The Apple Core

December 27th, 2009

7- and 10-inch iSlates to debut January 26? Wait, what?

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 8:22 pm

Categories: Rumor, Tablet

Tags: Apple Inc., BGR, Tablets, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Jason D. O'Grady

What happens when I take a little time off to break bread with family and shovel out from under a blizzard? A flurry of Apple-related tablet rumors surfaced over the weekend, that’s what! According to the latest rumors making the rounds Apple is prepping a 7- (and possibly a 10-inch) tablet called the iSlate for its public debut on January 26.

The Financial Times reports that Apple has scheduled a media event in San Francisco on Tuesday January 26, 2010, for what it calls a “major product announcement.” Meanwhile BGR says that “there is 100%” chance of a 7-inch tablet (in addition to 10-inch?). To top it all off, Apple registered iSlate.com under an anonymous Delaware corporation in 2007.

All this should be taken with more salt than the plate of Christmas dinner that I fixed myself Friday night. As Gruber deftly notes, just because Apple trademarks or patents iThis or iThat doesn’t mean that it’s actually going to make it.

As for me, I’m an optimist and fully believe that where there’s smoke there’s fire.

Tip: MacRumors

December 24th, 2009

Fun holiday diversion: Groovemaker Rock Ace

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 8:51 am

Categories: App, App Store, Music, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPod Touch, Guitar, Groovemaker Rock Ace, Jason D. O'Grady

Got a long roadtrip to the parents or grandparents this weekend? (Personally I’m all about the AutoTrain) If you’re traveling for Christmas, New Year’s Eve or your holiday of choice it’s essential to have some fun apps on your iPhone or iPod touch to take your mind off the long lines and inevitable delays.

There’s definitely some down time over the holidays and who wants to read their work email or look at spreadsheets when there’s 26″ inches of snow on the ground and Saint Nick is prepping his sleigh? That’s boring.

While you may opt to swipe over to your games screen while waiting to board, I prefer to release my inner DJ and music producer. If you’re a fan of rock music (and who isn’t?) you owe it to yourself to check out Groovemaker Rock Ace ($9.99, App Store). Rock Ace is the successor to Groovemaker’s popular 8-track loop machines for the iPhone and iPod touch — which I reviewed in November. Groovemaker’s simple and intuitive interface allows you to remix a database of sick loops into unlimited unique jams.

Grab a tasty guitar riff, throw in some massive rock beats, then add a bone crushing bass line! Anyone can now create and share non-stop metal and rock tracks for DJing, remixing, multimedia and movie soundtrack compositions on the go, in real-time, just like a professional DJ or rock producer.

Features include:

• Massive loop library of drums, bass, guitars chords/riffs/solos/pads/effects, percussion
• Rock, Metal style
• 4 included songs + 1 FREE song when you register
• 315 loops
• 85, 95, 97, 110, 130 BPM
• 280 MB of samples

Video demos are available on the Groovemaker Web site.

December 22nd, 2009

Ribbit Mobile brings voicemail transcription to the iPhone

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 9:38 am

Categories: App, App Store, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Google Inc., Google Voice, Ribbit, Ribbit Mobile, Text Messaging/SMS/MMS, Telephony, Smart Phones, Cellular Phones, Consumer Electronics

A new app called Ribbit Mobile (free, App Store) — not to be confused with iRibbit Plus, the eBay client — brings voicemail transcription to the iPhone.

Ribbit Mobile is a voicemail and call routing service and competitor to Google Voice. Its new iPhone app provides voicemail transcripts, embedded call-back and SMS links and to-call list generation.

Lifehacker notes that in addition to having better transcription accuracy than Google Voice, Ribbit Mobile was allowed into the App Store by not offering in-app calling, SMS, or address book features. Google Voice was rejected from the App Store for bypassing Apple’s Phone and Messages apps in favor of in-app communication — a no no.

On the other hand, Google Voice (for Android) allows you to hide your personal number and create a separate call-tracking list.

December 21st, 2009

Top 20 posts of the year - Nos. 1-10

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 8:23 am

Categories: Year in Review

Tags: Apple iPhone, Apple Macintosh, Apple iPod, Apple Inc., Apple iPod Touch, Tablets, Desktops, 64-Bit, Apple Mac OS, Digital Music

As 2009 winds down to a close I wanted to take a look back at the 20 most popular posts here on The Apple Core over the past year. On Friday I posted numbers 11-20, today I’ll cover the top 10 posts of the year.

1. Rumor: Tablet Mac coming this fall (originally posted May 23, 2008)

Although this post dates back to 2008, it’s pretty easy to see why this one is the number one story of the year here at The Apple Core. Tablet rumors were incredibly hot this year as the world waits for Apple to release its mythical tablet Mac. Dating as far back as 2004, the iTablet is easily the most anticipated Apple product of all time. In light of the wild success of the iPhone and App Store, both customers and competitors alike are waiting for the proverbial “other shoe to drop” in Cupertino. Many believe that the Apple tablet will build upon the successes of the iPhone/iPod touch and expand Apple’s reach into books and magazines further cementing the company’s dominant position in digital distribution of media. Since it’s not yet announced, we’ll all have to wait until Steve and company deem us worthy to buy its new, shiny device.

2. Installing Mac OS X on a Dell Mini 9 - the easy way (March 5, 2009)

Everyone wants a mini-Mac (see post #1 above) and some aren’t willing to wait for Apple to get around to it. It became extremely temping to create your own Mac OS X-based netbook in 2009 with the arrival of the cheap ($200) and eminently hackable Dell Mini 9. With a couple hours and some patience it became trivial to install Mac OS X onto the diminutive Windows netbook. And many of you did.

3. Mystery solved: Apple’s new product is iTablet (July 25, 2008)

Noticing a trend here? Readers were clearly hungry for any morsel of a rumor about the upcoming Apple tablet pushing this post into the number three spot of the year. Now if Apple would just release the darned thing!

4. Microphone support comes to the new iPod touch and classic (September 10, 2008)

Another hot topic in 2009 was the iPod touch. While it sometimes sits in the shadows of it’s flashier cousin - the iPhone - it does everything that the iPhone does (except for the phone and camera, that is) and was wildly popular as people scooped them up in droves in 2009. A feature that flew under the radar is the iPod touch 2G’s support for a microphone via Apple’s new headphones. This is boon for iPod touch users that previously had to hack together an external microphone that could be used for VOIP applications such as Skype. Apple said that it won’t restrict Wi-Fi VOIP applications as long as they don’t run over the iPhone’s cellular networks opening the potential for the device to use VOIP.

5. Will your Mac boot 64-bit Snow Leopard by default? Not unless it’s an Xserve (August 18, 2009)

When Apple released Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) only Xserves were able to boot the 64-bit version by default. All other Mac users will have to hold down the “6″ and “4″ keys at boot to load the 64-bit kernel and kexts. Every time. This annoyed and concerned many but turned out not to be a big deal. Those that were worried about being stuck in the slow lane with a 32-bit EFI quickly discovered the various workarounds for booting the x86_64 kernel on a 32-bit Mac.

6. 3G iPod touch in two to three months? (July 20, 2009)

The iPod touch was a hot commodity in 2009 (see #4 above) and rumors of its successor were quite popular. The third-generation iPod touch was indeed released on September 9, 2009 - but without the built-in camera that has been rumored.

7. Snow Leopard bug deletes all user data (Updated) (October 13, 2009)

Posts began showing up on the Apple Support forums in September from users have been losing all their data due to a nasty bug in Snow Leopard, a.k.a. Mac OS 10.6. The bug would rears its head when a user logs into their Mac’s Guest account and then tries to log back into their regular account. Data gone. Luckily this was fixed in the Apple’s latest dot release 10.6.2.

8. The $200 “Mac” (April 21, 2009)

Netbooks, hackintoshes and Psystar were all hot in 2009 (see #2 above) but this post in particular got people into a lather because it brought the entry price of a hackable netbook down below the $200 mark – even if only for a few days. All it took was $200, a copy of Leopard and a little hacking and you had yourself a netbook running the Mac OS. That’s right, for less than the price of an iPod touch you could buy a machine that runs desktop-class Mac OS applications and a Web-browser - with Flash.

9. Four core iPhones and firmware 3.0 (January 8, 2009)

While the current iPhone has (roughly) the processing power of the Sony PSP, an upgraded four core iPhone would slaughter pretty much every portable gaming platform on the market. Rumors floating around Macworld Expo last January suggested that Apple was indeed working on multicore iPhones, but to date this one has just been a rumor.

10. Hold 6 and 4 keys at boot to enable 64-bit Snow Leopard (August 19, 2009)

64-bit was a hot topic in 2009 with the announcement of Apple’s 64-bit capable Snow Leopard on June 8, 2009. Since most Macs don’t boot into 64-bit by default (see #4 above), this tip helped Mac users boot into 64-bit by holding down the “6″ and “4″ keys at boot.

Thank you for a great year!

December 18th, 2009

Top 20 posts of the year - Nos. 11-20

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 12:57 pm

Categories: Year in Review

Tags: Apple iPhone, Apple iPod, Battery, Apple Inc., Apple iPod Touch, Rosetta, Engineering, Smart Phones, Digital Music, Digital Media

As 2009 winds down I wanted to take a look back at the 20 most popular posts here on The Apple Core of 2009. Today I’ll review posts 11-20 and tomorrow I’ll post the top 10.

11. Poor iPod touch battery life (originally posted October 25, 2007)

Although this story dates back to 2007, its popularity in 2009 tells an interesting story. Namely that people searched for “iPod touch battery life” on Google a lot in 2009 – where the story comes up fifth. The iPod touch’s battery life was been a popular topic in 2007 when the first generation model got panned in the media (notably by Walt Mossberg) for its poor battery life. The issue spiked again in 2009 when the third generation model came out in September 2009 and people again started searching for ways to extend its battery life.

12. The impact of installing Rosetta on Snow Leopard (Spoiler: none) (October 28, 2009)

Apple removed Rosetta from the default installation of Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) on June 8, 2009. Many people, including myself, panicked when they saw a new dialog box pop up when trying to run a Rosetta app (in my case, the Office 2008 installer). You need to install Rosetta” it taunted. Not wanting anything to slow down my zippy Snow Leopard installation, I was reluctant to. As it turns out, Rosetta is only about 2MB in size, it only runs when needed and has almost-zero impact on performance.

13. AT&T’s $200 early upgrade fee & iPhone eligibility (June 9, 2009)

I was all excited by the iPhone 3GS announcement and rushed to place a pre-order — only to discover that I wasn’t eligible for the $199/$299 (plus two-year contract, natch) pricing that Apple advertises. Turns out that iPhone 3G customers have to wait 18 months before being eligible to upgrade to the 3GS at the advertised prices — sometimes less if you’re in a family plan. By the looks of things a lot of people were in the same boat.

14. Silent recall on MacBook Pro batteries (May 3, 2006)

Originally posted in 2006, this post comes up forth on Google when searching for “macbook pro battery recall.” People probably found their way to my four year old post about a battery issue (affecting only the first two weeks of MacBook Pros produced) after search for information about Apple’s controversial new sealed, non-user replaceable batteries.

15. What’s on the Queen’s iPod? (posted April 2, 2009)

Ah royalty, why are we so fascinated by thee? I can’t really say that I am, unless of course we’re talking about royal gadgets. This post was about the royal iPod given to the Queen by President Obama while on an official visit to the UK. What’s more interesting is what’s on Phil Schiller’s iPhone. In an interview with David Pogue Schiller mentioned a few of his favorites, including Shazam, CNN, Facebook, MLB, NBA, ESPN, Eliminate, geoDefense and Best Camera.

16. Apple’s Black Friday sale to include online shopping (November 23, 2009)

17. Another Apple Black Friday leak rumor - with prices! (November 23, 2009)

18. Apple’s Black Friday discounts leaked (November 27, 2009)

No real surprise here, everyone uses the Internet to look for deals, especially leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This combined with Apple’s legendary lack of discounting pushed these three retail posts into the Top 20.

19. Droid Preview: iPhone’s first real competition has arrived (November 5, 2009)

What’s that? “Real competition” in the same sentence as “iPhone?” What could be considered sacrilege to many turns out to be a fact. The Droid’s biggest advantages over the iPhone come courtesy of Google’s Android operating system, which graduated to version 2.0 (code named Eclair). Android is maturing quickly and its open platform, background apps, widgets and customization expose many of the chinks in the iPhone’s armor. When you combine Android 2.0 with the new hardware features included in the Droid handset – including its physical keyboard, removable battery, 5MP camera and expansion slot – you have a potent competitor to the iPhone.

20. iPhone firmware 2.2.1 released, unlockers beware (January 27, 2009)

When Apple released firmware 2.2.1 for the iPhone and iPod touch back in January it broke the iPhone Dev Team’s vaunted yellowsn0w unlock prompting a small panic. While Apple found time to break yellosn0w in the update it didn’t address a long list of missing iPhone features (cut and paste, push notifications, tethering, MMS and A2DP.) Well, at least we have all of those features now.

Wait, where’s tethering?

Stay tuned for the top 10.

December 17th, 2009

First Philadelphia Apple Store confirmed

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 9:45 pm

Categories: Apple Retail Store

Tags: Philadelphia, Apple Inc., Team Management, Recruitment & Selection, Retail, Management, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Jason D. O'Grady

Philadelphia’s first Apple Store is confirmed at 1607 Walnut street, just a few doors down from the long-suspected location of 1619 Walnut Street.

Technically Philly reports that Apple is now hiring and it’s using Craigslist to find employees - the first official confirmation that Apple will launch a retail store in Philadelphia proper.

Posted last week, Apple is seeking Mac-head “Geniuses” for its new reported 1607 Walnut Street location. In the company’s typical we’re-super-serious-yet-friendly fashion, the ad calls for those looking to join the “retail revolution.” Rumor has it that retail workers make roughly $9 an hour while its Geniuses support team can make up to $24 an hour.

December 17th, 2009

Google Maps for Android trumps iPhone, again

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 9:14 pm

Categories: Android, GPS, Google

Tags: Apple iPhone, Google Inc., Google Maps, Google Maps Navigation 3.3.1, Smart Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

Tonight I received the Android 2.0.1 update (over-the-air, mind you) on my Droid and was pleasantly surprised to notice that an update for the Google Maps app was waiting for me in the Android Market.

Release about a week ago, the latest version of Google Maps for Android (v.3.3.1) includes much more than the version number lets on.

Google Maps for Android leapfrogged the iPhone version in October 2009 with the release of Android 2.0 for the Verizon/Motorola Droid. The new version, Google Maps Navigation, includes free turn-by-turn GPS navigation with voice guidance. Plus all the benefits of being connected to the Internet, including live traffic layers and up-to-date local business data.

Google Maps Navigation 3.3.1 takes another leap forward with more new and experimental Labs features that “aren’t ready for prime time,” including:

• A compass arrow which turns the blue My Location dot into a compass arrow pointing the direction you’re facing
• A scale bar on the map, showing approximate distances
  
• Layer button (with layers for Traffic, Satellite, Latitude, and Transit)
• A terrain layer
• Popular Categories, which displays a browsable list of category searches
  

If you’re not convinced, check out this video of Google Maps Navigation in action and see how far it’s come. It really makes Maps for iPhone looking kind of anemic by comparison.

Screenshot: These Are The Droids

December 17th, 2009

The anatomy of an Apple raid

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 4:00 pm

Categories: Apple, Security

Tags: Employee, Apple Inc., Smart Phones, Telecom & Utilities, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz has posted a piece about the Apple Gestapo and how they conduct periodic raids of departments on the company’s Cupertino campus — and it’s quite scary. As someone who’s been investigated, litigated and harassed by high-paid Apple goons the piece struck a chord with me.

According to the source, Apple has moles working everywhere, especially in departments where leaks are suspected and management is not aware of them.

When Apple suspects a leak in a certain department, it send its “Worldwide Loyalty Team” (code for “security”) for a little visit. The henchmen give instructions to the department manager and supervise the operation, or “event” as they call it, never interacting with the employees.

The manager instructs all employees to stay at their desks. All mobile phones are then taken. If you need to contact anyone during the time your phone is being examined, you must ask for permission and your call will be monitored. Cameras aren’t permitted on the Apple campus, so they don’t even ask for them.

Read the rest of this entry »

December 17th, 2009

Augmented reality apps for the iPhone

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 3:37 pm

Categories: App, App Store, iPhone

Tags: Camera, App, Jason D. O'Grady

Augmented Reality apps are starting to appear in the App Store and the segment has a ton of potential with the advancements in GPS and camera technologies on smartphones like the iPhone.

Augmented Reality (AR) combines real-world and computer-generated data in real-time and the apps are impressive.

Tom Hesser mentioned a few AR apps after this week’s PowerPage podcast that I thought were worth mentioning here:

• Layar Reality Browser (free, pictured) displays real-time information, such as houses for sale, shops, tourist information and concert information as pictured in the screen shot.
• Wikitude (free) also allows you to see the world through the iPhone’s camera, but overlaid with Wikipedia content.
• Yelp (free) secretly added a new monocole feature (video demo here) which overlays their reviews in real-time over the video feed from your camera.

What are your favorite AR apps?

December 17th, 2009

Episode 121: PowerPage Podcast

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 10:18 am

Categories: Apple, Podcast

Tags: Netbooks, Nettops & MIDs, Cloud Computing, Smart Phones, Handhelds, Hardware, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

Episode 121 of the PowerPage Podcast has been posted. This week we discuss the resurgence of Web apps, how Psystar is toast, Operation Chokehold, AT&T data caps, why Facebook sold you out, how smartphones will outsell notebooks (and netbooks) in 2010 and “What’s on your Mac?” Featuring: Jason O’Grady, Rob Parker and Tom Hesser. You can subscribe to it in iTunes.