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Personal Hotspot On The Verizon iPhone? That’s An Additional $20

Earlier today, Verizon confirmed the iPhone will launch on their network on February 10 with an initial unlimited data plan priced at $30; speaking to Macworld, Verizon Wireless’s Executive Director of Corporate Communications, Brenda Raney, confirmed that in order to use the Personal Hotspot feature provided by Apple iPhone users will have to pay $20 more:

Raney said that Verizon iPhone owners will be able to take advantage of the 3G wireless hotspot feature for an extra $20 per month on top of the iPhone’s required voice and data plans—that’s the same price that applies to current Verizon smartphone owners.

The hotspot feature comes with its own 2GB monthly data pool, separate from your iPhone’s data plan. That covers the use of any and all devices using your iPhone’s 3G data connection. The downside? Go over that amount, and each additional gigabyte will cost you another $20.

Personal Hotspot is a functionality that allows users to turn the iPhone into a mobile hotspot to share the 3G connectivity with nearby devices, via Bluetooth, USB or WiFi. The feature will officially debut with the Verizon iPhone (which at the time of the media event, was running an unreleased iOS 4.2.5 version) and it’s already been implemented in the iOS 4.3 developer betas. Carriers, however, will retain the ability to disable the functionality on their network, or charge extra fees in order to activate it.

‘The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs’ - A One-Man Show

Mike Daisey has a one-man-show running at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre through February 27, one that we as Apple geeks might be interested in seeing. It’s called “The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.”

Master storyteller Daisey’s comedic show is all about the world of Apple, including an important message: Apple’s products are made under inhumane conditions.

Cult of Mac’s Leander Kahney says that Daisey’s portrail of an Apple fan is spot on and the show is very funny but also has a serious side as well. He visited production facilities inChina to gather material for his show only to find out that the devices he loves are made in sweatshop conditions, with children as young as 11 years old.

Video after break (1:38 mark) Read more

CleanMyMac’s New Feature: Mac App Store Uninstaller for Apps

An update to MacPaw’s popular cleaning and maintenance software CleanMyMac (our review here) was released a few hours ago to include an interesting new feature: an uninstaller for applications installed through the Mac App Store. The new update also includes iOS firmware cleanup and a new “Ignore list”.

The uninstaller feature works as expected: you drag an app into CleanMyMac’s window and MacPaw’s app finds all the associated files and preferences to put them into the trash. It is unclear what exactly did MacPaw implement into CleanMyMac to introduce official Mac App Store support, but it works. As you may have noticed, the current version of the Mac App Store doesn’t provide an option to uninstall apps, only a neat feature to easily re-install apps on all your machines. If you want to delete apps on your Mac the old way is still good: just manually drag one from /Applications to the Trash. With this easy method, though, is very likely that additional files like preferences and databases will be left behind. MacPaw’s app now takes care of everything.

In the future, I’m pretty confident Apple will implement easy and complete uninstallation into the Mac App Store. For now, you should give CleanMyMac a try.

Apple’s Latest Patent: The Hitchhiker Gesture

It’s no secret Apple is looking for ways to better integrate multi-touch gestures into iOS devices and the Mac platform: the latest iOS 4.3 beta allows developers to set up “multitasking gestures” (which won’t ship with the final version of 4.3) and OS X Lion will make extensive use of gestures as well through the Launchpad and full-screen apps. Clearly, and we all know this, Apple is shifting user interaction with a computing device from pointing to touching.

That said, the latest gesturing patent Apple has been awarded left us kind of surprised initially. As reported by Patently Apple, Apple has patented as series of “real world and security” gestures for touch and hover-sensitive devices. While we’d leave the hover-sensitive design to geek dreams for the next decade (imagine interacting with a device without even touching it, like this), the new gestures surfaced in the patent are surely original. Among them, a “hitchhiker” gesture for scrolling, panning, windowing and general directional input. Read more

Verizon iPhone Will Have $30 Unlimited Option: Bon Appétit [Update]

Having been a Verizon customer for roughly a year now, I can say that a benefit of being on the Big Red would have to be their $30 unlimited plan. I’m not certain why a special case would be made for the iPhone where people couldn’t get an unlimited plan, but if those worries were keeping you up at night, the Wall Street Journal reports that the Verizon iPhone will have an unlimited plan available.

The carrier’s heir apparent and chief operating officer, Lowell McAdam, told us the news ahead of the company’s meeting with investors.

“I’m not going to shoot myself in the foot,” he said. Not offering an unlimited plan would put up a barrier for customers who might otherwise switch from AT&T, he said.

I don’t find it interesting that the iPhone will have an unlimited data plan (though skeptical wannabe-AT&T converts can now jump for joy): it’s more interesting that the $30 plan may be the only option available. Verizon does have a $15 plan at 150 MB a month for smartphones, but that will be axed in favor of upcharging customers with to the lure of LTE (the irony in our case being the iPhone 4 is CDMA only). Engadget reports that only feature phones would have the option of a 75 MB data plan for $10.

Update: As Verizon giveth… Verizon taketh away. An update via WSJ admits:

But you’d better act fast. Speaking later Tuesday morning, Mr. McAdam said the iPhone unlimited plan will be a temporary offer and that the carrier will follow AT&T’s move to tiered pricing in the not too distant future.

The axing of the unlimited plan shouldn’t exclusive to the iPhone: all phones available on Verizon’s network would move to tiered pricing.

[via WSJ, Engadget]

Pixelmator and Mac App Store: $1 Million in 20 Days

The first stories of success in the Mac App Store are starting to come in. First came Evernote, with its impressive Mac adoption rate thanks to the new Store; then Compartments, from a developer who went from 7 sales a day to 1500. Now the Pixelmator developers have posted a new entry on the company’s blog announcing that their graphic editing app has grossed $1 million in less than 20 days into the Mac App Store.

Taking Apple’s 30% away out of the equation, that leaves $700,000 to the Pixelmator team. Or maybe it’s $1 million after Apple’s cut? We don’t know. Either way, it’s an impressive result that we’re sure wasn’t possible back in the days when there was no Mac App Store.

This is a well-deserved milestone for the Pixelmator devs and we’re looking forward to what’s next for the app. The Pixelmator team, for instance, implemented a clever Mac App Store transition policy that forces existing customers to buy the app again, but will give them Pixelmator 2.0 for free once it’s released later this year.

Pixelmator is available at $29.99.

Woman Tries To Get Past Airport Security with 44 iPhones Around Her Body

Looks like we have another “this is just wrong” story here. If yesterday’s suicide attempt from a woman who lost her iPhone wasn’t enough, here’s what we have today on the menu: a woman who wanted to become an iPhone smuggler and tried to a) get past airport security with 44 iPhones around her body in b) typical Georgian outfit. Picture the scene. 44 iPhone 4’s below the outfit to get them into Israeli without paying taxes. Must have sounded like a good plan to the woman.

The Ben-Gurion International Airport security staff of course got suspicious over this woman who was walking slowly, asked if there were any problems and the woman replied “she was not feeling well”. Perhaps 44 iPhones are a bit too much for anyone? Anyway, security called a full body scan and surprise, they found a Cupertino treasure in there.

You know what’s missing from this curious story? A white iPhone. Just because. [Engadget via Haaretz]