Right after Apple announced the new iPod Nanos in September with their new form factor, some people immediately started wondering whether someone had in mind to ship some kind of watch band for them. The new Nanos looked perfect for a watch. When the first silicone bands came out, though, it turned out the iPod didn’t look that great as a watch. A friend of mine bought a similar band, a leather one, and things got slightly better.
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The New iPod Nano Watches
Sprint To Launch ZTE Peel 3G Case for iPod Touch On November 14th?
Boy Genius Report claims it has obtained information from a reliable source that Sprint is looking to launch the ZTE Peel, a case for the iPod Touch that turns the device into a 3G-capable unit, on November 14th. BGR also claims 29 bucks per month will grant you 1GB of data:
We don’t have any details on how much the actual device will sell for, but we do know Sprint plans on charging $29.99 per month for 1GB of data usage with no contract.
The ZTE Peel, approved by the FCC earlier this year, is basically a mobile hotspot that brings mobile cellular data to the iPod Touch, otherwise capable of working on Wifi-only.
iTunes Movies Now Available in Italy and Switzerland, We Want An Apple TV Now
Good news, fellow Italian and Swiss MacStories readers: we haz iTunes Movies. Earlier today Apple indeed silently launched the new iTunes section in both countries, you too can check it out by following this link. Both normal purchases and rentals are available.
We say “silently” because no press release went out nor did Apple put any banners and / or links in the iTunes Store homepage to promote the new Movies (or, in Italian, “Film”) – it’s pretty much a hidden section with a rather straightforward interface. Read more
Rumor: Apple Almost Bought Kinect in 2008
Fascinating rumor posted by Cult of Mac today: according to author Leander Kahney, Apple almost acquired the company behind today’s Microsoft’s Kinect controller in 2008. According to the rumor, Inon Beracha, CEO of Israeli company PrimeSense, had been visiting many companies in the Silicon Valley to sell the technology, developed by engineers in the Israeli military.
Based on cameras and an infrared sensor to recognize users’ movements in space, Beracha thought Apple would be interested in applying the technology in its products. Read more
Cydia Update Coming Soon, Better iPad Support
As tweeted by iPhone hacker and developer Musclenerd a few hours ago, Cydia is undergoing a major update that will bring overall performance improvements, a refined UI and a more native interface to the iPad.
As we can see in the screenshots posted by both @Musclenerd and developer @chpwn, the “Who Are You?” window has been completely redesigned and now provides more explanation about the categorization of packages in Cydia.
The iPad version will sport modal windows and, finally, landscape support – the current version of Cydia only works in portrait mode. We can also see in the bar sources and installed packages no longer live in a single “Manage” tab. Seems like a good choice to me.
According to chpwn, the new Cydia will be released “when it’s ready”. We’ll wait.
Apple Showcases Cooking Apps Ahead of Holiday Season
Just like every Friday, today Apple launched new sections and new games / apps of the week in the App Store. We already noticed the App Store Hall of Fame which showcases the 50 best apps of all time. Together with that section, Apple is also featuring the best cooking apps users can download aheda of the holiday season.
The section is organized in 5 sub-sections: Recipes, Chefs & Cooks, Drinks, Shopping and Tools & Basics. Free and paid apps for iPhone and iPad are featured, with notable examples such as Epicurious, The Photo CookBook and 20 Minutes Meals.
You can check out “Holiday Cooking” here.
Apple Launches App Store Hall of Fame
The App Store was launched exactly 848 days ago in July 2008. Today, Apple launched a new section in the App Store called “App Store Essentials: Hall of Fame” which is aimed at presenting the “very best of the best” and contains 50 apps for iPhone and iPad, both paid and free.
Among the apps, there are true gems such as Angry Birds, Hipstamatic, Instapaper, Reeder for iPhone, Siri (which was acquired by Apple), Zen Bound 2, Facebook and Photogene. Surprisingly enough, the official Twitter app didn’t make the list, nor did other clients such as Twitterrific or Weet. The list will likely grow during the weekend and the holiday season, so perhaps more apps will be added.
You can check out the Hall of Fame by following this link in iTunes.
Apple Seeds Mac OS X 10.6.6 To Developers, 10.6.5 Coming Any Day Now
As noted by 9to5mac, Apple just seeded Mac OS X 10.6.6 (build 10J521) to registered Mac developers. 10.6.6, another version of Snow Leopard – we thought the upcoming 10.6.5 would be the last before Lion.
The only information provided in the changelog:
- Contains developer support for fetching and renewing App Store receipts. See “Validating App Store Receipts” for more details.
The release of a first 10.6.6 seed means the 10.6.5 version we’ve been talking about for months could be coming later today, tomorrow – any day. It’s ready, just waiting to be released publicly.
iPhoto 9.1 With Calendars Support Now Available
A few minutes ago Apple released an updated version of iPhoto, which reaches version 9.1 and adds support for Calendars, a feature that mysteriously went missing in the first iteration of iPhoto ‘11. Apple already announced an update with Calendars support was on its way.
Check out the official changelog below:
This update adds several new print product options to iPhoto ‘11. It also improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues.
- Provides the ability to create and order calendars in iPhoto.
- Additional letterpress holiday greeting card themes are now available.
- Fixes an issue that prevented videos downloaded from MobileMe or Flickr from importing correctly into iPhoto events.
- The update is recommended for all users of iPhoto ‘11.
You can download the update in Software Update or at Apple’s support page for iPhoto 9.1.