With Reserve and Pick Up, you can make sure the top things on your list are definitely under the tree. Reserve an iPod or Mac online today and it will be waiting for you to pick up and purchase at an Apple Retail Store from December 15 to 24. You can even have many products wrapped. It’s just another way we make it even easier to get through the holiday crowds — and your gift list.
Should help with lines at the Stores, but I bet the staff stuck wrapping iMacs aren’t real happy.
The Macworld Lab has been hard at work tweaking Speedmark, our overall system performance testing tool, to better accommodate Snow Leopard and to test the Macs on which it runs. Of course, that means that the new version, Speedmark 6, runs on Snow Leopard and supports only Intel-powered Macs.
We have Speedmark 6 scores for 19 Intel Macs, including the new MacBook, iMacs, and Mac minis released last month. Please note that because Speedmark 6 uses different tests and a different OS, Speedmark 6 scores can’t be compared to the scores of Speedmark 5, the previous version of our test tool.
The Motorola DROID is the second-best smartphone available today, second only to the iPhone 3GS. In fact, I’d go so far to say to those of you who are with Verizon and on the fence about leaving to get an iPhone, you should try a DROID first. If you are an iPhone owner who is fed up with AT&T to the point where you want to leave, consider Verizon, because the DROID is just that good. Sure, we pointed out some negatives, but we can do that with any device, but at the end of the day, this is one fantastic, well-thought out mobile device.
Again, the lesson here is that the Droid can’t and won’t kill the iPhone, but it doesn’t have to; it just has to beat the Palm Pre and maybe some Blackberry devices.
Google has purposely broken compatibility with Java ME to introduce Android’s Dalvik alternative as a new development platform that leverages all the developer experience and familiarity of Java, without allowing or intending Android software to run on BlackBerry or Symbian phones. The hope is that Android’s single, standardized implementation of Java technology will do what Sun’s broadly licensed Java ME failed to do: deliver a viable mobile software market across hardware vendors’ offerings.
The gist of the tip is this: if you’d like to hide or eliminate scratches on your iPhone’s bezel, or you just want to sport a different look, then find ye a two-sided sponge and tape up your iPhone all kidnapped-like, leaving only the bezel exposed. Take the rough side of the sponge and start buffing the chrome in long, straight swipes. The whole process takes about 10 minutes, but your iPhone will come out looking just just a little sharper than it used to. It’s a subtle change, but the buffed bezel is not as prone to fingerprints and just looks a lot more hi-tech overall. I like it!
Part of me wants to do this; part of me dies a little when I think about sanding my iPhone.
Andy Ihnatko has posted a collection of photos pitting the Droid’s camera against the one in the 3GS.
Spoiler Alert: the iPhone 3GS beats the Droid in almost every way.
Apple today announced that developers have created over 100,000 apps for the revolutionary App Store, the largest applications store in the world. iPhone and iPod touch customers in 77 countries can choose from an incredible range of apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel. App Store users have downloaded well over two billion apps, continuing to make it the world’s most popular applications store.
“The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating.”
Not bad for a platform that is less than 2 years old.
Suffice it to say, someone from Apple called me this afternoon and insists this is all a misunderstanding. (On their part.) Resubmitting.
And a few hours later:
I am happy to report that “Macworld’s iPhone and iPod Touch Superguide”-actual name!-is now in the App Store.
That was fast. Too bad it takes Apple days — if not weeks — to get such issues resolved for independent developers who don’t have their own Mac-based magazine and website.
‘EasyPay’ is Apple’s handheld point-of-sale system in their retail stores. In the past, the system ran on Windows Mobile and was unreliable.
Seems like that has changed. AppleInsider:
Those who have seen the system for processing credit card, debit card and cash purchases, dubbed “EasyPay touch,” said it combines iPod touch features with a magnetic stripe reader, advanced barcode scanner and Apple-written software to speed plastic and cash transactions.
Perhaps more significantly, the change to an iPod touch and Apple software will bring the entire point-of-sale (POS) system under Apple’s control. In addition, the system will have the added benefit of advertising the usefulness of the iPod touch to customers who see it being used right in front of them.
It is unknown which manufacturer partnered with Apple to create the new device. The outside shell resembles many of the protective cases sold at the Apple stores, while the back of the shell resembles several of the auxiliary battery packs sold for the iPhone.
Pretty cool.
If you have a personal account or family plan, your data will cost $30/month. It doesn’t matter if you’re using Microsoft Exchange, Facebook, Gmail, or whatever - it’s $30. This is the same for all Verizon Windows Mobile and Android phones.
Data on business accounts - “corporate liable,” multiple lines, purchased through business sales, usually mediated by an IT department - costs $45/month. Once again, this is the same for every Windows Mobile and Android phone.
The same goes for AT&T’s iPhones, by the way. Thousands if not millions of people access Microsoft Exchange email on personal, $30/month iPhone data plans, blissfully unaware that if they were a corporate-liable business account their data plan would cost $45. Once again, it’s not down to the kind of e-mail you’re accessing, it’s down to whether you are classed as an “individual” or a “business” in the carrier’s system.
Ars:
I have yet to decide whether the Magic Mouse is much of an improvement over its predecessor. The multitouch capability and lack of a scroll ball to gum up are definite upgrades, but the loss of Exposé and Dashboard support about balance that out for me. If you like your Apple Mouse’s pressure sensors and the ability to launch Exposé and Dashboard from your mouse, you may want to give the Magic Mouse a pass until Apple figures out a way to support those features with its new mouse. If you’re in love with multitouch and are tired of futzing with scroll wheels and scroll ball hand crud build-up, the Magic Mouse may be for you. If you’re using a Logitech or some other third-party mouse and are wondering if it’s time to give one of Apple’s eccentric mice a shot, it isn’t.
I don’t think Apple is ever going to add those features back in, and I think that’s just fine.