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Rumor: Microsoft’s iPad Team

Microsoft is currently distributing 4 apps in Apple’s App Store: Bing, Wonderwall, Windows Live Messenger and Tag Reader. Plus, Office for Mac 2011 came out last week with much anticipation. According to a tidbit by iPhoneDevCamp founder Raven Zachary, Microsoft has a “dedicated” iPad team in one of its offices in California.

As Electronista also speculates, it’s not clear whether the Microsoft employees Zachary heard talking at a bar (oh, these bars in California) were referring to a development group for iPad or a product team focused on building a Microsoft alternative to the iPad. The former option is more likely, as we heard rumors of Microsoft developing software for Apple’s tablet before and, frankly, I think an iPad version of Office would sell like hotcakes. With Apple growing strong in Enterprise, a full-featured version of Office 2011 for iPad would be huge. Read more

iPhone DST Bug Spreading Across Europe - And The US?

It happened a few weeks ago in New Zealand and Australia and it’s happening again in Europe: not that European countries have switched from Standard Time to Daylight Saving Time, the annoying iOS 4.1 clock bug that makes alarms go off an hour later is spreading like a virus across European users and it’s making the rounds of Twitter.

Apple promised a fix to ZDNet Australia when the bug was first discovered weeks ago. We speculated that Apple might release a fix the same week to prevent the same bug from happening in Europe (last weekend) and the US (they’ll switch to DST on Nov. 7). No fix has been released yet, and iOS 4.2 is scheduled to ship this month. Perhaps they’ll just wait for the new OS to release a DST fix? Read more

The Addictive Allure of Instagram→

The Addictive Allure of Instagram

But Instagram is, maybe more than anything else right now, a community of people who enjoy making & taking charming photos, sharing them with their friends and seeing what their friends have shared. It is a community that lives on top of other, existing communities, and has pulled this off seemingly without any pain or friction. The Instagram community is composed of people from Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Flickr, which of course has helped it tremendously in gaining widespread adoption so quickly.

Starting where Camera+ left off, the Instagram developers have a huge opportunity on their hands.

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You Can Now Use Your iPhone On Mount Everest

Oh, how many times in the past I wished I could add stuff to Instapaper while climbing the Everest. I mean, that damn mount had seriously bad 3G coverage. We were forced to use those ugly satellite phones every time, and man those things don’t even run Twitter. Or Cydia. Or Angry Birds: Snow Edition. I was so pissed I even sent Steve Jobs an email and told him I wanted my money back because no Everest mention had been made on Apple’s website. Lack of support. 1 star.

If you happen to climb the good ol’ Everest nowadays, though, you might be lucky enough to be able to use the iPhone up there. Reuters reports that Nepali telecom company Ncell installed a new 3G facility at the base camp of Mount Everest – which in case you don’t know, is the world’s tallest mountain at 29,035 feet. Read more

The iPhone 4 Becomes Japan’s Best Selling Cellphone In October

According to the latest numbers by GfK Japan (via Analytica1st), the iPhone has become Japan’s best selling mobile phone. The numbers refer to the week October 18-24 and are the result of a survey across 4,000 point of sales.

As you can see, the iPhone, both in the 16GB and 32gB edition, is the only Softbank device in the chart, which includes cellphones by NTT DoCoMo and KDDI au. The iPhone 4 came out in Japan on June 24th, but Apple –as usual – hasn’t released country-specific numbers of units sold.

Tip: Automatically Add URL To A Downloaded File As Spotlight Comment

Also from Reddit, a nice little hack that allows you to automatically add a downloaded file’s URL as a Spotlight comment to the file itself. Spotlight comments are useful because they add metadata to a file, and they are supported across many 3rd party applications such as DEVONthink, Leap and Launchbar.

Spotlight comments are searchable, and having a URL automatically attached to a downloaded file can come in handy when you remember the website you downloaded something from, but you can’t find the file. Read more

Should Lion Be Distributed On USB Keys?→

Should Lion Be Distributed On USB Keys?

A Redditor wonders if Apple is going to ditch the CD for the new OS distribution:

The new MB Airs ship with their restore software on a USB key, as they have no optical drive. Obviously those machines will need a way to upgrade to 10.7, and the remote disc stuff, while it works, doesn’t seem very Apple-ish. We know next to nothing about Lion at this point, and I’m not convinced that Apple is out to kill the optical disc. But I wonder: Will the next version of Mac OS X ship, not on a DVD, but on a USB key?

Obviously DVDs are cheaper and faster to print. But if you think about Apple and the “dangerous” decisions they made in the past, this kind of makes sense.

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“Jobs at Apple” Page Updated With New Positions, Introductory Video

Apple updated its “Jobs at Apple” mini-site to include additional information about the carrier possibilities at Apple Retail, new jobs positions and a video introduction to Apple’s retail philosophy.

Join us at the Apple Retail Store, the unique gathering place where people come to discover Apple products. Show your passion and expertise as you connect customers with our products and help integrate products into their lives. Be a part of our team and change the way our customers work, play, create, and communicate.

Both the revamped page and video focus on detailing the incredible experience that is working at Apple, being part of something that can “actually change people’s lives” and that can “connect customers with Apple products”.

The main page also features recently opened retail stores with positions available: El Paseo Village - Palm Desert, CA; Boise Town Square - Boise, ID; River Park Square - Spokane, WA; Summit Mall - Akron, OH; University Park Mall - South Bend, IN.