• apple,  appletv,  ios,  ipad,  iphone,  itunes,  touch

    Apple Invites Media to a Special September 1 Event

    August 26, 2010 /

    September is almost upon us and that means it’s time for Apple to send out invitations to the media-only fall event.
    According to the Tech Trader Daily blog, Eric Savitz writes:

    “There’s zero information in the invitation on the nature of the event, and the only hint is the photo of the guitar with the Apple-logo shaped cut out that I’ve included with this post.” 

     My invitation seems to have gotten lost in the mail.

    Apple’s fall events have been the showcase for the new iPod touch and music related products for the holiday season. This year is expected to be no different with rumors flying around of an iPod touch refresh that will feature iOS 4.1, dual cameras and support for FaceTime, and a the same high resolution Retina display that has been used on the iPhone 4.

    There are also near daily rumors that Apple will release a new version of the Apple TV, possible called “iTV”, that runs iOS and replaces the hard drive with a smaller flash drive.  Content would be streamed to the device rather than store it locally on a hard drive as the current Apple TV model does.  The new Apple TV is also rumored to go on sale with pricing as low as $99 and TV show rentals for $0.99.

    [Via Tech Trader Daily blog…]

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  • apple,  iphone,  sprint,  t-mobile,  verizon

    Is The Door Still Open for An iPhone on Sprint or T-Mobile?

    August 24, 2010 /

    There was an interesting article posted out on the Digital Daily blog.  Kaufman Bros. technology analyst Shaw Wu reports that a Verizon Wireless iPhone still isn’t a done deal.

    “From our understanding, the Verizon negotiations are not finalized with important details still being ironed out, including technology and economics,” Wu said in a note to clients this morning. “We think it is premature to rule out T-Mobile or Sprint.”

    “Or both of them, together. As Wu notes, adding T-Mobile and Sprint as additional carriers would almost be like adding Verizon (VZ). Together, Sprint (S) and T-Mobile have about 82 million subscribers. Verizon has 93 million subscribers.”

    You can read the full blog post on the Digital Daily website.

    So who’s up for a Sprint edition Apple iPhone?

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  • android,  apple,  blackberry,  facebook,  google,  hp,  iphone,  rim,  web os

    More on the New Facebook Places Feature

    August 23, 2010 /

    Last week, Facebook introduced a new feature called “Places” that allows you or your friends geo-tag your location using the GPS in your mobile phone or location aware browser.  Naturally, people either hailed this as a super cool or flipped out and had kittens because “Big Brother” had found a new way to keep tabs on where you go and what you are doing.

    The New York Times, has a good article on the new Places feature in Facebook, which is also available in the latest version of the mobile application for Apple’s iPhone.

    Moments after Facebook introduced a new feature called Facebook Places on Wednesday that allows its users to share their location and find their friends, advocates raised flags over online privacy.

    The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California cited concerns over the new product, saying Facebook neglected to include several crucial privacy features.

    “Places allows your friends to tag you when they check in somewhere, and Facebook makes it very easy to say ‘yes’ to allowing your friends to check in for you,” read the statement, released late Wednesday night. “But when it comes to opting out of that feature, you are only given a ‘not now’ option. ‘No’ isn’t one of the easy options.”

    The A.C.L.U. also expressed concern over the integration of Facebook’s Places feature with third-party Web sites and applications.

    The Facebook Places privacy settings can be configured via custom settings in your privacy controls.  Android Central has a quick set of directions posted which I linked to last week.  iPhone users who want to keep their locations on the down low can tap the Don’t Allow button that pops up any time an iOS app tries to access the GPS on your iPhone.  (You know, I’m really glad that Steve Jobs insisted on that pop up!)  As of this posting, the Google Android, RIM BlackBerry, and HP Palm webOS clients haven’t been updated to use of the Places feature; but it is only a matter of time before they are updated too.

    You can read the full article on The New York Times website.

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  • apple,  ipad

    Magazine Subscriptons Coming to Apple’s iPad

    August 21, 2010 /

    It’s about time, seriously!  I have subscriptions to MacWorld, Time, and Entertainment Weekly and I’m looking forward to reading all of them in print and electronically on my iPad.  I have no idea if/when MacWorld and EW are coming to iPad.  So far, only People and Time are confirmed.  More electronic magazine subscriptions are likely to start showing up soon on the iPad if a report in Fortune is correct.

    AppleInsider.com writes:

    According to Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune, Time Inc. broke the impasse  that has existed for months between publishers and Apple. He said that Time’s other publications are expected to follow the same path as People in the next 30 days, including Fortune, Time, and Sports Illustrated.

    “It’s not clear what took so long,” Elmer-DeWitt wrote. “Publishers who were encouraged to build iPad apps by Steve Jobs himself say they were ready from the start to make them free to subscribers. Until now, however, Apple would neither give them the tools they needed, nor explain what was holding them up.”

    He added: “The publishers still can’t sell subscriptions through the App Store, which is how they would prefer to do it.”

    If you have a subscription to People magazine, you can get the digital subscription goodness right now. [App Store link]

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  • apple,  iphone

    Quickly Identifying an iPhone 3G vs iPhone 3GS

    August 20, 2010 /

    This just goes to show that you really can learn something new everyday!  Today I learned how to tell an iPhone 3G and an iPhone 3GS apart without having to look at software, hardware rev numbers or any thing else.

    All you have to do is to take a look at the back of the iPhone.  If the lettering of the word “iPhone” is in chrome like the Apple logo above it, then you are looking at an iPhone 3GS.

    Thanks to the good folks at DirectFix.com for point this out.  You can read their blog post on the subject here.

    By the way, I’m still looking to buy someones iPhone 3G or 3GS as long as it is still in good working condition.

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  • apple,  blackberry,  blackberry os,  bold,  ios,  ipad,  iphone,  ipod,  rim,  torch,  touch

    Facebook Updated for iOS, BlackBerry OS

    August 19, 2010 /

    Along side the Facebook website upgrade, the iPhone and BlackBerry mobile Facebook applications have also been upgraded to versions 3.2 and 1.8.0.49, respectively.

    Use the App Store and BlackBerry App World to install or upgrade your software now.

    If you don’t want to use Facebook Places, or you want to keep your friends from checking you into Places, be sure to update your Facebook privacy settings.

    UPDATE:

    The iOS edition of Facebook has been updated again.  This time to version 3.2.1.  This latest updates includes “bug fixes” and limited the Places feature to iDevices here in the United States for the time being.

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  • apple,  evo,  iphone

    iPhone 4 vs. HTC Evo 4G

    August 14, 2010 /

    My friend Mark sent me a link to this video a few days ago and it is perfect for some weekend phone humor.

    Be warned that this is the clean version of the video. There is a not safe for family/work version floating around on YouTube.com also.

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  • apple,  ios,  ipad,  iphone,  itunes,  mac os x,  windows

    Apple Releases iOS 3.2.2, 4.0.2 Updates

    August 12, 2010 /

    Apple has released minor iOS updates for iPad (Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G) and iPhone (4, 3GS, and 3G) and iPod touch (second and third edition) to address a Safari PDF security flaw.

    Hackers were able to use the Safari exploit to “jailbreak” iOS devices to run applications that had not been approved by Apple.  However, that same exploit could be used to allow an attacker to gain control of your iDevice remotely.

    If you are running a stock iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, connect your device to your Mac or PC running iTunes and hit the Update button on the Summary tab for your device.

    The update weighs in at about 457MB for my Wi-Fi edition iPad.  The package size might be smaller for the iPhone and iPod touch.

    If you are on of the folks that doesn’t like to be told how to use your device by Apple, and have gone ahead and jailbroken your device, you will want to wait until there is a new “adjective”sn0w update that allows you to patch your device and exploit a different vulnerability to load unauthorized applications on your iDevice.  Proceed with caution.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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