The Apple PR machine has the details. Also, MobileMe’s “Find my iPhone” feature is free for all iPad, iPhone 4 and current-gen iPod touch owners.
The release is the “4.2.1” release candidate that the company pushed to developers last week, and should be ready for download at 10 AM PST.
As I’ve written about plenty of times before, I used a Droid for the better part of 2010.
About 8 weeks ago, I sold my Droid and have been carrying a dumbphone, making my Wi-Fi iPad my only mobile device.
Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Android, and my time with what was (for now) the last completely stock Android handset.1
There are a lot of things to like about the Droid. The hardware is great, and Verizon’s coverage in the Memphis area is simply stunning. Android itself, however, ended up leaving me a little disappointed. Parts of Android are great. Other parts are seriously lacking.
From a 1985 Playboy interview:
I think Woz was in a world that nobody understood. No one shared his interests, and he was a little ahead of his time. It was very lonely for him. He’s driven from inner sights rather than external expectations of him, so he survived OK. Woz and I are different in most ways, but there are some ways in which we’re the same, and we’re very close in those ways. We’re sort of like two planets in their own orbits that every so often intersect. It wasn’t just computers, either. Woz and I very much liked Bob Dylan’s poetry, and we spent a lot of time thinking about a lot of that stuff. This was California. You could get LSD fresh made from Stanford. You could sleep on the beach at night with your girlfriend. California has a sense of experimentation and a sense of openness — openness to new possibilities.
Dave Caolo, on using an iMac G4 as his primary system:
As my MacBook Pro slowly dies, I’ve called my old G4 iMac back into service. Years ago, that machine was wiped clean and given an install of Mac OS X 10.5 before being boxed in the basement. On Friday I will wrap up one week of using it as my primary work machine. In that time I’ve found that it’s slow, beautiful and perfect.
The official ForkBombr Dogcow Shrine is now up and running. This project has been on my to do list for months; all in took was a sick day at home to get it done. Enjoy, and please forgive the fact I did it in iWeb.
Now that the John, Paul, George and Ringo have joined the iTunes revolution, what about the rest of the iTunes holdouts? Believe it or not there are still many famous bands and solo acts that refuse to put their music on Apple’s iTunes store. Most believe Apple’s policy of refusing to sell whole albums instead of single song downloads is the problem, while others object to how Apple pays artists.
Apple today announced it will expand its revolutionary iAd mobile advertising network to the UK and France this December, with Germany to follow in January. iAd will launch in Europe with iAds from L’Oréal, Renault, Louis Vuitton, Nespresso, Perrier, Unilever, Citi, Evian, LG Display, AB InBev, Turkish Airlines and Absolute Radio.
According to Apple, user engagement times are averaging more than 60 seconds per visit. That’s pretty impressive, and it’s clear from Apple’s iAd webpage that the company is trying to position these ads as the best way to reach the “ Apple audience.”
Chris Nuttall over at the Financial Times:
Mr Wilson, author of the popular A VC blog and a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, said Google had not come up with anything truly transformative that was a home-grown product since Gmail, introduced in 2004. It had relied on acquisitions instead to develop new services.
Wow. Once I stopped and actually thought about it, Wilson is right. Innovation is key in this industry, and eventually, growth via acquisitions can’t keep up.
Asylum has a great public service announcement about how to talk to your kids about Star Wars:
Here are some sobering facts about the world today: Every day, millions of kids go to sleep having never been introduced to Chewbacca, and, worse, countless more think Greedo shot first.
We here at Asylum want to make sure you and your child have an open and healthy conversation about Jar Jar and the differences between a “good trilogy” and an “uh-oh trilogy.”
I quit Facebook back in mid-May of 2010, it has not been a year yet, but it has been a significant amount of time. What I can tell you is that not a single relationship/friendship that I have has suffered because of it. There has yet to be a single instance where I regretted quitting Facebook.
I think that if a friendship suffers due to a lack of Facebook, it probably wasn’t a great relationship to begin with. Social media makes the art of relationships appear easy, while in actuality, it creates a false feeling of closeness that wouldn’t be there otherwise.
Andy Ihnatko, on today’s iTunes/Beatles announcement:
The Beatles don’t need the money. What they really want is to make sure that “Hey, Jude” remains part of the world soundtrack. A move towards the iTunes Store is yet another move towards that goal.