Leander Kahney's Blog, page 1519
October 26, 2011
In 1987, Apple Predicted A Futuristic Tablet With All The Functionality of the iPad 3 [Video]
Back in 1986, Apple CEO John Sculley had a conversation with Apple Fellow Alan Kay, the revolutionary American computer scientist who coined the phrase "the best way to predict the future is to invent it."
Kay pointed out to Sculley that almost all of Apple's profits at the time came from the 512K Macintosh, Aldus PageMaker, Adobe's Postscript and Apple's LaserWriter 2.0 printer… all inventions that were lifted from Xerox PARC.
Then Kay said something chilling. "Next time, we won't have Xerox." Unless Apple started incubating its own great new ideas, the company would stagnate and wouldn't have any new products down the road.
The result of Kay's challenge to Sculley was this 1987 conceptual video of the Knowledge Navigator.
The idea was to embrace the adage that great ideas take twenty years from first inspiration to be ready for the consumer market, so the video imagines an Apple computer in 2009.
Except it's not a computer. The Knowledge Navigator is actually an iPad. And in fact, while the design is clunky, the feature set is almost identical to what we'll be seeing next year in the iPad 3, and many of the Knowledge Navigator's functions seem like evolutionary ancestors to Siri, iCloud and more.
The iPad, of course, turned out to be a lot better than the Knowledge Navigator, and not just because it doesn't come with a snooty virtual bow tie butler to lame things up. What's so amazing, though, is that even without Steve Jobs, Apple was able to correctly anticipate the product they'd release in 2009. Well, okay… they were a little off. Can't get 'em all right.
You can read more about the Knowledge Navigator over at Forbes.
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UK Consumers 'Disappointed' With iPhone 4S [Survey]
It appears the wave of early disappointment in the iPhone 4S that washed over U.S. consumers has now made it to the United Kingdom. A third of UK consumers were "disappointed" Apple's new handset didn't offer more features, according to an Internet survey.
The survey of 1,500 consumers shopping for a smartphone weeks after the iPhone 4S was introduced found just 29 percent of respondents said they would buy the Apple smartphone. Of that group, 48 percent was interested in a BlackBerry, while 37 percent said they were thinking of buying an Android device.
Of the third of respondents to the survey by U.K. site MyVoucherCodes, a whopping 64 percent said they had wanted the device to have more features. At the same time, just 29 percent of UK consumers asked were itching for a complete redesign – in other words an iPhone 5. However, survey participants were big fans of the Siri voice-recognition system, as well as the improved camera.
It's unknown how this disappointment will affect sales. In the U.S., the iPhone 4S sold 4 million units in just the first three days. AT&T has said the 4S was a strong seller and financial analysts quickly removed any doubt where Wall Street stands, emphasizing the iPhone 4S's late launch should mean record sales for Apple's 2012 first quarter.
What is clear from the iPhone 4S is that the hype machine can sometimes get out of control. In a physical sense, all the chatter about the supposed iPhone 5 set the stage for a let-down akin to a person pumped full of adrenaline who is ready for something amazing, but gets only a smartphone that is just really, really cool.
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Get 10 Top-Selling Mac Apps for the Price of One with the Fall 2011 Mac SuperBundle [Deals]
It's been a long year. You deserve to treat yourself, and your Mac, to some beautiful new apps to make life easier. No one wants to spend $350 on an app shopping spree though, so we're here to get you the hookup on 10 amazing apps while saving you a quantified butt-ton of money at the same time.
This week Cult of Mac Deals and StackSocial are bringing you ten apps to make your Mac driven life a thousand times better. We've scored you a deal to that saves 86% off the original price. 10 apps for $49 instead of the advertised $366?! This is the biggest deal we've had yet. Here's a run down of the ten apps that are included in our Fall 2011 Mac SuperBundle.
Fantastical - Calendar apps are usually pretty boring. You log an appointment in it and then you never think about the app again. Fantastical is here to bring a little bit of flavor and awesomeness to your drab calendar app. Fantastical allows you to create events instantly via natural language input. One of the great things is that the app works perfectly with iCal, Entourage, and Outlook so you don't have to change over to a new calendar system, it even recognizes event locations and sends invites directly from your Address Book.
Camtasia - If you're not a fan of iMovie but don't want the complexity of Final Cut Pro X, you should try using this great video tool. TechSmith's Camtasia for Mac gives you flexible recording options, professional yet easy-to-use editing tools, plus web and mobile sharing capabilities so you can show incredible video screencasts to the world.
System requirement: Intel-based Mac, OS X 10.4 or later, 1GB of RAM.
CleanMyMac – Hard drive space is a valuable commodity, especially if you're totting around the new MacBook Air with a 64GB or 128GB harddrive. MacPaw's CleanMyMac safely and thoroughly cleans unneeded files, system junk and application leftovers from your computer. It's the easy-to-use yet full-featured cleaner and maintenance solution that your Mac needs to stay clean and run efficiently.
HoudahSpot- Don't get me wrong, Spotlight is great, if it weren't then Microsoft wouldn't be putting their version of it in Windows 8. However, sometimes navigating through Spotlight and finding the right files that you need can be tedious when you're swimming in a sea of files and can't figure out how to fine tune your Spotlighting abilities. Houdah Software's HoudahSpot is a powerful and efficient search utility that unleashes the power of Spotlight. HoudahSpot makes it easy to quickly find, browse and tag your files.
MacHider – We're not suggesting that you might have some files on your Mac that you'd like to keep hidden from certain private eyes. That's for you to decide. But should you need to keep some sensitive information private this is the app you need to keep the process simple but efficient. MacPaw's innovative MacHider makes sure your personal files and folders are hidden and your passwords are protected and stored in a safe place. Keep confidential information away from third parties!
DiscLabel - Nothing says, "I actually care about the content on this CD that I'm giving to you," more than a fancy disc label on top of said CD. Smile Software's DiscLabel lets you create, print and share beautiful CD, DVD labels and case inserts. It even comes with a wide variety of professionally-designed templates perfect for business and home use.
EnSoul - Did you see all the awesome new wallpapers that came out with the iPhone 4S? Oh wait, there weren't any. Hey Apple, what gives? It's ok though, because we have an app for that. The Ensoul app from MacPaw lets you truly customize your iPhone! Crop and resize contact photos, create custom wallpapers, style and edit photos and much more – all in just minutes!
Audio Converter Pro – There's nothing more painful than getting stuck with your favorite band's album formated in .flac, or heaven forbid .wma. Both of which require some tinkering to get to play in iTunes. Luckily there's some great apps out there to manage your audio conversions, and Audio Converter Pro is the best on the market. Produce files like a sound professional with Audio Converter Pro – the powerful all-in-one audio converter for conversion between different formats, video sound extraction, audio CD ripping and more.
Font Explosion – Helvitica is sooooo 1957. It's time for you to step up your typeface game and try out something new other than Times New Roman, Arial, and Comic Sans. Font Explosion includes FIVE HUNDRED 100% royalty-free, sensational TrueType® fonts for home, school and office. Each font is fully-scalable to any point size and easily integrates with your favorite applications like Microsoft Word, Pages, Keynote, Adobe® Photoshop® and more. With each font family fully compatible with all popular inkjet and laser printers, the Mac SuperBundle Font Explosion software makes print jobs a breeze!
Enigmo 2 - There aren't many games that can entice me to waste a few hours of my life because so few of them nowadays involve something other than mindlessly killing bad guys or sling-shooting birds. Enigmo 2 is an exception to many of the bland games on the market because it combines critical-thinking and problem solving skills with great graphics. Pangea has taken their classic puzzle game to another dimension with many more complex environments and new devices. Enigmo 2 includes a built-in level editor that lets you create your own games to share or post worldwide. The great thing about Enigmo 2 is that it's a game you can load up and play for a few minutes, or get lost in it for hours.
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Italian Judge Rules Against Samsung, iPhone 4S Launch On
You can hear a collective sospiro of relief from Italian Apple fans today after a judge in Milan denied a request by Samsung to block sales of the iPhone 4S in a preliminary hearing.
At stake was the launch of the iPhone 4S on October 28, the device that some Italians have already been buying on eBay just to say they've established intimate relations with Siri before anyone else.
Today was only a reprieve for the iPhone buyers and Apple, however, since judge Marina Tavassi agreed to give Samsung until November 15 to prepare its brief over patents used in Apple's new device, daily Il Corriere della Sera reported.
On October 5, Samsung announced its lawyers would be busy prepping to block the iPhone 4S in France and Italy.
Blocking sales of the new iPhone was meant to "use publicity over the device's introduction as leverage against Apple in a broader fight over the design of smartphones and tablet computers." The South Korean company has another 20 legal actions pending against Apple in 20 countries.
Hat tip: Stefano Donadio at Spider Mac
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The Flaming Lips Will Cover The Beatles' 'Revolution' as Tribute to Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs was a massive fan of English rock band The Beatles, and once revealed in an interview for 60 Minutes that his business plan was inspired by the group. To honor Steve's life and his achievements, The Flaming Lips will provide a special performance at the O Music Awards on October 31 where they will perform a cover of The Beatles' "Revolution".
The performance will be recorded on one of Steve's greatest inventions, the iPad, and posted to the O Music Awards website, where the tribute was announced earlier today:
The performance will go down during the course of the O Music Awards broadcast, which will kick off on October 31 at 8:30pm PDT/11:30pm EST. The Lips — whose frontman Wayne Coyne is nominated for an O Music Award for Digital Genius — will then bust out with the Beatles' "Revolution". The whole deal will be recorded on an iPad.
In an interview for 60 Minutes, Steve once revealed that the band were his model for business:
My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other's negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are never done by one person, they are done by a team of people.
Steve's love of The Beatles is mentioned a number of times throughout Walter Isaacson's authorized Steve Jobs biography, in addition to his love for Bob Dylan:
I asked him a well-worn question: the Beatles or the Stones? "If the vault was on fire and I could grab only one set of master tapes, I would grab the Beatles," he answered. "The hard one would be between the Beatles and Dylan. Somebody else could have replicated the Stones. No one could have been Dylan or the Beatles."
[via 9to5Mac]
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Gameloft & Sega Throw Halloween Sale With iOS Games for Just $0.99
[image error]Gameloft & Sega are getting into the Halloween spirit and offering tasty treats in the form of cheap iOS games. For a limited time you can grab a some of the most popular games for your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad for just $0.99, including Order & Chaos Online, Driver, ChuChu Rocket!, and Virtua Fighter 2.
Here's the full list:
Gameloft Driver — $2.99 → $0.99 Gameloft Action Pack — $4.99 → $0.99 Iron Man 2 — $4.99 → $0.99 Iron Man 2 for iPad — $4.99 → $0.99 Order & Chaos Online — $6.99 → $0.99 Shrek Forever After: The Game — $4.99 → $0.99 Shrek Forever After: The Game HD — $4.99 → $0.99 Skater Nation — $2.99 → $0.99 Sega Brick People — $1.99 → $0.99 Brick People HD — $2.99 → $0.99 ChuChu Rocket! — $2.99 → $0.99 ChuChu Rocket! HD — $4.99 → $0.99 Gunstar Heroes — $2.99 → $0.99 Virtua Fighter 2 — $1.99 → $0.99 Similar Posts:Tons of iOS Games on Sale for Black Friday Sega Hit 'ChuChu Rocket!' for iPhone is Free For Today Only 'Order & Chaos' is Gameloft's WoW-Like MMORPG for iOS – Available Now These Are The Popular Games That Gameloft Ripped Off For Their App Store Doppelgangers [Gallery] Sega Classic Chu Chu Rocket Now Available On The App Store [image error]
Steve Jobs Created the iPad to Show One Microsoft Employee What a Tablet Really Can Be
The iPad has been a staggering success for Apple since its inception in 2009, but if it wasn't for one loud-mouthed Microsoft employee, the tablet may have never been born. Steve Jobs decided that he would create the device after listening to a Microsoft employee boast about a Windows tablet over dinner. When he got home that night, Steve said, "Fuck this, let's show him that a tablet really can be."
The story is just one of a number of revelations discovered in Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography that went on sale earlier this week. British tabloid The Daily Mail points to the story in which Steve revealed where the inspiration for Apple's iPad came from:
[Bill] Gates was annoyed that the guy kept revealing information about the tablet PC he had developed for Microsoft. "He's our employee and he's revealing out intellectual property," Gates recounted. Jobs was also annoyed, and it had the consequence that Gates feared. As Jobs recalled:
This guy badgered me about how Microsoft was going to completely change the world with this tablet PC software and eliminate all notebook computers, and Apple ought to license his Microsoft software. But he was doing the device all wrong. It had a stylus. As soon as your have a stylus, you're dead. This dinner was like the tenth time he talked to me about it, and I was so sick of it that I came home and said, "Fuck it, let's show him that a tablet can really be."
Jobs went into the office the next day, gathered his team, and said, "I want to make a tablet, and it can't have a keyboard or a stylus."
Needless to say the iPad was born shortly afterwards, and two generations later, it has sold a combined total of 39.8 million units. Meanwhile, Microsoft is yet to launch a Windows tablet that has established itself in the market.
So thank you, Microsoft, for our wonderful Apple iPad.
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October 25, 2011
New SoundID SIX Bluetooth Headset Has Carbon, Built-In Siri Access
Carbon weave has got to be the Miracle Whip of gadgets — it makes anything taste better. We reviewed Sound ID's 510 Bluetooth headset in a BT headset head-to-head (try saying that fast) a few months back; and while it sounded great and was pretty much our pick of the week, it wasn't the coolest looking kid on the block — and you couldn't order it to do stuff, like you could some other headsets. Sound ID's new Six fixes all that, and adds a trick for Siri too.
The new VoiceMenu function allows access to voicemail, BING 411 for updates on news and weather, and the VoicedDial feature, which can also be used to activate Siri.
Of course, all the features from the 510 are there too, like the cool EarPrint app (which is now a Binary App for the iPad too) for customizing the headset's sound and checking the battery level, A2DP and the touch controls — the latter hopefully improved. The Six is $130 and available now.
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Kogeto Ships Dot, 360-Degree Panoramic Vid Camera for iPhone With a Twist
This is pretty wild: the Kogeto Dot ($80) is a 360-degree lens that snaps onto the back of an iPhone 4, shoots 360-degrees worth of video; then a player in the cloud (if you upload the clip) or on your iPhone 4 in the form of Kogeto's free Looker app (if you keep the clip on your phone) allows you to play the app and change to any viewpoint in a 360-degree circle during playback.
Kogeto's Dot camera began as a teacher's aid, in the guise of a similar device named "Lucy," before it moved on to become a Kickstarter project and has just begun shipping as a full-fledged product.
Right now, Dot only works on the 4, because the image stabilization feature in the 4S messes with Dot's output — but Kogeto says they're working on a solution.
Jeff Kogeto, the man behind the gadget, explained that the whole idea is to fix the problem of having to interrupt what you're doing in order to capture footage. "They were always pointing the camera at the wrong place," said Jeff when we spoke to him briefly over the phone. Now, instead, pretty much everything within a single plane can be captured and then different perpectives can be viewed later.
Jeff also mentioned that Kogeto is already speaking with CBS and the Canadian Broadcasting Company about using Dot for news interviews. Cool.
The clip above features David from Kogeto describing Dot; if you 'd like to play around with actual footage, some fun uploads can be found here.
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Ultimate Ears 600vi: The Champ [Review, $100 IEM Week]
Almost all mic-equipped canalphones that can be had for about $100 use moving-coil drivers to produce sound, as is the case with all the previous IEMs in this review series. But the Ultimate Ears 600vi ($120) is different — this set employs a single tiny armature in each ear. Armatures generally allow for a more neutral sound with better definition than their moving-coil brethren, and that's exactly the case with the 600vi. In fact, this set uses pretty much the same excellent drivers as in the now-discontinued, $180 SuperFi 5vi we
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