Leander Kahney's Blog, page 1490

Apple Can't Handle The Demand For iTunes Match, Temporarily Halts New Sign-Ups

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iTunes Match went live earlier today as a beta, but Apple apparently can't handle the demand: it's already temporarily unavailable for new subscribers, who are being told to "check back in an hour."

Honestly, want our advice? Check back in a week. Even in developer beta, iTunes Match took ages to match our libraries, and a million people hammering on the service on launch day isn't going to help matters.

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How To Match And Upgrade Your Low Bitrate Songs To Lossless Quality With iTunes Match [Video How-To]

Apple's new music service, iTunes Match, launched today as a beta, and it includes the handy ability to upgrade your low quality audio tracks to lossless audio tracks and then mirror them in the cloud. In this video, I'll show how to set up iTunes match and upgrade your songs. It just couldn't be easier.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNTbCIPsGnc

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Kindle Fire Will Play Larger Role in Amazon Revenue [Analyst]

Photo by midnightglory - http://flic.kr/p/93UJy9

The Kindle Fire tablet and e-books will play a larger role in Amazon's overall revenue, reaching 14 percent of the Internet retail giant's 2013 income, an analyst said Monday. But Apple still doesn't have much to worry about.

As a result, J.P. Morgan upped its target price for Amazon shares 13 percent to $250 per share from $221. Amazon could reap $5 billion in 2012 and $8 billion in 2013, largely driven by Kindle devices, digital book sales and increased membership in the company's Amazon Prime program.

"Our analysis suggests revenue from the family of Kindle devices and ebooks will increase from 9.4 percent of Amazon's revenue in 2011 to 13 percent in 2012 and 14 percent in 2013," write analysts Doug Anmuth, Kaizad Gotla and Shelby Taffer.

Kindle devices could bring in $1 billion in 2012 and more than double to $2.6 billion in 2013, the analysts add. The Kindle Fire could add 2.6 million subscribers to Prime by 2013, a figure the three believe could be conservative.

The increased confidence in the Kindle Fire comes after last week's report "strong demand" caused Amazon to boost orders for its tablet to 5 million units, from 4 million previously. The company originally requested 3 million Kindle Fire units, but found demand higher than expected.

The larger production figures could come at a price, however. According to one estimate, the Seattle-based company could lose $10 on each Kindle Fire sold. The Fire is seen by some to be the first real competition for Apple, whose iPad has captured the majority of tablet sales. That vision was rejected somewhat by Apple, which said the Amazon device could fracture demand for Android-based iPad rivals. However, that positive spin was then countered by an RBC Capital reading of a survey of potential tablet buyers. According to RBC's Mike Abramsky, of those consumers saying they were "very likely" to buy a Kindle Fire, 26 percent reported they plan to delay or shelve buying an iPad.

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Apple Just C&Ded These Adorable Babies Dressed Like iPhones And iPod Clickwheels!

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Okay, we're stretching it a bit with the headline, but we couldn't resist: Apple has just sent a shut down notice to an online retailer called iPopMyBaby that sells nothing but onesies and diapers featuring Apple's products: namely, the iPod clickwheel and iPhone homescreen.

iPopMyBaby has been around for years, and while we're not sure we like the idea of clothing that encourages strangers to touch your baby, their outfits were pretty cute novelty gifts for the expecting Apple fan.

According to the website, Apple "respectfully requested" (re: got their lawyers involved) that iPopMyBaby stop selling their iPod-themed baby clothes, stat. As such, they'll be shutting down on December 11th, and until then, all of their clothes are 40% off. So if you want to give your baby a clickwheel, now is the time: at least it will let give it a volume control.

[via TUAW]

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Horrible iPhone 4S Battery Life Is Caused By Software Not Hardware, Here's The Proof

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The iPhone 4S has some bodacious battery life problems and no one seems to know what's going on. Apple themselves have released an iOS update, iOS 5.0.1, to fix the problems, to no avail. Meanwhile, some iPhone 4S owners find their batteries draining at a rate of 10% every ten minutes, while luckier customers can only report the same excellent battery life the iPhone 4 was known for.

What the heck is going on? Are some iPhone 4Ses just defective? Will Apple have to initiate a recall?

Thankfully, no. Although no one knows what the problem exactly is, it has at least been proven to be a software problem… not a hardware problem.

ZDNet had a clever idea. Let's take two iPhones 4Ses — one that has battery life issues, and one that doesn't — and give them to an app developer to test them out. Both phones were bought at the same time, both ran iOS 5.0.1 and were AT&T models. In theory, they should both have the same battery drain problems, but only one did. Why?

After getting the two iPhones, the app developer decided to see if it was a hardware issue, so he backed up both iPhone 4Ses and then factory reset them. No dice.

Tthen he had a clever idea: what if I restored the iPhone 4S with battery drain issues using the backup of the one with no battery problems, and vice versa? If the battery drain issue was a hardware problem, the same phone that had the battery issue before should have problems even with a restore of another iPhone's backup.

But that's not what happened. Instead, when the iPhone 4Ses were restored with the other iPhone's backup, the battery drain issues made a jump from between phones!

While this is only a one test case study, it does seem to conclusively prove that battery drain issues under the iPhone 4S are caused by bad software, not by bad hardware. It also seems to explain why some users have reported that complete wipes of their iPhone 4S without restoring from a backup after sometimes solve the problem.

In other words? This problem is something Apple should be able to fix through an iOS update. So when are you going to do so, Cupertino?

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Two Weeks Late, iTunes Match and iTunes 10.1 Finally Go Live For Everyone! [Update]

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Two weeks late, Apple's match-and-mirror music in the cloud service iTunes Match has finally launched while retaining its beta status. In the meantime, iTunes 10.5.1 for both Windows and Mac has been released, so get downloading if you intend on using iTunes Match.

On Mac, the iTunes 10.5.1 update is 102MB, and is available now on the official iTunes homepage or through Software Update.

iTunes Match is Apple's much anticipated cloud music service. For $24.99 a year, users can match any of the songs on their hard drive into the cloud to be redownloadable on any iOS or Mac device in 256Kbps AAC CD quality, even if their original track was of much lower quality.

iTunes Match is launching as a beta service. However, for subscribing to iTunes Match Beta, we hear you get 15 months of service instead of just 12. Not a bad deal, but be warned that Apple will delete your iTunes Match library at the end of the beta, meaning you'll have to go through the matching process all over again.

Over the last few weeks, we've found that Apple has been having problems getting iTunes Match's mirroring service to work reliably. We'll report back and let you know if they've worked out the kinks.

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Meet up with Cult of Mac in Sao Paulo

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Oi paulistanos! Cult of Mac writer Nicole Martinelli will be in Sao Paulo and looking to talk all things Apple with you, especially the local scene.

 

Sergio Miranda of website Mac+ will be co-hosting this informal meetup, where startups and Mac fanatics alike are welcome to come chat.

We'll also be raffling copies of the Brazilian edition of "Inside Steve's Brain," signed by the author, Cult of Mac founder Leander Kahney.

Come say hi!

Sunday, Nov. 20, FNAC Paulista, 3 p.m.

Please register fro this free event  here, so we know how many people are coming.

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Can I Restrict Airport Networks to Specific Mac User Accounts? [Ask MacRx]

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Apple likes to make things as easy as possible to join WiFi networks, especially when the network isn't password protected. However in one reader's case this isn't a good thing but rather a major headache:

Is there a way to RESTRICT joining certain wifi networks to certain OS X user accounts?
When using my MacBook Pro, I have two basic OS X logins. One for known SECURE wifi networks, and one for INSECURE wifi networks. The problem is that Airport settings always remember the INSECURE network, and almost always tries to connect my SECURE OSX login to the INSECURE wifi, at which point Mail (or other apps) start up and shoot my logs/passes across the air for all to see.

I know I can manually remove the insecure networks each time, but that's painfully annoying. Likewise, for requiring manual approval to joining a network.

Scott

Hi Scott,

I've had my own share of frustrations with Macs joining networks other than what I prefer also. Airport seems to love open, non-password protected networks and will join "Linksys" or "D-Link" when I really want what I've used before.

I don't know of a way to restrict access to specific WiFi network by user account, only by the machine's MAC (ethernet or WiFi) address on the network. That said you do have some control over the process.

Once you have the secure and insecure networks remembered on the Mac, go to the Network System Preference Pane, select Airport (or WiFi), then click the Advanced button. You'll see a list of networks the Mac has previously joined, which you can drag in order of preference. Put the ones you want at the top, remove the rest, then uncheck the box to Remember networks this computer has joined. That should behave more consistently.

• • •

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Add Custom Shortcuts to Your iPhone's Home Screen Without Jailbreaking

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One of the advantages to jailbreaking the iPhone — at least for me — is the ability to add shortcuts to your home screen that will quickly adjust your device's settings. There are a number of tweaks that allow you to change your brightness; and toggle 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Airplane mode, and more.

It's not so easy if you're device isn't jailbroken, but a new app called IconProject changes that — for just $0.99.

IconProject allows you to create custom home screen shortcuts for quick and easy access to your brightness settings, airplane mode, Bluetooth, FaceTime, Music, location services, Wi-Fi, and lots, lots more. It doesn't quite go as far as jailbroken tweaks, like SBSettings, but it's a fantastic app.

Firstly you create your own icon, with a color of your choice, borders, icons, and even your own photos; then assign the icon a shortcut to things like SMS, FaceTime, Mail, or URLs. The video below, courtesy of iDownload blog, shows you how easy it is to create and customize your own shortcuts.

Here's a list of shortcuts available. Please note: these are case sensitive.

About — prefs:root=General&path=About
Accessibility — prefs:root=General&path=ACCESSIBILITY
Airplane Mode On — prefs:root=AIRPLANE_MODE
Auto-Lock — prefs:root=General&path=AUTOLOCK
Brightness — prefs:root=Brightness
Bluetooth — prefs:root=General&path=Bluetooth
Date & Time — prefs:root=General&path=DATE_AND_TIME
FaceTime — prefs:root=FACETIME
General — prefs:root=General
Keyboard — prefs:root=General&path=Keyboard
iCloud — prefs:root=CASTLE
iCloud Storage & Backup — prefs:root=CASTLE&path=STORAGE_AND_BACKUP
International — prefs:root=General&path=INTERNATIONAL
Location Services — prefs:root=LOCATION_SERVICES
Music — prefs:root=MUSIC
Music  Equalizer — prefs:root=MUSIC&path=EQ
Music Volume Limit — prefs:root=MUSIC&path=VolumeLimit
Network — prefs:root=General&path=Network
Nike + iPod — prefs:root=NIKE_PLUS_IPOD
Notes — prefs:root=NOTES
Notification — prefs:root=NOTIFICATIONS_ID
Phone — prefs:root=Phone
Photos — prefs:root=Photos
Profile — prefs:root=General&path=ManagedConfigurationList
Reset — prefs:root=General&path=Reset
Safari — prefs:root=Safari
Siri — prefs:root=General&path=Assistant
Sounds — prefs:root=Sounds
Software Update — prefs:root=General&path=SOFTWARE_UPDATE_LINK
Store — prefs:root=STORE
Twitter — prefs:root=TWITTER
Usage — prefs:root=General&path=USAGE
VPN — prefs:root=General&path=Network/VPN
Wallpaper — prefs:root=Wallpaper
Wi-Fi — prefs:root=WIFI

Once you've created your shortcut, it's easy than ever to access common settings right from your home screen. While the app isn't quite as useful as jailbreaking, it is the next best thing for those who don't want to hack their device.

[via iDownloadBlog]

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Apple's Genius Bar to Trade MacBook Pros for iPads [Rumor]

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A trademark feature at Apple retail stores all over the world is the Genius Bar. Operated by a group of Apple experts, the Genius Bar allows any Mac or iOS device owner to take their device to their nearest Apple store and get technical help, repairs, or replacements.

Along with Apple experts, the Genius Bar sports a line of MacBook Pros which Apple staff use to diagnose problems, order parts for repairs, check the status of your product's warranty, and more. In this "post-PC" era, however, those MacBook Pros are set to be replaced by the iPad.

According to a report from 9to5Mac, from this week Apple retail stores in a number of markets will be replacing the MacBook Pros on their Genius Bars for the iPad. The tablet is expected to mirror the functionality currently provided by the notebook, and "not only make the Genius' job easier, but provide a much better experience for Apple's customers that are looking for repairs and/or help from the Genius Bar."

Because the iPad is much more portable than the MacBook Pro, the device will allow Genius staff to deal with technical problems from anywhere within the store. This means users with minor issues won't have to crowd around the Genius Bar, leaving it open to those who need repairs or replacements.

Because the iPad is smaller, it'll mean more customers can be served at once:

Typically, the Genius Bar can only service as many people as computers at one time at the Genius Bar. Now, due to the size and price of iPads, Apple could service more people at one time at the Genius Bar by installing multiple iPads.

The Cupertino company is also said to be working on a way in which users can sign their Genius Bar invoices on the iPad, rather than paper — just like the EasyPay system currently employed in Apple stores which allows customers to sign for goods on an iPod touch.

If you've noticed the Genius Bar in your local Apple store has scrapped its MacBook Pros for iPads, be sure to let us know.

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