Jun 21, 2008 Jun 23, 2008 Sunday June 22, 2008
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In Tech We Trust - Fast Money Recap (6/20/08)
Recap of Fast Money, Friday June 20. Dow Falls Below 12,000
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Alesis' ProTrack turns your iPod into portable digital recorder
Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Audio Though not the first audio recorder we've seen to get buddy-buddy with Apple's darling for storage -- nor the first Alesis product to partner up with the iPod -- the ProTrack is still pretty swank in its own right. Hailed as a "professional handheld digital stereo recorder for iPod," this unit enables direct-to-iPod stereo digital recording for folks needing gobs of storage space. You'll find a pair of condenser microphones built-in along with twin XLR - 1/4-inch inputs for connecting external mics and line sources. Folks who can't locate an AC outlet can count on four to five hours of use from four AAA cells, but it should be noted that only select iPods (2G / 3G nanos, 5G iPods and the iPod classic) are supported. Look for this one to land in Q3 for a currently undisclosed price.[Via Brad Linder's Blog]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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1Password works with Firefox 3 and a version of Safari that isn't even out yet
The new version of 1Password (2.6.5) offers support for both Firefox 3, the Safari 4 Developer Preview, DEVONagent 2.3.1, OmniWeb Sneaky Peeks, and Flock 2. This update is free to all paid 1Password customers. 1Password is an excellent password manager for Mac OS X with integrated anti-phishing technology, and a database to keep track of logins, secure notes, identities, credit cards, bank... [read more at MacMerc.com]
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Ten Big New Features in Mac OS X Snow Leopard
Daniel Eran Dilger Apple is marketing the idea of there being “no new features� for Snow Leopard and instead promising an overall improvement in how Mac OS X works under the hood, thanks to a diligent code optimization and refactoring cycle discussed in the previous article. At the same time, there are plenty of significant new features coming in Snow Leopard to look forward to. Here are ten big new features (plus a few minor ones) that you probably haven't heard much about from anywhere else, including my previous articles on the subject that already described QuickTime X, Grand Central, and OpenCL. WWDC 2008: New in Mac OS X Snow Leopard Snow Leopard Server Takes on Exchange, SharePoint Pulling Invisible New Features into Snow Leopard. Apple's increasing collaborations with the open source community have pulled back the veil of secrecy on several new but mostly invisible enhancements that will be showing up in Snow Leopard. One relates to LLVM, the Low Level Virtual Machine compiler architecture project originally founded at the University of Illinois. Apple began contributing to LLVM development in 2005, and started using it Leopard to expand support for OpenGL hardware features. Lower-end Macs that lack the silicon to interpret that specialize graphics code can now do it in software. LLVM is also working its way into Apple's Xcode IDE, initially as a highly efficient optimizer and code generator that works as a bolt-on upgrade to components of GCC, but eventually as a complete compiler replacement. That project, known as Clang, was opened up last year. LLVM compiler technology not only makes developers more productive, but also results in code that runs significantly faster on the same hardware. Apple's other open secret: the LLVM Complier The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure Project Another openly hidden secret in Mac OS X is CUPS, the Common Unix Printing System. Beginning with Jaguar in 2002, Apple adopted and licensed CUPS from its developer as Mac OS X's printing engine. It then purchased the project outright. CUPS is also the de facto printing system for Linux distros and is available for BSD and other commercial Unix systems. That means Apple owns the project that develops the printing architecture for Linux. That's not an issue because Apple has established a reputation in open source as a strong contributor and open sharer. According to a review of bug fixes and improvements in CUPS software, 24% of the enhancements came from Apple while 76% came from free and open source software contributors working with Linux, OpenSolaris, and other projects. Of course, 100% of both sides benefited from that sharing. CUPS collaboration has resulted in high quality code and the advancement of new features. CUPS 1.4, the version sources say Snow Leopard will use, adds performance enhancements and a variety of security improvements that use sandboxing to prevent malware attacks on the printing system from being able to read sensitive documents that may be in use by printers. Common UNIX Printing System A third significant new feature originating from an open source project in Snow Leopard is ZFS support, portions of which come from the OpenSolaris project (along with Sun's DTrace technology, which Apple uses in its Instruments performance profiling tool). Leopard debuted read-only ZFS features, but Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server will provide both read and write support for Sun's new 128-bit file system. ZFS was designed to provide “simple administration, transactional semantics, end-to-end data integrity, and immense scalability.� ZFS hype during the development of Leopard helped the new file system reach buzzword status as news of the three letter acronym swept through blogs and the tech media. It is frequently described as being the imminent replacement for the Mac's native HFS+. However, the benefits of ZFS including as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots all apply primarily to servers and higher-end workstation users who deal with multiple disk drives. ZFS isn't going to replace HFS+ outright in Snow Leopard, and has limited relevance today to desktop and laptop users, particularly those who never move beyond the single disk drive installed in their system. More Predictions for WWDC 2007: Solaris, Google, Surround Apple - Mac OS X Leopard - Developer Tools - Instruments Symbiotic: What Apple Does for Open Source Apple's Open Source Assault Pushing Visible New Features in Snow Leopard. Apple's extensive work in developing push support for Exchange Server on the iPhone will also be included in Snow Leopard's Mail, Address Book, and iCal. Push support in those client side apps are also being used to power MobileMe's push messaging subscription service and Snow Leopard Server's push messaging services. Apple will be offering both in parallel as alternatives to Exchange, thanks to smart planning on the part of Apple's engineers to develop an interoperable push architecture in Mac OS X and on the iPhone. There is also a fourth application of push that has developed alongside push messaging: Apple's new Push Notification Service. PNS allows iPhone and iPod touch users to set up server side notification alerts that don't require mobile applications to stay running in the background just to update users of the external events they track. Along with Bonjour discovery, PNS will keep iPhones wirelessly connected in all sorts of sophisticated ways that third party developers can imagine in their applications. Whether Apple will integrate a listener for the same PNS system into the desktop side of Mac OS X remains to be seen, but it would allow a single, unified interface for alerting client users of new events. I proposed a system wide, Growl-style notification system in the Leopard Wish List published back in 2005. Snow Leopard Server Takes on Exchange, SharePoint Apple’s Mobile Me Takes On Exchange, Mobile Mesh With the strong push into push messaging, Apple will make mobile devices even more tightly integrated with its desktop products. Leopard delivered Back To My Mac as a novel way to use Wide Area Bonjour's dynamic service registration as a mechanism for sharing resources served from home to any location without configuring static naming services for address lookups. Because any software can register itself with .Mac/MobileMe, this opens the door to third party developers with the vision to exploit the potential of these enabling technologies. A Global Upgrade for Bonjour: AirPort, iPhone, Leopard, .Mac Ten Big Predictions for Apple in 2008 Among the technologies profiled earlier in Myth 3 that have been trickling from the iPhone into Mac OS X, there's at least one idea I proposed for the iPhone that will be in Snow Leopard's Safari: self contained web apps. The new feature will allow users to run web applications as a local app in its own window, essentially making the web platform into a native-looking app that can run outside of Safari. I proposed a similar feature as a possibility for the iPhone prior to the announcement of the Cocoa Touch SDK: web apps packaged up into a set of files that could be run on the device as a Dashboard widget-like standalone app, even when off the network. Why Apple hasn't pursued such an obvious strategy is a little hard to figure out, but it seems they've got the ball rolling on the desktop. That ball will be rolling even faster thanks to SquirrelFish, a new JavaScript interpreter that will make Safari and any other WebKit-based browsers, standalone self contained apps, and Dashboard widgets all a lot faster. Apple's MobileMe, Yahoo's Flickr, and Google various web apps will all gain new speed thanks to faster JavaScript execution. SquirrelFish will also raise the bar in performance and efficiency in the Rich Internet Applications sector in general, giving Flash, Silverlight, and Java a faster, simpler, and more openly interoperable runtime to compete against. RoughlyDrafted: Leopard Wish List: 2005 How Open will the iPhone Get? Surfin’ Safari » Announcing SquirrelFish Microsoft's Application Features in Mac OS X, System Wide. Microsoft's business model of tacking on features hasn't been a total wash. The company's desperate efforts to invent novel marketing features for every new release of Windows and Office have pioneered a number of ideas that have later found their way into Mac OS X. One example is the idea of Fast User Switching, which Apple added to Panther. Windows XP pioneered the trick, but built it upon the kluge that is Terminal Services. Microsoft also helped originate the basis of Ajax web apps by inventing XMLHttpRequest in order to make its Outlook Web Access 2000 web app work decently within Internet Explorer. Today, standards-based web apps are eating a hole into Microsoft's monopoly on the proprietary desktop platform, and tools such as SproutCore and resulting products such as MobileMe are poised to tear down interoperability barriers and level the playing field. Microsoft may now regret having opened Pandora's Box in terms of standards-based web applications, but its efforts to seal the web back up with the proprietary Silverlight plugin, which turns web apps into .NET programs, will now be next to impossible. Another example of a Microsoft innovation are the fancy text features in Word, such as red underlining to highlight spelling mistakes and the green squiggle for grammar errors. Word also features a variety of word auto correction, smart dash insertion, and text replacement features (such as typing TM to get the ™ character). The former have already become system-wide features in Mac OS X, while sources indicate that the latter text processing features will find their way into Snow Leopard, and therefore every application that runs on it. RoughlyDrafted: Remote Display part 3: Terminal Server Cocoa for Windows + Flash Killer = SproutCore Super Size Me. On top of injecting Word features into its OS for the use of every application, Apple will also expand the use of its own Data Detectors, a technology it invented in the mid 90s for identifying useful bits of text and making it actionable. Leopard introduced Data Detectors in Mail as a way to extract contacts and events for use in Address Book and iCal, but Snow Leopard will expose Data Detectors everywhere it draws text. Sources also indicate Snow Leopard will expand upon Font Book to provide full Auto Activation of any fonts requested by any application, using Spotlight to track them down. Snow Leopard is also suggested to have a new set of frameworks specifically for working with multitouch trackpad gestures, patterned after those introduced with the MacBook Air. Speaking of the ultra-thin Air, sometimes less is more. However, the high cost and relatively low capacity of Solid State Drives like the $1000, 64 GB SSD option offered for the Air means that one Microsoft feature Snow Leopard could do without is bloat. As one reader noted, “Currently, Leopard requires 9 GB of available disk space for installation and iLife requires an additional 3 GB. This means that a product such as the [SSD] MacBook Air comes with the hard drive 20% full.� How the MacBook Air stacks up against other ultra-light notebooks Leopard Predictions for WWDC 2006 WWDC 2007: An Inside Perspective From the Halfway Point Think Small. Snow Leopard aims below the bloat to accommodate the coming wave of SSD-based systems. In the latest build, sources say Apple's own apps are losing weigh dramatically across the board. The apps in the Utilities folder all drop from 468 MB to 111.6 MB, for example. Other apps are similarly svelte, as the graph below indicates. Is this the product of just code optimization and shared resources? One factor likely relates to work on Resolution Independence, which substitutes bitmapped raster graphics (which define every pixel) with smaller vector graphics files (which draw GUI elements and controls by recipe). Vector graphics can be scaled to any size while retaining a high quality appearance, while bitmapped graphics can quickly look blocky when scaled up. Adding larger bitmapped versions can solve that problem, but at the cost of consuming more disk space. Apple earlier told developers it would be providing a library of shared, high quality vector graphics they could use instead of each packaging their own bitmapped art into every app. The dramatic size reductions in these apps must also involve more efficient Localization. For example, Mac OS X Leopard's Mail currently weighs in at over 285 MB, but the majority of its bulk comes from 18 language localizations inside the application bundle that consume 276 MB. The actual Universal Binary code is only a few megabytes and even its associated graphics and other resources only amount to 2.8 MB. Why does Apple default to dumping support for 18 or more languages in every app without providing any simple, centralized way to get rid of the unnecessary ones? Perhaps that question is answered in Snow Leopard, where Mail is reportedly just 91 MB. That's too big to simply to be an English-only, stripped down version for developers, but still far smaller than than Leopard's. Across the board, it appears Snow Leopard apps are about a third as large as their Leopard equivalents. And so while Snow Leopard paradoxically gains more useful features through code improvements and under-the-hood retooling rather than from a Microsoft-style new feature focus that aims to deliver “wow� with flashy marketing gimmicks, the system is also getting smaller and tighter. There must also be some other subtraction, right? Will Snow Leopard scrape away the old Carbon API? That's the next myth. WWDC 2008: New in Mac OS X Snow Leopard WWDC 2008: Is Mac OS X 10.6 the Death of Carbon? I really like to hear from readers. Comment in the Forum or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast! Submit to Reddit or Slashdot, or consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks! Technorati Tags: Apple, Development, Mac, Software
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TimesOnline: Why you'll be paying a lot for iPhone 3G roaming
Filed under: iPhoneRemember when the first generation iPhone was released and people found themselves traveling overseas only to return to a large bill from AT&T? Well, TimesOnline is weighing in on the possible problems of data roaming and the iPhone 3G. As it turns out, 3G bandwidth is, shall we say, expensive. TimesOnline said O2's (Apple's iPhone carrier in the UK) 3G data roaming charges go up to almost £3 (~ $6 US) per megabyte when downloaded from a country within the EU; worldwide roaming is almost £6 (~ $12 US) per Mb.So, to put things into perspective, if you go overseas and download a 50MB file via your phone (such as audio or a short movie) then you will be spending over $600 US for that file. TUAW would like to take a moment and remind everyone about the Data Roaming Off switch in your settings. This can save you an expensive mistake (i.e. having to sell your kidney to pay your iPhone's roaming bill).[via MacRumors]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Reset OS X Password Without an OS XÂ CD
I wrote about this a while back on my blog, hackaddict, but it was such a popular post I thought I'd give it a revisit. A lot of people buy used Macs, and they often run into the problem of not knowing the admin password, so here is a way to get around not knowing the admin password on Macs. To reset your OS X password without an OS X CD you need to enter terminal and create a new admin account: Reboot Hold apple + s down after you hear the chime. When you get text prompt enter in these terminal commands to create a brand new admin account (hitting return after each line): mount -uw / rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone shutdown -h now After rebooting you should have a brand new admin account. When you login as the new admin you can simply delete the old one and you're good to go again!
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Survey Claims 24 Percent of U.S. iPhone Owners Switched From a Razr
If it’s even vaguely close to accurate, that’s a remarkable number. It might also explain Motorola’s precipitous decline. ★
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Optimized Firefox 3 builds available
Filed under: Internet ToolsNeil Lee has updated his optimized Firefox builds for Firefox 3. The architecture-specific versions of Firefox 2 had been dubbed BonEcho, but Firefox 3 brings a new moniker: Minefield. I'm unsure as to the intended implications of the name (it sounds like the perfect way to refer to an alpha release), but I've been running the Intel version with great results. If you were a user of BonEcho, you were used to the icon being visibly different than the standard Firefox icon. The icon for Minefield, designed by Adam Betts, is a slight variation on the standard icon and not immediately discernible as a deviation from the original. This has confused a few people, but it's definitely a less jarring transition. You still get the title "Minefield" wherever Firefox would have shown up in the interface, so you know what you're running. As far as performance, I haven't run any solid benchmarks but have noticed what seems like a significant decrease in initial load time and and improvement in general responsiveness when comparing clean installations (no addons) of Minefield to the standard Firefox 3 build. When I went to grab Minefield, I also discovered a link to the GrApple theme. It's designed to look like Safari and, being a Safari fan, I've fallen in love with it. If you're not overly attached to the default Firefox 3 look (which I didn't mind to begin with), there are great screenshots of the multiple versions available. Minefield is currently available in G5 and Intel flavors. Neil is also working on a set of instructions for building your own optimized Firefox builds at home for the DIY speed enthusiast.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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iPhone App News Roundup: June 22, 2008
Filed under: iPhone, App Store, SDKiPhone developers never sleep, since we're still getting a steady stream of news about upcoming App Store over the weekend. Here's the latest: Alex Price over at The Mac Box has a few free "toys" that will be available at App Store launch. PhoneSaber turns your iPhone into a virtual weapon worthy of a Jedi, while NearPics uses Panaramio.com to find pictures that were taken near your present location. Meanwhile, Brian Tunning pinged us about NotepadSync, which consists of matching applications on iPhone and Mac to enter and edit notes. The notes are synced wirelessly to a central store, so there will be a $14.95 estimated annual cost for the service. Another ebook reader for iPhone, Books, is being readied for the App Store by a team of developers including three Zachs! Probably the coolest App Store contender I've seen so far is Nuance's Voice Search app. As you can see in this video, you speak your search criteria, it is sent to Nuance's servers for recognition, and then text-based criteria are pushed back to your iPhone to do a search. Thanks to Gunnar Evermann at Nuance for this tip. Andy Qua is a recent Mac convert and new father who has developed three games for iPhone -- CubeRunner (steer your iPhone through a landscape littered with cubes), iCave (fly a ship through a cave avoiding obstacles), and iNono (puzzle game for solving nonograms). Greg Bernhardt had info about GroceryZen, an app that simplifies grocery shopping by organizing recipes, items, and locations in the grocery store. That's the Sunday wrapup. If you have an iPhone app that's heading for App Store release, let us know about it.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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TUAW Best of the Week
Filed under: Features, TUAW Business, Weekend ReviewWelcome to the latest installment of TUAW's best of the week, where we gather up our favorite posts for your easy clicking enjoyment. This week was definitely not as big as last week, but a tiny browser did received a ton of downloads. iPhone vs. the worldChristina tries to tackle the fan boy question that we've had since June 2007: when will the iPhone prevail as the best smart phone in the market? Apparently the phone wars will begin when the iPhone 3G is released. Rumor: Intel preparing 3.2 GHz quad-core processorsRumors are surfacing that Intel could be prepping quad-core 3.2 Ghz processors. These processors could definitely make a machine, like the MacPro, become even more of a screamer. While these are still rumors, it would be nice to see these fast processors come to new Macs. AT&T to limit iPhone 3G speeds to 1.4 Mbps?MacRumors discovered this week that the iPhone 3G might be limited to a 1.4 Mbps 3G connection. This is slower than the much touted Motorola Q smart phone which runs almost tripple that speed. Get your Firefox on: Firefox Download DayOur favorite little multi-platform browser, Firefox turned 3.0 this week. This new version brought about many changes, specifically for the Mac platform. Two very important changes: stability and speed. Oh yeah, they also tried to set a world record for most downloads in a 24-hour period. Parallels Server for Mac available nowParallels Server for Mac started shipping this week. This new product allows Xserves to run (in a virtual machine) many different server operating systems including: Mac OS server, your favorite flavor of Linux server and Windows server. Survey: 91% of Japanese don't want an iPhoneBefore the iPhone 3G was announced, a survey was conducted in Japan. Almost 91% of those surveyed said that they would not buy the iPhone. iTunes: Free WednesdayGet some free tunes. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Special iPhone Edition
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhoneFor quite a few years, I've enjoyed getting Windows Mobile news from a traditional print magazine called Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine that does a great job of covering the use of mobile tech in the enterprise. The magazine was called Pen Computing back in the old Newton MessagePad / Palm days, but Executive Editor and Publisher Hal Goldstein moved with the market and changed the title and focus of the mag. They're following another industry trend, as recent issues have had a number of iPhone articles. Many compare one Windows Mobile phone or another to the iPhone, wondering if a Sony Ericsson EXPERIA X1 or HTC Touch Diamond is going to be the "iPhone Killer".I was glad to see that the magazine is looking beyond the comparisons to a special iPhone edition ($14.95) to be published in August (cover mockup at right). A quick glance at their Web site showed that TUAW is one of the "Best Web Sites" for iPhone, so they're obviously doing their homework. ;-)The publication date in August ensures that many of the App Store products and iPhone 3G accessories to be announced will end up in the special edition. It should be a fun collectible to look at 10 years from now!In the interest of full disclosure, I've been on the Smartphone & Pocket PC Board of Experts for several years, evaluating software for the annual Best Software Awards issue.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Apple tops 'Consumer Reports' tech support survey
Posted by Dennis SellersWhen it came to solving tech problems, wait time on the phone and the knowledge of support staff, Apple's tech support received high scores across the board for both laptop and desktop systems in Consumer Reports' latest survey featured in the June issue (as reported by the Chatham Journal Weekly).
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Comic books coming to your iPhone 3G?
Posted by Dennis SellersComic book may soon be appearing on your mobile phone thanks, in part, to the upcoming launch of the iPhone 3G, according to a Red Orbit report. Businessmen reading comic books are a common sight in Japan, but as publishers have increasingly begun to digitize their comics, readers will soon...
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'Seeking Alpha': Apple will flourish even without Steve Jobs
Posted by Dennis Sellers There have been recent concerns about Apple CEO Steve Jobs' health since he looked, at least to some folks, wan during his Worldwide Developer Conference keynote. Adding to the concerns was the fact that he had surgery done a few years ago to cure him from pancreatic cancer.
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A Real iPhone Challenger - Barron's
Barron's says Taiwanese company High Tech Computer's 3G Touch Diamond is "at least as good as the iPhone." Features and advantages include:
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The Psychology of iPhone 3G Pricing
Michael Rosenwald in The Washington Post on the effect of the iPhone 3G’s $199 starting price. ★
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Apple Will Flourish With or Without Steve Jobs
How has the United States done without George Washington? Should the Boston Celtics have folded after Red Auerbach. Disney without Walt? You get the picture. The recent paranoia over the health of Steve Jobs has been taken way out of proportion and is in need of correct perspective. Apple (AAPL) will survive without him. All great institutions do just fine without their founders. Under many circumstance the founder/visionary is not even the best leader for ensuing growth phases. We all applaud Mr. Jobs for his innovative work at Apple but even he has made mistakes. He launched the first iPhone with a faulty price plan. He has struggled to get television shows and digital movies to the mainstream. He was probably 10 years late in getting Windows on the Mac. There is no doubt that he is a creative genius who produces top notch products but the scoreboard shows that no Apple product, beside the iPod, can claim even 10% global market share.
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Apple and the Major Indexes: A Technical View
The past 3-4 days I’ve been preaching caution, to go light. As the week wore on, I suggested just sitting on the sidelines until the smoke cleared. Well, there’s no denying it now that the flames are building. The S&P and Dow are unable to defend important support levels. The Nasdaq is in slightly better shape, but don’t let that resistance cloud your judgment. The reason it has been doing better for the most part is that big money is supporting it. It’s the flavor du jour in the sector rotation game, but trust me that won’t last, never does. When Apple (AAPL) sported the bullish hammer last Friday, I was encouraged 
that we could finally start thinking about long setups. But as the
 week wore on, these setups became null and void, and proved that the 
bullish hammer failed. In large part, this failure was due to the 
breakdown of the financial sector.
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The iPhone's Impact on Rivals
It didn't take Apple long to make its mark on the mobile phone industry. In the first year after the introduction of the iPhone, Apple grabbed handset share from rivals while AT&T used the device to lure customers from Alltel and T-Mobile USA. Imagine the ripple effect of a cheaper, faster, more feature-packed version of the iPhone. Not only has Apple whacked as much as $200 from the iPhone price and made it capable of working on a faster wireless network, but the company is also adding a wide range of software features that may make it more appealing to consumers and business users alike.