Bloomberg:
Richard Williamson, who oversaw the mapping team, was fired by Senior Vice President Eddy Cue, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information wasn’t yet public. Cue, who took over last month as part of a management shakeup, is seeking advice from outside mapping-technology experts and prodding digital maps provider TomTom NV (TOM2) to fix landmark and navigation data it shares with Apple.
Eddy is cleaning house.
Harry Marks rounds up all the excuses from major publications who falsely reported on Monday that Google bought ICOA. Not a single apology, but lots of finger-pointing.
Update: Matt Panzarino at TheNextWeb contacted Harry and pointed out that they did apologize for posting the wrong information on their Web site.
I think Matt and TheNextWeb are missing the bigger point here. They didn’t do their jobs. Posting the story in the first place was the big mistake. Picking at Harry because they did, in fact, admit to not doing their jobs is a pointless exercise that only makes people like me point out once again that they didn’t do their jobs.
Next time, leave it alone and take your lumps for not doing your job.
Samsung has announced the winner of its Smart App Challenge and look who made it to the top! Our old “friends” from Feeling touch with their Gun & Blood shooter! “Their” game is surprisingly similar to our very own Overkill. People with really sharp eyes might even call it a clear copycat, a rip off, a shameless robbery, and we would be inclined to agree with them.
Stay classy folks.
If a musician’s greatness is measured by the breadth of his influence — and how else should we gauge it? — Jimi Hendrix’s legacy commends him as one of the most inspiring virtuosos who ever lived. Consider just a few of the acts who explicitly cite Hendrix as central to their sound, or who pay tribute by incorporating at least something of him into their work: The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Miles Davis (who, of course, influenced Hendrix, as well), ZZ Top, Stephen Stills, Public Enemy — the list is as long as it is dizzying in its variety.
iOS 6 featured a redesigned clock app that uses a design Apple licensed (post-release) from the Swiss Federal Railways.
If you or someone on your holiday shopping list likes the simple, bold design enough to wear on the wrist or hang on your wall, Swiss watch maker Mondaine reminds you that they’re the official licensee of the design for wristwatches and wall clocks.
“Mondaine would like to welcome all iPad users to the worldwide club of Swiss Railway Clock enthusiasts – a club Mondaine and its consumers have been part of for 26 years,” said the company in a statement.
Mondaine sells the watches worldwide through retailers, e-tailers, museum shops and elsewhere.
Apple’s iPhone 5 sales have pushed iOS into the No. 1 spot for smartphone operating systems in the US, according to a new report released on Tuesday.
Kantar Worldpanel ComTech’s study shows that iOS now has 48.1 percent of US smartphone sales, while Android has 46.7 percent, pushing it back to second place.
Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at Kantar said the last time Apple was able to overtake Android was after the release of the iPhone 4S. However, this time the research company expects Apple to beat its previous high of 49.3 percent, achieving its highest share ever of the smartphone market.
The study shows that 61 percent of iPhone 5 purchases have come from existing iPhone owners upgrading, but there have been some crossgrades as well. People switching from Android accounted for 13 percent of iPhone 5 purchases and 6 percent of BlackBerry users have switched to the iPhone 5.
“An impressive 92% of existing Apple owners in the US said they will choose an iPhone the next time they upgrade,” said Sunnebo. “While loyalty is clearly key, it is also important to make sure that new customers are attracted to your brand. With roughly 60% of US iPhone 5 sales coming from existing customers and 40% from new consumers, Apple is achieving this at the moment – a clear sign of the strength of the brand in the US marketplace.”
Kantar noted that Apple is also enjoying share gains in four of the five major European countries, although Germany and Spain remain tough markets for them.
Great sounding amps. Check out the videos on the page for some tone samples.
Apple took the wraps off the new iMac at a special event in San Francisco where the iPad mini was released, but the new slim desktop computer is only hitting store shelves now. Apple announced Tuesday that the new iMac will be on store shelves on Friday, November 30, 2012.
The new iMac has been redesigned with an aluminum and glass enclosure that’s a scant 5mm thick at its edge. The new iMac comes equipped with 8GB of RAM, a 1TB hard disk drive and Intel Core i5 or i7 processors depending on the configuration.
Another new feature of the iMac is “Fusion Drive,” an optional configuration that pairs the hard disk drive with a 128GB Solid State Disk (SSD), paired together to provide maximum performance.
The new iMac comes in 21.5 and 27-inch configurations starting at $1,299. Expect the 21.5 models first.
Great news for classic gaming enthusiasts: RantMedia Games announced on Twitter Monday that its Vectrex Regeneration software is expected in the App Store “in just …. three days !”
Vectrex Regeneration recreates the original Vectrex home video game system on iOS devices. While the Vectrex was never a huge hit, it’s a cult classic that’s achieved legendary status in the years since its release.
The Vectrex debuted in late 1982. Unlike other video game consoles of the era, it didn’t plug into a television set – it came with its own integrated nine-inch black and white display. This was because the Vectrex displayed vector graphics, similar to those you may remember from classic coin-op games of yore like Asteroids and Tempest.
A game controller sported a small joystick and four buttons. While the display was limited to black and white, games shipped with colorful translucent plastic overlays that would be inserted in front of the display to provide a color effect. Unfortunately, the Vectrex – never a huge hit for its original creator – ended up cratering in the video game crash of 1984.
Vectrex Regeneration seeks to recreate the experience of using the Vectrex on the iPad. The app will include thirty games. Additional games and features can be unlocked using in-app purchases, like support for the iCade controller.
Chris Woodyard for USA TODAY:
GM says today that it has found a way to link Siri to the new infotainment systems in its two smallest cars, Chevrolet Spark and Sonic.
What’s interesting about this is that Chevy is launching this feature on a minicar and a compact model ahead of doing it on luxury brands. You’ll need an iPhone, of course, but if you have a 4S or 5, you’ll be able to activate Siri using steering wheel-mounted controls.
Rhett Allain for Wired:
Clearly, I am now addicted to Bad Piggies. Well, I’m not actually obsessed with Bad Piggies, I am obsessed with the analysis of Bad Piggies. My first Bad Piggies post looked at the size of stuff. The basic method was to look at the acceleration of objects in the game and assume that the events take place on Earth where the vertical acceleration should be -9.8 m/s2. I don’t think I did the best job.
Allain uses a lot of math and analysis to figure out the physics of Rovio’s hit game, “Bad Piggies.”
Kinda scary, actually.
Michael Bartholomew takes a look mobile market share, usage share and the disconnect between the two.
Arik Hesseldahl got to the bottom of rumors that Google bought ICOA Wireless:
But people within the company say that contrary to a press release posted on PR Web, Google has not bought ICOA, a Rhode Island-based player in public Wi-Fi Networks.
It fooled a lot of people this morning. Good job Arik.
From October 2011 through September 2012, the combined net profit of Microsoft, Google, eBay, Yahoo, Facebook and Amazon was $34.4 billion. Apple alone made $7 billion more.
In the same period, Dell, Asus, Intel, Acer, IBM, Lenovo and HP, i.e. virtually the entire PC industry, made $19.3 billion or less than half of Apple’s profit.
How’s that for some context.
A long-time Mac user, Mark has been writing about technology in some form for over ten years. Recently returning to the guitar after a lengthy absence, he feels he is personally responsible for guitar shops in his area posting record quarters this year. Mark enjoys Fenders, Gibsons, and the distance between his house and the neighbors. His rarely-updated personal site is markcrump.com and you can follow him on twitter at twitter.com/crumpy.
My main Strat is a 30-year-old American model, but I don’t like to gig with it. It’s kept nice and safe at home. I’ve been looking for a gigging Strat for a while now and had decided to get a cheap Squier and trick it out. I’d create a sleeper guitar — one that looked cheap but had decent hardware.
With the new Fender USB Squier guitar1 I may have found that Strat. As an added bonus, I can plug it directly into my Mac or iOS devices.
Most of the recording I do these days is through a direct interface like the Apogee Jam so I’m thrilled this guitar has a micro-USB output. The Squire shows up as a USB Guitar in GarageBand’s Audio Inputs section in the app’s preferences, so there is no extra configuration needed — just plug it in and go.
For $200, you get a decent guitar. I was expecting I’d be replacing most of the hardware, but it doesn’t look like that will be necessary. Made in Indonesia, the tuners and bridge on this Strat are decent at least. The neck is nice and thin, and is very close to the neck on my American Strat. The biggest complaint I have is that the fret edges are very rough and need a good going-over with a fret file. That’s an easily correctible problem. I haven’t given it a proper setup, but out of the box the action was fine.
I’m not sure what wood it is made out of, but it’s by far the lightest guitar I own. It’s much lighter than my basswood Ibanez RG 570 guitar, even accounting for the difference in thickness (and obviously, it’s far lighter than my American Strat). As a result, even with the humbucking pickup it’s a tad on the bright side, even for a Strat.
I was pleasantly surprised to find the humbucker is actually a hot little pickup. I was getting some good pinch harmonics out of it, which requires some gain and cooperation from the guitar’s pickups.
At some point, I’ll probably put in some Fender Fat 50s and a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates pickup, but that’s more for my love of those pickups and compensating a little bit for the ultra light body.
The logo is reminiscent of the old Fender spaghetti logo, which I love.
I wasn’t sure how the guitar would sound when I used the digital outputs. I’m happy to report there is no noticeable latency and I detected no tonal differences when I used the micro-USB port on the guitar. As a control test, I also used my Apogee Jam and it sounded the same through that interface.
You can also plug it directly into your iOS device with the included micro-USB to 30-pin cable. I tested it out via AmpliTube Slash on my iPad and again, I experienced no latency issues.
The included cable is a 30-pin plug, so you’ll need one of the Lighting adapters for it to work on the newer iOS devices. Obviously, if you’re using the direct connection ports you cannot use your stomp boxes, so if a lot of your sound comes from your pedals, you’re out of luck.
Using my iPhone as an amp reminds me of when I’d throw a Rockman X100 into my gig bag so I could practice at school. With the Squier Strat, I can now do that with one cable, instead of an analog cable and an Apogee Jam.
Even through my live rig, it sounded great. This guitar is a lot of fun to play. It does not feel like a cheap guitar at all (other than the frets requiring a dressing and lighter body). Most importantly, it sounds like a Strat.
The Fender USB Strat is sold exclusively through the Apple Store. ↩
Fascinating how one of the most recognized landmarks came to be.
But what makes Amazon not just amazing but downright dangerous is that as a financial matter it has something even better than profits—the boundless faith of the investment community.
It’s truly amazing how the investment community treats Amazon differently than many other companies.
Ringer for iOS and Mac. Effortless iPhone ringtones, text tones, and alert tones. Easily select just the right part of your song to turn into your ringtone. See the waveform for your media so you can quickly find the spot you are looking for. Control fade in and fade out. Choose the gap between rings. Auto volume balance keeps ringtones from being too loud or too quiet. Ringer on the Mac lets you use just about any media including video and automatically imports tones into iTunes, ready to sync to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.
I can’t wait to see Microsoft’s quarterly earnings when they reveal how many Surface tablets were sold. They will tell us, right?
We’ve come a long way in a relatively short time.
One is packed, one isn’t.
On March 5th, a collection of 12 previously unreleased recordings by Jimi Hendrix will see the light. People, Hell and Angels follows Hendrix in 1968 and 1969 as he works on material apart from the Jimi Hendrix Experience and suggests new, experimental directions.
I’ll definitely be buying this album.
The big kahuna in the mobile shopping landscape: the iPad. Apple’s tablet “generated more traffic than any other tablet or smartphone, reaching nearly 10 percent of online shopping,” according to IBM’s report. The next device in line was the iPhone, with 8.7% of shopping traffic, then all Android devices combined with 5.5% of traffic. The iPad’s 10% slice of mobile retail translates to a whopping 88.3% of tablet shopping traffic, with the Nook, Kindle and Samsung Galaxy tablets all eking out shares of 3% or less.
What is it people do with these other tablets and smartphones?
This fellow was leaving a voicemail when he witnessed an accident between a man and four old ladies. What happens next is nothing short of hilarious. The Loop reader Jack sent this to me and said the guy’s laughter reminded him of me during Amplified.
DataGenetics:
According to a recent article in Wired magazine, a body could be worth up to $45 million — Calculated by selling the bone marrow, DNA, lungs, kidneys, heart … as components.
What about the value of a body based around just the chemical elements that make up a corpse?
Turns out if you break down a human body to its raw components, it’s worth about $160.
In this context it becomes a really meaningless number. This exact same thought exercise is exactly what comes to my mind every time a tech blog quotes iSuppli about how much the latest Apple product cost to build.
Thanks to Timeline 3D for sponsoring this weeks RSS feed on The Loop. Timeline 3D for iOS. The most simple way to make beautiful multimedia timelines.
Ars Technica:
While we’re waiting for Apple’s new ship date of “late November” to arrive, let’s take a look back at how iTunes has evolved in the last 12 years.
It’s interesting to see how much (and, in some ways, how little) iTunes has changed over the past 11+ years.
Alan Gratz on TOR.com:
I saw Skyfall last night, and after breaking it down, I can come to only one conclusion: this is the Bond film in which it is revealed that James Bond is a Time Lord.
On Twitter this afternoon I mused that at some point, the James Bond films should tackle the question of why Bond is a different person every five or ten years. Some of the folks I converse with on Twitter offered a good suggestion – that James Bond is a Time Lord (like Doctor Who).
Turns out that children’s book author Alan Gratz hypothesized this following the release of Skyfall, the latest Daniel Craig Bond adventure. It makes for an entertaining read.
Extra credit for the blog post’s use of a screencap of former Bond Timothy Dalton as Rassilon in the Doctor Who two-parter “The End of Time.”
Benj Edwards for Macworld:
If you’ve been a Mac fan for more than a few years, chances are you’ve seen or even used Apple’s most famous computer models. What you don’t often see are the machines that Apple kept to itself—the prototypes that never reached the market.
Some weird ones in here I’ve never seen, like the Mac with a 5.25-inch disk drive.