June 11, 2012
One sad footnote following today’s WWDC keynote: it appears that Apple has put an end to the 17-inch MacBook Pro, at least for now. The unit is no longer in Apple’s tech specs product matrix.
Up until yesterday, Apple still listed the 17-inch MacBook Pro as an option – the $2,499 machine came equipped with a 2.4 GHz quad-core i7 microprocessor, 750 GB hard disk drive, and AMD Radeon HD 6770M GPU. The system may still be available through some third-party Mac resellers, and is still listed among the refurbished units available sold via Apple’s online store.
Billed by Apple as “the ultimate mobile studio,” the system came equipped with a 1920 x 1200 pixel display. And that, right there, is probably why Apple chose to put an end to the massive mobile workstation.
Because on Monday, Apple also introduced the Retina Display-equipped 15.4-inch MacBook Pro. That newly-tooled machine sports an astonishing 2880 x 1800 pixel display – the highest resolution of any laptop available today, and higher even than Apple’s 27-inch Thunderbolt Display.
While there might be some benefit to the larger form factor of the 17-inch, it does seem increasingly anachronistic to have such a massive laptop when its primary benefit – higher resolution – has been usurped by a slimmer, smaller model that is mostly its better, for less money to start. A Retina Display-equipped MacBook Pro with comparable storage and better graphics is only $300 more than a 17-inch MacBook Pro would be.
I admit to a special fondness for the 17-inch model. I hopped on board that bandwagon years ago, when Apple introduced the 17-inch PowerBook G4, and stuck with that size after Apple made the Intel switch with the MacBook Pro. It was huge, heavy and unwieldy – I rarely walked away from a week-long sojourn at a trade show without welts on my shoulders from lugging the thing around in my backpack – but it was comfortable to use, in the same way that a vintage Cadillac is a comfortable ride.
I only gave up the 17-inch years later when a hardening economy and my own emptier pockets forced me to downsize. Now I’ve gone to the other end of the spectrum – I’m writing this article on an 11-inch MacBook Air. It’s certainly not as big and comfy as my old 17-inch MacBook Pro, but I don’t miss the welts.
At the WWDC keynote this morning, it was noted that Apple is introducing new Thunderbolt adapters, including one for Gigabit Ethernet – important for buyers of the MacBook Air and new Retina Display-equipped MacBook Pro, both of which have Thunderbolt, neither of which have on-board Ethernet.
So it’s no surprise that this afternoon Apple offered a software update for Thunderbolt-equipped Macs to support the new adapters, which go on sale for $29. The 1.2 release of the software is available for download on eligible Macs using the Software Update system preference.
(Hat tip: The Mac Observer)
By now you’ve probably read our live coverage of the WWDC keynote and caught up on the announcements, which included iOS 6, Mountain Lion’s ship date, and new MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros and the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display.
But there’s nothing quite like watching one of these events unfold yourself. If you couldn’t been at WWDC today, now you can watch the event on Apple’s Web site – you just need QuickTime installed. Enjoy!
Apple has revamped its AirPort Express with a new case design and new features that mimic what can be found on its larger cousins, the AirPort Extreme Base Station and Time Capsule. The device is still $99.
The new AirPort Express looks radically different from the previous generation, which seemed to sport a case design stolen from one of Apple’s laptop AC adapters. Now it looks like a proper Apple networking peripheral: the squared device with rounded corners looks like a wee AirPort Extreme Base Station, with a proper backplane that includes WAN and LAN Ethernet connections, a USB port to connect a printer, power jack and audio output port – so it can still serve as a simple wireless audio connection to use to stream audio from your Mac or iOS device to a nearby stereo.
But under the hood is where the biggest enhancement lays – the AirPort Express now sports dual-band 802.11n wireless networking, which means that 5 GHz devices can connect at higher speeds.
Although not discussed during the WWDC keynote and not mentioned in Apple’s published press materials for the show, the venerable Mac Pro got a minor refresh on Monday. A 12-core configuration is now standard.
The Mac Pro’s standard configuration now includes two 2.4 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon E5645 processors, replacing the quad-core E5620 processors it had previously. Speed hasn’t increased, and they still sport 12MB of L3 cache per processor. The quad-core configuration now features a 3.2 GHz Intel Xeon W3565 processor, replacing the W3530 processor in the previous configuration.
Connections remain identical – four FireWire 800 ports, five USB 2.0 ports, front panel headphone minijack and internal speaker, optical digital audio input and output TOSLINK ports, analog stereo line-level input and output minijacks, and multichannel audio support through Mini DisplayPort.
Graphics on the refreshed Mac Pro are the same – ATI Radeon HD 5770 or 5870 cards are standard issue. Memory is a bit faster on the dual processor system – 1333 MHz DDR3 instead of 1066 MHz DDR 3.
Here are some pics from the first couple of days. More can be found at my Flickr WWDC Set.
Two hundred must be a magic number for Apple engineers and executives – it’s the number of new features to be found in OS X Mountain Lion, due in July, and it’s also the number of enhancements Apple has announced for iOS 6, which was unveiled today at the WWDC keynote address.
iOS 6 will come this fall, supporting iPhone 3GS or higher, 2nd-generation iPads and newer, and the fourth-generation iPod touch.
Siri improvements are a centerpiece of iOS 6 changes. Siri now knows about sports, has more information about restaurants thanks to Apple’s partnership with Yelp and OpenTable, has more information about movies thanks to integration with the Rotten Tomatoes Web site, and can now launch Apps.
A new feature called Eyes Free is a joint effort with car makers including BMW, GM, Mercedes, Jaguar, Audi, Toyota, Chrysler and Honda, to integrate Siri support. So when you’re in your car you can use hands free systems to communicate with Siri, to keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel. All the car makers are promising support for Eyes Free in the next year.
English and French support for Siri is coming to Canada, along with support for Spain, Mexico, Italy, Switzerland, and Korea.
Siri will also be supported on the new iPad with iOS 6 – an omission many customers were uphappy about when the new iPad was introduced. Older iPad owners (original iPad, iPad 2) are out of luck.
Facebook is now integrated into iOS 6, similarly to Twitter. You sign in once and use those credentials whenever you post. You can post pictures from Photos, info from Safari, location data and so on. It’s a public API, so other iOS apps will be able to use it. Brace yourself for a lot more Facebook chatter from iOS friends in the coming months.
Facebook support has also been integrated with the App Store. Tim Cook wasn’t lying at AllThingsD when he said that Apple was looking for new ways to integrate social networking.
Another new feature lets you control how you respond to incoming calls. You can be reminded later or send a text message back – better for circumstances where you can’t take a call at that time.
There’s also a new “Do Not Disturb” feature that mutes push notifications and keeps the screen dark. You can screen calls or even set the phone to prompt you if someone calls repeatedly.
Facetime works over cellular data in iOS 6 – presently it’s relegated to Wi-Fi. Facetime also unifies phone number and Apple ID – you can answer calls on your iPhone, iPad or Mac.
Maps have been completely redone iOS 6, replacing the Google Maps-driven feature in previous iOS releases. The map cartography has been made by Apple. It includes 100 million business listings around the world, real-time traffic data, turn-by-turn navigation (finally), and if you hit slow traffic, it’ll try to reroute you. The new Maps app is integrated with Siri, so you can ask questions en route without getting distracted by tapping the phone. A 3D view shows you vector renderings of buildings and other structures along the way, but one standout feature is called “Flyover.” Flyover shows you detailed renderings of terrain and structures, almost photographic-quality.
Other new features include enhancements to Game Center, support for “Made for iPhone” hearing aids, personal and work e-mail signatures, and a “Lost Mode” – you can send a phone number to your misplaced iOS device; if anyone picks it up and taps the screen, the phone will call that number.
Apple on Monday announced plans to ship the next version of OS X, “Mountain Lion,” in July for $20. It’s also going to be available as a free update for Apple’s newly-shipping MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops.
Many features of Mountain Lion have been previously announced – 200 new features are coming to the next release of OS X. Apple used this morning’s WWDC keynote address to developers in San Francisco to highlight several of the new features.
iCloud, Apple’s cloud services replacement for its subscription-based “MobileMe” service, now has 125 million users. iCloud is being integrated directly into Mountain Lion. Apple has introduced a new Software Development Kit (SDK) that it’s promoting to third party developers to enable a “Documents In the Cloud” function that enable apps to access documents from iCloud. Apple has integrated this feature in new updates to many of its own applications, including Pages, Numbers and Keynote (its “iWork” suite); TextEdit and Preview.
Notification Center is coming to Mountain Lion; the feature enables you to easily recognize events in different applications with a pop-up window. Up to now, such functionality has been relegated to third-party applications like Growl.
Dictation functionality is also coming to the OS. This functionality started with the iPhone 4S and trickled to the new iPad – now it’s coming to the Mac. It’s short of a full Siri implementation, but it’s a start. Everywhere on the Mac that you can type, you can dictate, according to Apple SVP Phil Schiller.
Safari now has the “fastest JavaScript engine on the planet,” and can look at histories of any of your Apple devices. It sports a new scrolling architecture built around OS X’s Core Animation architecture, and includes a new “Tab View” similar to Safari on iOS.
A new technology called Power Nap helps keep your Mac up to date while it sleeps. Power Nap lets your Mac back up, download App Store updates and system updates all while the Mac sleeps. It’s compatible with recent MacBook Air and new MacBook Pro models, to start.
AirPlay mirroring lets you send 1080p content to an Apple TV or audio to any AirPlay-enabled stereo system or speaker system.
Apple is also introducing Game Center support on OS X for the first time – multiplayer Mac-to-Mac support and cross-platform to iOS devices.
Apple is also improving Chinese support in OS X with new input methods, dictionaries, fonts and support for Chinese social networks.
More details are forthcoming.
On Monday Apple took the wraps off of new versions of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, refreshed with faster CPUs that sport the Intel “Ivy Bridge” architecture. USB 3.0 is now included on the devices.
MacBook Airs in particular get some big boosts with this latest refresh, including more robust RAM and storage offerings. The 11-inch comes with a 1.7 GHz processor, 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage for $999, while the 13-inch comes with a 1.8 GHz processor, 4 GB RAM and 128 GB storage for $1,199. Configure to order options include more storage capabilities, more RAM and a 2.0 GHz processor. Intel HD 4000 graphics are standard issue, which Apple says gives the new MacBook Airs a 60 percent graphics speed boost.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro comes equipped with 2.5 GHz i5 processor, 4 GB RAM and 500 GB hard drive for $1,199 – faster processor, more memory and bigger hard drive are all options. Its 15-inch cousin comes with 2.3 GHz quad-core i7 processor, 4 GB RAM, and Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics, starting at $1,799. A faster 2.6 GHz quad-core model comes with 8 GB RAM and 500 GB hard drive for $2,199. Configure-to-order options include faster processors, additional hard drive capacity and flash storage.
Apple’s standout among the new MacBook offers is an all-new model sporting a “retina display” capable of 2880 x 1800 pixel resolution – the highest resolution of any Apple display, including Apple’s 27-inch Cinema Display. Apple has engineered the MacBook Pro case to be smaller, as well. It measures 0.71 inch high when closed and is 14.3 inches wide, weighing 4.46 pounds.
It comes with a 2.3 GHz quad-core i7 processor and 8 GB of RAM, starting at $2,199. There’s no hard drive inside – the new MacBook Pro, which will be sold alongside existing models, has 256 GB of flash storage (512 GB on the more expensive model), with Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics (Intel HD Graphics 4000 are integrated on the motherboard – like other MacBook Pro models, you can switch between the graphics modes to save battery life. USB 3 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, HDMI, and an SDXC card slot round out the expansion ports, along with a slimmer “MagSafe 2” power connection. It comes with 802.11n networking and Bluetooth 4.0 support.
(Editor’s note: Updated 12:35 PT with more details)
Apple’s WWDC keynote will begin at 10:00 am PT. The Loop is at the event and will bring you live coverage throughout. Updates will be posted in reverse chronological order.
Please click refresh on your browser for the latest updates.
[liveblog]
Written by Jim Dalrymple
This is Piezo:
Piezo helps you record any audio on your Mac. Whether you want to record a Skype conversation, save a streaming radio program, or just record a quick voice memo, Piezo can do it. It runs on Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7 and it can capture audio from any application (yup, even sandboxed App Store apps).
Download Piezo free, then buy it in the App Store or directly through our store.
June 9, 2012
Written by Shawn King
PandoDaily:
When HBO does come around to breaking free of cable, how late will it be? Clearly the ideal time to make this move is right this minute. Or, actually, it was two weeks ago, just before the Game of Thrones finale. In addition to the immense popularity of that nerd-bait show, HBO currently benefits from a struggling Netflix and Hulu, and a TV industry that hasn’t yet been completely remade by Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. If it had booked a few million non-cable subscribers now, and then slowly expanded on that effort over the next few years, the company could well have set itself up as a leading player in the new, many-device, multi-payment model TV world.But instead HBO is dithering, playing chicken with an unyielding future. How disastrous will this course prove? When HBO finally, inevitably decides to offer non-cable subscription plans, will it be just fashionably late, at a point where it can salvage its future? Or will it be so perilously tardy that it can’t catch up? At the moment, when it comes to streaming, the men who lead HBO seem bent on sticking with this second strategy—better never than late, as they see it.
Written by Shawn King
Apptentive:
We pinged Buzz Andersen (@buzz) for his thoughts on the topic. As a long-time WWDC attendee, former SF resident and established food and drink connoisseur we knew he’d have a great set of recommendations for us. We’re sad he won’t be making the trip this year but we’ll frequent a few of his favorite haunts in his honor.
If you are lucky enough to be attending WWDC, make time to explore one of the most beautiful cities in North America. It would be a shame to make the trip and not see at least some of the sites San Francisco has to offer. If you are a WWDC/San Francisco veteran, let us know your favorite spots and things to do in the comments.
Written by Shawn King
The Verge:
We’ve already seen a number of renders of Apple Campus 2 — the company’s proposed “spaceship” campus — that show what it will look like from the outside. Of particular interest, though, is what’s going on beneath the surface — the campus will include a four level basement that features an auditorium and 4,300 parking spaces. The building has yet to be approved by the city, but if it does Apple is hoping to have it ready for some time in 2015.
June 8, 2012
Written by Shawn King
Bloomberg Businessweek:
Steve Jobs always oversaw Apple’s blockbuster product launches, but he was never a one-man show. Phil Schiller, the company’s longtime senior vice president of product marketing, often hammed it up onstage as the lower-brow counterweight to Apple’s cool, polished chief executive officer.Offstage, Schiller wasn’t a clown but one of Jobs’s most trusted, influential lieutenants. He helped Apple’s late CEO work through the meat-and-potatoes of creating new products: Defining target markets, determining technical specs, setting prices. It was Schiller who came up with the spin-wheel interface on the original iPod, and he was a champion of the iPad when other executives questioned its potential.Since Jobs’s death in October, perhaps no Apple executive other than CEO Tim Cook is under more pressure to fill the void.
Schiller may play the clown onstage but everyone who knows him knows he’s a pitbull when it comes to Apple.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Thanks to Meechu for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop.
Headed to WWDC next week? Leave your business cards at home for shimming tables. Take Meechu with you on your iPhone and connect to all the cool people you meet quickly and easily.
When you meet someone, open Meechu and tap the broadcast button. Anyone else running Meechu will automatically exchange information with you. There’s no ceremony, no extra services to sign up for. It’s quick, easy and simple.
Meechu is on sale for $1.99 in the App Store through the end of WWDC.
Written by Shawn King
PC World:
Virgin Mobile is the second U.S. carrier to offer prepaid iPhone plans, which could save you more than $500 over the lifetime of the phone compared to the big three carriers. Virgin’s iPhone deals go live from June 29, while Cricket’s prepaid Phone offers start June 22.So how does Virgin Mobile’s deal stack up against AT&T, Verizon and Sprint’s offers if you want to get an iPhone 4S? Since the big three are selling the iPhone with two-year contracts, I calculated the ownership costs of a 16GB iPhone 4S over this period with the lowest-cost plan available in order to compare it with Virgin and Cricket, which do not require a contract, so you’ll pay month by month.
Written by Shawn King
IDG News Service:
Foursquare on Thursday launched a major redesign of its app for the iPhone and Android devices, incorporating features from social discovery and local search applications, as well as the “like” feature made famous by Facebook.
Foursquare described the redesign as “a whole new app.” The app’s “explore” function will now allow users to browse locations by category or conduct a specific search like “free wi-fi” or “dumplings,” a company blog post announcing the launch said.
Good for them. I’m still not going to use it.
Matt Alexander is the owner and editor of ONE37.net, a writer, a technology enthusiast and a contributing writer for The Loop.
Last week, amidst the furor of competing announcements, Microsoft unveiled its latest innovation in the living room: Smart Glass. Sporting AirPlay-esque functionality, Smart Glass is a platform-agnostic app that is well-placed to further instantiate and solidify Microsoft’s position within the entertainment sphere. For all of the novelty demonstrated by Microsoft, however, an enormous number of journalists have chosen to forego a measured critique of Smart Glass in exchange for short-sighted treatises into the apparent conflict between Apple and Microsoft for the television market.
Even as the Microsoft keynote was still taking place, a cacophony of ignorance began to rain upon the unsuspecting reader. Out of no where, unsubstantiated claims of victory and success for Microsoft seeped from purportedly trustworthy media outlets. Regardless of any degree of success Microsoft may have with Smart Glass, such writing is endlessly disappointing, ignorant, and transparently uninformed. With no public plans for the television market beyond the current iteration of the Apple TV, any argument projecting conflict between Microsoft and Apple is premature at best.
Flimsy rumor and whispers echoing from the ubiquitous “people familiar with the matter” indicate that an Apple television may not be too far away from reality. The shape and form of this assault upon the television market has been subject to distinct and ever-worsening change. Dependent upon the day, rumors flitter between indications of an app-enabled update for the existing Apple TV, a full-blown television model, and any number of further conceptions. At this point, it’s fairly reasonable to assume that Apple has something planned for the television space, but any further speculation is steeped within the bounds of wishful thinking and poorly formed inferences.
Accordingly, the average reader is all-too-frequently bombarded with “news” skimmed from a thinning, festering pile of unsubstantiated rumor, analysis, and definably faulty reasoning. In turn, consumer opinions and expectations are honed and weathered into poorly considered and utterly unrealistic perceptions of the company or product toward which they arrogantly feel entitled to submit demands and pre-emptive feedback.
The problem stemming from this scenario is that the end-user is rendered restless and dissatisfied with virtually any level of innovation and iterative improvement. Laptops and tablets are cast aside due to one “missing” feature despite the fact that the product was never truly destined to boast such a characteristic. Pieces of software are deemed all manner of negative adjectives purely due to the smallest of imperfections as opposed to the grandiose achievement upon which the developers should feel an indefatigable sense of pride.
Such a state of affairs is not new, but that is certainly not to say that the dire misappropriation of rumor cannot be rectified. Some prominent publications pride themselves upon the limited re-distribution of rumor and speculation. Speaking with Federico Viticci of MacStories regarding this topic, he stated:
We re-post rumors only when we feel we can add something to the discussion, or find a pattern in previous speculation and “confirmed” news. Or when we can link to other people who have debunked/explained the rumor already. I also want MacStories to be about quality and facts, not the page views. If that means avoiding rumors 95% of the time, so be it.
Perhaps such a perspective goes somewhat against the current grain in the technology journalism arena, but it’s undoubtedly a welcome exception. Adding to the collective discussion based upon consistent and far-reaching patterns is certainly an acceptable and important endeavor. Conversely, happening upon unsubstantiated rumor and applying it toward the justification of a further conclusion provides for poorly constructed, ill-informed, and contextless logic.
A justified true belief is defined as knowledge. All else is merely a belief, and should not be repackaged otherwise.
Speculating and articulating subjective hopes for the future is an affable, entertaining, and important endeavor. Judging the status quo and intelligently discerning the potential for change and improvement is an exercise in useful creativity, and entertaining discussion. Having said that, the very moment such speculation begins to blur the line between casual discussion and poorly formed rumor is the very moment at which speculation becomes a dangerous agent of misinformation.
In the weeks leading up to WWDC, the incessant nattering of rumor-mongers has grown to a level of truly immense proportions. With every passing day, a new rumor spews forth from a number of rumor sites — each offering artfully cropped images to hide the originating source’s watermarks. Although the rumors are tolerable in and of themselves, the trouble arises when such content is taken as a bridge toward disjointed conclusions. Outside the bounds of logic and reason, speculation is married with rumor, and the result is misleadingly reported as fact.
Next week, Apple will announce a great many things and, as is customary, technology enthusiasts across the world will emit self-entitled gasps of disappointment. Regardless of the most dazzling of improvements, there will be a rumor each individual has dearly held to their chest that has been “forgotten” by Apple. For the crime of an incorrect assumption on the part of the media, Apple will suffer a cascade of scorn and underwhelmed disenchantment.
In the final days leading up to the event — amidst the rising clamor of desperate, ill-informed expectations — it has sadly become too much to ask for a moment of respite. Even knowing that they carry themselves toward disappointment, these onlookers do so willingly and happily — blissfully oblivious to the implications and effects of their disproportioned expectations. Meanwhile, journalists are clattering away at their keyboards fueling the fire, and readying themselves to half-heartedly address the true nature of the competitive landscape when all has been revealed.
We are victims of our own insatiable consumerism, but the situation is woefully exacerbated by the self-entitled cries of the gullible and misinformed. With even the slightest semblance of contextual awareness, unreasonable negativity can be dismantled. Taking the most incidental of moments to pause and consider, the media can refrain from inciting such blind, impassioned ignorance.
Perhaps link bait is a short-term solution for advertising revenue and attention, but I daresay that treating readers with deserved respect is a much better avenue to a sustainable audience.
It’s hard to believe, but three years ago today I started The Loop. We’ve gone through a lot of changes since then, many of the biggest in the last year.
I suppose the most significant change the site has seen was moving from a cluttered ad-filled design to a clean, mostly text site. I removed 99 percent of the ads on the site and joined The Deck Network, which allowed the site to run with only one small ad.
Peter Cohen, my best friend and colleague of the last 20 years, has continued to help a great deal on the site with his writing and advice. I can’t thank him enough. This year we also added Your Mac Life’s Shawn King to The Loop, bringing a different perspective to the posts you see on the site everyday.
With the site design changes I also launched a membership option for readers. I know that $3 a month doesn’t sound like a lot, but it helped me buy new servers and have the site on one of the best content delivery networks in the world. These changes brought page load times down from over 10 seconds to 1 second in many parts of the world.
A membership doesn’t offer you fancy gifts or coupons, but it’s not about that. It’s about supporting independent writing. Thank you for your support.
My biggest thanks goes out to you, the reader. By helping to spread the word about what we do here at The Loop, traffic has increased, sponsorships from companies and independent developers have increased and we are successful.
Thank you.
Jim
Written by Jim Dalrymple
City of Cupertino just published the latest set of must see Apple Campus 2 plans, including that of the underground auditorium.
I’m amazed every time I look at these plans.
June 7, 2012
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Laura Hazard Owen:
In a complaint sent to the Department of Justice this morning, Barnes & Noble says that the DOJ’s proposed settlement with HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster for allegedly colluding to fix e-book prices “represents an unprecedented effort” to become “a regulator of a nascent technology that it little understands.”
Nice aggressive stance by Barnes and Noble.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Engadget:
RIM will no longer be making the 16 GB model of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. The 16 GB PlayBook will continue to be available for distributors and retailers while quantities last. We continue to remain committed to the tablet space and the 32 GB and 64 GB models of the BlackBerry PlayBook continue to be available from our distributors and retailers around the world.
Only two more models to axe and we’ll be free of the PlayBook altogether.
Written by Peter Cohen
Philip Elmer-DeWitt for Fortune:
Finally, it seems, he had heard enough. On Thursday, Judge Richard A. Posner, a jurist famous for cutting through thickets of legalese to the nub of an issue, took one of the mobile phone industry’s most closely watched patent trials — Apple v. Motorola — and tossed it out of his courtroom.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
My latest column on Techpinions:
Some people think Apple will release a television with new menus or Siri integration. I don’t believe they are thinking big enough. If Apple enters that market they will disrupt it and change it forever.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
We are currently investigating the leak of some Last.fm user passwords. This follows recent password leaks on other sites, as well as information posted online. As a precautionary measure, we’re asking all our users to change their passwords immediately.
Let’s just assume that every password is going to be leaked.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Dell’s Australian managing director Joe Kremer talking about the iPad:
“People might be attracted to some of these shiny devices but technology departments can’t afford to support them,” he told a media and analyst briefing in Sydney. “If you are giving a presentation and something fails on the software side it might take four days to get it up and running again. I don’t think this race has been run yet.”
Listen up Joe. You’re talking about using an iPad, not one of your shitty Dell computers. You shouldn’t talk about things you have no idea about. You just look stupid.
You look stupid Joe.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
“Mobile devices will compete with dedicated handheld gaming devices, but select consumer segments like core gamers and those individuals who do not want or have a smartphone or tablet will still provide some demand.”
Some demand hardly seems like a positive outlook for the future. Makes sense though since forecasts are down for gaming devices and more people are buying devices like the iPhone. Gaming companies are paying a lot more attention to mobile devices too.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Neil Hughes for AppleInsider:
A new survey of American iPhone buyers has revealed that 73 percent choose the high-end iPhone 4S, while 38 percent of those buying Apple’s smartphone reported switching from Android or BlackBerry.
So, people buy Android-based phones and use them as a trade-in towards an iPhone?
