First Impressions and More Details On Apple’s Updated Retail Stores

By Federico Viticci

After last night’s photos of Apple’s changes to the retail experience (dubbed “Apple Store 2.0” in recent rumors and speculation), a MacTalk forum member has posted (via MacRumors) his first impressions of the new retail space and in-store tables featuring interactive iPad displays to offer more product information, compare tech specs, and call a Specialist for further assistance. As previously reported, the iPads being used by Apple next to each device and computer are special units glued to a mounting block that’s also glued to the main table, running a custom app that’s impossible to hide by locking the device or clicking the Home button. Forum poster jack112006 says he’s tried different combinations for pressing the Home button, but none of them worked as the iPads are likely impossible to hack in-store to visualize the underlying OS. Furthermore, as we saw from the pictures, the units are connected to a single cable that, once inside the mounting block, is divided into two separate cables: one for security and anti-theft measures, one (a very thin 30-pin dock connector) for charging purposes.

The second cable is quite special. It is an ultra-thin 30 pin ribbon cable. It is tight against the iPads body in the acrylic block, and is used for charging, and I would imagine periodic device re-imaging for a new product, etc. The software on all the iPads is very special, and is set up so that the Home button is inactive.

Apple Store 2.0 Goes Live: Interactive iPads and More [Updated]

By Federico Viticci

Following the wild speculation and rumors from the last week as to whether Apple was planning a special event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Retail, the so-called Apple Store 2.0 experience has launched in Australia (it’s already Sunday morning there and Apple Stores are open), featuring what was previously reported: iPads are used to display product information and prices, compare features between different products and ask for a specialist’s help. As you can see from the photo above, it appears the new store-specific application (we don’t know yet if it’s a native app, a web app, or something else) is used to lists features, compare, call for support and introduce new users to the Mac platform.

Website Mac Prices Australia has posted photos from the updated Apple retail experience:

Retail stores around Australia have launched ‘Retail 2.0′ to mark the 10th anniversary of Apple Retail stores. We knew this was coming but what exactly has happened?

iPads display product prices & information for products.

iPads display product features, prices and lets you compare between models.

Use the iPad to ask a specialist to to come to you.

Apple store staff appear to be wearing party hats.

We’ll update this post with more information as they become available. If you live in Australia and have photos to send, our [email protected] inbox is waiting for your pictures.

Update: more photos from the Sydney Apple Store below.

Zootool for iPhone Collects Your Visual Bookmarks

By Federico Viticci

Zootool, a visual bookmarking platform I had the chance to review when it first came out almost two years ago, has launched an official app a few weeks ago in the App Store, taking the full Zootool experience to the iPhone. If you’re already a Zootool user, you know what to expect from the service: Zootool allows you to collect anything from the web anytime and anywhere thanks to a series of bookmarklets that are capable of grabbing images and videos, as well as entire webpages to save as bookmarks in your account; accounts can be either public and private, with the former option allowing you to share your web discoveries with other Zootool users, a vibrant community that collects cool inspirational resources and links from around the web. Items in your “zoo” can be tagged and collected in packs, plus the service, unlike other bookmarking tools like Pinboard and Delicious, adds a whole visual layer to saved websites and files thanks to inline previews for everything. Zootool is highly visual, and the iPhone app is the perfect replacement for the web browser while you’re on the go.

The main screen gives you access to your bookmarks, the public timeline of people you follow, your profile and active / popular / featured users. Users can be followed in-app, you can check out their recent “lasso catches”, and all entries and links to other web profiles (like Twitter). Entries from others can be copied and opened in Safari, viewed inline or added to your collection; Zootool for iPhone provides the same editing interface of the web app to modify tags, descriptions and links, but the developers also went as far as adding a new bookmarklet built specifically for Mobile Safari that will help you save images and pages from the browser. In the “Your Zoo” view, the app allows you to view all your entries, items organized by packs and tags. Youtube videos can’t be viewed inline as in the web app, but everything else performs exactly as you would expect from Zootool, only it’s been ported to a native app. One cool thing I’ve noticed: if a URL is in your clipboard, Zootool will automatically detect it and ask you to add it to your Zoo.

Zootool for iPhone is a great example of how a full-featured web app should be brought to a smaller screen. The app is elegant, fast, gorgeous to look at and retains all the functionalities seen on the web. You can download Zootool for iPhone at $1.99 from the App Store.

Week Calendar HD Adds New Theme, Gets More Settings and Less Leather

By Federico Viticci

Week Calendar HD is an excellent replacement for Apple’s own Calendar application I reviewed here a couple of weeks ago, when the app made the transition from the iPhone to the tablet’s larger screen. The first version of Week Calendar HD was a solid release, but left many surprised because of its skin that reminded of Apple’s app and, more importantly, of the theme the company implemented in iCal’s upcoming Lion version. Either because Apple called or because the developer realized a calendar application doesn’t need to look like a real-life calendar to be useful, the new version of Week Calendar HD changes the default skin to black leather and introduces a new “Modern” theme that gets rid of the leather-ish background altogether and looks gorgeous on the iPad.

Version 1.1 also comes with several bug fixes (particularly appreciated is the better handling of overlapping events, and the new event popup no longer disappearing) and enhancements to the settings to enable you to further customize the calendar experience throughout all your configured accounts. Custom calendar colors can now be synchronized across devices running Week Calendar with a new option in the settings; it’s now possible to only show daytime hours (very welcome change, as I don’t care about displaying hours I’m not going to be available anyway) and you can set up custom recurring intervals like “every 17 days.” The day view got some improvements too, as it can be swiped to navigate; last, the month view (which I love) got the possibility to hide time of events and change the font size. I’m not sure why events from my OmniFocus Reminders subscribed calendar still look weird in Week Calendar, but I’m pretty sure I’ll figure something out not that font options are available.

Week Calendar HD is a powerful calendar application for iPad, now with a beautiful modern skin, less leather and more settings. Get it here.

Switch Between iTunes Accounts From The Menubar

By Federico Viticci

As usual after someone comes out with a hack that involves AppleScript and a bit of manual fiddling, a GUI version follows after a few weeks. Back in late April we covered an AppleScript created by a Reddit user that, once configured, allowed you to quickly switch between multiple iTunes accounts by simply invoking a shortcut or manually launching the script. Many of us have been there before: in order to enjoy music and apps from the iTunes Store internationally – sometimes avoiding restrictions and taking advantage of timezones – we have to set up different (possibly fake) international accounts. Whilst Apple doesn’t exactly accept this practice, it’s still possible as long as you don’t select a payment method in iTunes. Or maybe, some people simply prefer to create legit accounts and keep different purchases tied to each account. No matter the reason, however, switching between accounts in iTunes is a slow and annoying process: the app isn’t meant for multi-account usage, and every single time you’re forced to re-enter your account’s email and password.

The AppleScript we covered provided a great way to switch accounts and have iTunes automatically fill in the required fields; today’s solution, brought to us by Nature’s Eye Studios, gives the same concept an interface with a lightweight app that lives in the menubar and lists all your iTunes accounts, properly organized by country. You can create as many accounts as you want from the settings, and the app will lets you switch between them by simply selecting one from the menubar’s dropdown menu.

I’ve found this app to be slightly more stable than the aforementioned AppleScript (which made my iTunes crash every once in a while) and, overall, more intuitive than launching a script created for each account I have. You can download iTunes Account Switcher here.

Apple Takes Down Order Status Page Ahead of May 22 Retail Meeting

By Federico Viticci

As a latest piece to the retail meeting puzzle the tech press has been trying to put together in the past week, Apple has taken down the online status order webpage (where users can check on their Apple store orders, make changes, and track shipments) until Sunday, May 22. Other pages of store.apple.com seem to be up at the moment, as the order status page is the only one that reports systems are being upgraded.

Apple’s retail meetings on May 22 have been initially rumored to be focused on a product launch or 10th anniversary celebration of retail, though recent speculation indicated employees might be simply trained on new internal systems such as RetailMe installed on staff-only iPads, new Concierge and other overhauled internal services.

[Thanks, Jonathan]

Mozilla Releases Firefox 5.0 Beta

By Federico Viticci

A few days later than originally expected, Mozilla updated the beta channel earlier today to include the first public beta of the next major version of Firefox, dubbed Firefox 5.0. Available for Mac, Windows and Linux PCs, the new Firefox comes with performance and stability enhancements, as well as support for new CSS animation standards. A detailed list of changes is provided in the Beta channel release notes:

Added support for CSS animations
Added support for switching Firefox development channels
The Do-Not-Track header preference has been moved to increase discoverability
Improved canvas, JavaScript, memory, and networking performance
Improved standards support for HTML5, XHR, MathML, SMIL, and canvas
Improved spell checking for some locales
Improved desktop environment integration for Linux users

More importantly, the new beta allows users to quickly switch between Aurora, Beta and Stable channels from the About menu of Firefox to “test features at various levels of development, quality and polish.” No visible interface changes made their way into the 5.0 beta, though from a first series of tests the speed and memory optimizations when dealing with dozens of open tabs seem remarkable. Aurora, the new release channel launched by Mozilla a few weeks ago, aims at following the path traced by Google Chrome with the Canary builds in offering users a way to get access to early builds a step above the so-called “nightly” builds. Today’s beta release marks the debut of Firefox 5. in the public beta channel.

Firefox 5.0 beta can be downloaded here. Read more

Apple Investigating Explosion at Foxconn iPad Factory

By Federico Viticci

An explosion in a Foxconn facility in Chengdu, China, that killed 2 and injured at least 16 earlier today is currently under investigation from Apple and Foxconn, as well as local officials. The blast, reported by several news outlets this afternoon, took place in the factory where Foxconn makes iPads for Apple, the WSJ said. In Fried at All Things Digital posted an official statement from an Apple spokesperson:

We are deeply saddened by the tragedy at Foxconn’s plant in Chengdu, and our hearts go out to the victims and their families,” Apple said in a statement provided to All Things D. “We are working closely with Foxconn to understand what caused this terrible event.

Whilst speculation is running wild as to whether the damages to the facility will affect the iPad’s production chain, our thoughts and prayers go the victims of this terrible tragedy.

Intel Working On New ULV Sandy Bridge Processors Apple Could Use in MacBook Airs

By Federico Viticci

CPU World reports (via MacRumors) that Intel is working on a series of new Core i5 and Core i7 ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors based on the Sandy Bridge architecture which, offering improved speed and graphics performances over the previous-gen Arrandale CPUs, might be a suitable choice for Apple in the next generation of MacBook Air models. The three new processors, Core i5-2557M, Core i7-2637M and Core i7-2677M, increase clock speed from 1.4 GHz and 1.6 GHz to 1.7 GHz and 1.8 GHz, with turbo boost frequencies set at 2.8 GHz and 2.9 GHz. With increased speeds, performances and the same 17 Watt thermal envelope, the new CPUs might as well end up being used by Apple in the MacBook Airs rumored to receive a Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt update in June or July.

Two forthcoming Core i7 ULV dual-core processors, i7-2637M and i7-2677M, have 1.7 and 1.8 GHz base, and 2.8 GHz and 2.9 GHz Turbo Boost frequencies. This is 200 MHz higher than the frequencies of their predecessors, Core i7-2617M and i7-2657M. Default clock rate of the HD 3000 graphics on new chips stays the same, 350 MHz, although the maximum turbo frequency is increased to 1.2 GHz. The microprocessors boast 4 MB level 3 cache, and support HyperThreading and Vpro technologies. It is interesting to note that, despite of having lower processor number, the Intel i7-2637M SKU will be faster than the i7-2657M.

Low power consumption and speed are obviously factors Apple considers when selecting the processor to implement in thin and lightweight machines like the MacBook Airs. Whilst no release date has been announced by Intel yet, Apple usually gets components from Intel earlier than other companies, leading to speculation that the upcoming Air refresh may include the update Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs. Several reports in the past months indicated was working on a new version of the MBA line, last updated in October 2010, featuring Thunderbolt connectivity and faster processors following recent hardware changes to the MacBook Pros and iMacs.