TMO columnist and popular author Ted Landau joined Chuck Joiner on the MacNotables podcast to talk about Apple’s new iPod models, the second generation Apple TV, Ping and the cable TV industry.






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Macworld's Switching to a Mac Superguide is aimed at new Mac owners who are making their first baby steps into the OS X world. If you or someone in your family is finally making the switch to a Mac from a PC, this indispensable guide can help with the big move.






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Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson recently tweeted that a T-Mobile manager “casually mentioned to [him] that they’re going to get the iPhone 3GS (but not 4, oddly) later this year,” and asked if this was common knowledge. As Business Insider points out, it is odd that Anderson would broadcast…

Here's two tips for the new iTunes 10 that you might not have seen yet. First up, 9to5Mac shares the news that you can now plug any iOS device with music on it into iTunes 10 and listen in to whatever music is available without having to enable "manual sync mode." That's a nice bonus -- if you're at a party, and your friend wants to hear a tune you're carrying around on the iPhone, you can just plug it in, hit play, and dance the night away. I presume all of the usual restrictions on sharing music are still there (music bought on one account can't be downloaded to another, obviously), but at least just for listening, iTunes 10 makes things much easier.

Mac OS X Hints also shares a tip for those disappointed by the look of the grayed-out icons in the iTunes 10 sidebar. By putting a certain line into Terminal, you can enable "...

Once again, the cool cats at iFixit have gotten their hands on Apple’s new hardware to perform a full teardown of the fourth-generation iPod shuffle.

Per AppleInsider, the new hardware carries a model number of A1373, updated from the A1271 designation of the previous generation hardware.

The updated iPod shuffle marks the return of buttons to the media player, which were absent from the previous generation. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs even conceded last week that “people clearly missed the buttons.”

The tightly packed hardware is particularly difficult to open, iFixit noted. “It took us a good half hour of prying and heat-gunning to...

The latest maintenance updates for Safari 4 and 5 also address a handful of security vulnerabilities, Apple notes. Two of these are based in WebKit, the rendering engine at the core of the browser. One involves an input validation problem in the handling of floating point data, which could be used to trigger an exploit via a malicious website....

Safari - Operating system - Microsoft Windows -...

Apple released MobileMe iDisk 1.2.1 for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad on Tuesday. The update for the iDisk file access app fixed an issue that prevented some Keynote files and other package files from opening properly on the iPad.






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Numbers mined from iTunes by Asymco are pointing towards a startling new fact: that very soon the number of app downloads will surpass music downloads, in just half the amount of time.

Asymco, the same market research firm that published the purported figures of iPod Touch sales, reckons by the end of the year more apps will have been downloaded than music tracks—with today's figures showing 6.3 billion apps have been downloaded in just 2.2 years, whereas it took five years for the same number of music downloads.

What a world we live in,...

A new survey of cell phone users found that 20 percent of potential buyers let the iPhone 4 antenna affect their purchasing decision, but three times as many expressed dismay that Apple's smartphone is not available on U.S. carrier Verizon.

Apple's iPad isn't just hurting netbooks but notebook sales as a whole, UBS analyst Maynard Um told investors today. While it wasn't always replacing notebooks outright since it isn't currently a true replacement, the tablet is in many cases letting computer buyers put off either replacing or upgrading a computer in the same timeframe. Lower-end PCs were at the highest risk....

Apple - People - Hardware -...

VMware previewed a desktop virtualization client for the Apple iPad, but isn't saying when it will be commercially available.







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Along with the desktop version of Ping, you can also utilize Apple's new social network on your iPhone. It's actually proven to be my favorite method of using the service.

However, Apple does make it a bit difficult. At this time, you can't activate a Ping account from your phone -- it must be done through iTunes 10. Otherwise, you'll get the lovely message as seen in our screenshot gallery. Once you get Ping activated, it integrates nicely with the existing mobile iTunes.

Read on to see Ping in action on the iPhone, or check out the gallery.

Gallery: Ping on iPhone

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Apple's competitively priced iPad is expected to reduce sales of low-end notebook PCs in 2011, when consumers are projected to buy at least 28 million of the touchscreen tablet, one analyst believes.

Portfolio Server 9.5 offers new features for previewing and selecting graphics and enhanced file format support.







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One of the things that was widely rumored to appear but ultimately absent from Apple's music event last week was an extension of song previews on the iTunes Store from their current 30 seconds to 60 or even 90 seconds. According to CNET, we can blame the Byzantine licensing arrangement of the music industry (surprise, surprise).

Apple had a deal worked out with Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), all four major record companies, and a contract with American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) that never limited preview lengths in the first place. Apparently that still wasn't enough to increase preview lengths, because CNET says the National Music Publishers Association objected and basically said, "No, you have to make a deal with us, too."

All of which just makes me wonder: how many different licensing associations does this cash cow industry need, anyway?

The music industry...

Mozilla has released Firefox 4 beta 5, which offers new security features and graphics acceleration capabilities. The latest version supports HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), a security protocol that helps prevent "man in the middle" attacks. The browser remembers which sites use HSTS, ensuring that any connection attempts use SSL....

Firefox - browser - Clients - WWW -...

An overview for installing custom profiles with CA Certificates to simplify enterprise Wi-Fi connections in iOS.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Drop that curling broom and get downloading! Reader Jacques writes in to let us know that the Canadian edition of the App Store has begun accepting iTunes gift cards as payment for app purchases, a policy change that seems to have quietly taken effect back in June of this year.

You may recall (or maybe not) that Canada's iPhone-toting population was previously shut out of using gift cards for apps, although the reasons why aren't entirely clear.

Congratulations, Canada, and enjoy.

Perhaps you've been burning to build an online feature around some interesting government data source; if so, the Federal Communications Commission just made the task simpler. The agency has released the Application Programming Interface (API) specs for four of its big repositories of information: its consumer broadband test, broadband provider database, license owner storehouse, and latitude/longitude to county converter.
"We want the FCC's Web presence to be larger than a single Web site," FCC Geographic Information Officer Michael Byrne posted on Tuesday. "We want the developer community to run with these APIs to make mash-ups and data calls connecting FCC data assets to other sources for creative and useful applications to the public."
Although the Commission has done a fine job of making its public filings much more accessible, that's only the tip of the vast data iceberg which is the FCC. The biggest challenge is figuring out where this juicy stuff actually...

A new update to Xinet's WebNative Suite has added Adobe CS5 support to Picture Wrangler ID, WebNative ID, Annotator ID, and Asset Browser ID. The four plug-ins have been created to work with Adobe InDesign, providing users with additional features not found in the default software. For example, Picture Wrangler ID provides one-click relinking between FPO and high-resolution versions of images, while Annotator ID can be used to create PDF's that contain interactive links to images that reside on the WebNative server. To purchase the WebNative Suite, customers must con...

IPhone - WebNative Suite...

Hey DF’ers, come hang at the ICONGOODS.com T-Shirt Launch Party and get 20% off your entire order!

Our “softwear apparel” features the wildly popular Glyphish icons by Joseph Wain on sexy silky-smooth American Apparel t-shirts. Speaking of smooth, all our shirts are deliciously tagless for optimal comfort. So grab a cup while we tap the keg, and browse all the yummy (icon)goodness. And don’t forget, use the discount code “FIREBALL” at checkout to get 20% off for a limited time.

The iPod touch literally has it all. This is Apple’s flagship iPod and is the top-selling device in the company’s arsenal — with good reason. The iPod touch incorporates everything that makes Apple a great company. It has an iPhone-like design, it can run apps, it has multi-touch, HD video recording and FaceTime video chat. [...]

Blogger asymco did a little calculating from last week's announcement numbers, and has hammered out a rough estimate of just how many of each iDevice are floating around the world today. According to Steve at last week's event, there are 120 million iDevices total in the world, and we already knew from SEC filings that 59.6 million of those were iPhones. The current number of iPads in the hands of customers around world is 3.2 million, which (with estimates for the past month on both of those devices added in), means that there are likely 45.2 million iPod touches around. That's 37.7% of iOS devices at large -- not as big as it used to be, as the iPad's arrival shook things up a bit, but still a very...

The good news is, the Safari 5.0.2 update fixes a passel of bugs and outstanding security issues. The bad news: like all Safari updates, which replace the underlying Webkit framework used by many Mac OS X apps to render HTML, this 39 MB update requires a restart. There's also a 4.1.2 update for users still on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

Apple's notes on the update say that it "contains improvements to compatibility and security" including:

• Fixes an issue that could prevent users from submitting web forms
• Fixes an issue that could cause web content to display incorrectly when viewing a Google Image result with Flash 10.1 installed
• Establishes an encrypted, authenticated connection to the Safari Extensions Gallery

Thanks to Carlos, Joachim and David for sending this in.

TUAW...

Apple released a small update to iWeb that addresses issues related to publishing Web sites to MobileMe.

iPhone developers report that Apple's Game Center has finally gone live. Formerly limited to a sandbox-only development environment, accounts and friends that were created for the sandbox will not apply to the live production system on Apple's servers. Game Center is now prompting for new credentials -- and developers are sharing usernames on Twitter. Older accounts and friends were wiped out yesterday to prepare for the live system.

The server is reportedly having some start-up issues, including connectivity and crashing issues, but developers who were limited before are now able to create full accounts and full-on matchups. Currently, Game Center is live in 4.1, which we expect to arrive soon. Developers can submit Game Center applications to iTunes Connect using the 4.1 GM seed.

Once the app and iOS 4.1 are available, we'll have a full review.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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Justin Bieber may be capable of single-handedly bringing down Twitter, but Mark Hurd only wishes he had that problem. Meanwhile, Eminem’s downloading money by the fistful and Google’s getting ready to switch on its TV service.






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Apple updated Safari to version 5.0.2 for Mac and Windows Tuesday, an update that includes both bug fixes and security patches for the company’s Web browser. The update also adds an encrypted connection for users visiting the company’s Safari Extension Gallery, a gallery of third party Safari Extensions.






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Stop us if you've heard this one. Apple releases the iPhone 4, and the tremendous demand from customers keeps store shelves bare. That's the case in Australia, where suppliers Telstra, Optus and Vodafone Hutchison Australia are struggling to keep up.

As online stores generate increasing backlogs, shipping times increase. As of this writing, most customers are being asked to wait between two and three weeks for their orders to arrive. It's beginning to wear on shoppers and store owners alike. "Even one to two weeks, or up to three weeks, waiting time is not ideal," said an unidentified representative from Vodafone Hutchison Australia.

Meanwhile, Apple is sending out fresh supplies weekly. "Shipments of the iPhone 4 continue to be made," an Apple rep told The Australian. Supplies were strained in the US for quite a while...

Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced Tuesday that his company was ready to launch Google TV this Fall in the U.S., and throughout the rest of the world during 2011. Mr. Schmidt made the announcement during his keynote speech at the IFA consumer electronics trade show in Berlin Tuesday, and is seemingly in response to Apple’s unveiling of its newest Apple TV model last week.





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Matt Drance on Ping:

It’s interesting how much more polished the Ping UI is on iPhone
than on the desktop—a testimony to where Apple thinks the money
is. Whether you’re standing in line, sitting in an airport, or
on the bus, Ping will help you find music with more confidence,
and in less time, than ever. The desktop UI, by contrast, looks
horribly rushed, and not nearly up to Apple’s usual standards
for a demo, let alone a shipped product.

Agreed. Ping on the iPhone feels like a decent native client to a social network. Ping on the desktop (Mac/Windows) feels like an afterthought to iTunes — one little source list item halfway down the list, with content that doesn’t seem designed at all. Not that it’s poorly designed, but un-designed. It takes the shape of default iTunes Store content.

Drance also notes:

I’m already buying more music. I...

The iPad Orchestra shared this video with us that shows off the sounds of Amidio's latest App, Seline HD.

Google has announced a press event for tomorrow, September 8th, to discuss searching. It seems obvious, except recently Google has been about almost everything except search, so it’s worth stating out in the open.

The iWeb component of iLife '09 has just been updated to version 3.0.2. Apple hasn't provided much information on what the new 186 MB update will do outside of saying it addresses assorted minor issues and more serious issues when using it to publish to MobileMe, but it's available now via Software Update. So go grab the new iWeb update and tell us what you find.

Note after posting: The iWeb update also cleans up support for searching podcasts and blogs. It requires 10.5.6 or better to run and outside of Software Update, you can download it from Apple's Support Website.

Thanks Macworld UK for the additional information
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RIM today quietly slipped word that BlackBerry App World has passed 10,000 apps. The figure comes 1.5 years after the mobile store launched and shortly after the launch of App World 2.0 last month. Its climb has been relatively brisk in 2010, moving up from about 7,000 in the spring....

IPhone - Handhelds - Apple - Smartphones -...

Fixes minor MobileMe-related issues. ($79 as part of iLife, free update, 177.14 MB)

 

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Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet.

Google launched a very interesting tool that offers suggestions as you type: Google Scribe. It's not exactly the service I anticipated 3 years ago, but Google Scribe works surprisingly well. For example, I started to type "This works sur" and Google suggested "This works surprisingly well", which is exactly what I wanted to type. Instead of typing 14 characters, I could only type "1" or press Enter to select the first suggestion. "Google Scribe provides text completion service. Using information from what you have already typed in a document, Google Scribe provides related word or phrase completion suggestions. In addition to saving keystrokes, Google Scribe's suggestions indicate correct or popular phrases to use," explains Google.The nice thing about this service is that you don't need to use Google's editor. You can add a bookmarklet to your browser and use Google Scribe in Gmail, Blogger, Google Docs or on any web page that includes text fields.Google Scribe only works for...

Poet's Pad, by Dante Varnado Moore, is an iPad app designed to let poets write, arrange, and store all of their creative writings and poetry concepts, while offering a few tools to help provide inspiration.






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Griffin Technology is known for making handy accessories for the Mac and iPod/iPhones. The MacBook Pro that I am using to write this article is currently supported by the Griffin iCurve (which was later replaced with the Elevator), which I've been using for about 6 years now.

When I saw the Loop for the iPad, I knew it was going to be something that I wanted to use. As shown above, it will hold your iPad in either "portrait" or "landscape" orientation, but if you look at the very front of the Loop, you will see a slight edge there as well. You can rest the iPad at a lower angle, which is more comfortable for typing (see image here...

To celebrate and coincide with its fifth-year anniversary, Eye-Fi has announced a new Developer Program that will expand its wireless SD card platform. Eye-Fi makes memory SDHC cards that have their own Wi-Fi connection and can send images captured by compatible digital cameras to a predetermined location on the web. Now, third-party developers can embed Eye-Fi functionality in their own apps....

US-Mexico Border - Protocols - HTTP -...

In completing its teardown of the fourth-generation iPod shuffle, iFixit has indicated that the device is “extremely difficult’ to open, rendering it nearly unserviceable by end users. iFixit found that the device’s control wheel is attached to the logic board via a connector, making it easy to remove, while…

Apple has confirmed via a graphic on its Game Center web page that the iPhone 3G will not support the upcoming social gaming network. The graphic indicates that Game Center will be supported on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and second-, third-, and fourth-generation iPod touch. Mac Rumors

TRI-EDRE has launched two software updates, Back-in-Time 2 and Trash Magic 2. Back-in-Time provides access to all of the data backed up by Time Machine, organizing it with a visual record. Files and folders can be copied to any location via drag and drop. A specific item's backups can be traced by dragging it to the Back-in-Time item list, where earlier versions can be accessed by means of a date slider....

Arts - MacNN - IPhone -...

Müller Dairy has announced its new UK data center will green up by incorpating energy efficient APC InfraStruXure In-Row cooling systems, which focus on cooling specific hardware rather than the entire server room. The company is not yet ready to use food and animal waste to power its computing facilities, a move that Hewlett-Packard has suggested as a means to save energy.

The Deal Brothers noted that Apple was offering a refurbished 13” MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo for $1949, including free shipping.








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Majic Jungle Software has released an update to Chopper 2 adding TV Out support for the iPhone 4 and several other improvements. Chopper 2 is a side scrolling action game where players fly a helicopter to undertake missions such as escorting vehicle convoys, rescuing civilians and attacking enemy vehicles and…

Intuit is preparing to release QuickBooks 2011 for the Mac on September 27th with some great new features like multi-user support (finally!), mileage tracking, and more. We had a chance to explore this new version with William Lynes, QuickBooks product manager. It's quite Mac-like, and I suspect it will be a welcome update for QuickBooks users.

The marquee feature of this update is multi-user support. "It was our number one request," Lynes told us. Many customers have experienced the frustration of wanting to work in QuickBooks, only to be denied because another user has a certain file open. Stop us if you've heard this one before. Fortunately, QuickBooks 2011 fixes all of that.

TUAWQuickBooks 2011 to add multi-user support, more originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple...

A UBS analyst, John Hodulik, has significantly raised an estimate for how many iPhones AT&T will activate by the end of the September quarter. The number has has almost doubled from an earlier forecast, shifting from 2.5 million to 4.5 million. During the recent June quarter, AT&T activated roughly 3.2 million iPhones. The iPhone 4 only launched in the US on June 24th though, giving the model little chance to have an impact on Apple's latest financial report....

IPhone - Smartphone - ...