The T-List is changing a bit: From now on, it’ll be a weekend roundup of the week’s biggest stories. And the past seven days sure provided more than their share of fodder, some of it downright bizarre. Continue Reading →
Tag Archives | Apple
Maybe They Shoulda Called It the McCainBerry
As you may have noticed, we rarely broach the topic of politics here on Technologizer. We endorse no party, nor any candidate for any office. But some stories are too entertaining not to tackle.
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Podcaster for iPhone: It’s Available! It’s Good!
On Saturday, I wrote about Podcaster, the iPhone podcast-listening app which Apple refused to add to the iPhone App Store on the grounds that it duplicated functionality in iTunes. I said it sounded cool. And I now know I was right–because I’ve been enjoying using it tonight.
As reported by Sarah Perez over on ReadWriteWeb, Podcaster developer Alex Sokirynsky has used the iPhone’s “ad-hoc” distribution feature, designed to help enterprises install custom apps, to make Podcaster available outside the walled garden that is the App Store. I’m not clear how he’s doing this–I thought that ad-hoc distribution permitted installation of an app on no more than a hundred iPhones. But I followed Sokirynsky’s instructions and ended up with a working copy of Podcaster on my phone.
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Apple Exec Confirms In-House Chip for iPhone Enroute
While some scratched their heads when Apple scooped up semiconductor company PA Semi back in April, analysts suggested that Apple may have been looking to take its portable device chip manufacturing in-house.
Those analysts now appear to have been correct. In a rare leak, Apple’s chip team senior manager Wei-han Lien revealed on LinkedIn over the weekend that he was working on an ARM processor for the iPhone, the New York Times’ Bits blog claims. It should be noted that we can’t confirm this as Lien’s profile appears to either have been removed or possibly set to private, although a Google cache result from August 15 appears to suggest that this link was valid at one point.
Steve Jobs confirmed Apple’s plans for PA Semi in June, saying it would be tasked with developing chips for iPods and iPhones. Using the chips made sense: the company had made a name for itself by producing high-performance chips with low power consumption. It was also a blow to Intel, whose Atom processors have had their share of problems, and suffered from performance and cost issues.
Intel’s processors never made it into the iPhone — Samsung’s ARM processors power the unit according to analysts — but its not too out there to argue that they had hopes to get inside the popular devices eventually. With the iPhone an obvious success, Intel could stand to make quite a bit off of money by expanding the partnership to Apple’s mobile devices.
But taking out the middleman plays into Apple’s culture of silence. With a chipmaker in-house, there would be less of an opportunity for leaks, and would be able to customize the processor to the devices exact needs, possibly reducing costs elsewhere and increasing profit margins.
Either way, the move now brings the PA Semi acquisition full circle, and arguably puts Apple in a position to begin to advance the capabilities of the iPhone much faster than it would have if it would have continued to use a third-party for the iPhone’s processors.
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Napster Sells Out…to Best Buy
I like to call today’s Napster “Napster,” since it has little in common with the legendary service that bore the same name other than music. It hasn’t been a hit. But now it’s getting another shot at success.
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The iPhone’s Secret Snapshot History of Your Life
There are privacy threats that are scary because hackers are already taking advantage of ’em. There are ones that are theoretically dangerous. And then there are ones that are just plain weird.
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Software Update 2.1: A Cure for What Ails the iPhone?
If you own an iPhone 3G, the most insanely great news at Tuesday’s Apple event might not have involved the new Nano or Touch or iTunes 8. Instead, you might have been most excited by the news that the iPhone 2.1 software update was imminent. Just rereading what Steve Jobs said (via Daring Fireball), I find my pulse is racing a bit:
“2.1 software update is a big update. It fixes lots of bugs. You’ll get fewer call drops. You will get significantly improved battery life, for most customers. We have fixed a lot of bugs where if you have a lot of apps on the phone, you’re not going to get some of the crashes and other things that we’ve seen. Backing up to iTunes is dramatically faster. And so just a lot of bugs have been fixed.”
As promised, the update is now available–if you’ve got an iPhone, plug it into and use iTunes to check for an update. Apple has caught a lot of flack lately for vague release notes on updates (“bug fixes”); it may have been listening to the gripes, since the list of fixes you see before installing 2.1 is long, specific, and nifty:
That encompasses most of the quirks I’ve encountered with my iPhone 3G, and I’ll be happy to have Genius playlists available right on the phone. And I figure that once Apple’s squashed the biggest bugs, it can devote most of its time to adding new stuff that the iPhone clearly needs, such as cut-and-paste and synching of iCal and Outlook to-do lists.
I’m downloading and installing 2.1 right now, and if I have anything to say about, I will. But I figure that if the update does its job, it’ll be kind of hard to review–I’ll just notice over time that my iPhone has stopped doing all the things that made up the hate half of the love-hate relationship I’ve had with it. (Actually, there’s one formal test I know I want to do–there’s a hotel lobby in downtown San Francisco where my iPhone drops every single call I make. If that problem goes away, I’ll consider iPhone software 2.1 a miracle cure.)
If you install the update, lemme know what you think…
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New iPod Nano: The Technologizer Review
The iPod Nano isn’t just the smallest iPod with a screen–it’s also the one that Apple reinvents on the most aggressive schedule. It debuted as a skinny plastic music player in September 2005; became a skinny aluminum music player a year later; and transmogrified into a short, squat aluminum music and video player a year after that. And earlier this week, the Nano morphed once more: It’s now skinny again, but with the video capability of its third-generation predecessor, and a few new features and refinements.
The visual difference between the new, narrow fourth-generation Nano and the square model it replaces is the most striking industrial-design change for an Apple product since…well, since the square Nano replaced the narrower 2G model. The new Nano may look different, but its features haven’t changed radically; most owners of the previous Nano shouldn’t feel too lustful over its successor. But I ended up liking the new model more than I thought I would at first glance.
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T-Poll: iPod Nano Abbott vs. iPod Nano Costello
The new skinny iPod Nano is here, in its 8GB version, at least–I know, because I have one right here. I’m working on a review, and one of the most significant differences compared to its predecessor is the one that’s by far the most obvious: The old one was short and squat, while the new one is tall and slender.
Which design is better? On some level it probably boils down to personal preference. I’m still making my mind up, but I thought I’d ask you which has more appeal. (Other differences between the two Nanos: The new version is thinner and lighter, and the color is on both sides, versus the silver back of the previous model.)
Here are the two candidates–that’s the new guy on the left, of course. (Abbott and Costello metaphor used in headline stolen from Ryan Block.)
And here’s the poll–thanks for voting!
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Department of Alarming iPhone Error Messages
Okay, I just plugged my iPhone 3G into its sync cable, and got this message in iTunes:
Pretty alarming, no? And vague–what does “not recognized” mean? Why is it talking about activating the phone for service, when I activated it the morning that iPhone 3Gs went for sale? Why does it suggest that I travel to an Apple Store for more information? There’s nothing that Apple’s knowledge base could tell me? What’s with the little padlock in the upper right-hand corner?
Postscript: Rather than making plans to visit an Apple Store, I unplugged the cable, then reconnected it. My iPhone is fine, and I’m relieved…but still puzzled.
Anyone else ever see this?