Leander Kahney's Blog, page 1539

In Review, David Pogue Gives iPhone 4S High Marks, Especially Siri

The first reviews of the iPhone 4S are coming in, and they look pretty good.

David Pogue, in a review headlined "New iPhone Conceals Sheer Magic," says Siri is game-changing:

It's even more amazing how Siri's responses can actually form a conversation. Once, I tried saying, "Make an appointment with Patrick for Thursday at 3." Siri responded, "Note that you already have an all-day appointment about 'Boston Trip' for this Thursday. Shall I schedule this anyway?" Unbelievable.

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Published on October 11, 2011 21:31

Make Your Desktop Clean And Minimalistic [Video How-To]

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Having an uncluttered and minimalistic desktop has several benefits. Not only does it remove visual distractions, it can also actually speed up your Mac. In this video, I'll show you a few ways to clean up and un-clutter your desktop.

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Published on October 11, 2011 20:25

Magazines Begin To Populate Apple's Newsstand App

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A few magazines have begun to populate Apple's Newsstand app on the eve of the October 12th release of iOS 5. Right now the only two magazines that I could add to Newsstand were Wired and Popular Science. They only showed up on an iPad I wasn't able to find anything for the iPhone.

If you have access to an iPad running iOS 5 launch the App Store and search for the two publications shown in the image above. I tried searching for "magazine" and "newspaper" also, but it wasn't really clear if any of the results would work or not. Hopefully Apple will clarify all of this soon by adding a category or two to the App Store.

I hope there will be more on launch day for iOS 5 tomorrow. I'd especially like to see some foreign newspapers, but Apple has been awfully quiet about Newsstand. It could be possible that they were unable to generate the interest they'd hoped for.

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Published on October 11, 2011 18:24

iPhone 4 Crowned King of Smartphones on AT&T and Verizon in September

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Apple's iPhone 4 remained the best-selling smartphone on both AT&T and Verizon during the month of September. The iPhone 4 has continued to do well in the consumer market despite the fact that it's over a year old.

On Sprint, the number one handset was the Samsung Galaxy S II, Epic 4G Touch in September. The HTC Sensation took the number one spot on T-Mobile.

Canaccord Genuity analyst Mike Walkley told BGR that Apple showed "solid sell-through trends versus August levels in the U.S. market with sales stronger than our expectations."

Walkley wrote. "While we anticipated slowing sales ahead of new smartphone products such as the iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S II, our checks indicated solid September sales. Further, we expect even stronger sell-through trends in October versus August/September levels." The analyst also noted that Apple's iPad 2 was the top-selling tablet from both AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Typically, sales for the current generation iPhone start declining leading up to a new iPhone announcement, but that has not been the case this year. Instead, sales have been steady for the iPhone 4 after 16 months of being on the market.

Apple recently announced that it will offer the iPhone 4 for $99 on AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint with 8GB of storage. The iPhone 4S will sell at the regular retail prices, and the iPhone 3GS will be offered for free with a two-year contract on AT&T.

The iPhone 3GS is a free option for potential customers, the iPhone 4 continues to sell well and is now offered for only $99, and the iPhone 4S sells for the regular $200 entry price. All of the bases are covered.

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Published on October 11, 2011 18:18

Limited Edition Hipstamatic Lens Sheds Fashionable Light on Good Cause

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Through the lens of Guy Aroch.

The folks over at Hipstamatic sent either the best or the worst email subject line, ever.

It announced "We Heart Boobies GoodPak," presumably touting a limited-edition lens of the photo app for October. (Spam filters everywhere are convinced it's an advert for a new porn toy. But of course we opened it anyway.)

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The special edition case.

What do mammaries got to do with it?

The special Susie lens offered in the GoodPak will lend that suffused, sexy light of fashion photog Guy Aroch to your already molto-retro Hipstamatic snaps.

And by making the in-app purchase, you pitch in to breast cancer research, actively taking part in National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The lens and camera case offered in the GoodPak will set you back $0.99, all proceeds go to global breast cancer charities.

There's a lot to heart in that.

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Published on October 11, 2011 17:05

Android Market Pulls Gay Quiz app, But Gay or Straight Apps Abound

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Both the Android Market and iTunes are like flea markets: there's some good stuff up front and lots of junk the more you rummage around the piles of crap in the back.

And the junk just seems to multiply the more you look.

Case in point: Google recently yanked "Is My Son Gay?" from the Android market after allout.org launched an online campaign about the homophobic quiz app. (Questions included "takes a long time to do his hair," or if he "likes football" rather than "musicals.")

The trouble is that both iTunes and the Android Market have apps that are just as offensive.

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Case in point, the Android Market has a bunch of "gay quiz" apps still available that seem ripe to cause trouble – here are a few we found.

Gay or Straight, free app in the Android Market.

From the description: "Always wanted to know how gay somebody is? Find out now who is gay, straight, or bi-sexual in this fun application! Through unique tests this application will determine how gay the person is."

It's been in the store since November 2010, with an average rating of 2.3 stars: "It's a nice app for making people think they're gay. It's all determined by the name you put in…" says one user.

Gay Meter Fingerprint Scanner, in $0.99 Android Market.
Description: "Ever wonder if a girl or guy was gay, straight or bisexual? Just have anybody in a bar, club, at the office or at home put their thumb on this Gay Meter and it will read the fingerprint or thumbprint and tell you just how gay they are. It's like having instant gaydar to tell if someone is gay, homosexual, heterosexual, bi-or lesbian."

The app sounds like a dumb party trick (rightly placed in the "tasteless" category of the store), but imagine this pulled on some unsuspecting high school kid who gets taunted for the results.

Gay or Straight Detector, $0.99, Android Market

This one works by "detecting" whether someone is gay or straight – by judging their photo.

The description: "This is an amazing app that will take a picture of anyone and determine whether or not they are gay, straight, etc. Now you can stop wondering whether a guy or girl is gay or not without asking them."

GayDar Extreme, $0.99, Android Market
Another one that would be a total nightmare at school: "Gay-Dar is a simple joke you can play on your friends. By tilting your phone, the results will change and show you different levels of gayness or straightness. Once you hit "Totally Gay!!!" a loud siren will sound."

Are You Gay? $1.99, Android Market

This one tries to offset potential criticism with a bizarre description: "Are You Gay" was conceived and developed by a panel of infamous drag queens, red necks and religious bigots. The game is meant to be a fun, "tongue-in-cheek" party game. In 10 easy questions it will tell you EXACTLY how gay you really are. Think you're "butch?" Think again!"

The iTunes market – with all public ousting of erotica can't keep aps like Premier Male Massage from the store – is also no stranger to these apps. While iTunes offerings fewer, they include the stereotype-ridden How Gay Are You Quiz, the Steakhouse or Gay Bar game and Supergay & The Attack of His Ex-Girlfriends .

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Published on October 11, 2011 16:42

Why Steve Jobs Wore Turtlenecks

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Steve Jobs was a man known for his signature style. During the last decade, the CEO and entrepreneur was hardly ever seen in public without his black turtleneck, blue jeans, and New Balance sneakers.

Many have stopped wondering why Jobs chose such unusual attire to wear while unveiling revolutionary products to the world, but it turns out that there's actually an interesting story about why Jobs was never seen without his turtleneck and blue jeans.

An excerpt from Walter Isaacson's upcoming biography about Jobs, courtesy of Gawker:

"On a trip to Japan in the early 1980s, Jobs asked Sony's chairman Akio Morita why everyone in the company's factories wore uniforms. He told Jobs that after the war, no one had any clothes, and companies like Sony had to give their workers something to wear each day. Over the years, the uniforms developed their own signatures styles, especially at companies such as Sony, and it became a way of bonding workers to the company. "I decided that I wanted that type of bonding for Apple," Jobs recalled.

Sony, with its appreciation for style, had gotten the famous designer Issey Miyake to create its uniform. It was a jacket made of rip-stop nylon with sleeves that could unzip to make it a vest. So Jobs called Issey Miyake and asked him to design a vest for Apple, Jobs recalled, "I came back with some samples and told everyone it would great if we would all wear these vests. Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea."

In the process, however, he became friends with Miyake and would visit him regularly. He also came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style. "So I asked Issey to make me some of his black turtlenecks that I liked, and he made me like a hundred of them." Jobs noticed my surprise when he told this story, so he showed them stacked up in the closet. "That's what I wear," he said. "I have enough to last for the rest of my life."

Sticking with that "uniform" helped make Jobs one of the most recognizable CEOs in the world. Most CEOs of Jobs' caliber would be seen in expensive suits, but what Jobs wore personified his spirit. He was a rebel. He thought different.

It's curious to look back and think about the kind of brand affiliation Apple would have if Jobs would have dressed like every other CEO. It may seem like an insignificant detail at first, but everything Jobs did was intentional. He knew that creating a signature style would give Apple a unique relationship with its customers.

Walter Isaacson's official biography of Steve Jobs goes on sale October 24 on Amazon and other retailers.

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Published on October 11, 2011 13:43

Apple Has a Truckload of Engineers Working on Its Own Chips for Mobile Devices [Report]

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Apple is working fervently on its own chip technology for the post-PC era, according to TechCrunch. Specifically, Apple has 1,000 engineers (or about 5% of its Cupertino workforce) working on its series of processors for upcoming products.

Steve Jobs himself said that "getting low power and smaller is the key to everything" when it comes to chip design. Apple is thinking ahead to the future of the revolution it started with products like the iPhone and iPad.

Citing a "veteran Silicon Valley CEO who knew Jobs," TechCrunch says that Apple's engineers are working on breakthroughs in battery life and chip size.

There's also a huge focus being placed on flash storage:

"Not only are Apple's processors extremely power efficient, but Apple is also removing the hard drives from its products and replacing them with flash memory chips. It's not just iPhones and iPads, the MacBook Air's storage is also flash. All of Apple's products are moving in this direction. When you combine these two fundamental changes at the silicon level, "form factor no longer becomes an issue," explained the Silicon Valley CEO."

Apple recently implemented the A5 processor in the iPhone 4S — the same chip that powers the iPad 2. The A6 chip is expected to drop next year, based on Apple's release pattern. The A5 is twice as fast as the A4 chip (which powers the iPhone 4), and Apple's silicon will undoubtedly keep getting smaller and more powerful.

Do you think that Apple will eventually implement proprietary chips on all of its devices, including desktop? If Apple's focus is on chips for mobile, where does that leave the Mac?

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Published on October 11, 2011 13:09

Siri Caught On Video, Will Tell You The Distance To The Moon In A British Accent

Stuff.tv's video hands-on with Siri is even more impressive than Apple's demo videos. Not only do they show it opening websites, sending IMs, checking the weather both locally and across the world, setting a wake-up alarm, doing currency conversions and finding the distance to the moon, Siri even changes its accent according to whether it is talking to a Yank or a Brit.

Pretty awesome. Who said this wasn't a killer feature for the iPhone 4S?