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Posts tagged with "apple"

Apple Finally Has A Better Short URL for Ping: iTun.es

Tonight I went out to show some friends of mine Infinity Blade for the iPhone (they all loved the graphics, by the way) and when I came back home 10 minutes ago I decided I would take 10 minutes to check out The Smith’s albums that were released in the iTunes Store earlier today.

I had configured my Ping account to share items on Twitter, so I clicked the “Post” button and noticed something interesting: Apple has finally deployed a new short URL for Ping tweets, itun.es. The itun.es domain was purchased by Apple years ago, and since Apple announced the Ping - Twitter integration in November many thought itun.es would be a great option for those tweeted items. The itun.es links are now ready to go and they show up in the iTunes Store when sharing a song / album on Twitter. Read more

First Apple Store Now A Cult For “Appleheads”

Apple’s got more than 200 retail stores worldwide now, and those stores are usually crowded with people checking out iPads, iPhones and MacBooks. Most of all, people who go to the Apple Store sometimes just want the customer care and experience granted by the super-trained Apple employees – this is true in the US, Europe, China, everywhere.

Yet, even a tech giant like Apple started small and iterated from there. The first Apple Store, opened in May 19, 2001 in the 30-year old Glendale Galleria in California has become a cult destination for Apple fans (or, “Appleheads”) in the United States, Reuters reports. Read more

Apple Engineer Re-Builds 2,000 Year Old Computer With Lego

If you’re looking for the perfect way to begin your geek weekend, look no further than the video below. If the screenshot we posted above doesn’t tell you much about what you’re going to see, here’s the gist: an Apple engineer, Andrew Carol, has recreated a 2,000 year old Greek mechanism – widely regarded as the world’s first “computer” – using his 1,500 Lego Technic blocks.

The computer goes by the name of Antikythera Mechanism, and it’s an ancient computer made of mechanical parts Greeks used to calculate “with unprecedented accuracy” astronomical positions and celestial events. Now the Antikythera Mechanism is working again, only in Lego pieces.

If you want the full details on how the mechanism works arithmetically, or you simply want to geek out over the Lego heaven Carol has built, the video is embedded right after the break.

Amazing. [via Engadget] Read more

Apple and Costco: It’s (Officially) Over

You may remember there was a time when retail chain Costco was selling iPods. Everything was fine and cool back then, until the day Apple got bigger and started giving iPads away to other retail chains such as Target, WalMart and Sam’s Club – cutting out the old partner Costco. The iPad started appearing everywhere, but not at Costco.

Soon after that, and we’re talking October 2010, Costco started dropping the iPods they had because they were left out of the iPad distribution game. Several reports pointed out that Apple products had gone missing at Costco. Today, the end of the relationship between Apple and Costco is official. Read more

iTunes Rolling Out 90 Second Song Previews

Back in November we reported that Apple sent notifications out to music labels to tell them that Apple is getting ready to extend iTunes Music previews from 30 seconds to 90 seconds for songs that are at least 2 minutes and 30 seconds long.

Today, still unofficially unannounced, Apple has begun to roll out the extended song previews in the iTunes Store. All of iTunes’ current top albums have the 90 second previews, but most songs still have the original 30 second previews. Apple has yet to issue a press release announcing the feature but we can expect one before the week’s end. Keep checking Apple’s PR page or just keep watching on our site.

iPhone Game Guru Leaves Apple→

iPhone Game Guru Leaves Apple

Devine said he can’t comment on whether his position will be filled and Apple did not respond to request for comment. But Devine says that gamers into playing on the Apple devices shouldn’t worry.

“Apple has the smartest and most talented group of people I have ever worked with,” he said. “Every day I would walk in and feel I was working alongside geniuses and I the guy with crayons in the corner.

He’s back to developing his own games.

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Jobs: Rockstar and CEO Of The Decade→

Jobs: Rockstar and CEO Of The Decade

Jobs’s legacy stretches back several decades and includes the development of a few more groundbreaking innovations from his first go-round at Apple in the 1970s and ’80s: the Apple II, the Mac and elaborate computer graphics, to name a few. Along with being likened to Edison and Bell, comparisons with such captains of industry as Walt Disney — of whose namesake company Jobs would later become the biggest individual shareholder — spring to mind for many.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards.”

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Steve Jobs: MobileMe Will Get “A Lot Better” Next Year

Surprised? MacRumors is reporting of a new email from Steve Jobs to one of their readers who, annoyed by MobileMe performance issues such as duplicate entries or unreliable syncing, emailed him to ask if Apple was working on it, to make it better. Jobs, as usual, replied with a very concise email saying that, yes, MobileMe will indeed get a lot better in 2011.

Q: I love my iPad and iPhone4 and am a huge fan of yours and all that Apple does. I desperately want to stay inside of Apple’e ecosystem as much as possible.

However, MobileMe is making it very difficult for me to do so. Unreliable/unpredictable syncing, creating duplicate entries (sometimes scores of them), etc. It’s almost unusable.

And I know from forums (including Apple’s own support boards) that I am not the only one experiencing these very real and frustrating problems.

Please tell me it will get better, and soon?

Jobs: Yes, it will get a lot better in 2011.

Sent from my iPhone

Of course it will get better. Apple is always working on making its product line better year after year and, even if some issues of MobileMe weren’t addressed during 2010, don’t forget Apple made Find My iPhone free, introduced note and iBooks bookmarks syncing, revamped the web UI of MobileMe. Changes were made in 2010, so perhaps 2011 will bring several performance improvements – we’re talking about speed, sync, support for multiple clients. And maybe some new features, too.

Also, don’t forget the data center Apple has been busy building in North Carolina. Because we’re pretty sure that will be behind MobileMe getting a lot better next year.

Find My iPhone App Helps Police Track Down Thief In Singapore

We have heard stories like this one before, and it looks like Apple’s Find My iPhone service keeps on helping police and iPhone owners track down thieves. The latest story comes from Singapore, where the Straits Times is reporting a 18-year-old Malaysian man was tracked down by the police thanks to Find My iPhone in less than 48 hours.

Early on Sunday morning, the 36-year-old victim was walking along Lim Liak Street when an unknown man approached her from behind and snatched away her iPhone which she was holding.

After the victim lodged a report, the ‘Find My iPhone’ application was used to help the police track down the suspect.

With the release of iOS 4.2 in November, Apple made Find my iPhone free. The service officially supports only last generation devices, but it’s quite easy to set up on older units.