9 to 5 Mac - Apple Intelligence

3.0 Update breaks 3rd party video cables for iPod Touch and iPhones

Seth Weintraub — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:23:51 +0000

For those who have their iPod Touch or iPhones connected to their TVs through a third party video cable, the 3.0 update was a bad one. It appears to have disabled the ability of non-Apple cables to transmit video. Forum members at iPod Touch Fans and MacForums are both reporting the issue.

One forum member reports:

I have an AV Cable for my iPod Touch 1g which up until now worked fine. Then I updated to 3.0, jail-broke it fine and everything else seems ok, but the AV cable brings up the message about it not being a valid accessory.

It isn't clear if Apple will restore this functionality in a future update.

As a side note, those with Apple chipped cables also notice a significant difference in the way video out works on their iPods. The video no longer plays on the device while it is playing on the TV. The device only displays the album art of the video.

In the case of the iPod touch, some users are downgrading to the 2.2 firmware. However, in the iPhone, this isn't as easy to do due to the baseband update with the 3.0.

Apple Store Employee Shot in Virginia

Cleve Nettles — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:41:03 +0000

Suspect still on the loose...

First iPhone 3GS jailbreak posted w/Video

Cleve Nettles — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:50:57 +0000

As predicted, the iPhone 3GS is now jailbroken. George "Geohot" Hotz is the first to publish a full jailbreak for Apple's new phone, only a few weeks after its release. Called Purplera1n, the jailbreak is only Windows for now but there will be a Mac version soon. The Dev team is also working on an update to their ultrasn0w tool that will unlock the SIM as well.

Update: Video posted a below.

We are one Windows machine away from testing this ourselves but look forward to the extra speed in the PSP emulation and Qik Video broadcasts.

Video from TechCrunch

Facebook 3.0 coming soon to iPhone

Chauncey Dupree — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:20:26 +0000

All of you Facebook addicts will soon have a majorly updated app to play with. Joe over at Facebook spills the beans on an upcoming update below...and even mentions Push will be in the 3.1 version. Glorios Facebook Notifications bothering us all day? Can't wait!

Facebook for iPhone 3.0 is coming very soon. I can't predict an exact date when I will submit to Apple, but I can say that I am about 98% done. So what's new in this update?

1. The "new" News Feed
2. Like
3. Events (including the ability to RSVP)
4. Notes
5. Pages
6. Create new photo albums
7. Upload photos to any album
8. Zoom into photos
9. Easier photo tagging
10. Profile Pictures albums

11. A new home screen for easy access to all your stuff, search, and notifications
12. Add your favorite profiles and pages to the home screen
13. Better Notifications (they link to the comments so you can reply)
14. Quickly call or text people right from the Friends page
15. Messages you are typing will be restored if you quit or are interrupted by a phone call

The one feature everyone is asking for, Push Notifications, is in development but it won't make it into 3.0. You can expect it in a 3.1 update later this summer.

When I have submitted the app to Apple I will let you all know!

- Joe

Leaked AT&T Memo: iPhone 3GS launch broke all sorts of records

Cleve Nettles — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:54:17 +0000

Multiple sources have provided MacDailyNews with an internal AT&T memo that highlights the company's recent milestones and successes:

1. Fact of the Week: On June 25, the day Michael Jackson died, text messages sent on our network spiked at 65,000 messages per second — the largest volume ever recorded — surpassing events like American Idol voting and New Year's Eve, when millions of our customers wish their friends and family a happy new year via text."

2. "iLaunch day 2009 was one for the record books, as AT&MP;T customers scrambled to get their hands on the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet.

Here's a look at some of the milestones we achieved:

* Best-ever sales day in our retail stores
* Second-largest traffic day in our retail stores
* Most transactions processed via our IT systems in a single day
* Most upgrade eligibility checks in a single day
* Largest order day in att.com history
* Largest features sales day in att.com history

On this year's launch day, iPhone sales exceeded sales recorded on 2008's iPhone launch day, Black Friday 2008 and Dec. 26, 2008 — all heavy-volume sales days. In fact, this year we surpassed 2008's launch day sales at about noon Central time, and sustained our previous peak hour record, also set in 2008, for 11 straight hours.

9to5mac's Take: Awesome

Full story

Greenpeace continues to hate on Apple, apparently doesn't watch commercials

Cleve Nettles — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:55:42 +0000

Greenpeace continues to be at odds with Apple's message that they are as green as green can be. Today's report (page 22-23) puts Apple in the lower half of the technology rung with Japanese whale killers like Nintendo and Fujitsu. Do Samsung, Nokia and Sony Ericsson have batteries that last for 5 years?

It wasn't all gore (Al Gore?) for Apple. As Macworld.co.uk points out, Greenpeace did give Apple some points for its new line of products being "virtually" free of PVC and BFRs, including PCs like MacBooks. It also lauded Apple for its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and recycling efforts.

Steve Jobs famously addressed the Greenpeace issue a few years ago at a Stockholder meeting:

Jobs' Challenges Greenpeace Incompetence.

Those comments didn't stop Greenpeace representatives from using the meeting as an opportunity to advertise the groups anti-Apple campaign. Among the activists sent by Greenpeace was Iza Kruszewska, one of the key architects of the corporation's Apple-oriented fundraising program.

Kruszewska was wearing a Greenpeace t-shirt styled after the former iPod ads, presenting Apple's products as dangerously toxic and encouraging user donations to Greenpeace to somehow solve that issue.

After attempting to take credit for Apple's announcements, Kruszewska questioned Jobs about Apple's potential do more to advance Greenpeace's political goals in announcing principles, but Jobs insisted that such “flowery” announcements were not really doing anything for the environment.

Jobs suggested that Greenpeace hire staff with engineering backgrounds who could understand the issues involved, and insisted that Apple does more to push innovative manufacturing techniques than other PC makers.

When Apple talks to its manufacturers, he said, they report that no other companies are pushing for similar, real changes. He questioned the real efforts HP and Dell were making to back up their announcements.

Jobs also blasted the criteria behind Greenpeace's highly publicized Greener Guide to Electronics, which ranks a random assortment of manufactures according to commitments listed on their websites.

Jobs said Greenpeace needed to develop rankings that reflected what companies actually do, not just what they promise to do at some point in the future.

The hate:

Classy Microsoft commercial makes us wish there was IE on Mac (NSFW)

Quincy Pince-Nez — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:25:00 +0000

Nice work by ~~Crispen Porter Bogusky~~ Bradley and Montgomery. They are in full backtracking mode now so this might dissapear from Youtube.

Perhaps she isn't a fan of the font rendering on IE? Or maybe standards compliance?

Also when trying to find this youtube (they've been pulling them), we found this gem:

Apple patents detail fingerprint recognition, Haptic Feedback, and RFID Tag Readers

Chauncey Dupree — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:12:18 +0000

Macrumors has been digging through Apple patents and found some very tantalizing nuggets of perhaps possible future iPhone features.

Fingerprint identification using fingerprints to identify each finger and associate actions based on each finger. This would allow the iPhone to interperet each finger action seperately, allowing for easier and more acurate control over input by the user.

Haptic feedback. Not just "touch the screen and get feedback when you hit a key". That's too easy. Apple's plan is to have a "grid of piezoelectronic actuators that can be activated on command. By fluctuating the frequency of these actuators, the user will "feel" different surfaces as their finger moves across it. As an example, a display could include a virtual click wheel which vibrates at a different frequency as the center. Users could easily sense the difference and use the click wheel without having to look at it." Dayum, that would be cool.

RFID reader built into the screen? We're not quite sure why they'd need to do this (as opposed to putting the reader somewhere else in the device) but Apple has put a patent application on this.

Is Apple building its own GPUs? Maaaaybe.

Seth Weintraub — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:53:52 +0000

Here's just a random thought. What if the Apple bailing on NVIDIA rumors mean that Apple is building their own GPUs? Yes, it is a stretch but let's have a look at a bunch of convenient truths:

New Hires. Apple has been hiring AMD/ATI CTO-level execs over the past year. Bob Drebin and Raja Koduri are the most notable.

Bob Drebin was the chief technology officer of the Graphics Products Group within AMD. In this role, he oversaw the technical strategy and direction for AMD's graphics related businesses.

Mr. Drebin joined AMD with the ATI acquisition in 2006. At ATI, Mr. Drebin led the architecture and design of many of ATI award-winning graphics processors. Before ATI, Mr. Drebin managed the architecture and design unit of ArtX, where he was instrumental in development of the graphics component for the Nintendo Game Cube. Prior to joining ArtX, Mr. Drebin was a chief engineer in Silicon Graphics' Advanced Graphics Division, where he spent nine years developing high performance graphics systems.

Their new boss? Mark Papermaster, a guy with chip knowledge so important to IBM that they sued Apple to prevent him from joining.

PA Semi. The official word on this group acquired by Apple is that they are building next gen iPhone processors...and they probably are. But their expertise could also be used in building graphics processors.

There is always the PowerVR angle to think about as well. Apple owns about 10% of the mobile GPU designer (and Intel owns 15%) so it will be interesting to see where all of these puzzle pieces fit.

OpenCL. Apple is spearheading the move to this GPU-as-processor architecture. As a founding member of the Khronos group, Apple will be in a position to run with this technology when Snow Leopard hits the streets in September.

While initially developing OpenCL, it became clear to Apple that the technology offered an opportunity for the industry to work together to define a standard for parallel programming. With the support of AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA, Apple proposed OpenCL to the Khronos Group consortium as the basis for a new standard. Demonstrating the strength of the proposal, OpenCL was expanded to include digital signal processors (DSPs) and other specialized processor architectures. It was ratified as an open, royalty-free open standard in December 2008.

Stranger things have happened.

Karaoke on the iPhone?

Seth Weintraub — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:01:10 +0000

Stranger things have happened. Have a gander at this somewhat hilarious patent illustration filed by Apple:

Abstract: Systems and methods for providing real-time feedback to karaoke users are provided. The systems and methods for providing users with real-time feedback while they are singing karaoke generally relate to receiving the user's vocals, determining whether the user is singing on key/pitch and providing real-time feedback to the user while the karaoke song is being sung. The feedback will be positive feedback if user is on key/pitch and it will be negative feedback if user is off key/pitch. For example, the feedback signal if the user is singing too low can be an exaggerated low signal of the user's own voice. This will encourage the user to sing at a higher pitch.

We actually really like this idea, even if it has little chance of making it to a final product. It might be better on the AppleTV platform if Apple is still interested in that hobby.