Sep 20, 2008 Sep 22, 2008 Sunday September 21, 2008
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SanDisk, major labels announce slotMusic preloaded microSD cards
Filed under: Portable Audio, StorageWe're not sure why the music industry thinks consumers want to buy even more physical media, but it can't seem to stop pumping out plastic in a futile attempt to stay relevant -- this time it's an initiative called slotMusic, announced today in partnership with SanDisk and several major retailers. The 1GB slotMusic microSD cards are preloaded with DRM-free 320kbps MP3s, and are aimed primarily at mobile phones -- the idea is that you'll be able to buy music and listen to it without having to sideload it onto your device using your computer at home. Sure, we can see the appeal of that, but when we half-facetiously asked SanDisk's reps if they expected us to carry around a stack of individual microSD albums, they didn't laugh when they said yes, and even told us that slotMusic media binders would be available at launch -- no, they weren't kidding. We're not sure anyone's going to be sold on going back to lugging around physical media with the iTunes and Zune WiFi stores out there, but it sounds like we'll be seeing quite a push for this from retailers and the labels -- and artists are apparently enthusiastic about using the full 1GB of space to include content beyond basic liner notes and cover art. We'll see when these launch around the holidays -- if we had to guess, we'd say this is just Ringles and CDVU+ part III.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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iPhone 2009: Apple to sell 68 million iPhones?
Hey, remember last year that optimistic forecast from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster that Apple would sell 45 million iPhones in 2009? - Yeah. How's that look now? Well, according to Businessweek, Apple plans to build 40-45 million iPhone 3Gs in the 12 months through August 2009—52% more than even Gene Munster expects. - So how many would that be total? In 2009? Oh, about 68 million iPhones.
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Microsoft's 'I'm a PC' Campaign Keeps Getting Stranger (With Videos)
Daniel Eran Dilger If subliminally advertising Apple’s Macs though implied comparisons wasn’t bad enough, Microsoft’s subsequent ads make the case of Apple’s Get a Mac message even harder in an expanded series of âI’m a PCâ ads: âI am Not Alone,â âStereotype,â and âOur CEO is a Raging Nutcase.â Microsoft $300 Million Ads Microsoftâs Mojave Attempts to Wet [...]
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Apple recalls iPhone power adapter
Today Apple announced the Apple Ultracompact USB Power Adapter Exchange program. Apple has determined that under certain conditions the new ultracompact Apple USB power adapter’s metal prongs can break off and remain in a power outlet, creating a risk of electric shock. Â We have received reports of detached blades involving a very small percentage of the [...]
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TAB Writing Positions Available
We're looking to expand our already amazing staff of writers! These are paid, freelance positions that will almost certainly guarantee you world fame and fortune. Okay, so the world fame and fortune part isn't guaranteed, but you never know! If you are interested, please contact us and include examples of previous technology related writing and we'll be in touch.
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MailWrangler, Gmail-Specific Email Client Rejected From App Store
Angelo DiNardo wrote an iPhone app called MailWranger. It’s a WebKit wrapper for Gmail’s iPhone web interface, with support for multiple Gmail accounts. He submitted the app to Apple on July 17; six weeks later, he got this response from Apple, rejecting it from the App Store: Your application duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion. This is depressing. One other iPhone developer told me about a week ago (in the wake of the Podcaster saga) that he was told by a friend at Apple not to bother working on an iPhone email client — that alternatives to MobileMail wouldn’t make it into the App Store. MailWrangler presents a significantly different (but still iPhone-specific) interface than does MobileMail. And while you can use MobileSafari to access to Gmail’s iPhone web UI (which is the UI MailWrangler presents), using MobileSafari requires you to log out and log back in manually for each separate Gmail account you wish to check. MailWrangler sounds like a terrific app for people who use multiple Gmail accounts and prefer the iPhone web UI over MobileMail. â
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Apple Ultracompact USB Power Adapter Exchange Program
You know those adorable little USB power adapters that Apple ships with the iPhone 3G? Well, they’re being recalled: Apple has determined that under certain conditions the new ultracompact Apple USB power adapter’s metal prongs can break off and remain in a power outlet, creating a risk of electric shock. We have received reports of detached blades involving a very small percentage of the adapters sold, but no injuries have been reported. â
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New Microsoft commercials are airing (videos)
Posted by Dave MertenWell folks, it looks like Microsoft has switched gears and is airing new commercials, but the three new non-Seinfeld commercials, still don't talk about Vista features. They do try to break the stereotype that cool and interesting people use Macs, and everyone else is on a Windows machine.
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Agent 18 EcoShield for iPhone 3G
The EcoShield is made from recycled plastic bottles, although the packaging doesn't give the percentage of recycled materials used. Still, the opaque plastic shell protects your iPhone 3G, has ridges on the side for an easy grip, and sports two silicone bumpers inside to protect the back of your iPhone from scratches. The bottom opening is large enough to let you dock the iPhone without removing the case. It's available in five colors. read more
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Agent 18 ClearShield for iPhone 3G
The ClearShield for iPhone 3G protects your iPhone with its translucent hard plastic, and it has ridges along the sides for grippiness. Two small silicone pads cushion the back of your phone against the inside of the case. All the buttons and ports are uncovered, and the opening for the dock port is fairly wide, and we were able to dock our iPhone 3G in most accessories without removing the case. read more
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Maccast 2008.09.21
A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Show 238. Apple's stock options backdating black eye healed? Maybe. Strong rumors of new Macbooks soon. Secrets found inside 2nd gen Touch. iPhone 2.1 seems to be delivering. Mac OS 10.5.5 update. Apple claims more home notebook share. Bill and Jerry break up the act. Quicktime exploit and iPhone trojan found. Apple recalls iPhone 3G wall adapters. Customize Address Book fields. Backing up your Keychain to the cloud. Cycle through windows within an application. Use iTunes outside your own country? Apple's watching you. 2nd Gen iPod Touch review. Does new iPhone software reduce GSM noise? Some iTunes 8 extra features. Software and ideas for maintaining your Mac. Special thanks to our sponsors: Circus Ponies - The Easy Way to Get Organized on the Mac. Try it FREE for 30 Days. Smile on My Mac, check out the new PDFpen 4 New music, London Calling by Radio Nowhere EOL: Buttons aren't toys, their cake! (Link) Solitude's always better with somebody else around, ya know? -- House (1986) Shownotes in: HTML or OPML Subscribe to the Podcast Feed or Get the MP3
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iLuv iCC72 Two-Tone Silicone Case
This silicone case has a raised bumps on the sides for enhanced tactile grippiness. It comes with a protective film for the screen. It's got a pretty wide dock opening and keeps the Home button covered. But why does it cost nearly twice as much as its sibling, iLuv's $13 iCC71 Silicone Case? Are a second tone and a few bumps really that pricey? Apparently so.
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Incipio Orion
Incipio's Orion leather iPhone sleeve comes in seven colors: black, white, olive green, pink, burnt orange, turquoise, and brown. The overstitching around the edges limits the bulk, and the Orion fits your iPhone like a glove. The inside is lined with soft suede, and a sturdy leather pull strap kicks the iPhone out a few inches when you tug it, letting you remove the iPhone from the case. read more
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4GB iPod nano 4Gs show up on Best Buy's Canadian site
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video Look, we know there's some kind of good explanation for these things existing, but Apple, don't you think it's a little weird how they keep cropping up in stores even though you never, ever mentioned them? That's right, those 4GB iPod nano 4Gs we saw at Dutch retailers last week have now made their way onto Best Buy's Canadian website. Over in North America, the players will apparently sell for $139, and will be available tomorrow... or so they say.[Thanks, Robert]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Incase Slider Case for iPhone 3G
The Slider comes in white gloss or black matte, and it fits the iPhone 3G so snugly, you might mistake it for the actual case if it had an Apple logo. It's got sleek style to spare. read more
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ImageFramer 2.1 for Mac OS X improves photorealism
Posted by Dave MertenApparent Software has announced ImageFramer 2.1, their custom image framing utility for Mac OS X. With a focus on ease-of-use, ImageFramer can apply photo-realistic frames to digital images, drawings or any original artwork. Users can add frames, watermarks, batch process several images at a time, as well as colorize or...
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Security alert: QuickTime bug may be used as a vector for attack
Posted by Dave MertenIntego, a Macintosh security specialist, today announced that it has discovered a QuickTime bug which may be used as a vector for attack. Apple's QuickTime, the media software used to play music and movies on Mac OS X and Windows, has recently been update to version 7.5.5, but a serious...
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Play 'Em announces Touch 'Em for iPhone and iPod touch (video demo)
Posted by Dave MertenPlay 'Em announces Touch 'Em is available on the iPhone App Store today for iPhone and iPod touch. Touch 'Em is a unique take on match 3 style games in which the player is able to make matches from anywhere on the play area using touches, multi-touches or even swipe...
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Marware C.E.O. Glide for iPhone 3G
The textured Nappa leather of this case (which comes in black, white, or red) sort of makes it resemble an imitation alligator wallet; it's got a bit of a sheen and it was kind of stiff until we broke it in. read more
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What $700 billion could buy
We're spending $700 billion to bail out the idiots who got us into this mess and we end up with nothing to show for it but the bag we're left holding and maybe a disaster averted (we hope). We could be spending a lot less to get a lot more. A national wi-max buildout would cost between $5 billion and $14.5 billion. That would enable every American to get high-speed access to the internet and to its education, commerce, connectivity, innovation, jobs, and value. With a lot left over. Or take the $700 billion and divide it by America's 114.5 million TV households. Minus the 40-percent-plus margin that cable companies make on internet access (that's the number I heard from them), we could provide broadband access to every one of those homes for about $300 a year. That means we could give every American free broadband access for 20 years. We could buy 3.5 billion One Laptop Per Child machines. Want world peace and understanding? Give one to every Muslim on earth and every citizen of China (or since China can afford them, make that everyone in India or everyone in Africa and South America combined) and you'd still have more than 500 million machines left over. Or we could give 4.4 million Americans free college educations at private institutions. We could give 23 million Americans free college educations at public institutions like mine. That alone would improve our competitive position and transform dying industries. Or we could more than triple total annual R&D spending in the U.S. I can't find total R&D on alternative energy but with this money we could multiply what Google.org is spending by a factor of Of course, these comparisons are specious. We'll see a lot of op-ed charts that make such apples-and-kumquats correlations. The point will always be the same: Where are our priorities? Where are we investing our money? And what are we getting out of spending this $700 billion. We, the people, damned well better make demands on our representative to set something for our money. Tom Evslin has a good list of suggestions that would in some ways treat the bailout like a bankruptcy reorganization. Robert Reich has a similar suggestion for a “giant workout of Wall Street.” These are about extracting a pound of flesh for our ton of gold. But I also want something about investing in our future and the economy: broadband access, technology, education, R&D, something that will build the future rather than mortgage it.
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Rumors of 8GB iPhone's death were greatly exaggerated
On Saturday, Apple was out of 8GB iPhones, but today they are aplenty. Rumormongers can rest once again. Read More...
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Reminder, talkcast tonight 10 pm: Open phones/Ask TUAW
Filed under: TUAW Business, PodcastsLast week's talkcast featured Robert, Christina and yours truly discussing the ins and outs of App Store 'thanks, but no thanks' software rejections, along with opinions on the new iPod lineup and more thoughts on the short-lived Seinfeld/Microsoft ad campaign. Subscribe in iTunes, use a different feed reader or simply download the MP3. Join us later tonight, Sunday September 21 at 10 pm ET for this week's show. We are going Open Phones for tonight, taking your Mac support questions as we play a game we like to call "stump the bloggers!" C'mon down and join in the fun. You can join the conversation on TalkShoe by using the shiny browser-only client; you can also use the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client that we all know and love. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm tonight. You can also listen in on the Talkshoe page or call in on regular phone or VOIP lines: dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077. For those calling in without Talkshoe IDs, you can "request to talk" by dialing *8.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Updated MacBooks may use new, lower-power NVIDIA chipset
Apple may be using a new chipset from NVIDIA instead of Intel's Centrino 2 chipset. NVIDIA's experience with graphics and lower-power consumption could be the key to the switch.Read More...
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Interviews suggest iPhone developer experience not too bad so far
Filed under: Developer, App StoreDave Taylor wrote in to tell us about several interviews he's done with iPhone developers, and many have had less frustrating experiences than Mike Ash and Fraser Speirs. Of 11 people he surveyed for his blog, I would judge that five had a positive experience submitting their app to the App Store, four were neutral, and two had a negative experience. The SDK received similar reviews, with six developers regarding it favorably, four were neutral, and one developer regarding it unfavorably. Two of the developers with positive experiences said they submitted their app before the App Store was launched, and it was approved for distribution in about a week. The two developers with negative experiences submitting their app said that the most frustrating parts were waiting and the lack of communication. The positive, neutral, and negative ratings were not a part of his interview, but were indicative of the general tone that I could determine reading the interviews. They are subjective on my part, and opinions, of course, may vary. The interviews are interesting reading if you're considering developing an iPhone app. Thanks, Dave!Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Delivery Status touch: obsessive package tracking on the move
Filed under: Software, Cool tools, iPhone, iPod touchFor fans of the Delivery Status Dashboard widget (and we are), the wait is over: Delivery Status touch is now available in the App Store for all your mobile package-tracking needs. It replicates the functionality and outstanding design of the original widget, and author Mike Piontek has made getting those unwieldy tracking numbers into the iPhone/touch application as simple as can be. Using an email-based system which runs through Mike's servers, you can add tracking information to Delivery Status touch directly from the Delivery Status widget on your Dashboard. You can also sync a bookmarklet to Mobile Safari or -- especially handy for Windows users with no Dashboard widget -- turn your deliveries into individual bookmarks for syncing. You can, of course, type the numbers in manually if it should come to that. Once you've got some packages to track, tapping the left side of a delivery icon shows a second level of details. A subsequent tap offers links to the tracking page in Mobile Safari and a Maps link which shows the current location of your package. You can then map a route to the destination and get an idea how far your precious cargo has to travel, if you want. If there are multiple packages in your shipment, a small number appears in the icon which you can tap to view the other items. Like the widget, Delivery Status touch offers support for a wide array of shipping services. I think the only thing missing may be the Pony Express. Whether you're an eBay junkie anxiously waiting for your latest score or a corporate user tracking vital pieces of your infrastructure (or one of the rest of us somewhere in the middle), Delivery Status and Delivery Status touch make a winning combination. Delivery Status touch is available in the iTunes App Store for $1.99; this pricing is listed as "introductory" so you might want to get it before it becomes more expensive.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Papers 1.8.6, an update to your personal library of science
Posted by Dave MertenMekentosj BV has announced Papers 1.8.6, the Apple design application that helps scientists on the Mac manage their personal library of scientific articles. The free update brings over 100 improvements, including the introduction of Papers Archives for easy exchange of PDFs with friends and colleagues, and full localisation in Spanish...
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Tension Software announces the release of Url Extractor X 2.0
Posted by Dave MertenTension Software announces the release of Url Extractor X 2.0. Url Extractor X is a Cocoa Native application to extract emails address and generic URLs from files on the HD or directly from the web using a list of 'starting' web addresses and working unattended after the startup. Url Extractor...
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Nano and Zune Could Learn a Lot From Each Other
The Zune has a long way to go to become a threat to the iPod. But it is getting closer. With updated Zunes and new iPods hitting the market in the past week, I spent some time with each: a black-on-black version of Microsoft's music and video player and a bright red model of Apple's iPod nano. It became clear that there are a few things Apple can learn from the Zune -- though not surprisingly, Microsoft might want to take some notes as well. The nano remains the more attractive of the two.
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Internet Radio: Not Dead, Just on Walkabout
There have been some subtle shifts in digital music this year, trends that will accelerate over the next few months as the holidays near. I'm not talking about MP3 players and the new models to tempt you. Rather, there is an increasing amount of music available that does not require the downloading of songs to a portable device. It's Internet radio on the go, and the trend is emerging as a potentially disruptive market force, putting into question the need for a satellite radio service or even the purchase of music.