BMW’s iDrive gets improved iPod functionality

snoqsv — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:57:22 +0000

One of the next steps to evolve BMW’s iDrive into Connected Drive is increasing the communication the car has with peripherals. In this case, work is nearly complete on you being able to control your iPod Touch (and, we’re guessing, your iPhone) and all of its applications using the same Apple interface on the car’s console screen.

Not only might it make navigation of your music files easier, but it would make any application you download for your iPod Touch immediately usable in your Bimmer. BMW doesn’t give much away in terms of how this all comes together, but does say that the feature will be available on BMW’s as soon as early 2011.

Report with Video Here

The iPhone 4 Antenna Unravelled

snoqsv — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:50:14 +0000

When it was reported that the new iPhone 4 was making use of the metal band around the phone for the “antenna” and if you held the iPhone wrong the signal disappeared or got weaker, there as a flurry of articles about this method of antenna placement.

Soon after, Apple announced that part of the problem was that their software formula for determining signal strength—i.e., showing how many “bars” of signal was available—was in error and that in reality the signal strength was really lower than that being shown.

What I have not seen discussed is the entire issue of the antenna, and its placement on wireless devices. There are a number of interwoven issues here, all of which can help explain the problems encountered. First, the weak link in any wireless or radio system is the antenna, its effectiveness and its location. If you watch TV with an outside antenna and you disconnect the antenna from the TV set you get no reception; if the antenna on your car breaks you get no AM or FM reception. This is because these systems are designed with the understanding that an external antenna is needed.In analog cellular days every phone had an external antenna, this gave the device better range when it was communicating with the cell sites. Then we switched to digital but analog was still operational and the antennas were still external. Today, our wireless network operators have built out many more cell sites—AT&T and Verizon each have more than 40,000 sites to cover the United States.

Full Report from Forbes.com

Sleek iPad is Apple of New York Mayor’s Eye

snoqsv — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:43:45 +0000

Mayor Bloomberg has a sleek black and silver security blanket – his iPad.

Since the mayor unveiled his handy device last month, he’s been spotted with it night and day, including last week’s once-in-a-lifetime visit with Queen Elizabeth.

“He takes the iPad with him everywhere,” said Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson. “He uses it all the time.”

Bloomberg reads his speeches off it – he was making last-minute tweaks before his appearance with the queen – gets his briefing material on it and even switched his magazine subscriptions, including Aviation Week, to his iPad.

New Shanghai store represents Apple’s push for traction in China

snoqsv — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:35:09 +0000

Apple over the weekend opened its second retail store in China, signifying that the Cupertino, Calif., company is prepared to step up its expansion into the nation.

J.P. Morgan on Monday issued a note to investors, in which analyst Mark Moskowitz said Apple’s growing retail presence in Asia will drive sales of Macs, iPhones and iPads.

“Over time, we expect multiple Apple retail stores in China and elsewhere internationally, and this increasing retail footprint should sustain the synergistic effects of multiple Apple stores in a region,” Moskowitz wrote.

Earlier this year, Apple revealed that it intends to open 25 new stores in China. The company has also said it is more focused on building the Apple brand in China than achieving strong sales right off the bat.

Moskowitz sees positives from Apple’s approach, as he believes there is a greater potential revenue from China as more retail stores open in the next few years. He sees the retail expansion as a positive, “as Apple has not had much traction in China to date.”

Full ApplpeInsider Article Here

Consumer Reports confirms iPhone 4 antenna problems

snoqsv — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:30:29 +0000

Although there’s never been any question that there’s something going on with the iPhone 4′s fancy new antenna system, we really haven’t seen any rigorous testing confirming that the issue is real, severe, and affects every phone. That just changed.

Consumer Reports tested three iPhone 4s and several other AT&T phones in their RF isolation chamber that simulates varying levels of signal from every carrier, and found that the iPhone 4 was the only handset to suffer signal-loss issues. What’s more, CR directly says that its findings call Apple’s explanation of a miscalculated signal meter into question since the tests “indicate that AT&T’s network might not be the primary suspect.” CR found that simply putting duct tape over the bottom-left corner is enough to alleviate the issue — we’re guessing that’s Jony Ive’s worst nightmare — and says that while the iPhone 4 has the “sharpest display and best video camera” of any phone its tested, it simply can’t recommend the device until Apple comes up with a permanent and free fix to the antenna problem. Ouch.

Full Engadget Article Here

The Case of the Inexplicable iWatch Rumor

snoqsv — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 05:23:29 +0000

We’ve had news regarding the sublime, (exquisite iPhone 4 design) and now the ridiculous, to wit, the rather odd conjecture of Taiwanese site ‘tw.apple.pro’.

With nothing more than a 3×3 cm screen to go by, the author has envisioned a brand new Apple product; the iWatch.

If you can decipher the Google ‘translation’ the author is apparently convinced that iOS is the future of all products from Apple.

Amongst their plans are the iWatch, we’re told, running iOS with the familiar iPhone interface.

We rather prefer the more realistic touch screen remote idea, or that this is simply the next Nano.

Lovely CG renderings Here

Fabulous gibberish Here

Updated: YouTube Mobile for Touch Devices

snoqsv — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:05:42 +0000

In a blog post on Wednesday, YouTube unveiled an extensive makeover for its mobile site, m.youtube.com.

The updated version of the mobile site is meant to be fast and touch-friendly. Of course, iPhone and iPad owners know that their touch-devices already include a custom, Apple-built YouTube app.

But YouTube counters that its mobile site offers numerous advantages over native apps like Apple’s.

Pixelmator 1.6 Gains New Tools and Massive Performance Boost

snoqsv — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:01:28 +0000

The Pixelmator crew has been hard at work for the last six months on a major update to their namesake image editor.

Pixelmator 1.6 “Nucleus” will arrive next week, but Macworld got an early peek at what’s in store.

At the top of the new features list for Pixelmator 1.6 is Layer Groups, sharing images directly to social sites like Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook, and direct import from devices like cameras, scanners, iPhones, and iPads. Also on the list are new transforming tools, a redesigned printing engine, and new Automator actions to trim and watermark images.

Saulius Dailide, a Pixelmator General Manager and developer, toldMacworld that a major focus of this “Nucleus” release was speed. Like Apple did with Snow Leopard, the Pixelmator team gutted much of the app’s underpinnings in the name of major performance improvements, added 64-bit support, and integrated the new Grand Central tools that Apple built into Snow Leopard for developers. This allows Pixelmator to better harness the power of the multi-core CPUs that Apple has been building into Macs for years.

For example: Dailide claims that Pixelmator 1.6 starts up twice as fast as the previous version, opens images two times faster than Photoshop, has a painting engine that is four times faster than the previous version, and both previews and applies filters and adjustments faster than Photoshop.

More Here

Wozniak: Thumbs up for iPhone, down for Android

snoqsv — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:27:44 +0000

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, likes his three iPhones and iPad, but not so much the competitors’ Android phones, he said Thursday in an exclusive interview with The Korea Times’ sister publication, The Seoul Economic Daily.

“First, I liked a lot of things that were built into Android phones. Voice recognition and noise cancellation on my Nexus One phone were great. I still like to speak things. For instance, navigate to John’s hardware store. It gets the wording right – no matter how you say, it works like Google search,” said Wozniak who founded the darling of the technology industry with Steve Jobs, its current CEO, and Ronald Wayne.

Smartest CEO: Steve Jobs

snoqsv — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:25:32 +0000

The smartest people in tech. What constitutes tech savvy today? An alchemy of intellect, ambition, and that uncanny ability to peer around corners. Some of our choices may surprise you.

Fortune: When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 after a 12-year exile, the company was close to bankruptcy. Thirteen years later it has a market cap of $250 billion and is the world’s most valuable tech company, transforming whole industries along the way. iTunes reinvented music. Pixar, now part of Disney, elevated animated films. The iPhone changed telecom. And the new iPad has other computer makers scrambling to respond. Rocking one industry could be luck, but upending four? That’s smart.

Full Article Here