Apple

Mobile makers agree on standard micro-USB charger for Europe

By Michael Mulcahy

01:18 June 30, 2009 PDT

Are your cupboards full of old phone chargers? They seem to accumulate with every new mobile, and are rarely useful again. Hoping to change this wasteful scenario, the European Union have proposed – and ten leading manufacturers agreed to – a new standard that will see micro-USB charging devices used for all data-enabled mobile phones. The hope is that, within three to four years, mobiles and chargers will be sold separately in Europe, and they’ll all be compatible. Read More

GameBone Pro game controller for iPhone

By Darren Quick

20:28 June 29, 2009 PDT

With the ever-increasing number of games available for the iPhone and iPod Touch through the App Store it seems many users find the Apple devices an acceptable gaming platform. One of the major downsides for gamers though is the lack of any real physical buttons. 22Moo is looking to provide mobile gamers with a solution in the form of the GameBone Pro, an OS 3.0 compatible, 8-way D-pad, 6 button game controller that connects to an iPhone or iPod Touch via Bluetooth or Apple’s 30-pin dock connector. Read More

Apple's peripheral merry-go-round: FireWire is back, ExpressCard is wack

By Tim Hanlon

23:53 June 11, 2009 PDT

As someone who had a lot to say about the missing FireWire 400 ports from the last generation of MacBooks, I'm glad to see the return of the FireWire port to the new 13" MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, it seems like a case of one step forward, one step back for the MacBook Pro range, with only the 17" model being equipped with the ExpressCard/34 slot that many users have come to rely on. Read More

Mac OS X Snow Leopard set for September release

By Darren Quick

03:57 June 9, 2009 PDT

Since Snow Leopard, aka OS X 10.6, was previewed at last year's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) Mac users have been waiting patiently for release details. Now, courtesy of this year’s WWDC, they have them. With most of the improvements of the under-the-hood variety, the upgrade for Mac OS Leopard users will be available from September at the Global Financial Crisis friendly price of USD$29. Read More

Apple adds a bit of zip and grunt to latest MacBook Pro line-up

By Paul Best

22:19 June 8, 2009 PDT

Apple has given its MacBook Pro line a quick touch up, most notably increasing processing speeds, hard-drive capacity and battery life, as well as adding SD card slots to the 13 and 15-inch models. The 13-inch model has also undergone a name change – the MacBook now joins the MacBook Pro family – and has had its Firewire port restored.

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Apple’s new iPhone 3G S – 2x faster, 32GB, 3MP camera and video

By Mike Hanlon

14:28 June 8, 2009 PDT

Apple finally delivered the new iPhone 3G S today, with more power, speed, battery life, and a 32GB flagship model. Major features include a 3mp camera, video recording and hands free voice control. There’s also the iPhone OS 3.0 operating system with 100+ new features including cut and paste, MMS, “Spotlight Search”, and a landscape keyboard. The entry level price for the existing 8 GB 3G model dropped to USD$99, with the 3G S 16GB model coming in at $200 and the 32GB model at $300 . Read More

Today on The Mobiler

By Tim Hanlon

04:52 June 3, 2009 PDT

There's plenty going on over at our mobile technology blog The Mobiler today. We've covered Amazon selling the original Peek e-mail device for $19.99, Fujitsu's M2010 netbook, Apple extending the MacBook Pro video warranty to three years, the Palm Pre's unofficial iTunes support, ARM-based smartbooks, T-Mobile launching a new Android phone this summer, Wordpress for the iPhone, Vodafone Australia announcing a price and release date for the HTC Magic, and plenty more. Read More

Archos 2 gives iPod Shuffle a run for its money

By Mick Webb

19:21 May 11, 2009 PDT

When it comes to ultra-compact portable music players, for many the choice

"du jour" has been the ubiquitous iPod Shuffle. Apple’s minute MP3 players have consistently offered an attractive price point and ever diminishing size with each generation of Shuffle, which has allowed the pocket player to claim the lion’s share of the market. Here to give them a run for their money is the Archos 2 portable music player, which packs a punch with size, specs and price. Read More

iPhone OS 3.0 unveiled

By Tim Hanlon

16:55 March 17, 2009 PDT

Apple today unveiled OS 3.0 for the iPhone and iPod touch, which is set for release this summer (that's June-August for those of you south of the equator). It's far from the revolution some were expecting, and strikes us as more of a defensive play to bring the iPhone further in line with its hardware capabilities, users' desires, and the increasingly heated competition from Android, BlackBerry and Palm's imminent release of the Pre. Read on for the full details. Read More

iPhone OS 3.0 unveiling tomorrow, rumor round-up

By Darren Quick

02:15 March 17, 2009 PDT

Apple is set to preview the iPhone software version 3.0 at an invitation only event on March 17th and, as is traditional in the lead up to any Apple event, the rumormongers have been busy with predictions of what will and won’t be added to the device. So we thought it would be timely to do a bit of a rumor roundup in readiness for the imminent announcement. Read More

Apple's new talking iPod Shuffle

By Darren Quick

23:20 March 12, 2009 PDT

Call it anti-social if you like, but a lot of people listen to portable music players to avoid being spoken to. This hasn’t stopped Apple adding a new VoiceOver feature that speaks song titles, artists and playlist names to the latest iPod shuffle while also shrinking it to nearly half the size of its predecessor. The third generation Shuffle can store 4GB (around 1,000 songs) worth of music in a unit that is smaller than an AA battery. This reduction in size has seen the controls moved from the unit itself onto the included earphone cord - an immediate issue if you don’t happen to like Apple’s earphones. The featureless aluminum design includes the usual built-in stainless steel clip for wearability, but the feature sure to get the most interest is VoiceOver. Read More

Apple updates Mac mini and iMac

By David Greig

00:10 March 5, 2009 PST

The second major product announcement from the folks at Apple this week is an update to its iMac® and Mac® mini desktop lines, including a 24-inch iMac. At the same recommended retail price as the previous generation 20-inch model, the 24-inch iMac update offers 30 percent more screen real estate and has twice the memory and twice the storage while the Mac mini boasts new integrated graphics. Read More

Apple introduces new Mac Pro

By Darren Quick

20:47 March 3, 2009 PST

In news that won’t shock any Apple fans worth their salt, the company has announced a new Nehalem based Mac Pro that features a next-generation system architecture to deliver up to twice the performance of a previous generation system – all while managing to cut the price by USD$300 for the standard base system. Read More

Apple ups browser power with Safari 4 Beta release

By Darren Quick

21:49 February 25, 2009 PST

Apple might have one of the coolest personal communications devices on the planet at the moment in the iPhone, but in the browser wars their Safari offering is struggling with statistics showing Firefox and Internet Explorer usage way out in front, and even Google’s recently released Chrome overtaking it. In a bid to rectify that Apple has released a public beta of Safari 4 for OS X and Windows with claims it runs JavaScript over four times faster than its predecessor, 30 times faster than Internet Explorer 7, six times faster than Internet Explorer 8 and up to four times faster than Firefox 3.1 thanks to its new Nitro engine. Read More

Mophie juice pack air doubles iPhone 3G battery life

By Darren Quick

19:38 February 19, 2009 PST

With battery life still the biggest gripe from iPhone users it’s not surprising to see iPhone accessory maker Mophie adding to their line of external batteries with the Mophie juice pack air for 3G iPhones, which virtually doubles the battery life of the device. Read More

17-inch unibody MacBook Pro gets disassembled, photographed

By Tim Hanlon

20:25 February 17, 2009 PST

Most sane people wouldn't even think about grabbing a Torx screwdriver, cracking open a brand new 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro, and completely disassembling it...that is, unless they work for iFixit, who do that kind of thing for a living. Read More

New JVC ProHD Camcorder records to SDHC media

By Mike Hanlon

17:37 February 11, 2009 PST

Times are changing fast in the video industry! JVC's latest shoulder-supported pro camcorder, the GY-HM700, is the first to store files on inexpensive SDHC memory cards. Developed for mainstream production, electronic newsgathering and cinematography, the GY-HM700 records in the QuickTime (.MOV) format, the native format for Apple's Final Cut Pro™ editing system. This eliminates the time-consuming transfer step and dramatically speeds up post-production workflow. SDHC media is also the first practical solid state solution to physical archive and thanks to ever-decreasing prices, the per-minute cost of SDHC memory is now comparable to video tape. Read More

iPhone gets turn-by-turn GPS navigation via xGPS jailbreak app

By Tim Hanlon

05:19 February 11, 2009 PST

While TomTom has had a functional turn-by-turn GPS application working in the lab since June last year, the "complicated issues" preventing a launch that Apple mentioned a couple of weeks later obviously haven't been sorted out - but that hasn't stopped the xGPS team from bringing turn-by-turn to the iPhone and iPod touch in the form of a jailbreak app. Read More

Major iPhone hardware revision in the works?

By Tim Hanlon

22:55 January 28, 2009 PST

MacRumors has found a reference to "iPhone2,1" in the iPhone's 2.x Firmware. What makes this special? The original iPhone is "iPhone1,1" while the iPhone 3G is "iPhone1,2" - which points to a major hardware revision in the works. Read More

Happy birthday to the Apple Macintosh

By Mike Hanlon

19:46 January 23, 2009 PST

This day 25 years ago, the Apple Macintosh Personal Computer went on sale. Two days prior, during Super Bowl XVIII, Apple aired its 1984 television commercial produced by Ridley Scott, creating massive public interest in the new product. It was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface rather than a command line interface. That’s the original Mac advert at right. Get well Steve! Read More

Macworld '09: new 17-inch Macbook Pro features 8 hour battery life

By Noel McKeegan

12:29 January 6, 2009 PST

In what might be seen as somewhat of an anticlimax by those still yearning for a Mac entry into the netbook space, the key hardware announcement to emerge from this morning's keynote address at Macworld 2009 is a new 17-inch MacBook® Pro featuring a built-in battery that delivers up to an impressive eight hours of use and up to 1,000 recharges. Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, introduced the new flagship notebook along with a number of new software innovations including the new iLife® ’09, which brings major upgrades to iPhoto®, iMovie® and GarageBand®. The new 17-inch MacBook features the unibody aluminum enclosure and glass Multi-Touch™ trackpad introduced with the MacBook family in October 2008 and its slimline (0.98-inch) profile and weight of just 6.6 pounds make it the world’s thinnest and lightest 17-inch notebook according to Apple. It's also the most powerful Mac® notebook yet - 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors and 8GB DDR3 main memory at its highest spec. Read More

iTunes changes: more DRM-free music, three-tiered pricing and iPhone downloads over 3G

By Tim Hanlon

11:45 January 6, 2009 PST

Apple today announced a number of changes to their popular iTunes Music Store, with all four major labels on board to offer a substantially increased range of music in the DRM-free iTunes Plus format, access to the store available via the 3G network for iPhone users, and a new three-tier pricing system. Read More

GarageBand '09 will teach you how to play guitar and piano

By Tim Hanlon

10:52 January 6, 2009 PST

Today at MacWorld 2009, Apple unveiled the next feature to be added to their entry-level music production application GarageBand, that is sure to capitalize on the mass of budding musicians created by games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. The software ships with nine included lessons for the guitar and piano, and an integrated store that allows you to buy "Artist Lessons" from famous musicians such as Sting and John Fogerty. Read More

Google releases Picasa for Mac OSX

By Loz Blain

22:06 January 5, 2009 PST

Good news if you're frustrated by iPhoto's limitations - Google Labs has just released a 'beta' version of its Picasa photo management system for the Apple OSX platform. Picasa will import a copy of the contents of the iPhoto library and offer an alternative management tool that includes the ability to manage and synchronise selected photos, with their comments and tags, with an online Picasa Web Albums photo gallery. The original iPhoto data is left alone, so you can try out the Picasa beta without fear of losing or modifying their original image files. Read More

Audience response app for iPhone/iPod Touch

By Mike Hanlon

16:41 January 5, 2009 PST

January 6, 2009 The Apple iPod/iPhone/iTunes App Store ecosystem is producing some remarkably useful tools for life, work, play, and now education. A free app for the iPhone or iPod Touch from ResponseWare transforms them into wireless, interactive audience response tools that could transform the way people learn and collaborate in many environments. The app allows alphanumeric entry for single response, multiple response, fill-in-the-blank and essay questions and the diversity of response types it offers enhances a presenter’s communication options. It displays the question and answer choices on the iPod/phone during polling and participants logged into an interactive session can review previous polls as well as instant message the leader/ with questions and feedback. Beyond education, we also see the platform getting a serious workout in any collaborative environment as a way of exploring and responding to the needs/views of an audience in any forum. This idea has legs! Read More