Reminder: .Mac HomePage Shutting Down Today

As reported in early October, Apple is shutting down the .Mac HomePage service today. The .Mac HomePage service was a feature that allowed users to publish webpages using their .mac account. The feature was first discontinued in July 2009 (users were unable to create new content); today Apple is pulling the plug on the service by disabling viewing of already-published content.

The files won’t be permanently deleted, though. As Apple explains in a support document:

Can friends and family still view my published pages?

After November 8, 2010, all photos, movies, and files shared using .Mac HomePage will be unavailable for viewing on the web. Web Pages published using iWeb or Aperture will not be affected.

Will my content be deleted after November 8, 2010?

No. All of your content is still on your iDisk and can be accessed by going to me.com/idisk and clicking Home in the sidebar. The HTML files that make up your site can be found in the Sites folder, and any pictures or movies you have used for your pages can be found in the Pictures and Movies folders respectively. You must remain an active MobileMe member to access your iDisk.

Apple’s current sync and web publishing solution, MobileMe, retails at $99 per year and comes with a 60-day free trial. We highly recommend it as a way to sync information across devices (bookmarks, settings, email accounts, calendar), although we’re huge fans of Dropbox when it comes to file storage.

Korean Carrier Allegedly Confirms CDMA iPhone Rumors

According to The Korea Herald, Choi Joo-sick, senior vice president of Korean carrier LG Uplus, confirmed in a conference call last that they’re “in talks with Apple” for  CDMA iPhone.

LG Uplus Corp., the smallest mobile- phone operator in Korea, said it is in talks with Apple Inc. to offer the CDMA iPhone in the domestic market. LG Uplus is negotiating about a change to the electronic circuits to make CDMA iPhones for the company, senior vice president Choi Joo-sick said on a conference call, available on the company’s website.

The company said Friday that its third-quarter earnings tumbled 94.9 percent from a year ago on increased marketing expenses.

Much has been said about the alleged CDMA iPhone / Verizon iPhone set to ship in early 2011 on multiple carriers worldwide. Korean rumors follow the speculations that Apple might be willing to implement CDMA technology as a way to reach more users and gain more market share in Asian countries.

BGR reported last month that the rumored Verizon iPhone has hit “testing stage” and it’s basically ready for massive production.

“Hardly Anyone” Was Buying Xserves According to Steve Jobs

French website MacGeneration got a screenshot from a reader of an email he received from Steve Jobs. We’re used to this stuff, right? People sending el Jobso angry emails and complaints, getting “yep” and “nope” as response, leaving us to do the hard job to figure out what the chief really meant.

So this time, it’s all about Xserve. Apple announced last week they would discontinue it, but it’ll be available until January 2011 nevertheless. According to this latest email from Steve Jobs, Apple made this decision as “hardly anyone” was buying Xserves.

The “premature death” of Xserve left many IT guys with doubts and skepticism in regards to Apple’s plans for large and small businesses.

You Can Now Use FaceTime On The iPhone 3GS

As previewed earlier today, FaceIt 3GS is a new Cydia tweak developed by iPhoneIslam which allows you to have FaceTime calls on older iPhone 3GS models, even if they don’t officially support FaceTime nor do they come with a front-facing camera.

The tweak simply enables FaceTime in the Settings app and lets you use the standard 3GS camera to capture what’s around you in a video call. To install the tweak, open Cydia (your device must be jailbroken) and install the following source:

http://apps.iphoneislam.com

Hit “Add” and wait for Cydia to refresh. Then search for FaceIt 3GS and install it. Reboot your iPhone, and you’ll find the FaceTime functionality inside the Settings app, just like on the iPhone 4 or the latest iPod Touch. Insert your number, wait for activation and your device will be ready to go.

iPhoneIslam demoes the tweak in action in the video below. iPhone 3GS owners and jailbreakers, you know what to do.

iOS: Single Biggest Gaming Format On The Planet→

iOS: Single Biggest Gaming Format On The Planet

The remarkable truth of that figure, then, is that it’s entirely possible that measured by software revenues the iPhone/iPod is already the single biggest gaming format on the planet. And if it’s not already, it very shortly will be – the App Store is still growing while the others are moving downwards, and more and more publishers are devoting serious resources to making some very serious games for the iOS machines.
For a platform that’s only been around a couple of years, that’s already a pretty astonishing feat. Include the fact that it’s being done by selling the vast majority of games for less than $2 and it’s mind-blowing.

And the App Store is coming to the Mac now.

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Parallax Brings Panoramic Wallpapers To The iPhone | Cydia Store

A new tweak available in the Cydia Store, Parallax, allows you to set a panoramic wallpaper as background on your iPhone Springboard and enjoy all the details of the wallpaper scrolling behind your icons.

All you have to do is upload on your iPhone some widescreen wallpapers (the ones that iOS would usually “cut” to fit the smaller screen of the iPhone) and select the auto scroll speed (or manual adjustment) in the tweak’s preferences inside the Settings app.

As you can see in the video below, the tweak seems pretty stable and fast. Installation on older 3G devices, however, isn’t recommended. Parallax is available at $1.49 under BigBoss repository. Read more

iOS 4.2 on iPhone 3G: Much Better [Video]

The guys over at TiPB thought it was about time to take a second look at the 2008 iPhone 3G and see how it would perform on the upcoming new version of iOS, the iOS 4.2 Apple is rumored to be releasing sometime this week. They installed the GM build on the iPhone 3G, and as you can see in the video Apple’s engineers really did everything they could to optimize the OS for the slower device (it’s got a Samsung ARM 412 MHz processor and 128MB of RAM).

Scrolling seems smooth and fast, typing is ok, there are a couple of slowdowns when trying to pinch and zoom on webpages but no big deal. When iOS 4.0 came out in June iPhone 3G users were left out in the cold with a terribly slow OS that didn’t run exactly “well” on their devices. I saw one and trust me, it was slow as hell

iOS 4.1 made things slightly better, but it looks like 4.2 it’s going to be the ultimate optimized operating system for 3G. And it wouldn’t be surprised if it was the last one, too.

“There’s Always Ubuntu”→

“There’s Always Ubuntu”

Love them or hate them, this is something that Apple—more than any other company—fundamentally gets. They want a computing experience more like the appliance experience. If this vision “wins” that doesn’t mean there’s no place for geeks; there’s still a need for programmers and web developers and sysadmins and UI designers. But the computers that most of the public increasingly interfaces with will be computers that are not designed to be directly programmable.

And I’m pretty sure this vision will win. For the vast majority of users the model of the app console—think game console, but not just for games—is simply better. The iPad is an app console, and the Macs of next year will be, too. And the PCs of the year after that.

And just like with game consoles, geeks will always be able to tinker.

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Xserve Is Dead…Now What?→

Xserve Is Dead…Now What?

The Mac Pro is a great box, but it is not designed to be a server. That matters. The Mac Pro, in trying to equal the Xserve takes up 12 times the space, uses more power, and ends up costing you twice as much if you don’t want a single component able to turn your server setup into a brick. If you’re collocating your servers, the cost to colo a Mac Pro or two is going to be a lot higher than for an Xserve, because you’re going to pay more for power and a lot more for the rack space.

IT folks clearly aren’t happy about Apple’s decision. As far as the iOS environment is concerned, Apple needs to do a lot more there, too.

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