapulous to offer an all-new title to fans, Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica ($4.99).

Confirming the news, the band said: "We’re hitting the Apple iPhone App store again, this time so that you can play games on your phone! With all of our kids wild about it, we thought it would be super cool if you could play Tap Tap Metallica style, so we hooked up with the fine folks over at Tapulous and guess what? Ten Met songs are now ready for you to attack . . . check it out for just $4.99 here.”

Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica is the first game in the Tap Tap Revenge series to include a Bluetooth-based Battles Mode where players challenge friends to a point-by-point battle where they can deploy bombs and other special objects to distract the opposition and come out victorious. Accompanying the Career Mode is a new fast-paced Arcade Mode where players are challenged with yet more bombs and other special objects that make the game that much more difficult.

When asked for a quote about the game, Lars Ulrich asked his eleven year old son, Myles, who said, "You haven’t lived ’till you’ve played this!"

Everyone who purchases Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica will be entered into a daily prize draw, with prizes including a trip to Las Vegas for Metallica’s show there on December 5, including airfare, hotel, tickets (duh!) and meet and greet passes.

Songs included in the game are:
• ‘Enter Sandman’
• ‘Sad But True’
• ‘King Nothing’
• ‘All Nightmare Long’
• ‘Some Kind of Monster’
• ‘Master of Puppets’
• ‘Seek & Destroy’
• ‘Fuel’
• ‘One’
• ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’

3 Game Modes:
Face off P2P in BLUETOOTH BATTLE MODE, and launch crazy new weapons like Ink Splatter, Tiny Tappers, and Fade To Black. There’s the solo ARCADE MODE, where your radar will warn you of incoming bombs, and you can earn shields and 16x points. Or CAREER MODE, where you rack up mad points, but with no attacks.

Also A Metallica feed displays band news, challenges, and public battles.

Get the game right here.

Computerworld installed Psystar’s RebelEFI bootloader on two machines, one a PC Desktop and one a Fujitsu laptop/tablet.  Both worked as advertised but the final results left much to be desired.  The desktop PC was stuck at 1024×768 resolution and audio drivers didn’t work.   The Fujitsu laptop however was much worse off.

With the Fujitsu T5010, many key components did not work, including the integrated WiFi, tablet input, touch pad, integrated audio system and the fingerprint scanner. What’s more, the GMA 4500 graphics controller was only able to run at a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels and not the system’s native resolution of 1366 x 768. I was unable to get any of those components working after the install, even after updating the drivers and the OS X operating system.

They recommend downloading the free installer first and making sure the PC is compatible before paying the $50 to activate the software.  Remember, Psystar’s software isn’t necessary to make a Hackintosh.  If you are really a cheap bastard, you may want to try Gizmodo’s $300 version instead.

http://www.hulu.com/embed/meTC1Cecckovq833QMGRow/610/1312

Microsoft has yanked its sponsorship of Fox’s upcoming Seth MacFarlane comedy/variety special.  Our only question is: Has Microsoft ever watched Family Guy?  What did they expect?

But that was before Microsoft execs attended the special’s taping on Oct. 16. The special included MacFarlane and Alex Borstein – the voice of "Family Guy" matriarch Lois – pitching Windows 7.  For most of the special, however, MacFarlane and Borstein made typical "Family Guy" style jokes, including riffs on deaf people, the Holocaust, feminine hygiene and incest.

Maybe Jerry Seinfeld is looking good again?

Verizon may be playing hardball with the advertising for the new Droid device, but that’s just business – not so deep down the company would still like to offer the iPhone, Verizon Communications CEO, Ivan Seidenberg, confirmed today.

Speaking up during the carrier’s Q3 financial call, he said the company would be interested in carrying the device, but that, “This is a decision that is exclusively in Apple’s court.”

He also said, “We obviously would be interested at any point in the future they thought it would make sense for them to have us as a partner. And so we will leave it with them on that score.”

Seidenberg observed that his company had to “sit back” and give them “credit” for success, stressing the network wants to offer as broad a choice of devices as it can, and that would include Apple’s iPhone.

In the background we were told last week that Apple is already testing some form of future iPhone-class device on Verizon’s 4G network. “Tests have been taking place for the last couple of months,” the report said.

This seems like a good idea.  Apple’s opening a Retail Store next year in Chicago near a run-down subway station at North and Clybourn.  Apple would like to spruce up the place in exchange for 4 million dollars in advertising money (which if Chicago is anything like NYC, is gonna happen anyway).    

A CTA spokeswoman confirmed that the transit authority is in talks with the computer and iPhone behemoth about a deal that could net the cash-strapped CTA as much as $4 million in funding from Apple to pay for an upgrade of the run-down subway station at North and Clybourn, which is adjacent to an Apple retail store now under construction and expected to open next year. In exchange for its millions, Apple would receive first dibs on any and all advertising that eventually goes up at the rehabbed subway stop, which would allow Apple to create what is known as a "station domination" advertising effect at the North and Clybourn station. 

The CTA spokesperson said the deal stopped short of letting the transit authority extend naming rights for the subway stop to Apple.  That might have been awesome.  "Next Stop, Apple!"

Outside the station:

Inside the Station

You know how easy it is to lose those SIM trays, right? Well, why not stock up on the next generation Apple iPhone 4G/iTablet SIM tray now before the excitement of actually buying one (or it being announced) happens.  ChinaOntrade.com now has them in stock and shows the part number below.  According to the catalog page, it differs from a garden variety iPhone SIM in that the extract hole is smaller, it has a metal frame and the outer frame is bigger.  Progress!  via Engadget

ALERT: Ignore previous records; ignore previous records – the iPhone this weekend achieved the new record of approving over 100,000 apps for sale through the App Store.

That’s another 15,000 applications since Apple last confirmed how many software titles it is making available through the store, and confirms the velocity with which developers are throwing titles at the company’s next-gen mobile devices.

As reported by AppShopper, there were 101,561 approved apps, though availability of these varies by territory and just 92,870 of them are currently available through the App Store.

Similar data from analytics firm, Mobclix, reveals 103,295 apps as having been released in the last year.

Just last month, Apple revealed that over two billion applications have now been downloaded from iTunes, with over 85,000 apps then available from the 125,000 developers signed-up to its Dev Programme.

“The rate of App Store downloads continues to accelerate with users downloading a staggering two billion apps in just over a year, including more than half a billion apps this quarter alone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO at that time.

“The App Store has reinvented what you can do with a mobile handheld device, and our users are clearly loving it,” he added.

Indeed, the value of Apple’s platform extends way beyond its use to developers, with Volswagen recently making the brave and unusual move of launching a new vehicle in the US with a marketing campaign that begins exclusively with an iPhone app.

The free app, which is called "Real Racing GTI," puts players on the fictional Mayapan Beach racetrack, and is tied to a contest in which, the New York Times reports, registered players can win one of six limited-edition 2010 Volkswagen GTI’s (the new model).

Earlier in the year, Tim Ellis, VP-marketing at Volkswagen of America’s VW brand, said that car companies will be canceling conventional auto promotions as they “trim the fat” wherever they can while retaining “core media properties and launch budgets.”
 

It invalidates warranties and flies against user agreements, but jailbreaking iPhones remains a technical challenge that appeals to the self-same sorts of technical problem-solving types who first hung out at the HomeBrew Computer Club or put together Black Box telephone jammers with help from Cap’n Crunch: so the news here is that hacker geohot, has just released a new version of Blackra1n, his 30-second jailbreak tool.

  Blackra1n RC2 now supports all device models, including the newer versions of the iPhone 3GS and iPod touch, says Cult of Mac. Among other things, it adds support for the new iPhone 3GS and the iPod touch 8GB.

There’s lots of bug fixes, but does not unlock the device, only offering jailbreaking. Oh, and the software works n Windows and Mac.

From geohot’s blog:

Update – RC2 is out
Fixed 3G issues;
Tethered jailbreak for 3.1 OOTB ipt 8GB and new 3GSes;
Fixed Icy issues;
Both Windows and Mac;
If you used RC1 with success, no need to rerun.

If you are curious to unlock or jailbreak your iPhone or iPod touch, please ensure you fully understand what you have to do and you are prepared to void your warranty or otherwise bear the consequences of what you’re doing.
 

Bill Keller, Executive Editor for the New York Times might have accidentally let a big one (monster!) slip.  At 8:33 in the following clip (that wasn’t supposed to be recorded) from his October 16th "all hands" meeting at the NYTimes’ Internal Neiman Jornalism Lab he states:

"I’m hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate..."

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=7166514&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1

Re-he-he-heaaaly.

Did he just let the cat out of the bag?  Did he accidentally forget the encyclopedia-sized pile of confidentiality agreements that Apple made him sign?  He seems extremely matter of fact about the "impending Apple Slate" and doesn’t clarify the statement as being some sort of forward looking statement. Very Strange. 

We keep hearing how the NYTimes and other publications have been briefed on Apple’s Tablet as it gets ready to ship.   Is the name of the Apple tablet going to be ‘Slate’?

Thanks Derek A. Bill. via Gawker

Two Apple Fanboys have put together some costumes worthy of inclusion in an Apple Store Hall of Fame. The iPhone costumes have a built in HD display and the wearers also have to carry around a car battery to keep the power lit.  Jeez.

An Applesana forum poster (via Applesfera) is reporting that the new Mac OS 10.6.2 OS build 10C531 contains the following references to new MacBook Pros:

Current MacBook Pros are Version 5_5. 

Separately, we’ve heard that Apple Store Geniuses are being trained on new Quad-Core (possibly Core i5 and i7) processor MacBook Pros and they expect to take delivery of the new machines at the same time that the new high-end Core i5 and Core i7 iMacs hit stores in November. That would probably be timed right with a 10.6.2 release.

Apple has traditionally used the same processors in iMacs and high end MacBook/Powerbooks with the exception of the G5 iMac.  iMacs and MacBook Pros were also the first Macs with Intel chips, introduced simultaneously in 2006.

The difference between Core i5 and Core i7 processors is that Core i7 do hyper-threading while Core i5 do not.  That means Core i7s could actually show up as Octo-Core MacBook Pros!  On the other hand, Intel states that these processors take 95 Watts of power, while current MacBook Pro Processors only need 35-50 Watts. 

There is a new 32nm Dual Core i7 called Arrandale that is supposed to arrive this quarter or next (Apple often gets Intel chips early).  Even though it only has two real cores, the Hyper-Threading would register like there are four.  This chip also has Turbo Boost, the capability to power down one core while simultaneously overclocking the other core in situations where it is beneficial.

We haven’t heard anything about outer design changes which would be unlikely – the current MacBook Pros were updated earlier this year with SD cards and enclosed batteries.  We also expect these things to top out at 8GB of RAM.  The iMacs can go to 16GB but that is with four RAM slots.

The Tomtom iPhone mounting kit is now available in the US Apple Store.  We still think it is exploitation of iPhone customers when a full Tomtom can often be had for less than the $120 Apple Store price of the Mounting kit alone.

Especially when you consider you have to buy the $100 App too.

Even newer Tomtoms with screens almost an inch bigger than the iPhone’s cost about the same as the mounting kit alone.

Can someone explain to us why you’d want to use your iPhone as a GPS rather than just buying a (cheaper, bigger, better) stand alone unit?

Potential iPhone customers in the UK this morning are learning that Orange will offer Apple’s device on its network from November 10.

The Times informs that’s the day after O2’s exclusive contract with Apple to offer the phone in the UK comes to an end. Over 200,000 UK customers are thought to have signed-up for information on the device when it reaches the network.

Orange has still not revealed prices or tariffs on the device, with analysts split as to whether new competitiveness in the UK market will see a price war on the product emerge.

Vodafone will also offer the iPhone in the UK starting next year, while the UK’s smallest operator, 3, has also said it hopes to begin selling iPhones by mid-2010.

It is interesting to reflect that during the Mac User Awards (a UK Mac publication) which were hosted on October 22 a series of nominations and awards were read out. While most nominations were met with friendly applause by the industry crowd gathered at the event, a nomination for O2 (as an ISP) was met with a very awkward silence. Perhaps the most picquant criticism of industry reaction to O2 iPhone network coverage yet.

This isn’t real…yet.

via pogue