Leander Kahney's Blog, page 2262

Two 3rd Gen iPod Touches With Camera Prototypes Pop Up On eBay

Burbling up as flotsam in the eBay Apple stream, then yanked beneath the waves just as quickly by the webbed fingers of Cupertino's eldritch lawyer things: these two iPod Touch prototypes marked DVT-1 and DVT-2, complete with built-in cameras. One of the iPod Touches is non-functioning, while the other runs a provisional "Switchboard" operating system. [...:]

iPad Camera Connection Kit Can Be Used With USB Keyboards and Audio Headsets

When Apple first revealed the $30 iPad Camera Connection Kit, which contains a little dongle that allows you to use a USB 2.0 cable to transfer photos from your camera to your iPad's iPhoto library, a lot of people wondered if it might be used to connect other USB devices as well.
As it turns out, [...:]

Apple Hires Longtime Nintendo Expert As Global Editorial Games Manager

With the addition of the Xbox-Live-like Game Center to iPhone OS 4.0, Apple has finally made a serious commitment to gamers and game developers after nearly a decade of ignoring them on the OS X platform.
Expect that commitment to continue to deepen: Nintendo games expert and journalist Matt Casmassina of IGN has just been [...:]

Wi-Fi Sync: Wireless Sync Coming To The App Store

In an age when voice and video from half a world away can be sucked up from the soup of electromagnetic radiation invisibly swirling around us, plugging in my iPhone to sync with iTunes makes me feel like a caveman. I've been waiting for an app that would allow me to wirelessly sync my [...:]

MONDAY GIVEAWAY: Tweet To Win Monster Jamz and ScreenClean

Geeze, one week we're giving away app codes and the next week $120 Headphones and $17 Screen Cleaner courtesy of the guys over at Monster.
Monster's Jamz In-Ear Headphones look to be rugged. There's a video below with some guy going to town on them with various weaponry. I like that Monster goes for "accurate and [...:]

Steve Jobs Poses For 1st Cover of Macworld, Then Changes Mind [Recollections]

In Part 6 of his memoirs, Macworld founder David Bunnell recalls the magazine's first cover shoot featuring Steve Jobs, who has a sudden, unexpected change of heart.
"Take a picture of this," Steve said, holding up his middle finger. We stared in disbelief.

In mid-December I called Steve to ask him to pose for the cover of [...:]

Financially, At Least, Apple Stock a Better Purchase Than Apple Products

Kyle Conroy, a computer science student at UC Berkeley has just released a project that asks a provocative question: Should you buy Apple's products or Apple's stock. Using a large data set combining Apple's stock price over time and the prices of nearly every Apple product introduced since 1997, he calculates how much your AAPL [...:]

Woz Accidentally Gets Apple Engineer Fired For Showing iPad

Here's a interesting story about secrecy and making mistakes at Apple. The story is told by Woz, Apple employee number one (check out his hilarious shirt).
While Woz was waiting in line to buy the iPad last month, an Apple test engineer showed him a prototype iPad. It was just a few hours before the [...:]

How To Turn Your iPhone Into a Wireless Hotspot and Enable Tethering using MyWi

If only we could have experienced the iPhone in all of its glory from the initial release. 3G has only recently been opened to multimedia streaming. Tethering is still not available though the iPhone is fully capable. Why are we not video chatting with our loved ones these almost perfect devices?
Jailbreaking that iPhone is currently [...:]

Steve Jobs Comes Up With a Really Weird Ad [Recollections]

In Part 5 of My Close Encounters With Steve Jobs, Macworld founder David Bunnell describes seeing the 1984 Macintosh ad for the first time.

Macworld Editor Andrew Fluegelman wasn't too thrilled about Apple checking the first issue blue-lines, but he was delighted to get the prototype Macs weeks before they were available to the public.
That very [...:]