iOS Devices

From the Toys section:

For those of you with MacBooks who want to make the leap to SSD, Kingston offers an incredibly affordable solution. The Kingston SSDNow V-Series 128GB Serial ATA Internal Solid State Disk (SSD) 2.5" Laptop Kit (pictured), model no. SNV125-S2BD/128GB is $226.99 with free shipping ($1.79/GB). That’s the lowest total price we could find by $15 and 64% off of list price.  64GB is $135.

Featuring no moving parts, a Solid State Drive (SSD) is designed to access data faster and last longer than typical hard drives.  They also typically use less power which allows for longer battery life.  The laptop kit comes with an external USB enclosure and cable for your old HDD.

 

Datasheet (from Kingston)

Adding an SSD to a desktop already using a standard hard disk drive is a smart and efficient way to upgrade. Transferring the operating system and applications from the HDD to the SSD allows the SSD to be used as a bootable drive that takes full advantage of the Flash-based technology. The SSD and the HDD then co-exist to drive optimal performance in the upgraded desktop

For notebooks, SSDNow drives are a perfect replacement for hard drives resulting in faster, more reliable performance. Making this change will improve a notebook’s efficiency in a wide range of tasks, from booting up to running the most robust operating system and demanding applications.

SSDNow uses a standard SATA interface but, unlike a regular HDD, SSD is very rugged and built with no moving parts, making it ideal for power users and road warriors who push the limits of their notebooks. Other benefits include reduced power usage, less noise and less heat generation.

Kingston’s SSDNow V Series offers performance gains and power consumption reductions at a fraction of the cost of a new system. For added peace of mind, they’re backed by 24/7 tech support, a three-warranty and legendary Kingston reliability.

Specifications/Features
 

Features:
• Fast – up to 100MB/sec. read; 80MB/sec. write**
• Performance – enhances productivity; makes users more efficient
• Innovative – 2.5" form factor; uses NAND flash memory components.
• Silent – Runs silent and cool with no moving mechanical parts
• Reliable – less likely to fail than a standard hard drive
• Shock Resistant – No moving mechanical parts so the SSD handles rougher conditions.
• Supports S.M.A.R.T. – Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology tells the user when a drive is about to fail
• Guaranteed – 3 year legendary Kingston warranty, 24/7 tech support

Specification

• Capacity* – 64GB, 128GB
• Storage Temperatures – -40° C to 85° C
• Operating temperatures – 0° C to 70° C
• Vibration Operating – 2.17 G (7–800Hz)
• Vibration Non-Operation – 20 G (20–2000Hz)
• Power Specs –128GB  Active: 2.5W (TYP)  Sleep: 0.45W (TYP)
  64GB   Active: 2.0W (TYP)  Sleep: 0.45W (TYP)
• Life expectancy – 1 million hours mean time before failure

The Apple Store this week updated its high-end video card selection to include the EVGA GeForce GTX 285. This monster comes with 1GB of DDR3 memory and 240 stream-processors.  This makes it the fastest video card Apple sells for its systems.  This is important because Snow Leopard will use the GPUs of the video card to accelerate CPU intensive processes like video encoding and decoding.

******Update: We called EVGA.  The PC version will not work in a Mac.*******

The lowest price we could find for the Mac Version of this card is $438.

A word of caution from the comments on Apple’s site: You need to make sure you install the driver from the CD BEFORE you install the card in your Mac. If you don’t, the system will kernel panic and crash at startup.  OSX Snow Leopard will likely have drivers built into the OS install disks.  Review and more pictures.

via MacRumors

Our Beta tester had the opportunity to try out the new AIM Push Notifications App that was made available this evening on the developers App Store.  According to our source, the app is working exactly as it should.  We are really looking forward to apps like Fring and Skype getting this functionality. Any other developers out there trying this out?

Oh, and here’s another little bonus (and another FU to AT&T?).  You can now send SMSes to your contacts with this application just like you can in iChat.  In fact, your numbers come over when you sign into your AIM/.Me account.

 

Update: Now that the 3.0 release is out in the wild, it only takes 3 steps

If AT&T didn’t drop every other call we make and have the worst data service we’ve ever used, we’d think twice about dropping this little hint.  But we’re about to unleash this with little guilt. Here’s what you need to do to get Internet tethering on ANY iPHONE OUT THERE.  Yes, even yours.

So without further ado, the 9to5Mac Tether:

There are 2 things at work here.

A. The iPhone 3 OS GM activates on any iPhone as long as it is a legit iPhone.  (Not SIM unlocked and working on Tmobile in the US or Vodafone in the UK for example).  If you are using your iPhone on AT&T in the US, it unlocks without issue.  When you go to iPhone 3 you lose your abiity to Jailbreak (for the moment).  More information on this here.

B. The first iTunes 8.2 Pre-release (not the second) allows you to upload carrier .ipcc files directly to your iPhone which enables tethering AND puts your carrier settings on the iPhone.  This was a huge mistake (or was it?…hmm) from Apple because with this version of iTunes you can turn any iPhone into a tether iPhone without permission from the carrier.

This works.  It has been tried a number of times on a few different iPhones.  Here’s the easiest way to do this:

1. You probably already have iTunes 8.2 final on your machine.  No problem.  Update your iPhone to 3 GM like so.

2. Now you have to download the 8.2 pre-release 1. We can’t tell you how to do this but we’re sure you’ll get some help in the comment threads. You’ll also need to get the carrier settings file from this application (UPDATE: Commenters are saying this one works better for AT&T)..  Most international carriers are supported.

Once you have iTunes pre-release1 , you’ll need to completely uninstall iTunes 8.2 before installing the pre-release.

3. Completely Uninstall iTunes 8.2 Final by:
A. Trashing the iTunes.app application from your applications folder
B. Kill the iTunes Helper process in Activity Monitor.app
C. Go into your ~/Library folder and delete all of your iTunes plists and folders.  Alternatively, you can just create a new user account on your Mac and install it from there.
D. Empty trash

4. Install iTunes 8.2 Pre-Release.  Plug in your iPhone 3.0 and go to iTunes, go to the Summary page

5. Option-Click on Restore and browse to the AT&T.ipcc file you extracted from the iPhoneTether.app before (or here from AT&T).

6. Click open and you should only have to wait a few seconds while you see this:

7. Once that is complete, go to your iPhone/Settings/General/Network and you should see a new option about 1/2 way down called "Internet Tethering".  Click "on".  Instructions will be below.

8. Once enabled, your Mac should pop up a notification:

That’s it.  You should be tethering, free of (additional) charge on your unlimited iPhone plan.  As far as we can tell, so long as you don’t update your iPhone or iTunes, you should be able to continue.

By the way, AT&T doesn’t allow apps like Sling because it considers the iPhone a computer and it falls under those terms of service – which is already a tethering plan.  If that is the case, then there shouldn’t be additional charge for using your unlimited plan with a computer.

Boom.

 

 

It probably isn’t a big surprise to many, but you can officially boot the new MacBook Pros from an SD card according to this KnowledgeBase Article (via Ars).  On older machines, you could boot from a USB external drive and it looks like that SD card dock is connected through the USB connector, so there aren’t too many tricks at play here. 

To create a boot disk, you’ll need to format the card to Mac OS Extended using Disk Utility.app which will make it mostly useless with PC’s and cameras.  It will also be many times slower than a standard hard drive or SSD for boot-ups.  However, this could be a great tool for diagnosing issues with hard drives and running diskutils.  Diskwarrier should come on SD…in a few years.

Interestingly, you could also use those little SD cards as backup drives.  If you just want a quick and easy Time Machine/automated CCC of your important docs, it is hard to imagine an easier solution.  With a 32GB card going for $70, or a 16GB card coming in around $30, it is a small investment to keep your files safe.

Oh, and those with older MacBook Pros with ExpressCard slots?  You can be part of the fun as well with an ExpressCard to SD card reader ($28) – which turns your ExpressCard slot into an SD Card reader.  Or eliminate the middleman and just get an ExpressCard SSD.

 

 TMobile’s Dutch site has revealed some iPhone processor specs, below:

This is the first revelation that the iPhone now has 256MB of RAM.  Also, the 600MHz chip is likely the Samsung S5PC100 ARM Cortex A8 (link to our past evaluations of this processor).  If the speed was simply megahertz, the new iPhone would only be 1.5 times as fast (400MHZ to 600MHz).  This is a new class of processor which we’ve been talking about over the past few months.

 

Lost in yesterday’s torrent of information was that the new iPhone 3GSes have a fingerprint-resistant oleophobic screen which may go further in reducing oils left on the iPhone.   Apparantly the change wasn’t big enough news to warrant time at the Keynote.

 via MDN

Look, we know what type of trouble we are asking for here, so let’s get this out of the way first: You are responsible for what you do.  We take no responsibility for this information and if your iPhone explodes, we don’t even care.

That being said, and only(!!) if you so choose, you can now download the 3.0 OS software from those nefarious torrent sites, or your buddy who is a iPhone developer.   You can then option/install it on your iPhone/iPod touch using iTunes and get a week jump on Apple’s official release.  Also, remember to get the right firmware for your device.  iPhone 3G has different firmware than the original iPhone for instance.  Finally, consider that the 3.0 software updates the baseband, potentially making a SIM-unlock more difficult.

Before, to do update to 3.0, you’d need a developer to put your Device ID in a list.  Now, iPhones and iPod touches are activating normally without being "on the list".  Plus, this is the GM that we’ve been playing with for awhile and we can say that this is very stable and complete…plus, for some reason we can still tether on AT&T.

If you want to share your "experiences" in the comments, we’re pretty sure the iPhone community would appreciate your help.

…and please, all of you goody-two-shoes out there, try to refrain from doing what you do.

This seems way more complex than it needs to be.  Head over to AT&T’s website for all of the forms and paperwork you’ll need to do. 

In case you were wondering…we were able to install 3.0 final on an iPhone (no need for your device ID to be in a list either, it works on any activated iPhone) and Tethering still works without issue.  We’re hoping there won’t be a big AT&T bill in the mail for our tester.

Engadget is reporting that AT&T is going to offer a tethering plan, they just haven’t worked out the details.  Plus, we have a whole week until the iPhones go on sale, what’s the big rush?  They just haven’t figured out how much extra they can get out of you suckers customers.

BGR says there will be a $70/month unlimited data w/tethering plan (so +$40 for Tethering) Also, AT&T will offer an unlimited MMS solution for $20/month.  Ouch.

 

We’d think Apple would have been best to highlight the speed as well. Video alone (which most of the smartphone world has had for years) doesn’t seem like it is going to be a big draw.

We’re rolling out our good ol’ fashioned 9to5mac Livepanel which will be circulating the best feeds throughout the WWDC event.  As you might remember, this framed page shows four of the best feeds at once and is refreshed every 15 seconds so your mouse button finger doesn’t have to bleed.  It works best on large (24"+) monitors and uses 1990’s html frames technology to bring sweet, sweet iPhone 3 information to your eyes as quickly as possible.

This year we are also going to try to get an audio, and perhaps video, feed of the event.  As you know, data connections get taxed at WWDC and Apple isn’t fond of user broadcasting, so keep your expectations low.

Will we see the iPhone 3/Video?  Or thousands of other interesting possibilites including Steve Jobs?   Tune in to find out.

We’ve got a few Qik guys walking into WWDC, we’ll see how many can keep broadcasting during the keynote. Update – UStream! Thanks to Javier Matuk,from Mexico, www.matuk.com.  Hope you get out of the country before Apple catches you Matuk!

http://www.ustream.tv/flash/live/594796

http://www.cnet.com/av/video/flv/universalPlayer/universalSmall.swf

April 1 ’76 sees three guys including Steves Jobs and Wozniak launching a tin-pot back-room computer company, Apple Computer.

Now Apple Inc., the Steves remain involved and there’s a big party coming up, and all the world’s media’s watching in heightened anticipation, fervently hoping for news which will help them boost newspaper/magazine sales, and website traffic. It’s hard to hold reader attention in the current age.

 

Fact is, Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) isn’t just a cutting-edge technology company, but also a world-class hype machine.

So as the sun comes down on June 7, here’s a few of the major media headlines that are reporting Apple’s rise.

 

Rise in a recession? Oh, c’mon, that’s what these people do, just take a look at Saudi billionaire Prince AlWaleed bin Talal’s 23 per cent climb in investment value last month through his company, Kingdom Holding Co. Kingdom’s foreign holdings rose to 5.28 billion riyals ($1.4 billion) in May versus 4.29 billion riyals in April, Forbes says. AAPL, right now at c. $144.67 per share, is part of that wealth rise. Has been a while. Hence the interest and the hype machine. World loves a good story…

 

Anyway – here’s what big media are saying tonight:

 

Reuters: Steve Jobs may spark Apple share move.

Analysts expect Apple stock to click higher by 1-5 per cent should Steve Jobs make an appearance at WWDC opening event, but warn of big stock sale off should he fail to show.

 

According to Kotaku, the firm is targeting a July 17 release for the new handset, which will come with a 3D graphics chip to enhance visuals.

 

Financial Times: Cites "people familiar with the initiative" as source for a report claiming Apple may introduce a low-capacity iPhone for under $100, "in a move that could dramatically increase the company’s share of the market for web-surfing devices".

 

Economic Times: "My gut tells me we are going to see a next-generation iPhone and Snow Leopard be the two stars of the announcements," Gartner analyst Van Baker said. "Steve (Jobs) may do a cameo, maybe, because there is strong evidence from multiple sources he is getting back to good health," he said. 

This report includes comment from everybody’s favourite Apple analyst, Rob Enderle, who said "Steve Jobs is coming back, but he is not coming back for long."  

 

The Age: Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster "expects new iPhones to ship in July, regardless of whether or not Apple announces them at the conference or a later date, while he has forecast a 2010 release date for an Apple tablet PC." He thinks a Jobs appearance is "unlikely", but expects him back by month’s end.

 

USA Today (Via Indy Star): "’They had to come out with a new iPhone now, to one-up the Pre,’ says Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster (the Pre? Really? That one’s not gonna deliver on the hype in this one’s opinion).  Munster predicts pricing as follows: $149 (down from the current $199) and a premium phone with a video camera and higher capacity storage for $299. 

 

The Telegraph: "The new iPhone is so important to Apple that Steve Jobs, the chief executive, is expected to return from sick leave to attend the launch at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco.

"Gene Munster, analyst at US investment bank Piper Jaffrey and the most highly-respected "Apple-watcher", said there could be wide-spread disappointment as he believes Apple will release a new operating system but no new phones. He said a new "family of iPhones" will probably not be released until July."

 

New York Post: Predicts faster higher capacity device, with multi-tasking and a better camera, also anticipates better 3G support and a 4GB budget model. And a compass – in other words, they’re checking the rumour machine to feed the hype machine.

"Starting June 27 — the second anniversary of its debut — 86,000 phones a week will be coming…"

 

Associated Press: "Just two years after entering the fray, Apple enjoys a 19.5 percent share of the smart phone market, according to IDC, and investors are betting on a continued run of success.

"Apple, from a practical standpoint, has consistently tried to stay one to two years ahead of the competition on both the hardware and software levels," said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies and longtime Apple analyst."

 

The Guardian: "On Friday Carphone’s chief executive, Charles Dunstone, refused to comment on talk of a new iPhone. "It is more than my life’s worth to ever say anything," he said. "They keep us terrified.""

Adds: "Sources suggest… the prospect of price cuts remain – largely funded by the mobile phone operators, not Apple."

 

 

These are supposed to some iPhone 3 video chat pictures.  Could be real, more likely fake.  We are intrigued by the location of the green light, as it varies from shot to shot.  Also, the second shot looks like an iPod.

 

Engadget posts pictures from Nowhereelse, a French site that appears to be down atm.