Out of respect for the great performer Steve Jobs, I prefer to save all surprises for the keynote. But those smarty pantses over at bbGadgets may have unlocked the secret behind Apple’s Oct 14th MacBook event teaser. Assuming that the Apple logo is a 1.5″ standard, they measured the laptop to have a 13.3″ diagonal length. That’s the same size as the current generation MacBook, which would seem to support all of those metal MacBook rumors. [bbGadgets]
From: Gizmodo: Apple
You’re more likely than ever to buy a smartphone, not just because they do so much more than dumb feature phones, with real email, decent web browsing and downloadable applications, but because they’re cheaper than ever. With the exception of some expensive ass unlocked-but-unsubsidized European models, you generally don’t have to pay more than $300 for a balls-to-the-wall smartphone—though the voice plan plus data fees can easily run you $80 or more per month. Here’s a rudimentary overview of your choices (more now than ever before), why you might pick them, and why they might suck for you.
ANDROID by Google
The splashy new entrant into smartphone land, Android is Google’s Linux-based open source mobile platform meant to bring real, constantly connected internet to phones. Even though it’s debuting on a single phone, the G1 from HTC, expect to see the free OS show up on tons of phones, from HTC, Motorola, and others. It’s totally modern and powerful, and the fact that it’s open source makes it incredibly appealing to some developers, so most signs point to awesome applications and mobile internet.
Why You’ll Use It Unlike BlackBerry, iPhone or Windows Mobile, there are no limits on what application developers can do. So its real strength is the power that developers hold—we’re hoping to see some of the wildest, most innovative applications hit Android first. You’ll have tons of hardware options, from low to high end, and pretty much any input you want—touchscreen, QWERTY, whatever—once the ball gets rolling. This is the ultimate geek phone.
Why It Sucks Developers have to plug a lot of holes right off the bat, like the complete lack of business features. If they fail to come through, it could fall flat. Not as elegant as the iPhone (though it beats, say, Windows Mobile, by leaps and bounds), it still doesn’t quite pass the “mom” test.
BLACKBERRY by RIM
Research in Motion’s BlackBerry started out as a glorified two-way pager before evolving into what most consider the best smartphone for email. It is also a shining validation of tightly integrated hardware/software model—they make the phones, they make the operating system. Previously it was a phone that corporations gave to people in suits because of its BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which integrates it with a corporation’s email, plus its Exchange support and high security. Now, though, it’s increasingly popular with real live people. The BlackBerry Bold offers the latest version of the standard OS, while the recently announced Storm uses one modified for a touchscreen.
Why You’ll Use It It has the best email experience around—in part thanks to their traditionally awesome keyboards, so the touchscreen Storm is something of a risk. The OS is really to easy use, with everything neatly presented up front using rows and rows of icons. There’s a reason it has surpassed Windows Mobile in marketshare and is the corporate drone phone of choice. Also, RIM seems intent on juicing up its already solid dev community, so expect even more great apps in the future. (Catching a pattern with the importance of apps?)
Why It Sucks It’s totally closed and proprietary. You’ve gotta buy a BlackBerry phone to get the OS. If you’re not using the Bold, Storm or the Flip Pearl, it’s not very sexy and can easily look dated. Also, in past models, the web browsing experience was absolute garbage. Now just finding its stride as a consumer device, it’s not as media-centric as some others, but that is fortunately changing as well.
IPHONE OS X by Apple
Some haters still stay that the iPhone isn’t really a smartphone, but for all practical intents and purposes it is. Running a stripped down but very real version of Mac’s OS X, it’s one of the most powerful and modern OSes of the bunch.
Why You’ll Use It It’s the most attractive and usable smartphone around, period. It has the best mobile internet browser, largely thanks to multitouch navigation. But its killer feature might be its ability to run third-party apps, which come from one of the most vibrant dev communities around, and are often—but not always—actually useful. Not to mention that, as an iPod, it’s also the best music phone on the planet—at least until that mystery Zune phone appears.
Why It Sucks For being so powerful and modern, it can’t do things even the dumbest phones do, like MMS, or copy and paste, a smartphone standard. Also email and corporate features aren’t quite up to BlackBerry standards, lacking email search among other deficiencies. Apple tightly controls it, which might hurt development and innovation. And the whole making a phone call thing itself still kinda blows.
WINDOWS MOBILE by Microsoft
Unlike the iPhone and OS X, the only thing Microsoft’s smartphone OS shares with actual Windows is the name. It has its roots in Windows CE and originally went by the Pocket PC moniker before becoming Windows Mobile. Mostly for corporate troopers, the current version number is 6.1, and it comes in touchscreen and non-touchscreen flavors. It recently fell behind RIM’s BlackBerry in marketshare.
Why You’ll Use It Diehards swear by its power, even if it isn’t so easy for Joe Six-Pack to pick up and run with. It runs on handsets from a bunch of manufacturers, and unlike the BlackBerry and iPhone platforms, you can build your own device to run it. So much of the most advanced mobile hardware you’ll lay your eyes on runs Windows Mobile, including the HTC Touch HD and Sony Xperia X1. It’s got a corporate soul, so it’s designed for business users, and it has specialty applications (like in the medical field) that some professionals need and can’t get anywhere else.
Why It Sucks There’s a reason premiere Windows Mobile handset makers have become increasingly adept at covering up the user interface: It’s frankly terrible, especially when it comes to touch navigation. It isn’t a great media phone, has a god-awful native browser and doesn’t look so hot either. Unfortunately the next version, WM7, is over a year away.
PALM GARNET
Oh, whither Palm. Without getting into the complicated story of Palm’s various fits, seizures and splits, the Palm OS goes all the way back to 1996, when it powered Palm’s PDAs. All but dead now, its last hurrah was on the Centro before Palm plunged ahead with Windows Mobile. Supposedly work on its Linux-powered follow-up is well under way, but it’s been delayed multiple times.
Why You’ll Use It Though dated, the Palm OS makes a great starter smartphone, hence the success of the cheaper-than-dirt Centro. The learning curve is shallow and it provides most of the smartphone features you expect, even if it does look like it’s still trapped in 1996.
Why It Sucks Uh, it’s basically dead. You probably won’t see it on another phone post-Centro, Palm’s more pricey phones use Windows Mobile, and prospects on the upcoming Palm OS overhaul are dicey. (They should take Android and use it as a powerful foundation for the next Palm OS, but that’s just my two cents.)
SYMBIAN by Nokia
Symbian is the world’s most popular smartphone platform, thanks to Nokia. The most prominent variant right now is S60. While it doesn’t seem so ubiquitious in the US, abroad it’s far more common. It powers some seriously sick hardware, like Nokia’s N series, and has a solid dev community, though the free side of that isn’t as big as on other platforms.
Why You’ll Use It Did you miss the “world’s most popular smartphone” thing? Buy a Nokia multimedia phone, and you buy Symbian. It offers a lot of the best smartphone features—strong email, web and calendar, plus a large global development community—in a package that is far more usable than Windows Mobile. Also, it works with Macs with far less hassle than Windows Mobile.
Why It Sucks It can be overly complicated, and still not as easy to use as a BlackBerry or the iPhone. If you’re not using a really solid piece of hardware, it can be really sluggish. Also, connecting to the web can be annoying. And while it’s on handsets from a couple of other manufacturers, for the most part, you had better love Nokia hardware.
And that’s pretty much the lay of the land, at least for now.
Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about dumbphones, dumber people or Mark Wahlberg to tips@gizmodo.com, with “Giz Explains” in the subject line.
From: Gizmodo: Apple
AT&T now offers the same online pre-buy as Apple for the iPhone, so you’ll theoretically have to spend less time at the store. Entering your billing info will take care of the credit check, and if you’re coming from another carrier, you can see if you’re eligible to port your number. Existing AT&T customers can scope out if they’re eligible to add a new line for the iPhone. It’d be nice if you could go all the way and cut out the trip to the store entirely, but that’s probably not going to happen. [AT&T]
From: Gizmodo: Apple
Apple’s just sent out invites for the October 14 MacBook event being held in Cupertino at Apple’s headquarters. How do we know it’s about MacBook? Well, take a look at the image. The fun starts 10:00 AM, PST. We’ll see you there early that morning for our usual entertaining pre-game commentary before the actual Liveblog starts. Looks like we’ll get to see which one of those MacBook “brick” rumors will be coming true. We’re hoping for the one where Steve Jobs gives all attendees a new car.
From: Gizmodo: Apple
Brian Eno, the father of ambient music and one of the greatest musical minds of our time, has just teamed up with musician/programmer Peter Chilvers to create one of the coolest, most unique iPhone apps to hit the App Store yet. Called Bloom, it’s “part instrument, part composition and part artwork.” It’s also a must-get.
Unlike most music-creation apps, it doesn’t take an existing musical instrument and cram it awkwardly into the iPhone’s interface. Instead, it creates a completely new “instrument” designed specifically for the iPhone. Essentially, you’re provided with a colored screen and a quiet drone. As you tap the screen in various places, different tones play depending on where you tapped. They then loop, creating a unique piece of music on the fly, one that changes gradually on its own once you stop tapping.
You can also just let it create music on its own, coming up with a new, unique piece every time you run it. It’s also beautiful, with the tones appearing as colored spots that slowly fade. It’s as satisfying to actively play with as it is to let do its own thing.
Bloom is available on the App Store now for $3.99, and if you’re a fan of ambient music or music in general, you’ll be wanting to get it right now. [Bloom (iTunes link) via The Apple Blog; Thanks, Purns!]
From: Gizmodo: Apple
Taiwanese blog Apple.Pro has put out a couple more pictures that could be related to the upcoming Macbook Pro. We’re not sure if they’re real or not, but there are enough photos out there to at least mostly rule out Photoshop. While the new pictures resemble case images we saw earlier, it looks to be designed for a smaller laptop and lacks their speaker grills.
The keyboard seems to be identical to the MacBook Air, but with a larger trackpad. The left side houses all the ports (much like the earlier photo), while the right side has a slot for the optical drive. Apple.Pro is responsible for previous case images as well, but only time will tell how accurate their tips are. [Apple Pro via Mac Rumors]
From: Gizmodo: Apple
Earlier this week we reported on a rumor about a new “secret” manufacturing technology by Apple. Supposedly code-named “brick”, this “revolutionary” process would carve a MacBook shell out of a single block of aluminum. Business Week echoed the unconfirmed information, quoting the usual analysts and citing an Apple patent, implying that the rumor may be true. Today, Engadget published an alleged spy-shot claiming that it looks like a “fancy new MacBook Pro carved out of a single piece of metal.” But does it? And does the Apple patent prove anything about this fabled process?
Here’s the photo that Engadget thinks is the MacBook Pro made out of a single piece of metal, passed through a Shadows & Highlights and the Levels tool in Photoshop:
Clearly, there’s a seam between the top plate and the side plate. Maybe you can argue that the seam is a design feature, but then why bother going with a process that is designed to eliminate seams? A process that, according to the analysts quoted by Business Week, is “very time-intensive” and “expensive”? The original rumor even points out to a completely new factory, which seems to me suicidal in the middle of a recession.
On the other side, the seam may be an effect of the plastic that is on top of the cover, and the top of the laptop may indeed be carved out of a single piece of aluminum. But even if we assume that it is a piece of plastic on top, there are other things to consider in this story.
Business Week argues that the manufacturing technology will allow for a completely new look in the MacBook family. Indeed, when I first heard about the rumor I imagined a wild new shape. Something completely rounded—like the iPhone—in which the componentes would magically slide in and out.
However, the case we are seeing above, while elegant and simple, is not that radically different from what we are seeing now in the MacBook Air or current MacBooks Pro. Instead of having a three-dimensional shape holding the components and ports with a flat lid on top—like we have right now—this image seems to be precisely the contrary, while basically keeping the same look.
This is a perfectly valid option and we are not saying that the image above is not the real McCoy. We are saying that the stories, the “brick” rumor, the “radically” different MacBooks Pros, and the image above seem to be not compatible with each other. That’s why one of them has to be false or, at least, divergent from what we have been told so far.
Then, there’s a final element in all this: US Patent 7310872, which Business Week quotes in the article as an indication that Apple may be working in this method. However, far from describing the process the brick rumor is referring to, it describes a unique welding process.
A computing device having an improved enclosure arrangement is disclosed. One aspect of the enclosure pertains to enclosure parts that are structurally bonded together to form a singular composite structure. In one embodiment, structural glue is used to bond at least two unique parts together. Another aspect of the enclosure pertains to enclosure parts that are electrically bonded together to form a singular integrated conductive member. In one embodiment, conductive paste is used to bond at least two unique parts together. The improved enclosure is particularly useful in portable computing devices such as laptop computers.
As you can read in the summary and the illustrations in the gallery, this laptop building technique is all about welding and not about carving. According to the description, the new welding method will result in a strong single composite structure. It won’t avoid the seams and screws, but it will reduce them. It will also increase the strength of the whole case and avoid the excessive costs of developing the completely new secret factory that the original rumor speculates about.
This welding technique seems like a progressive step, one that will provide a better product to consumers without spending too much money in completely revamped manufacturing during a time of recession. This seems more logical and affordable for a company traditionally obsessed with product margins and keeping costs down. It makes sense.
On the other side, all of it could be true. Maybe the image is real, that’s a plastic on top, and the top of the new MacBook is carved out of a single block of aluminum, despite the extra cost, just too look like a simplified Titanium PowerBook, one of the most successful computers in Apple’s history. And maybe the new welding technology will serve to put the resulting surfaces together.
Whatever the case is, always remember our first rule of rumors: Never believe them. Specially the ones about Apple.
From: Gizmodo: Apple
Sean Siler is Microsoft’s employee and “I’m a PC” guy, the response to Apple’s long running PC parody famously acted by John Hodgman. Don’t get us wrong. There’s little to no content in this interview, but you get a good look at Siler sans brown jacket. Plus, you get to see what his hair normally looks like. (SPOILER ALERT: He slicks it back Gordon Gekko style). [via CrunchGear]
From: Gizmodo: Apple
It’s always a kick in the nuts waiting for a page to load in mobile Safari when you know like half of it is for an ad. Luckily, there’s a way to block most of them using this method from James Is Bored. It requires a jailbroken iPhone and bit of voodoo, but it’s not overly complicated. Once you’ve got a jailbroken iPhone, you need to install OpenSSH from Cydia. And that’s where the work starts.
After your phone restarts, head to Settings>Wi-Fi and hit the arrow next to your home Wi-Fi server. Write down the IP address you see. Then pop back to general settings and set auto-lock to never. On your computer, download this replacement hosts.php file.
Then, using an FTP client like FileZilla or Cyberduck with SFTP (secure SSH connection over FTP), open an SFTP connection with your iPhone’s IP address as the host. U/P is root and alpine. The connection will take a bit, and might fail a few times, but say yes to any prompts and keep trying.
At your iPhone’s root, navigate to the /etc folder and move the hosts.php file there somewhere on your computer for safe-keeping (don’t lose it!). Then replace it with the one you downloaded and restart your iPhone. Now you’ll start seeing glorious blank spots or compressed frames wherever ads used to be. It’ll nuke ads at most sites serving them through a third-party server. That wasn’t so bad was it? One word of caution: Changing the hosts file can play hell with some apps, so watch out there.
The method will work on iPod touches too. Let us know how it goes. [James Is Bored via Lifehacker]
From: Gizmodo: Apple
If you are like me and prefer to write in landscape mode in the iPhone, go and download TouchType for just 99 cents at the iTunes App Store. This program will allow you to write your emails faster and with more accuracy than with the smaller portrait keyboard. When are you are done, click a button to send the text to the Mail application, where a new message will be created with your message text. Fill the To and Subject fields and you will be ready to go. [iTunes via TechCrunch]
From: Gizmodo: Apple