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Secret source gives iLounge some Apple tablet rumor love
Those of us in the Mac rumor and news business (is there a difference?) love it when we get a good tip, especially when that tip is from someone who has given us good, solid info in the past. iLounge featured a post last night called "Ten New Details on the Apple Tablet" that passed along some rumors that they've received from one of those solid sources.While I won't parrot back the bullet list of ten details that are in the iLounge post, here's the gist of the article: Apple has created at least three prototypes of what editor-in-chief Jeremy Horwitz calls the iPad. The prototype that is still in the running has a 10.7" diagonal display, runs iPhone OS, and looks like a large iPhone 3G. The device will have two variations, one with 3G networking built-in (think of it as an über-iPhone 3GS) and another without it (a mongo iPod touch). The larger display is expected to have about 7 times the surface area of the iPhone, and about 6 times the resolution, allowing easy reading of books, magazines, and cropped newspapers. With the extra screen space, the new devices are designed to bring ebook functionality to the iPhone platform as well as make a more compelling platform for games, media, app, and the web. Apple doesn't expect this device to compete with netbooks, hence their continued denial that the company will come out with a netbook killer. Instead, this will be an extension of the iPhone platform.Horwitz finishes his list by noting that the device is still awaiting a green light from Steve Jobs, and that it has about an 80% chance of making it to market. If it's given the go-ahead, the source is stating that the device would be announced on or before January 19, 2010 and would go on sale in May or June. While this is still a rumor, the information is from the same source that gave iLounge the scoop on the iPod nano 5G, the iPhone 3GS, and the Chinese iPhone 3G. It appears we'll still have to wait until 2010 before the fabled tablet appears in our local Apple Stores.
Apple tablet rumors redux: 10.7-inch display, iPhone OS underneath
At this point, it's difficult to say exactly what we believe. Just a fortnight ago, we heard that the so-called Apple tablet would ship with a 9.6-inch display and a P.A. Semi processor, and now iLounge is hearing from "trusted sources" that something other than that is true. The latest round of maybe-sorta-probably-not-true whispers is that the current prototype of the device boasts a 10.7-inch display and a resolution near 720p. Of course, we've no idea where Apple would source a capacitive touchscreen of that size, but we wouldn't put anything past El Jobso. Moving on, we're told that iPhone OS will be used, signifying that this will be more of an advanced media player / light communication device than a full-on netbook competitor. Finally, we're told that a 3G and non-3G version will be offered, and if Mr. Boss signs off on it, it could be announced as early as January with a June / July ship date. Oh, and it'll come pre-loaded with Unicorn-approved applications and a vial of fairy dust -- huzzah!
Apple passes the 2 billion download mark with App Store
Surprise, surprise -- the App Store's reached yet another wild milestone, hitting a whopping two billion downloads since its inception a little over a year ago. It took a little under three months to get from one billion to 1.5 billion downloads and a hair over two months to get from 1.5 to two, so the pace is accelerating just a bit -- a function both of total iPhones / iPod touches in circulation and of the ever-increasing size of the App Store's catalog, which now stands at over 85,000. The most interesting stat here might be the fact that there are actually more than 125,000 developers enrolled in Apple's iPhone dev program, meaning there are at least 40,000 devs out there who need to feel the crack of the whip (or, like some of us, just want access to beta firmware).
China Unicom prices iPhone for October 1st launch
While the iPhone got an official announce for China last month, its retail pricing and delivery date have remained a mystery. That's going to change later today when China Unicom is expected to announce an October 1st launch for Cupertino's darling. Eight service packages ranging in price from 126 yuan (about $18) to 886 yuan (about $130) per month will be available to Unicom's 141 million subscribers from a pool of 700 million cellphone toting Chinese. How much will it cost? 5,000 yuan or a steep $733 green retail. Subsidies of about 893 yuan (about $131) to 4,253 yuan (about $623) will be offered for those signing to long-term plans on Unicom's fledgling 3G network. Looks like somebody's standard of living is on the rise.
iPhone MMS is now live!
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/iPhone_MMS_is_now_live'; All you've gotta do is plug that iPhone 3G or 3GS into iTunes, run the teensiest of updates, restart the phone, and you can at last make that fashionably late entrance into the 21st century you've always dreamed of. That's right folks, MMS on the iPhone is live on AT&T at last. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
TI joins HP, creates official business calculator port for iPhone
Calculators were the original handheld computers, but unlike the whole PDA fad, they've had amazing staying power through their 40-year history -- to this day, buttoned-up dudes crunching numbers at wooden desks have HP 12Cs next to them not for the kitschy retro street cred, but because they're functional, familiar, and do exactly what they're expected to do. Thing is, even purpose-suited perfection can only carry a product for so many years; eventually, raw technology and a new generation of users with different expectations are going to conspire to tear down the status quo. HP was the first giant to recognize that it might be a good idea to have virtual versions of its products available for a more modern medium, porting the 12C and 15C to the iPhone; now, TI -- HP's archrival in the calculator business for decades -- is doing the same by offering its BAII Plus as a $14.99 download from the App Store. That's exactly the same price as the 12C, so come on, you HP and TI diehards -- duke it out and tell us which brand makes the better adding machine once and for all, won't you?
TomTom clears up iPhone car kit slip: £99.99 for the hardware alone, app sold separately
Oh, brother. TomTom just hit us up with the real details on its iPhone car kit slip this morning, and we've got a feeling you won't like what it has to say. It confessed that the posting was indeed a mistake, and thus, the pricing was also incorrect. If you'll recall (c'mon, it wasn't that long ago), the Apple store listing explained that the £99.99 car kit included the iPhone app, when in reality, that price definitely does not include the app. Jump on past the break for TomTom's official statement, which now curiously states that the "iPhone 2G" will be compatible with the car kit, yet doesn't mention the iPod touch at all.
AT&T slips some iPhone MMS rollout details for Friday
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/AT_T_slips_some_iPhone_MMS_rollout_details_for_Friday'; We've just heard from AT&T that new carrier settings for the iPhone 3G and 3GS will be available "late morning" Pacific Time (which would be early afternoon Eastern) this Friday, September 25, which will finally enable MMS support. Owners will have to tether up to iTunes to grab those settings, so fish out your cable (as if you don't have it permanently attached to your machine already) and make sure you've got some solid time in front of the computer to check for the update over and over (and over) again, alright? [Thanks, Frank]
Google adds support for push Gmail via Exchange ActiveSync
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/tech_news/Google_adds_support_for_push_Gmail_via_Exchange_ActiveSync'; Google Sync's pretty awesome as it is, but it's had one glaring flaw in its implementation: no support for Gmail, just Calendar and Contacts, which means you aren't able to get true push email delivered. Well, they've gone ahead and completed the holy Google trinity today with the introduction of Gmail support into the Exchange ActiveSync mix, so any phone with Exchange support should theoretically be able to get in on the action. We say "theoretically" because they're only quoting support for the iPhone and Windows Mobile at this point, but it seems like anything that can speak the EAS protocol should be able to make this happen. Let us know your trials, tribulations, and successes getting this set up in comments, won't you?
Mouse steals cheese, iPhone 3.1 jailbreak released
The legendary Dev-Team has done it again. It just released the new version of the Pwnage Tool, a desktop application that's used to create custom firmware packages to jailbreak iPhones and iPod touches. Jailbreaking is the act of modifying the official firmware in order to run applications not approved by Apple. Chief among those applications, at least for the iPhone crowd, is the SIM unlock that allows the phone to be used on unofficial cell phone service providers. The Dev-Team has found holes in previous versions of the iPhone OS that allow this code modification and has developed tools to make exploitation easier for the average user to accomplish. Once implemented, the jailbreak process installs an app that acts an unofficial App Store of sorts. The iPhone or iPod touch user can browse and install games, utilities, themes, and general applications. Cydia, one of these installer apps, even has a store with applications for sale. Traditionally, when Apple releases a new iPhone OS version, that software upgrade breaks any jailbreak and SIM unlock present on the device. And so, you end up with the cat-and-mouse game that Steve Jobs alluded to shortly after the first firmware loophole was exploited and the original iPhone was unlocked. Well, the mouse has stolen the cheese once again, and the Pwnage Tool released today will jailbreak the latest firmware, version 3.1.* The big asterisk at the end of that previous sentence is that the Tool will only work on about half of the devices that use the iPhone OS -- only the original iPhone, original iPod touch, and iPhone 3G. The iPod touch line just released, as well as the 2nd generation iPod touch and the iPhone 3GS, cannot be jailbroken at this time. That means if you've already upgraded to 3.1 on your 3GS, you still won't be able to SIM unlock it as of the time of this post. So, if you want to SIM unlock your iPhone 3G or the original model, Pwnage Tool 3.1 should do the trick. On the 3G, you'll need to use Icy or Cydia to also install the ultrasn0w app that actually performs the software unlock; however the original iPhone should be unlocked without this additional step. You will need a Mac to run Pwnage Tool 3.1, but a Windows version is expected in the near future. Also expected soon is redsn0w, for both Mac and Windows, that further simplifies the jailbreak process by avoiding the need to create a custom firmware package. Keep in mind, if you've been waiting for a jailbreak solution before upgrading to the latest firmware, many users have had fairly substantial issues with iPhone 3.1. My fellow TUAW blogger, Josh Carr, has reported that lots of iPhones and iPod touches are working poorly after upgrading. You may wish to hold off and stick with 3.0 or 3.0.1 until a solution is found, either by Apple or some other group of smart people.But, if you're so inclined, you may find links to download Pwnage Tool 3.1 on the Dev-Team's official blog. Make sure to read the instructions thoroughly, and take heed of all of the warnings. They are there for a reason.
Is the future of Mac...the iPhone?
I was chatting with my TUAW colleagues this morning about Mac versus iPhone programming. And as per usual with these conversations, we veered in the direction of unfettered speculation. It's an occupational hazard. As someone who regularly develops on both platforms, I declared that the iPhone represents the future of Mac programming. The iPhone, I posited stated, offers a great new platform without the need to be fully backwards compatible like the Mac. Our own Victor Agreda challenged me to back up that position. After a bit of time and thought, I decided to do so in this post. My key point is this: Apple's engineers have learned a lot of important design lessons during the history of OS X. When the iPhone debuted, it gave those engineers the chance to rebuild an OS and an API from the ground up. Those engineers could craft a platform and its libraries that built on the Mac's successes without dragging along its less fortunate design decisions. Yes, there were some lemon frameworks that initially made the grade, but over time, Apple has reduced their number. Even now, Apple continues its iPhone design process, adding new frameworks and APIs at a prodigious rate. The iPhone OS remains a work in progress, developing in ways and directions that the initial release two years ago could not have anticipated. And Apple does this, knowing fully that the closed platform allows them a great deal of design freedom that would not have been possible on the open Macintosh. In contrast, consider in how many ways the Mac's successful history drags the platform down. A commitment to existing APIs and historical design practices show up in nearly every Mac development project. The simple elegance of the iPhone's built-from-the-start-as-Objective-C 2.0-based API is largely missing from Cocoa libraries. Whether you're working with buttons, menus or simple text views, the iPhone development approach simply works better: beautiful 2.0-style properties, consistent API design, better-thought-out object inheritance trees, and so forth. With the iPhone, you see a great new platform evolving without the need to be fully backwards compatible Snow Leopard, with its minimal API changes has bought the Macintosh a few years of stability. But I think it's time for Apple to rethink the platform as a whole, re-imagining its API through the lens of current iPhone OS development. While Snow Leopard offers Apple the room to stay still for now, I can see Apple moving forward in a separate engineering effort to Cocoa Touch Mac, a hypothetical cross-platform OS that supports general development on iPhone and future Mac devices like my imaginary snow-princess-rainbow-pony-iTablet. The ghost of NeXT-past, as TUAW-colleague Joachim Bean puts it, still haunts us. It's time to exorcise the unhelpful bits of that pervasive spirit and usher in the new age of the iPhone and its API design examples. Mac OS X is, and has been, a superb development platform. What I'm suggesting is that iPhone OS might just be a better one.
OTOY uses AMD GPUs, black magic to put Crysis on iPhone
No need to dust off your spectacles -- Crysis on the iPhone has been achieved. Just last week we took a peek at the graphical enhancements on the iPhone 3GS, but this demonstration didn't rely on the factory goods from Apple. Instead, a recent OTOY demonstration put to use some of AMD's newest GPU technology in order to play back one of the leading-edge 3D titles on a smartphone. In short, OTOY renders the game on remote servers and then sends information to a recipient; needless to say, an HDTV displayed all sorts of artifacts, but on a screen that's just a few inches large, those flaws become invisible. So, is this really the killer app to supplant Apple's own App Store for gaming on the iPhone? We get the feeling OTOY needs at least few clean-cut commercials with little-known underground music before they can bank on that.[Via SlashGear]
First iPhone game with 3GS-specific graphics released?
Back in June it was revealed that the iPhone 3GS' newfound support of OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics put one of the first meaningful, material boundaries in software capability between iPhone generations (magnetic compass and video would be two other biggies), meaning that 3D-accelerated games targeted specifically for the 3GS platform could look a good deal fancier than their 2G / 3G counterparts -- and furthermore, they could be built to only work on the 3GS if the developer chose not to build in support for both. French software shop Eurocenter is touting that its newly-released Adrenaline Golf is the first game to take advantage of the 3GS' added graphics capabilities -- and while we can't verify that no other application submitted to the App Store in the past three months hasn't utilized OpenGL ES 2.0 in some regard, we can definitely verify that it looks way cooler on the 3GS. The good news is that Eurocenter has set up the game so that it chooses the correct graphics engine at runtime, regardless of the iPhone you're using, but after you see it on the 3GS it might seem a little inadequate on the older gear. Follow the break for our side-by-side demo of the sweet 3GS-exclusive water reflections, which are considerably better than real life since you don't risk getting wet. Update: Sure enough, Eurocenter got a little overzealous with their claim -- Rocking Pocket's Blue Skies has had 3GS-specific enhancements for a while now. Thanks, everyone!
iPhone OS 3.1 enforcing Exchange device encryption, only supported by iPhone 3GS
Noticing a "Policy Requirement" error when trying to use your Microsoft Exchange account after upgrading to OS 3.1? Then there's a good chance you're not using an iPhone 3GS, as Apple has just confirmed via a support page that the upgrade can now enforce the Exchange ActiveSync mailbox policy requiring encryption on the device, which just so happens to only be supported by the 3GS (guess that "S" stands for more than just speed). Not surprisingly, the only solution for non-3GS users is to contact their Exchange Server administrator and hope that they're willing to change the policy to no longer require device encryption.
Navigon sneaks text-to-speech, iPod controls and location sharing into MobileNavigator app
TomTom's much-ballyhooed iPhone GPS app best step its game up, else it'll get left in the dust by none other than Navigon. The lesser-known nav company today introduced the second major update for its MobileNavigator iPhone app (our impressions are here), and the feature additions aren't anything to scoff at. For starters, the program has become the first on-board navigation app for the iPhone to gain text-to-speech functionality, and just in case hearing street names belted out through a robotic voice ain't good enough for your high standards, the inclusion of iPod control should win you over. At long last, drivers can access the full range of iPod functionalities with a single click from map access, and it even recognizes the shuffle feature to keep you guessing. Finally, a location sharing function has been added to make stalking your pals that much easier; to close, Navigon has knocked $10 off the purchase price, bringing it down to a nearly-palatable $89.99 -- and yes, those who already own it can download the update gratis.[Via HotHardware]
Rhapsody App approved by Apple: 8 million tracks streaming to the ether (update: video!)
We had a feeling this day was coming. After Spotify's subscription music app was approved, offline listening intact, there was every indication that Rhapsody was next for christening. Especially with the feds watching Apple's every move. The free download just went hot and requires a $15 per month Rhapsody To Go subscription -- you can try it for free for a week -- and streams 64kbps quality (ugh) music over WiFi or cellular data (only, no off-line access) from a catalog of about 8 million tracks offered by the MTV and RealNetwork tie-up. Now go 'n get it.Update: Added video demo after the break.[Via Komo News, thanks Bill Y.]Read -- Rhapsody App [iTunes link]
iPhone OS 3.1 is official, available today
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/iPhone_OS_3_1_is_offical_available_today'; Apple just announced iPhone OS 3.1, which includes Genius recommendations for the App Store. The update also brings a ringtone store, with over 30,000 ringtones at $1.29 a pop. 3.1 is available today for free to iPhone users and iPod touch users with 3.0.
Apple pulls C64 App after Manomio shenanigans revealed
Come on Manomio, what did you expect? Did you really think Apple would leave your C64 emulator in the App Store after it was revealed that the BASIC interpreter was still in your software, exposed with a little up, up, down, down, left, right trickery? That's a clear breach of the SDK and well, downright sneaky. In a blog post to its site, Manomio claims that it had "no intention of tricking basic into the app" and only left the code in to be remotely activated later should Apple change its policy. Of course, with so much money left on the table, Manomio promptly submitted a new, presumably BASIC-free app for approval. Something we're sure Apple will get right on.[Via The iPhone blog]Read -- Enable BASIC in C64 hackRead -- Manomio's plea for mercy
Apple approves officially-licensed Commodore 64 emulator for iPhone
Well, it's almost certainly not a signal that Apple is opening the door to emulators of all sorts on the iPhone, but the newly (and finally) approved Commodore 64 emulator is still a fairly notable first for the platform -- representing not only the first officially-available emulator, but perhaps the first app that actually runs code (even if it is a couple of decades old). In this case, that first bit apparently wasn't too big a point of contention for Apple, considering that the app had all the necessary licensing rights lined up, but the second issue was, and ran right up against a clause in the iPhone 2.0 SDK that prevented apps from containing their own executable runtimes. As it happens, the key to bridging that divide around that was none other than iPhone 3.0, which contains a new feature for in-app purchases that the C64 emulator will take advantage of to let folks purchase additional games, rather than load arbitrary game code downloads. Interestingly, while this newly-approved version of the emulator also no longer exposes a BASIC interpreter, Manomio has added a note to the app that it "should be resolved in a future update," although it's not quite clear if that's just wishful thinking or not. In the meantime, you can grab the app right now with five bundled games for $4.99.
Spotify launches on iTunes App Store and Android Market, premium members only
As expected, Apple has blessed Spotify's streaming subscription music application with a home in its iTunes App Store. Additionally, the app is also making a first, less ballyhooed appearance on the Android Market. The free app allows you to stream any of its nearly 4 million tracks over WiFi or 3G and syncs playlists for playback while disconnected. It's available exclusively to Spotify Premium members in the UK, Sweden, Spain, France and Norway -- only the iPhone app is available in Finland. Great, so does that mean Rhapsody is next? Magic i-ball says all signs point to yes. Video overview of each app after the break.P.S. We're seeing reports that the iPhone app won't play music in the background. The fix? Android.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]Read -- Spotify on Android Read -- Spotify on App Store
