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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.

VLC for iOS May Soon Be Gone From the App Store Due To Videolan’s Complaint

VLC, the popular media player for Windows, Mac and Linux that landed on the iPad in September and on the iPhone last week, may soon be gone from the App Store. Rémi Denis-Courmont, one of the primary developers of VLC, explained that Videolan sent a formal notification of copyright infringement to Apple regarding the way VLC for iOS is distributed in the App Store. VLC for iOS is developed by French 3rd party studio Applidium.

Basically, here’s the problem: VLC is an open source program distributed under the GNU General Public License (also known as “GPL”) while VLC for iOS is, as you may guess, distributed under Apple’s iTunes Terms and Conditions, which don’t allow users to install both free and paid apps on more than 5 devices. This restriction is also known as “DRM” which stands for Digital Rights Management. So even if VLC for iOS is free, Videolan can’t accept the fact that Apple’s DRM goes against the original GNU license VLC’s code is based on. Read more

Alarms for Mac Updated With Better Timeline, Bug Fixes

Alarms is a Mac app developed by Media Atelier we previously reviewed here. For those who missed the review:

Alarms is a fast and lightweight reminder app for Mac that lives in your menubar. It’s not a GTD application, yet it’s a perfect companion for softwares like Things or OmniFocus. I basically use Alarms to save little things I need to do later that aren’t worth creating a new entry in OmniFocus.

Getting stuff in Alarms is simple and takes seconds. Once you install the app a new icon is added to your menubar. Click on it, or drag an item over it, and a white horizontal panel slides down (great animation) letting you choose in which part of your working day should the new entry go.

Read more

Steve Jobs: USB 3.0 Not Happening on Macs “At This Time”

9to5mac reports of a new email from Steve Jobs to a user who asked whether Apple would integrate USB 3.0 on Macs in the near future. Jobs, as you may guess, said no. But it wasn’t his usual “nope”:

We don’t see USB 3 taking off at this time. No support from Intel, for example.

So according to Jobso, it’s not that USB 3.0 is never happening. “Not at this time”, and lack of Intel support is mentioned as an example for their decision to exclude USB 3.0 on current Macs.

Can you believe Jobs’ words, though?