One of our AT&T Ninjas just hit us up with some news that will excite those of you who have a chronic case of the dropsies and own an iPhone. AT&T will be launching a new insurance service starting June 6th, named MobileProtect, designed specifically for the Apple iPhone. The insurance plan, which will be run by Asurion, will carry a price tag of $13.99/month and will be available for purchased through Apple’s App Store. The charges will be billed to the credit card on file with Apple.
Category: Apple
Engadget Details Next AppleTV
The new architecture of the device will be based directly on the iPhone 4, meaning it will get the same internals, down to that A4 CPU and a limited amount of flash storage – 16GB to be exact – though it will be capable of full 1080p HD (!). The device is said to be quite small with a scarce amount of ports (only the power socket and video out), and has been described to some as “an iPhone without a screen.” Are you ready for the real shocker? According to our sources, the price-point for the device will be $99. One more time – a hundred bucks.
Seven Days of System 7
Earlier this month, Dave Lawrence of Newton Poetry set forth a challenge:
Low end Mac users are masochists. There’s no easy way to take a classic Macintosh and do modern, enjoyable work without some pain or effort involved. Everything is a project.
[…]
I’m undertaking a bit of an experiment: spending an entire week with nothing but my low end Macs. I’m leaving my new 21.5″ iMac switched off, using my iPhone 3G for phone calls only, and relying only on Apple products that were released in the 1990s.
WWDC, Visual Studio & Section 3.3.1
The Apple-following portion of the Internet blew up earlier today when an analyst floated the rumor that part of Steve Jobs’ keynote would be set aside for Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer. Eric Savitz with Barron’s Tech Trader Daily:
Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with tiny Global Equities Research, contends that 7 minutes of the June 7 keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been blocked off for a presentation by Microsoft to talk about Visual Studio 2010, the company’s suite of development tools. Chowdhry says the new version of VS will allow developers to write native applications for the iPhone, iPad and Mac OS. And here’s the kicker: he thinks Microsoft’s presentation could be given by none other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
Apple Surpasses Microsoft in Value
In intraday trading shortly after 2:30 p.m., Apple shares rose 1.8 percent, which gave the company a value of $227.1 billion. Shares of Microsoft declined about 1 percent, giving the company a market capitalization of $226.3 billion.
The only American company valued higher is Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $282 billion.
This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history, as Apple had been given up for dead only a decade earlier. But the rapidly rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds a cultural shift: Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.
Chrome for Mac Makes ‘Stable’ Status
Today, I’m happy to announce that Google Chrome for Mac is being promoted out of beta to our stable channel. We believe that it provides not only the stability, performance and polish that every Mac user expects, but also a seamless native Mac application experience that Mac users will feel instantly at home with.
I’ve been using the beta as my main browser for several weeks with very few issues.
Ex-Apple Geniuses in Class Action Suit
Representative plaintiff Steve Camuti, on behalf of all others similarly situated, filed a Complaint in San Francisco County Superior Court on September 15, 2009. The lawsuit is on behalf of all persons employed in non-exempt (hourly paid) “Genius” positions in California. It alleges that Apple denied those employees rest breaks without paying wages for that time in violation of California law. The proposed plaintiff class seeks to recover unpaid wages, penalties, an injunction and other equitable relief and fees and costs for the period of September 15, 2005 through the present.
The Best Award
Back in April, Apple announced that the annual Apple Design Awards would only be given to mobile app developers at this year’s WWDC.
Well, one of Panic’s customers wasn’t too thrilled with that. From the Panic blog:
Transmit 4 was a long time coming, and it was well worth the wait. The UI is possibly the best on the Mac, Transmit Disk has instantly proven invaluable to my work, and even the purchasing page on your website is gorgeous. The progress bar and transitions on the credit card icons were something I’ve never seen, and it proves that no developer pays attention to detail as much as Panic.
Daniel Lyons Moving to Android
Daniel Lyons — of Fake Steve fame — is ditching his iPhone:
The new version of Android — version 2.2, a.k.a. Froyo — blows the doors off the iPhone OS. It’s faster, for one thing. It also will support Flash, something Apple refuses to do, mostly out of spite.
The new Android OS will support tethering, meaning you can use your phone as a portable Wi-Fi hotspot, connecting your computer to the Internet. Apple and AT&T say they’re going to offer tethering—someday. It’s just not clear when. Which is why today, just to be mean, Google showed an Android phone tethered to an Apple iPad. Big laughs all around.
On Mobile Flash
We have to say, it’s really something to have a mobile browser that doesn’t pop up little cubes with question marks all over the web, but we found that rediscovering Flash was much like reuniting with a high school friend; at first you’ve so much to catch up on, but then you realize how far you’ve grown apart. Adobe’s pre-vetted list of Flash-enabled sites do a good job of showing off the technology, but we still can’t help but think the interactive elements still have a lot of catching up to do. As for video, the stream is good quality but gets fairly choppy – especially when you check out something “not optimized for mobile viewing.” Some of the HTML5 footage we’ve seen via the same device shows up in crisper detail and fluidity. Battery and heat are also of concern: the pre-release beta we have, according to Adobe, lacks hardware acceleration. Ergo, our beloved handset got piping hot after about 30 minutes of heavy video watching, and the battery indicator in the upper right had a sizable dent.
‘A Draconian Future’
Google Vice-President of Engineering Vic Gundotra:
If we did not act, we faced a draconian future. Where one man, one company, one carrier was the future.
Update: John Paczkowski quipped:
But we’re just fine with the two men, one company, one search engine model.
iPads Outselling Macs?
Here’s a stunner of a data point: Apple is selling more than 200,000 iPads per week. Which means, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky, that sales of the company’s new device have outpaced those of the Mac in the United States and are closing in on those of the iPhone 3GS.
Wow.