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A Stun Gun for iPhone

We’ve featured creepy iPhone and iPad experiments gone totally wrong in the past. Don’t remind me of that Japanese weirdo who used to eat off his iPad. For this reason I hope what we have here today is a spoof video, I don’t want to believe the stun gun dock accessory for the iPhone called the “Stun Fone” is real.

The guys you can see in the video below built this dock stun gun which you can use by pressing the volume buttons on the iPhone. No jailbreak required. While it’s fairly easy to build such an accessory and hack it to work with the standard iPhone keys – this looks just wrong to me. Read more

Courier 1.1 Adds MobileMe Support, Plays Nice With Large Uploads

Courier is the latest Mac app by the guys over at Realmac Software which we reviewed 2 months ago here. Through a highly custom and beautiful interface, it allows you to upload files to a variety of online services such as Flickr, Facebook, Ember, Vimeo and Youtube. The first version of the app also allowed you to send files to your FTP server and Amazon S3. All is achieved via “envelopes”, packages the app sends to your selected sources.

Courier 1.1, released today, adds the much requested MobileMe support and improves reliability with large uploads – which could take longer than usual on the older version. In spite of the added functionality, the app is still intuitive and easy to use.

Courier is available at $19.95 on Realmac’s website, with a free trial available as well. We look forward to seeing Courier in the Mac App Store.

An Open Letter to Apple on Server Technologies→

An Open Letter to Apple on Server Technologies

Some of our smaller departmental or lab users may be able to run Mac OS X Server on a Mac Pro or Mac mini. At a campus level, we cannot, because these systems do not have the required mounting, power, management, and other functionality. While it is possible to rack mount a Mac Pro with third-party hardware, it is a non-starter because of the lack of dual redundant power supplies, management capabilities, and spare parts kits, to say nothing of space considerations.

Please allow virtualization of Mac OS X Server in non-Apple virtualization environments, with a commensurate license and pricing model.

Must read. [via Smoking Apples]

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“Apple Doesn’t Actually Deny Much From Their App Store”→

“Apple Doesn’t Actually Deny Much From Their App Store”

Even more from Saurik on Hacker News:

Seriously: Apple doesn’t actually deny much from their App Store. They are occasionally a little anti-competitive, and that sucks, but these really boil down to a handful of high-profile cases: the effect on the market is minimal. Most of what they deny either a) doesn’t work or b) is illegal or morally objectionable to your average American.

So please… PLEASE… I implore you: drop the battle to get Apple to open up their App Store(s). Instead, work on getting Apple to open up their device.

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Saurik: “Even Software Should Have Screws” [Video]

In the following video, Jay Freeman (a.k.a. Saurik, Cydia’s creator and main developer) talks about the reasons behind software modifications and jailbreak at TEDx, an independently organized event.

The session is really interesting, as it provides some insight on how, after all, jailbreakers are really similar to those people who buy a car and start customizing it. If you think about it, it makes sense.

Shareables for iPhone Makes Sharing Simple

Justin Williams of Second Gear has released some amazing iPhone and iPad apps recently: with the popular Elements Dropbox-based text editor and MarkdownMail he gained lots of users and fans in the App Store.

We at MacStories really like the iOS apps Justin Williams has created in the past months. With the release of Shareables for iPhone today (free in the App Store), Second Gear aims at making sharing on the iPhone simple and fun by enabling you to share cool links with your friends and followers with just a few taps. Read more

Audition for Mac Public Beta Now Available

Five months ago we saw a first video of Adobe Audition for OS X. Today, Adobe released the first public beta for the software, which is based on a new architecture capable of editing both single files and multi-track mixes.

The OS X version of Audition offers a new engine with improved performances, and seems to be geared towards the broadcast and audio post-production market.

From the official beta page:

Adobe Audition for Mac offers:

  • Fast start-up, high performance multi-threaded processing, and parallel workflows
  • Powerful audio editing and multitrack mixing views
  • Superior noise reduction capabilities
  • Native 5.1 Surround support and multi-channel effects, plus other new effects
  • Optimized audio post-production workflows

You can go download Audition for Mac beta here. [hat tip to The Loop]

Aweditorium Aims At Revolutionizing Music Discovery On The iPad

It’s great when you wake up and you find an awesome new app waiting for you in the App Store. You see, I’ve been keeping an eye on Aweditorium for a while (months, I believe) since Robert Scoble first tweeted he had tested an early demo. The name was cool, the website featured some bands I didn’t know. I was intrigued, so I started following the developers on Twitter.

Aweditorium is now available in the App Store, and it’s more than I thought it would be – but it’s got a few technical limitations I hope will be addressed in future updates. Aweditorium aims at changing rules and conventions, but it has to deal with some iOS restrictions and a few bugs I’m pretty sure are caused by iOS 4.2 incompatibilities. The main concept, however, is all there: Aweditorium wants to change the way you discover great new music on the iPad.

After two hours using the iPad app I’ve already discovered more new music than in the last two weeks reading NME or Pitchfork. Read more

Verizon’s First iPad Commercial [Video]

Fresh off Youtube, here comes Verizon’s first official iPad commercial. Featuring a man with an iPad on his lap and a Verizon MiFi unit, the ad outs the focus on the “magical iPad” now available on the nation’s most reliable network.

It’s very well done, Apple-ish yet aimed at promoting Verizon’s network. We like it. [via The Next Web]