There are always good bits of data you can pry from Apple’s cold fingers during the Q&A sessions of its quarterly earnings conference calls. Today was no different.
As usual, a question came up about Apple entering the “low-end” laptop market, which is a fancy way of saying “netbook” market. Once again, Apple COO Tim Cook reiterated Apple’s stance that “Our goal is not to build the most computers. It’s to build the best.” What he means by this is that Apple has no interest in playing in the low-end market, which is of course also a low-margin market, which would mean Apple’s pretty margins taking a hit. But wording is everything, and Cook once again didn’t exactly eliminate the possibility of Apple making a new type of portable computing device.
He said that no matter what the price point is, that if Apple feels it can build a product worthy of its brand, it will do so. But he also specifically called out two price points that he thought are producing junky products, and implied that such price points will continue to produce junky products: $399 and $499. → Read More
So it looks like this whole “iPod Touch with Camera” thing is coming to fruition. While the first case we saw was a little wonky, this makes more sense. Take a look at the back of your iPod touch – there’s a Wi-Fi antenna on the left side so the only place they could stuff a camera would be in the center, next to the antenna. I’m not sure what else is up in that spot, but the camera can’t take that much space.
UPDATE – Now there’s a freaking Nano case with a hole in it! → Read More
Reader “Jenny” sent us a link to a silicone case from Asiajunk manufacturer UXSight. It purports to show an iPod Touch 3G – third generation, not third generation wireless – with two holes -one for a camera and one for the antenna. Or maybe the little one is for a little pencil that comes out and draws the subject on a piece of paper? Remember: Apple never releases designs to vendors until the absolute last minute. If we were to see anything it would happen in August at the earliest. Go back to your hot dogs. → Read More
I’m not going to send you to this site but if you need previous versions of the iPod firmware, it’s all right there for free. There might even be current versions. Just saying. → Read More
I own a first-generation iPod Touch and a T-Mobile G1. While I love my G1 as a phone, I’m constantly amazed at the quality of applications and software that are available for the iPhone — games especially. While I seem to have sort of gotten my bases covered in the games department on the G1, I can’t help but wonder what it’d be like to walk around with games like Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Sim City, and The Sims 3 on my phone all day long. Magic, I tell you. Magic! That might be stretching it a little bit, but the fact remains: The Sims 3 represents yet another excellent and very-impressive iPhone game from EA. At $9.99, it’s a no-brainer for any fan of the Sims franchise. → Read More
Oh look, outrage. It’s been a few minutes since we last ran into outrage. This time: an evil plot, hatched by the Missouri University School of Journalism, that, in effect, lets students cover the cost of their iPhone or iPod touch with federal student loans. Someone call Superman, or at least Daredevil. → Read More
Quick Version: Very few developers have pushed out games for the iPhone that are AAA titles, but even fewer developers have produced AAA iPhone titles their first time around. 2XL happens to be one of them and it’s no surprise that Supercross is one of the best selling titles for the iPhone and iPod Touch. They’ve managed to translate their console and PC experience that dates back to 1994 over to the iPhone platform without overdoing it like others have, and just keeping things simple. → Read More
There have been around 1,736 (give or take) Apple netbook rumors in the last year. The latest rumor to add to that count comes from Digitimes and is a little lite on details,
Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) is in the running to land orders for a netbook from Apple, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report citing sources from the component supply chain.
Could be a Netbook, huge iPod touch, or something only Steve Jobs type invisionaries dream about. We’re bound to find out sooner or later though. → Read More
To completely rip off Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Sundays are for watching TV, playing video games and building up your BitTorrent ratio. As it turns out, Sundays are also for finding out that the iPod touch is being used in American military theaters, helping troops translate from one tongue to another, taking photos and showing them to locals (“see, your town’s mayor is really does like us!”) and any number of other, high-techy things. Hooray for Sundays, then. → Read More
Trip Hawkins founded Electronic Arts in 1982. Then he left. In 2003 he started a new game development company called Digital Chocolate. In 2009 Hawkins finally realized that the iPhone is useful to game developers, so much so that Nintendo (DS) and Sony (PSP) are “freaking out.” Well! → Read More
The number of apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch is nearing the 30,000 mark but hardly any application takes advantage of the network effects that lie within the Apple ecosystem. Most developers simply ignore the fact that all iPhones and iPod Touches are interconnected globally and roll out stand-alone applications. This is one of the major reasons why the vast majority of fun apps lack stickiness and are easily forgotten after a few quick bursts.
But a Tokyo-based start-up called Genkii is building a unique app that has the potential to not only let a few iPhone users connect with each other, but thousands of them – at the same time or asynchronously. Sparkle is poised to become the first virtual world for the iPhone. What’s more, it’s being developed completely from scratch, exclusively as an MMO for the iPhone/iPod Touch. → Read More
If the earlier news from LG didn’t whet your appetite over new Apple hardware then BGR’s tidbit of news will certainly send you into a frenzy. One of BGR’s many “ninjas” was sifting through the 3.0 restore ramdisk and found a string of code that may or may not allude to multiple new devices. According to the “ninja,” Apple historically IDs their iPhone and iPod Touch in chronological order and found within the ramdisk are upwards of six new hardware IDs.
The short version is provided here, but the entire string can be found over at BGR. → Read More
Now that nobody on planet Earth is buying cars anymore, Sirius XM has to find a new way to promote itself to would-be buyers. It used to be that buyers of new cars would get a couple free months of Sirius or XM included; but what now? If yesterday’s conference call is any indication, Sirius XM, which was rescued at the ELEVENTH HOUR by Liberty Media last month, will really begin to promote itself to fancy-pants iPhone and iPod touch users. A Sirius XM-developed (remember, that third-party Star Player was killed last week) application will help spread the gospel of Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, Oprah and TonsOfSports. → Read More
The Dev Team has released a seven step process to jailbreak the 2.2.1 iPod touch firmware. Sure, it’s not packaged up in a nice and pretty app, but the steps don’t look to hard. Just follow ‘em to the letter and hopefully – *fingers-crossed* – you will be able to run jailbroken apps. → Read More
Really? This is getting out of hand, no? The onslaught of Obama clad doodads has begun. This stuff is going to sell like hotcakes! → Read More
Here’s an iPod mount for your trusty sniper rifle — sure, why the hell not? I mean, the life of a sniper is mostly waiting, right? Might as well catch an episode of The Office or play a quick game of Sim City while you’re waiting for your target to emerge from his super secret meeting inside some fancy hotel. → Read More
The infamous Dev-Team dropped a big hint in the form of an image a few days ago that the hacker group was developing an iPod touch 2G jailbreaking app. Now, not only did the group confirm that the iPod touch 2G was the target device for redsn0w, but have gotten a bit closer to the goal. It seems that the process has been done but is still too manual for geeks like us. They plan on packaging and releasing a convenient GUI version shortly; no official ETA has been announced however. → Read More
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