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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

Quake 3 Arena Coming To Jailbroken iPads Today

If you have a jailbroken iPad and happen to like first-person shooters, you must be happy to know that Quake 3 Arena is coming to the tablet in a glorious full-resolution version with high-res textures and on-screen controls.

Based on the original id Software game and the iPhone port released by Seth Kingsley in 2008, Quake 3 Arena for iPad has gone under a complete makeover thanks to Alexander Pick’s efforts, who squashed lots of bugs and turned the game in a full tablet-enjoyable experience. It can even run on non-jailbroken devices using a developer certificate and on a jailbroken iPad running iOS 4.2, with installation happening via manual APT, I guess.

The game can be played offline and online, levels can be added via iTunes file sharing and you can also drop high resolution texture files into it. We can’t wait. Additional info available on Paduser. [9to5 via Giz]

Why Developers Create Apps for iOS→

Why Developers Create Apps for iOS

Marco Arment:

The problem is that hardware manufacturers and tech journalists assume that the hardware just needs to exist, and developers will flock to it because it’s possible to write software for it. But that’s not why we’re making iPhone and iPad software, yet those are the basis for the theory.

We’re making iPhone software primarily for three reasons:

Dogfooding: We use iPhones ourselves.
Installed base: A ton of other people already have iPhones.
Profitability: There’s potentially a lot of money in iPhone apps.

With this in mind, think about the installed based of Macs.

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iPad Guesswork One Year Later→

iPad Guesswork One Year Later

The answer is just the same for the iPad. What is it for? Well, I use mine to browse the Internet, cook in the kitchen, play games, manage my finances, earn a living, entertain the children, look at photos and so on. In other words, it’s a computer and that’s how I use it. The novelty of its appearance, functioning and so on seems to require re-categorization or a some highly-specialized usage scenario. Of course in many ways my iPad is significancy different than my MacBook Pro, but in others it’s quite the same.

Here’s what I’m going to do this weekend: find old articles about “Apple’s tablet” speculations and see how many got it right.

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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 Discontinues Xserve, Mac Pro Server Goes Live

As MacGeneration notes, with a note on its website Apple announced Xserve will be discontinued and will only be available until January 31st. The note links to a PDF available here called “Xserve Transition Guide”.

Apple will not be developing a future version of Xserve. Xserve will be available for order through January 31, 2011. Apple will honor and support all Xserve system warranties and extended support programs. Apple intends to offer the current ship- ping 160GB, 1TB, and 2TB Apple Drive Modules for Xserve through the end of 2011 or while supplies last. Apple will continue to support Xserve customers with service parts for warranty and out-of-warranty service.

The Xserve was first introduced in 2002. Entire racks of Xserve systems are still used by many companies and universities in their networks. As Xserve gets discontinued, the Mac Pro Server goes live in the Apple Store. It can get configured up to 12 cores and ships in 2-4 weeks.