New MacBook Airs Coming On Wednesday? [Updated]

Following the screenshots detailing Nuance integration in iOS 5 through Apple internal settings, Chronic Wire reports new MacBook Airs may be coming out on Wednesday. Chronic had a good track record in the past pinpointing various Apple rumors and he seems certain the new line will launch this week, on June 15th. However, he didn’t post any tech specs of the new machines – though it looks fairly obvious that Apple will implement Sandy Bridge processors and Thunderbolt technology like in the iMac and MacBook Pro 2011 refreshes. Several reports in the past months pointed at Apple aiming at a June-July release for the popular ultra-thin laptops.

Meanwhile, 9to5mac also claims Apple will we holding retail store overnights on Tuesday for a Wednesday product launch, but they couldn’t confirm what the product could be. They don’t believe it’s the new MacBook Air family like Chronic Wire does, but it could be considering recent speculation.

We have since heard from a source that there are still some current generation MacBook Airs shipping to retail stores across the world into the next couple of weeks. Because of our own independent information, we doubt a new MacBook Air launch for Wednesday. It does make sense though based on the scheduled retail overnight.

Other products recently rumored for an update would be the Mac Pro Server, Mac mini server and Time Capsule/AirPort Extreme stations, which several bloggers believed would be unveiled by Apple at WWDC.

Update: Chronic Wire now reports Back to School promo material will be put in place during the retail overnights on Tuesday, with a launch on Wednesday alongside the new Airs. The Back to School 2011 promo was initially believed to be set for a WWDC announcement with possibility for students to get the usual iPod touch with the purchase of a new Mac, or a discount off a new iPad 2.

Update #2: MacRumors initially posted part numbers of what they claimed to be the four models supposed to become available this week. In a tweet, they later confirmed the numbers were for unlocked iPhones. Currently, Apple offers four MacBook Air models with 64 GB and 128 GB SSD options for the 11-inch, 128 GB and 256 GB for the 13-inch.

iOS 5 Internal Settings Show Possible Nuance Integration

The Chronic Wire got its hands on a build of iOS 5 running Apple internal settings and posted a series interesting screenshots throughout the day detailing some of the features that are enabled for Apple employees and developers for testing and troubleshooting, but aren’t visible in the beta build of iOS 5 seeded to developers on Monday. Among those screenshots, new ones posted a few minutes ago show what looks like Nuance voice recognition baked into the OS – in the weeks leading up to WWDC 2011, Nuance was in the middle of Internet speculation for a possible deal with Apple that would allow the company to tightly integrate Nuance’ voices and functionalities into iOS for text-to-speech, voice recognition, and more.

The screenshots show some options like “mic on space key”, “auto-record input” and “Nuance dictation”, which seem to suggest Apple has been testing ways to integrate additional buttons in the default iPhone keyboard to let users speak and have text transcribed on screen. Nuance indeed has an application for the iPhone called Dragon Dictation (our review here) that enables users to do just that in seconds. Nuance voices are also built-in in Mac OS X Lion as reported a few weeks ago.

The Chronic Wire is promising more screenshots from these internal settings and we’re certainly looking forward to more tidbits hidden inside iOS 5. No Nuance announcement or partnership was unveiled at WWDC, with new rumors now suggesting that everything could be unveiled in the Fall before the release of iOS and perhaps during the iPhone 5 keynote.

First Third-Party iOS 5 Widget Released In Cydia

A few hours after the release of redsn0w for iOS 5 beta 1, some developers found out it was technically possible to develop widgets for iOS 5. In the new OS, in fact, Apple is restricting the use of “widgets” (they don’t even call them this way) to the Stocks and Weather applications, which, through the Settings, can have a “widget” or “ticker” in the new Notification Center. Currently, the widget section of Notification Center can only be used on the iPhone, as the iPad didn’t get the functionality for some reason.

iSpazio reports [Google Translation] the first third-party, fully functional iOS 5 widget has been released in Cydia, and it’s called UISettings. Available for quite some time in Cydia as an extension of the multitasking bar, the app has been completely rewritten to work as a widget under iOS 5, providing shortcuts for a system respring, a WiFi and Bluetooth switch, as well as AirPlane mode and Brightness controls. The concept’s similar to the popular SBSettings tweak, though UISettings is limited to a handful of shortcuts and controls.

The widget can be downloaded from the developers’ beta repo (http://qwertyoruiop.com/beta), and a new version is already in the works. The possibility of developing and releasing custom widgets in Cydia may offer an interesting alternative to Apple’s restrictions if the company decides to prevent developers from building third-party widgets in iOS 5, although everything can change come the final release of the OS this summer. Apple may even announce new Store sections for widgets (or Safari extensions) and surprise developers a few weeks ahead of iOS 5’s release. This is just speculation on our side however, so in the meantime you can download UISettings and check out how a custom widget integrates with Apple’s Notification Center.

Apple Confirms “Extremely Small” Verizon iPad 2 Recall

Reports surfaced earlier today indicated Apple was in the process of recalling Verizon iPad 2 models that were being shipped from China (where they’re made) to the United States, leading to speculation that faulty units had been produced by Foxconn. In a brief note to All Things Digital, however, Apple has confirmed that they have recalled an “extremely small” number of Verizon iPad 2 due to a problem with device identifiers, otherwise known as ”mobile equipment identifiers” (MEIDs), which play a key role when setting up a new iPad for cellular data activation. Due to a problem with Verizon flashing the same MEID on different iPads, users could run into the impossibility of activating their device as it’s already registered on the carrier’s network.

Duplicate MEID numbers were flashed onto an extremely small number of iPad 2 units for the verizon 3G network,” an Apple representative said on Friday.

Although most of the small number of devices involved were still in the process of hitting the market, a few had already found their way into customers’ hands.

Some iPad 2 customers have reported receiving credits and free accessories as a compensation for the delay, although Apple hasn’t issued an official statement or policy in regards to this recall. It is also unclear what the company will do for those customers who have already got their hands on a Verizon iPad 2 with the wrong MEID, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if Apple contacted this small number of people to issue a full refund or send a new unit free of charge.

iCloud Communications Sues Apple Over iCloud Trademark

Yesterday in the US District Court in Arizona, iCloud Communications, LLC filed a suit against Apple for trademark infringement over the name iCloud.

iCloud Communications, LLC, claims that Apple’s new promotions of all things iCloud is damaging (seriously?) to iCloud Communications’ business. They also believe that Apple has taken their own name branding and associated it with Apple’s own (well, maybe). They are accusing Apple of offering services similar to the ones that they offer.

Read more

Stay on Top of Retweets, Faves, and Follows from your Menubar with Bird Bell: Review and Giveaway!

If you’ve wanted to stay on top of your Twitter status in real time, many Twitter clients won’t show you whether that last tweet caused a few unfollows or if it was fave’d by a few of your fans. For those obsessed with getting realtime feedback, Bird Bell is an excellent companion app to any Twitter client you have on the Mac, integrating with Growl and displaying real time feedback on retweets, follows, unfollows, favorites, and lists you’re added to. Bird Bell integrates with both Twitter and Favstar, and can be customized to a wide extent in revealing growl or menubar notifications per account. With the official Twitter app for the Mac (which offers live streaming), Bird Bell can give you a bird’s eye view on just how responsive your audience is to what you’ve tweeted as soon as you’ve hit the return key. Bird Bell works in the background, and only notifies you based on your interests: I personally don’t care about follows and unfollows, and choose to see favorites and retweets instead.

Twitter junkies who want to revel in their tweets can purchase Bird Bell on the Mac App Store for $1.99 — it’s a great utility that works alongside your favorite Twitter clients. We’re also giving away five copies of Bird Bell, and you can click past the break for your chance to win.

Read more

AirServer 2.2: AirPlay On OS X Already Working with Lion and iOS 5

AirServer is an OS X utility I first reviewed in May that allows you send music, photos and videos from iOS devices to a Mac’s display using AirPlay. Unlike similar apps that enabled such functionality before, AirServer stood out because the first release was stable, fast, and cheap at $3. Since then the price increased to $4.99, but the developers released a plethora of updates (seriously, I’m pretty sure I updated the app more than 10 times) to bring several other functionalities like dual display support, a different icon, a settings panel, audio controls, service rebroadcasting, and more.

With the latest 2.2 update, however, the developers have gone all out to implement early support for iOS 5 and OS X Lion. Both OSes aren’t out yet, but if you’re rocking the betas on your device or computer you’ll be able to use AirServer to beam music and videos – you’ll just have to disable dual-mode AirPlay on iOS 5 for now. The devs also said that they’re looking into implementing iOS 5’s AirPlay Mirroring on AirServer (iOS apps mirrored on a Mac, that would be nice), but that could be difficult as it uses Apple’s FairPlay encryption.

Alongside OS compatibility, recent AirServer updates also brought audio controls in video apps, support for Boxee, XBMC, FrontRow, Wake on Demand, as well as 24-bit audio support. I’ve tested AirServer with iOS 5 and Snow Leopard and it works very well, with songs and YouTube videos playing just fine on my MacBook Pro.

Go download Air Server here.

“iCloud Is The Operating System”

The conversation my friend Francesca and I were having in front of a good cup of coffee ended when she concluded that iCloud was the operating system.

At first, that silly statement didn’t make any sense to me. I laughed, and tried to explain her that it’s not the operating system – the one you have to download and install on your computer or device – rather, I told her iCloud was a new way to keep all her content stored somewhere else she could access at any time. But the more I went on to illustrate the advantages of pushing media from the Internet (“the cloud”) to devices without a USB cable, the more she kept asking why would that be any different from having the operating system on the Internet, “doing stuff for you automatically.” Read more