iOS Devices

Some bad news for Apple.  It seems the algorithm used to make iTunes Gift Cards has been hacked by Chinese terrorists thieves and are being sold for pennies on the dollar over the Internets.  Frankly, why give your money to a thief when you can just as easily be a thief yourself (eliminate the middleman!) and get your music from Bittorent.  Not that that is right either….but Apple is going to be left with the bill from the record companies over all of this lost revenue for those who use fake gift cards.

Can Apple fix this without screwing everyone with real gift cards over as well?  We shall see.

did you cringe?

Adding fuel to the Apple Touch Netbook fire, Dow Jones reporter, Wei Yi Lim is reporting that Apple indeed is building a touch netbook.  The screen size is about 10 inches.  OK, mockup artists…what else do you need?!  From Dow Jones:

Apple Inc. (AAPL) is planning to launch a netbook computer with a touch screen monitor as early as the second half of this year, two people close to the situation told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday.

The mini laptop computers will likely have monitor screens that are between 9.7-inches and 10-inches, one person, who declined to be named, said.

 Dow Jones is also putting the timeframe at Q3/late summer.

Update: It looks like someone (Apple?) has taken the auction offline:

It looks like someone got their mitts on a piece of technology history over at 1 Infinite Loop. Someone is selling some prototype iPhones with a wacky pre-iPhone type of OS on it. One of the iPhones actually even works. Check out more photos and a description below.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/sRxnZLLuLQs&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&border=1

Original Ebay posting

Here is a quite rare and collectable example of iPhone prototypes, one even running a beta OS.  Only one of the phones works however. Neither unit says "iPhone" on them anywhere, or list the storage capacity which is interesting. I did some research on the serial numbers, it appears they were both manufactured about 6 months before the release of the iPhone.

Phone #1:
-Powers on OK – GSM service works
-Plastic matte screen (see pics)
-Serial number YM649xxxxxx which corresponds to a factory in China, manufactured week 49 of the year 2006.
-Runs iPhone OS 03.06.01_G (iPhone Launch OS 1.0 was version 03.11.02_G)
-Good cosmetic condition

Phone #2:
-Doesn’t turn on (tried leaving on charger for awhile, along with various reset procedures)
-Glass screen
-Serial number YM650xxxxxx which corresponds to a factory in China, manufactured week 50 of the year 2006. (The iPhone was announced on Jan 6 2007 and release June 29 2007.)
-I replaced the battery and still doesn’t work.  Currently apart right now, can leave as-is for buyer or reassemble.
-Has various scratches, it is in fair cosmetic condition at best

The phone that works is pretty neat to use. It does make calls(with my ATT sim), and I can surf the net.  However when I did get to web pages they were the mobile versions, not the regular versions.  I can’t figure out how to set a ringtone, it is just silent right now.   I can receive SMS but not compose my own, other than 5 included test messages. It doesn’t sync to itunes. Camera seems to work. It has tons of testing options.

Also, the working phone has several interesting subtitles that alternate on the screens including:

[Skank is the new black]
[Nine parts perspiration]
[Say hello to the Newton MessagePad 3000]
[Skankphone]

The phones also comes with a really nice soft case for each.  I can guarantee that the working phone will work when you get it, but nothing else beyond that.  This auction includes the 2 phones, and the 2 cases, and that is it.  Shipping via USPS Priority Insured.  Paypal within 3 days.  Please ask any questions before bidding.

A few years before Google’s founders were "household" names and billionaires, they weren’t recognizable by mainstream America.  Here’s a look back to 2001 on an episode of "To tell the truth" – with J. Peterman.   Google only had 170 employees (who are all probably also millionaires by now) at that point but went from 7 million searches to 100 million that year .  Anyway, see if you can guess which guy is Brin:

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-5069489869556491312&hl=en&fs=true

via Google OS

Faber.se has posted the next Quicktime interface.   It was found in the latest Snow Leoprd build 10A286..Yes, it looks like DVD player.app and doesn’t have those ugly silver borders.  But is it snappie…?

A colleague at Computerworld posted this Magnum P.I.-narrated piece from AT&T in 1993. Even though they kill us with high iPhone bills, they kinda nailed this one.

You may or may not find this amusing:

http://player.ordienetworks.com/flash/fodplayer.swf

via Giz

World of Apple is publishing (naughty, naughty) Apple’s Snow Leopard release notes, below, which include a new Quicktime Player UI, a new Cocoa Desktop, Info Window and Contextual Menus and of course the new Safari 4 Web Browser.  All good news, but there seem to be some big hurdles to overcome by June..June you say?

David Zeller from the Baltimore Sun is reporting that he believes that Snow Leopard will be released on June 8th.  The logic (and it makes some sense to us) is that the only big summer opening at Moscone Center is a huge block from June 6-12 that is currently entitled "Corporate Meeting".  We know a company that likes to keep secrets.  That would put the Snow Leopard announcement (and the return of El Jobso?) at June 8.  Can we get  a witness?

Schedule and via PED@Apple2.0

…However, as I looked at the schedule, I noticed another generic “Corporate meeting” scheduled for Moscone West — for June 6-June 12. That’s the second week of June, the correct number of days, and ends on a Friday (WWDC nearly always ends on a Friday).

Yes, June 6 is a Saturday, but last year a similar generic listing on the Moscone Web site had the event starting on Sunday June 8 when the official start date was actually June 9. That means WWDC’s official start date this year probably will be June 7, a Sunday – unusual but not unprecedented. Back in 2005 WWDC’s official first day was a Sunday.

I deduced that we’d see Snow Leopard on June 8 because the keynote typically is delivered on a Monday, and that’s the moment at WWDC when Apple would announce a new operating system.

Actually we think the late May meeting is a Google event (the IO Conference). And Apple usually needs a few days to set up.  Obviously, nobody is showing their cards yet and Apple could have the WWDC at the Cow Palace if they really wanted to.

Release notes on Leopard build 10A286:

New Content

This seed contains some major new changes in the following areas:

QuickTime Player
The new QuickTime Player has a new minimal UI and is focused on playback.

Finder
Finder includes a new Cocoa Desktop, Info Window and Contextual Menu

Safari
Safari 4 beta is included in the seed as the default browser. 

Known Issues

• Remote Installs over Airport may cause panics (A workaround is to install via Ethernet or DVD.)
• Booting from the install DVD can take a long time
• Some settings are not migrated from the previous system when upgrading, including file sharing, sharing name and energy saver settings.
• Finder issues: Icon previews will not appear on the Desktop, selecting Clean Up does not change icon placement on the Desktop. Sometimes the Finder and Desktop will stop responding to input. A workaround is to restart Finder.
• iTunes will sometimes lock up when an iPhone is connected. A workaround is to rename or delete ~/Library/Lockdown)
• Microsoft Office 2004 applications can hang when using the File->Open menu. A workaround is to open the file by opening it in Finder.)
• On newer MacBook Pros, the screen’s backlight will not come on when booting into the installer if the brightness is set below 6.
• Hibernation is not working on machines with Nvidia graphics cards and will result in a frozen machine.
• The Time Machine UI cannot be activated in Finder and Mail in some cases.
• The linker creates a bad image when the minimum OS target is set to Mac OS X 10.5 and weak external symbols are used. (A workaround is to set Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.6 as the minimum OS target.)
• Xcode often crashes when navigating in documentation using the navigation buttons.
• We do not recommended installing this seed on the Nehalem Mac Pros.

Interesting story here.  Cydia, the most popular Jailbroken App repository (Installer.app never really recovered from being late to the iPhone 2.0 ballgame), is planning on having a paid apps store.  Apple just recently filed a motion that said it thought jailbreaking was copyright infringement and a DMCA violation so obviously this isn’t something Apple would be too happy about.  Plus there is that 30% of app cuts and AT&T isnt going to be happy about me buying PDANet either.

Oh, and it isn’t just Cydia:

Another small company plans a store called Rock Your Phone for iPhone users who have not yet modified their devices to make it easier to download and buy unauthorized applications. A third start-up is building an online store that specializes in selling adult games for the iPhone.

It will be interesting to see how things play out.  A great deal of the appeal of Jailbroken apps is that they are mostly free.  On the flip side, would you pay for something that Apple could wipe out in the next firmware update?   

For those of you wondering whether or not old Time Capsules and Airport Extremes would get the new Time Capsule and Airport extreme functionality, we have some good news and bad news.  After updating to 7.4.1 we learn that Apple has given us one out of three.

The bad news is that guest networking and dual band support aren’t available.  It looks  like that is a hardware-only update (meaning you’ll have to buy a new one). 

The good news is that if you have MobileMe and use Back to my Mac, you’ll be able, as of the 7.4.1 update, to access the data on your Airport Extreme USB Drive or Time Capsule over the Internet.    Visit Apple’s page on the updates for all of the juicey details on update 7.4.1.

More update pictures below.

It would be really kind of non-douche-baggy of Apple to allow non-MobileMe users to use Dynamic DNS from the Airport, instead of making people shell out $100 for this capability.  We aren’t holding our breath.

We are going to try very hard not to jump to any big conclusions on this one.   Verizon is asking a whole lot of iPhone questions to its departing customers according to BGR.  Remember, there were some questions about Apple hiring EVDO engineers and the length of AT&T’s exclusivity contract with Apple.  Here are the screengrabs:

Notice that all of these are things that Verizon could do except for one. Or?

You’ll also recall that Verizon turned down the iPhone initially before Apple went to its second choice, AT&T.

Skype is offering up its high quality audio codec, SILK (as in "as smooth as") for other companies to use.  What is Silk (PDF link)?

SILK is Skype’s signature super wideband audio codec which achieves super wideband audio quality using 50% less network bandwidth than previously required. It is the outcome of a three year long development process in the Skype labs, which focused on four things:

1. improving audio bandwidth going from 8 kHz to 12 kHz…
   
2. providing real-time bandwidth scalability to deal with degraded network conditions
   
3. balancing codec optimization between voice, music and background noise…
   
4. delivering a robust solution that delivers a more consistent audio experience.

There are two directions where this could affect Apple.  First, applications like Apple’s own iChat and other voice over IP applications on the Mac could adopt this technology to improve quality and reliability of voice communications, even over bad connections.  Second, Apple could adopt hardware that can optimize the processing for this codec in their products, namely the iPhone and its mobile products.

The VoIP industry is in a unique position right now.  With Skype owning most of the marketshare (400 million users!), Skype is in a position to dictate how things go.  At the same time, Skype could eventually be a victim of its own success.  Skype makes its money from calling and recieving calls from voice lines.  If every cell phone and home device has Skype on it, no one will pay to call or get calls from land lines.  Obviously they could change their business plan at that point and do something like throw a little annoying advertising into your calls.

As far as SILK goes, all sides of of the conversation need to to have the technology enabled for it to work.  Currently only PC users with version 4.0 of Skype can take advantage of it but word on the street is that Mac users will be able to have a mainstream SILK-enabled version of Skype in April.  (beta is currently available here. 

We like the sound of all of this:P

Apple looks to have shrunk their wired keyboards.  Surely you won’t miss the Number Pad and such?  Right, get one of the old ones while they last.  Either one is currently available.  (and chill out, Apple will probably offer both for a long time – there are two options!)

via Gizmodo

http://www.cnet.com/av/video/flv/newPlayers/universal.swfvia MDN

Hardmac and OneMoreThing.nl (via Macrumors) are reporting on new iMac and Mac Mini specs to be released tomorrow.

The new iMac models and their corresponding references:
– MB417: Entry level model
– MB418: "Mass market" model
– MB419: high-end model
– MB420: ultimate model
– one 20" model, three 24" models
– 20" 2 GB DDR3 memory, 24" 4 GB DDR3 memory (max 8 GB)
– 1x Display port
– Intel Core 2 Duo (not a quad core): 2.66 Ghz, 2.93 Ghz and 3.06 Ghz

For the Mac mini, the references are the following:
– MB463: entry-level model
– MB464 high-end model
– 5x USB
– 1x FireWire 800 – 1x mini DVI – 1x Display port – Nvidia chipset (like the newest MacBook)
– starting at Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 Ghz
– 1 or 2 GB DDR3 memory (max 4 GB)
– 120 GB hard disk (max 320 GB)

We are just providing this for your consideration. We largely think Apple will move in the ARM direction for their ultra small portable devices this year. These images are from a company who are using similar hardware and are able to charge $299 for this device.  Obviously this is a little boxy for Apple’s taste but the internals would be comparable.    Specs and more picts below:

Also, notice in the video they talk about the iPhone and how this device "will play iPhone games".

 The specifications

For those of us with a fond memory of older Mac OS’s, the iPhone is bringing the nostalgia back big time.  We talked about the Mini vMac last week.  There is another group called the ‘MacOS iPhone Project‘ who are doing the same kind of work.  They look to have a working app out shortly.  More screenshots below from their site:

This was the first sign of our success, it took many weeks, but we got there.

This is where we ran into one of our biggest issues, the cursor, it sound simple, but apple didnt make it easy for us.

I wonder why that happend? Is there code stolen from the Qemu project? OH NOES!!! We would like to thank the Qemu team for creating something this good and open source.

This was the first test of the cursor, accessing menus.

Our System Properties, just as if you viewed them on a Macintosh SE.

This is our main disk (image). Plus some stuff OS X added when we created it and then mounted it.

MacPaint, our favourite mac classic applications, dragging works quite well.

MacDraw, I could sit for hours playing with this, wish I could add text :(

No journey back in OS History is complete without looking how far Calculator has come.

Now, its time to shutdown (or restart). This is where it currently crashes, and the iphone will hang for a few minutes and then return to the home screen.