Low-End Mac Mini Shipping Date Slips Slightly, Additional Reports of iMac Shortages Surface

The shipping window for Apple's low-end Mac mini in the company's U.S. and Canadian online stores has slipped today to "1-3 business days" from the usual "Within 24hrs" timeframe, adding further hints of supply constraints and a possible refr...

CNN jumps on the news app bandwagon

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review

CNN released CNN Mobile [iTunes link], an impressive news app but there are some caveats.

The app is loaded with features, including the latest international and US News, local weather and traffic, and the ability to share stories with email, SMS, Facebook and Twitter.

You can follow topics that are of interest to you, and they get placed in a special spot you can access with a tap of your finger.

You can also shoot video if you have an iPhone 3GS, and send it along to CNN. All in all, it's as full featured a news app as anyone could hope for, and includes live streaming of breaking events.

If you turn your phone to landscape mode, you get a kind of cover flow of stories, where you can drag your finger across the screen and explore stories in an interesting way.

Continue reading CNN jumps on the news app bandwagon

CNN jumps on the news app bandwagon originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

CNN jumps on the news app bandwagon originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zipcar Releases iPhone App

Zipcar members, can now use their iPhone or iPod touch to quickly and easily find and reserve a Zipcar around the corner or across the globe. You can also honk the horn, and even lock and unlock the doors. The streamlined interface makes for a very smooth ride. 10 COOL THINGS MEMBERS CAN DO WITH [...]

EyeTV app for iPhone released

Filed under: Accessories, Multimedia, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review

Elgato, maker of EyeTV, has released EyeTV for iPhone [iTunes Link], an app that allows access to both live and recorded video content from any Mac running EyeTV 3.2 or later. The $4.99 app lets you view live and recorded TV on your iPhone or iPod touch over your local network, and it also allows you to access the same content from a remote WiFi location using a service called MyEyeTV. Unsurprisingly, just like SlingPlayer, access over 3G isn't possible.

Accessing either live or recorded TV over your local network is simple, and usually works well. Recorded content plays back almost immediately with barely a stutter to be seen -- the caveat to this is that all recorded content has to be rendered into a format the iPhone will understand, which can take a while if you have a slower Mac. Live TV takes longer to load on your iPhone and is far more finicky. I found the only way to get reliable, stutter-free playback on my iPhone was to close the EyeTV playback window on my Mac. Apparently the strain of displaying content on my Mac and simultaneously streaming it to my iPhone was just too much for a 2.6 GHz processor to handle.

You can set video quality on Live TV from 80 kbps to 800 kbps, and there's also a setting that allows you to always use highest quality when you're on a local network. Again, streaming over my local network almost always worked well, so long as I wasn't trying to play back content on my Mac at the same time.

Continue reading EyeTV app for iPhone released

EyeTV app for iPhone released originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

EyeTV app for iPhone released originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Storage site Dropbox releases iPhone app

Online storage site Dropbox has released a free iPhone app that lets you access your files on the go.

More iTablet Rumors: Apple Set to Redefine Newspapers, Textbooks, Magazines

Yes, the iTablet rumors just keep on coming, with the latest from Gizmodo being that Apple is in talks with traditional print publishers — text books, newspapers, and magazines, to redefine their industry they way they have music (and are trying to do with video).

Two people related to the NYTimes have separately told me that in June, paper was approached by Apple to talk about putting the paper on a “new device.” [...] A person close to a VP in textbook publishing mentioned to me in July that McGraw Hill and Oberlin Press are working with Apple to move textbooks to iTunes.[...] Apple also recently had several executives from one of the largest magazine groups at their Cupertino’s campus, where they were asked to present their ideas on the future of publishing.

Why?

The eventual goal is to have publishers create hybridized content that draws from audio, video, interactive graphics in books, magazines and newspapers, where paper layouts would be static. And with release dates for Microsoft’s Courier set to be quite far away and Kindle stuck with relatively static e-ink, it appears that Apple is moving towards a pole position in distribution of this next-generation print content. First, it’ll get its feet wet with more basic repurposing of the stuff found on dead trees today.

Gizmodo is also backing the rumored January announce date. What remains uncertain is, of course, the market for next generation print media. The Kindle was recently, and very publicly, panned by Princeton students as being unusable. Apple will have the benefit of the existing iTunes and iPhone ecosystem to fall back on, and buy them time — people can browse the web, listen to music, watch videos on the iTablet — but they’ll have to present a much more usable solution to get that print dinosaur cyberized for the next millennium.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

More iTablet Rumors: Apple Set to Redefine Newspapers, Textbooks, Magazines

Apple’s Tablet Effort Aiming to Redefine Print Media?

Gizmodo reports on a number of different tips and tidbits it has received in recent months that together paint a picture of Apple's goals for its much-rumored tablet computer. Building on a report yesterday claiming that the new device will have a f...

Review: Documents 2 for iPhone

Business applications for the iPhone and iPod touch are becoming more sophisticated now, spurring competition among developers. Savy Soda's Documents 2 is another suite of applications designed to give users the power. But the all-in-one offering is rather somewhat less than the sum of its parts.

iPhone accessories can download iPhone apps to your iPhone memory

Among the many minor changes included in the 3.0 release of the iPhone OS was one that would enable those myriad of iPhone accessories to work more closely with software. That is to say, to make the plugging in of one result in in a prompting to download the other. The first such piece of hardware is the latest Griffin iTrip, which, when connected, raises the dialog shown above. You can of course say "No" if you don't feel like playing along, but when it comes to accessories like the TomTom car kit we're thinking you'll probably be missing out if you don't go along with the flow.

[Via AppleInsider]

Filed under: Cellphones

iPhone accessories can download iPhone apps to your iPhone memory originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zipcar app pulls into the App Store

The app from the urban car sharing service has arrived in the App Store, let users search for nearby Zipcars.

Apple Genius: AT&T Dropped Call Rate for NYC is 30%

According to a Gizmodo reader who took his iPhone to the Apple Store Genius Bar due to issues with dropped calls, he was told a 30% failure rate in New York City is normal.

Now, we all know AT&T’s network crumbles beneath the weight of the iPhone (and suspect any other single network might as well), but it’s not often we get numbers to go with it.

AT&T claims to be improving their network and adding more frequency, but with a fail rate that high, New Yorkers will believe it when their calls stop dropping.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Genius: AT&T Dropped Call Rate for NYC is 30%

Tuesday Fun Video: 1984 Gets DoubleTwist’ed

DVD Jon, who gained fame and notoriety for cracking DVD and iTunes encryption, has since devoted a lot of his time and energy into DoubleTwist, and iTunes replacement. The above video is, of course, a parody of Apple’s anti-IBM “big brother” commercial that aired during the 1984 SuperBowl, this time recasting Apple — and Steve Jobs — as “big brother” and intimating they’ve become what they once mocked. All this by way of promoting the next release of DoubleTwist for Mac, coming Oct. 6.

TechCrunch has a few more details, while Fake Steve, in much harsher language, calls him a remora.

Still, we’ll be interested to see what they have coming, as no doubt will Palm Pre users…

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Tuesday Fun Video: 1984 Gets DoubleTwist’ed

Apple.com: iPhone Apps for Everything

Apple.com has gone and souped up their iPhone app promotion page, carrying forward the “Apps for Everything” tag from their latest rough of commercials.

Featured categories include apps for cooks, keeping current, the great outdoors, music, work, students, moms and dads, working out, going out, managing money, traveling, and the fun and games.

Another attempt to provide curated recommendations, along with featured apps and staff picks on the App Store proper, it will no doubt give a boost to any developer who gets the spotlight, but it remains to be seen how much it aids iPhone and iPod touch users still struggling with the discoverability of the App Store.

If you check out their listings, let us know what you think of their picks.

[via Loopinsight]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple.com: iPhone Apps for Everything

T-Mobile announces Motorola Cliq availability and price

The Android-based Motorola Cliq will be available to existing T-Mobile customers on October 19 and everyone else on November 2. It will sell for $200.

Now Vodafone Also Announces Partnership To Sell iPhones in UK

Dropbox the iPhone app has dropped

Filed under: iPod Family, iPhone, App Store

If you've been waiting patiently for the Dropbox app [iTunes link] to hit the App Store, your wait is over. The app has arrived, and brings with it the simplicity that Dropbox users have come to know and love.

Since Dropbox itself is a free service, it's a pleasant surprise to see a simple, easy method for creating a new Dropbox account right off the bat if you don't happen to already have one. The app just asks for a name, e-mail address and password, prompts you to accept the terms of service, and creates the account. During my testing, I did encounter a problem where I would receive a nondescript "Account creation failed (null). Please try again." message, which I'm guessing may be due to high load on their servers. Still, this is not an encouraging encounter for new users.

Once logged in, everything worked pretty smoothly. On first login, You are presented with a brief welcome document that highlights some of the features of the app. Backing out of the document will take you to your Dropbox, which quickly lists any of the files and folders you may have in there. The app features built-in document preview for several types of files, including PDFs, text documents, spreadsheets, pictures and videos. You can also tag files as a favorite by tapping the star at the bottom of the file viewer, which adds the item to the favorites panel and caches a copy locally on the device so that it's immediately available.

An unexpected feature is the ability to take pictures, video, or use existing media and upload them directly to the Dropbox. This could definitely be handy if you need to take a quick video and have it available on another machine without having to plug in your phone and wait for it to sync. Also unexpected, but incredibly welcome, is the massive amount of documentation that is available from inside the app's settings panel. In addition to giving you general details about your account, the settings panel offers a link to watch a video about how Dropbox works, take a tour of the features, or browse their complete online help library, without having to leave the app. As many apps fall short in this area, it's refreshing to see such detailed documention available, let alone right from the app.

A couple of side notes: As I mentioned above, the new user signup does not appear to work properly sometimes. I'm guessing this will be fixed in short order, though. You can log out of your Dropbox account by tapping the Unlink iPhone from Dropbox button on the settings panel, but beware that you will loose any favorites you have stored (the app does warn you of this). And finally, when you do logout of your account, the app just disappears from the screen, as if it crashed, although you are successfully logged out. In my eyes, these are minor issues (well, aside from the signup problem), and will likely be addressed with future updates, but still good to watch out for.

All in all, this is a very well done, simple app that connects you with an already great (and free) service. It's available now in the App Store for free.

Dropbox the iPhone app has dropped originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Dropbox the iPhone app has dropped originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Akamai’s new network aims for iPhone HDTV

Akamai is extending its content delivery network to the Apple iPhone as it introduces the Akamai HD Network, a system for streaming high-definition video.

CNN’s new iPhone app puts rivals to shame

On Tuesday morning, CNN introduced a $2 iPhone app featuring live newscasts, video-on-demand, and a familiar iPhone interface.

EyeTV for iPhone joins the ranks of TV streaming apps

The newly released EyeTV for iPhone works with the desktop version of the TV software to let you watch live video on your mobile device.

Apple Rolls Out ‘Apps for Everything’ Section to Make it Easier to Find iPhone Apps