Apple said it would end the iPhone 4 bumper case program on September 30th as the problem was smaller than expected

A new version of Nook for Android has been released in the Android Market, adding additional options for customizing the reading interface. In version 2.2, several options have been added to improve the overall experience, including additional line spacing options, the ability to turn text justification on and off, and an improved settings screen. An option for hiding the status bar while reading has also been added. Additionally, the update incorporates QuickActions, which makes use of pop-up menus to provide access to commonly used options, such as Details, LendMe,...

Nikon - camera -...

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There are certainly advantages to having your morning newspaper in iPad format: dynamic media, rapid updating, search and more... but not every aspect of the new digital age is an improvement over the old ink-on-dead-trees approach to the news.

We wouldn't want to spoil the fun of Newsday's ad for its new iPad app, so we'll simply give you the video with No Comment.

[via Silicon Alley Insider]

TUAWNo Comment: Newsday's iPad TV ad is awfully buggy originally appeared on The...

eldavojohn writes "Bloomberg Businessweek has an article of interest resulting from a three-hour interview with Foxconn founder Terry Gou (single page), whose company manufactures 137,000 iPhones a day. The article profiles Gou's rise to Foxconn but also offers some interesting tidbits you might not know. On why he is not opening factories in the United States, Gou frankly states, 'If I can automate in the US and ship to China, cost-wise it can still be competitive. But I worry America has too many lawyers. I don't want to spend time having people sue me every day.' If you're interested in how a modern day Henry Ford thinks, you can read the rest about the man steering the ship of the world's largest producer of electronics components and China's largest exporter. This unprecedented transparency was part of an agreement Gou made with his customers during his delayed response to an increasing number of Foxconn suicides."

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Reminder: Apple's free iPhone 4 case program ends on September 30. The company says customers who experience antenna issues after that should contact AppleCare.

Read More:
Apple case program, Ars coverage

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On Thursday, famed game developer Sega unveiled its plans for the rest of 2010, including the return of a certain speedy blue hedgehog and the company’s plans for Apple’s iOS Game Center service.






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iPhone owners tend to have the most apps installed in terms of the smartphone market, says Nielsen. The research group recently surveyed about 4,000 people, and found that iPhone users have an average of 40 apps installed. The number compares against 25 for Android users, and just 14 for BlackBerry owners. All of the figures are up since December however, indicating a growing general interest in apps....

iPhone - Smartphone - Handhelds -...

Apple's iPad is unlikely to endure the company's traditional 12-month product cycle for iOS device refreshes before seeing its first major enhancements, AppleInsider has been told.

Apple has released several new printer drivers for Mac OS X.

There are some e-magazines that are worth you time and cost you nothing, and this installment of Free on iTunes, Vern Seward points you to three: National Geographic, NASA, and the newly upgraded Discover.






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QNAP Systems has refreshed its business-grade NAS servers with the new two-bay TS-259 Pro+, four-bay TS-459 Pro+, five-bay TS-559 Pro+, and six-bay TS-659 Pro+. All use Intel's 1.8GHz Atom D525 processors paired with 1GB of RAM. Each is also VMware- and Citrix-ready, along with being compliant with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V clusters and most common operating systems....

Network-attached storage - United States - Atom -...

For the iPhone 3G, the biggest new feature for many users under iOS 4.1 is the phone now actually works. Making the iPhone 3G usable under iOS 4 came with some trade-offs before the new OS was even released -- app multitasking and wallpapers didn't make the cut on the older iPhone -- but it looks like a couple more features have been pruned from the iPhone 3G after iOS 4.1.

One missing feature we noticed right away: Spotlight no longer searches through MMS messages on the iPhone 3G after the iOS 4.1 update. Given that disabling Spotlight searching was the most common suggested remedy for poor iPhone 3G performance on earlier builds of iOS 4, this omission is somewhat understandable.

More puzzling, however, is another omission the folks at geek.com noticed:...

Following Apple's announcement that it's letting up on its iOS developer restrictions, Adobe is resuming work on its own tool to create iOS apps.

Read More:
Adobe blog, Ars coverage

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MacConnection.com currently has the current-generation, 13.3-inch white unibody MacBook on sale for $954.99, a mail-in rebate offer for $105 drops the price down to only $849.99, which is about $100 less than the lowest price offered on this MacBook anywhere else. FREE shipping is included. This MacBook features a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, 8x SuperDrive, NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics card, multi-touch glass trackpad, Bluetooth and more....

MacBook - Apple - ...

One Dedicated MacNNer, Googer-Giger, is researching Mac Pros and wants some advice on dual video card performance, add your opinion here. A fresh debate about filing down the "sharp" edges of a MacBook Pro can be found in the thread titled "Filing a MBP, thoughts?"...

Mac Pro - Apple - Macintosh - Mac OS X -...

Computerworld points to an October 26 ship date for Microsoft Office 2011, based on Amazon's page updates indicating the 10/26 availability -- the products have since been switched back to "sign up to be notified" pre-release mode.

Gregg Keizler's piece also reiterates the discount options for buying Office 2008 and saving on Office 2011; by purchasing the 2008 versions now, buyers can get $25 or $50 off versus the purchase price of the next version.

We expect to hear more about Office 2011 features and fancy bits over the next few weeks.

[9to5mac rang us up to say they actually...

As expected, Apple has reevaluated their iPhone case initiative: "We are discontinuing the free case program on all iPhone 4s sold after September 30, 2010." But they'll still give you one if you complain.

The text on the iPhone 4 Case Program page reads:

We now know that the iPhone 4 antenna attenuation issue is even smaller than we originally thought. A small percentage of iPhone 4 users need a case, and we want to continue providing them a Bumper case for free. For everyone else, we are discontinuing the free case program on all iPhone 4s sold after September 30, 2010. We are also returning to our normal returns policy for all iPhone 4s sold after September 30. Users experiencing antenna issues should call AppleCare to request a free Bumper case.

Of course, if they thought...

Wondering what to download for your smartphone? Trying to find high-quality apps among the many thousands available can be a challenge, no matter what phone you own. Start with this collection of the best productivity tools, utilities, reference apps, media helpers, timesavers, and games.

In its effort to improve the performance iOS 4 on the iPhone 3G and second-generation iPod touch—the oldest and not coincidentally slowest devices supported by the new OS—Apple has removed the ability to sync Notes over-the-air for those devices in iOS 4.1. Geek.com points to an Apple Support…

Customers who buy an iPhone 4 after Sept. 30 will not be able to request a free case through Apple's "Case Program," but they will be able to contact AppleCare to request a free Bumper.

It's the year 1936. The first freely programmable computer — the Z1 — is being produced. With the ability to run programs from punched tape, the idea of

By Greg Robbins, Software Engineer

(Editor's note: Long-time readers know we sometimes publish posts aimed at programmers, and this is one of those. If you're not a software developer, don't worry. Our usual non-technical stuff will return.)

It’s rare today for any software to live in isolation. And often, applications want to connect to data in your Google Account. Social networks seek access to your Gmail contacts, finance programs try to sync with your Google Finance portfolio, and photo editing software would like to add eyeglasses and mustaches to the photos in your Picasa Web Albums account. But you probably don’t want your photo editing program to be able to download your financial portfolio, spend money with your Google Checkout account, or have access to any of your other personal data.

The fundamental problem is that giving your username and password to a program hands it access to all of your data. Recently, Internet software developers have...

LaCie has taken the wraps from its new line of small form factor USB 3.0 hard drive, which it claims are the worldís smallest ever. The portable Rikiki and desktop-sized Minimus drives deliver a theoretical high-speed 5Gbs/s perfomance over USB 3.0, in a brushed aluminum casing that takes up less space. Both also have 10GB of online storage space through Wuala....

LaCie - USB - Hardware - Storage...

According to reports in an Apple Discussions thread and in a separate but similar thread on the PriusChat forums, a number of iPhone and iPod touch users are suffering from in-car USB audio playback issues after the installation of iOS 4.1. Affected users report hearing “scratching” or “crackling”…

Readdle has released an update to ReaddleDocs, its PDF viewer and file manager for the iPad. ReaddleDocs 1.6 adds a number of new features and improvements including a completely rewritten PDF reader with smooth horizontal scrolling, iPad VGA adapter support for displaying documents on external monitors and FTP/SFTP file transfer…

DataViz has released a new update to its Documents To Go Premium Office Suite for iOS devices. Documents to Go is a universal app that allows iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users to view and edit Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint files on their devices. iPad and iOS 4 users…

Apple's policy reversal on third-party development tools for iOS may yet draw close checks from the Federal Trade Commission, sources tell the Wall Street Journal. The FTC has until now been investigating whether or not an earlier decision -- to block third-party tools -- was unfair, particularly against Adobe and developers cross-compiling from Flash. The technology makes it easier to deploy apps for multiple platforms at the same time, including chief iOS rival Android....

Apple - IPhone - Shopping...

Having trouble reading Web pages? Nancy Gravley shows you how to make Safari help out your eyes. She also has some tips on how to deal with Mac and application crashes, along with a reminder why DigitalColor Meter is a handy app to keep around.






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Android is on its way to taking the silver medal in mobile market share worldwide, and gold in North America—as long as the platform maintains its currently strong growth numbers. According to market research firm Gartner, the mobile world will be dominated by Symbian and Android devices by 2014, with RIM's BlackBerry and Apple's iOS projected to come in third and fourth place, respectively.

Symbian will maintain its market dominance thanks to Nokia's sheer sales volume, while Android will outpace the rest of the competition because of the impending launch of "many new budget Android devices" by the end of 2010 that will help the OS get into the mass market. "Other players, such as Sony Ericsson, LG and Motorola, will follow a similar strategy. This trend should help Android become...

A company that offers insurance for the iPhone (and other consumer electronics) shares some of the strangest damage claims filed for Apple's smartphone.







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The latest edition of iLounge Weekly, our weekly newsletter covering all things iLounge, is coming later today. iLounge Weekly is a summary of the week’s best news, reviews, and feature articles we’ve published, and it also features giveaways and iPod accessory discount offers from various companies. There’s still plenty of…

It should have been there when it was first introduced: FaceTime videoconferencing between iPhone/iPod touch and desktop computers. The latest rumor is that it is coming. For Macs, Apple could incorporate FaceTime support in iChat. The article doesn't mention how they are planning to do it on Windows.

This rumor, however, comes from the French site that claimed iLife'11 was coming on August 7, with a new mystery application. Neither the mystery application nor the iLife'11 suite materialized at that date.

However, FaceTime on desktop and laptop computers is only logical. It will happen for sure. The real question of when. That's what we want to know.

The sixth-generation iPod nano's design marks the largest divergence from the nano line since the device was introduced in 2005. The new device is also the first iPod nano to have a touchscreen interface, and the last iPod with a screen to get a touchscreen interface (not counting the languishing iPod classic, as that would just turn it into an iPod touch). As of now, the nano no longer has the telltale circular click wheel that helped to make the iPod so iconic.

However, the new iPod nano differs from its touchscreen iDevice brethren in that it doesn't run iOS, or at least not a version of iOS that any of us are familiar with so far. In reality, the sixth-generation nano is kind of a mutant—a cross between the old iPod and the new, where you can move things around with your finger but can still only play...

Gumdrop Cases has unveiled its new Moto Rubber and Skater Nation Plastic cases for the fourth-generation iPod touch. The Moto Rubber is a form-fitting TPU case featuring a motocross tread design and open access to all ports, controls, and cameras. It is available for pre-order in three colors…

We know that the iPad is (mostly) great for video playback, as long as you can be bothered to convert it to the right format or buy your movies and TV shows from Apple. But what if there were a way to play not just H.264 MP4 files with AAC audio (yes, the Apple spec is pretty specific), but to play any file? Thanks to VLC for the iPad, there is.

VLC is a port of the popular and excellent desktop application. The open-source project is famous for playing video files that will kill lesser applications, and it is set to make its iPad debut early next week. Romain Goyet, the CTO of the developer behind the app—Applidium—was kind enough to send the final version to me for testing.

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In spite of attempts to use it, Android 2.2 isn't a good fit for tablets, Google said late Thursday. Samsung's Galaxy Tab may use the current OS, but it's "not optimised for use on tablets," mobile product director Hugo Barra told TechRadar. It wasn't designed for the larger screen size, and many apps in the Android Market may break without knowing how to cope with the extra size, the manager said....

Google - Searching - Search Engines -...

Rockstar Games announced late Thursday plans to produce its “Grand Theft Trilogy” for the Mac. Details are sketchy, though they indicated the games would be released “most likely later this year.” The trilogy will include three controversial Mature-rated games that have never been released for the Mac before – Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft [...]

Apple is projected to sell 130 million iOS-based mobile devices per year by 2014, but both Google Android and Nokia Symbian are expected to each double that amount, according to Gartner.

Without much fanfare, Apple this week updated its iPhone Configuration Utility when it released iOS 4.1.

iPhone - Handhelds - Smartphones - Wallpapers and Themes - Android

In the wake of Apple's decision to relax restrictions on the tools its developers can use, Adobe announced Friday that it would resume development on Flash for the iPhone.

The changes and clarifications Apple made to its App Store policies this week have elicited mostly positive reactions. Adobe and Google, both affected by restrictions Apple put in place earlier this year, have voiced enthusiasm on their respective blogs.






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Apple relaxed its restrictions on what tools developers can use to code iOS apps this week, and today TMO readers are discussing what they think the reasoning behind the changes might be.






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Griffin Technology has teamed with ScrollMotion, makers of the Iceberg Reader, to develop the Woogie for iPhone and iPod touch. The Woogie is a six-limbed plush toy with an integrated case for the iPhone or iPod touch and two built-in speakers powered by AAA batteries that connect via the…

Google Voice developer Sean Kovacs tweeted saying that Apple told him his app might finally get into the App Store once he re-submits.

Read More:
Twitter, Ars coverage

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We already know that Facebook is the webs biggest time sink. If you look at the average amount of time (according to Nielsen) users spend on the social network, Facebook is a clear winner over sites such as Google or Yahoo.Now, according to comScore, Facebook is also first when it comes to the total amount of time users are spending on the site. In August, U.S. web users spent 41.1 million minutes on Facebook, which was about 9.9% of their entire web-surfing time in that month. In this same period, people spent 39.8 million minutes on all of Googles sites, and those include another huge online timesink YouTube.comScore puts Yahoo in third place, with U.S. web users spending 37.7 million minutes on its sites, which was about 9.1% of their web surfing time in August.The numbers are even more impressive when you consider that Facebook had just overtaken Yahoo in July, and in August last year U.S. web surfers had spent less than 5% of their online time on the social networking service...

KainosAgora has released an update to TweetAgora, its advanced filtering app designed to provide users with more valuable content from their Twitter feeds. TweetAgora 2.0 introduces integration with Cadmus, a real-time service that analyses and prioritizes content in users’ Twitter streams. The Cadmus integration in TweetAgora allows users to…

Is this the world's ultimate gaming PC? You could probably argue either way, but we're pretty sure it's the world's ultimate entertainment machine. Pound for pound, you'll be hard pressed to find a desktop tower with more fun-per-square-inch than on Origin PC's new

Nokia announced Friday that its chief executive will step down and will be replaced by a veteran from Microsoft, as the Finnish handset maker continues to look to create a smartphone that can compete with Apple's iPhone.