Steve Jobs on Minerals and Multitasking

Busy as ever with the success of the iPhone 4 launch, Steve Jobs always takes the time to answer his customers’ questions. This time around, we’ve got a couple M&Ms on the plate. Minerals and multitasking to be specific.

Derick Rhodes, a reader of Wired, wrote in to ask Steve, “Are you currently making any effort to source conflict-free minerals? In particular, I’m concerned that Apple is getting tantalum, tungsten, tin, and gold from Eastern Congo through its suppliers.” In the seriousness of the moment, Jobs cooly replied, “Yes. We require all of our suppliers to certify in writing that they use conflict few materials. But honestly there is no way for them to be sure. Until someone invents a way to chemically trace minerals from the source mine, it’s a very difficult problem.”

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Mobile Me Gallery Gets Retina Support

Have an iPhone 4? Do you view your photos via the Mobile Me Gallery? Check this out: Apple has updated their Mobile Me Gallery app this morning to support the iPhone 4’s jaw-some retina display. However, the higher quality resolution images can only be downloaded over Wi-Fi.

Update through the App Store, or download Mobile Me Gallery at this link.

[via The Mac Observer]

Fast PDF Is What iBooks for PDFs Should Be

There’s a huge market in the iPad App Store right now, and that’s for PDF readers. Here’s what’s going on: the iPad came out without a dedicated PDF app developed by Apple and so GoodReader (our review) quickly became the most popular paid app. Months later, Apple announced that a PDF-capable version of iBooks was coming out, and we all started wondering whether iBooks for PDFs could kill any other similar app out there.

Reading PDFs in iBooks feels good, but it’s not the perfect experience many predicted. The interface design is beautiful and elegant as Apple’s tradition, but the app doesn’t hold up well to large documents and, in my tests, I found that opening a 14MB file required even 10 seconds (or more) for the app to start up, load the document and let you swipe through it. Unlike Apple said weeks ago, there’s no page curl effect, and TUAW exposed the problem. Ultimately, I’m deeply disappointed by the poor performances of iBooks with large PDFs. Perhaps another update is on its way, but who knows.

I’ve been using another application to read documents on my iPad, Fast PDF. It’s indeed the best 3rd party software to read PDF files currently available in the App Store.

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iTunes U Surpasses 250 Million Downloads

Jim Dalrymple of The Loop reports this afternoon that iTunes U has surpassed 250 million in downloads. Students are clearly seeking out educational content through Apple’s service and devices, and it’d be smart for more schools to take advantage of this popular learning medium.

Started in 2007, iTunes U has always been focused on bringing the best in education to the general public. From Stanford’s popular iPhone development course to Harvard University, iTunes U offers a little something for everyone.

[via The Loop]

iPhone 4, iMovie and Short Films

Is the iPhone 4 really that good at recording HD videos and let you edit them on the go with iMovie? Could this setup ever lead to professional mobile creations?

I was impressed yesterday by the quality of these two videos I stumbled upon on Vimeo, and decided to embed them below. I look forward to start playing with iMovie and see what I can come up with. If you have more videos to share, drop us a comment below.

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Where’d that iPhone 4 Hold Button Go?

I’ve see a few complaints on Twitter and elsewhere, but people have been asking, “Where the heck did my iPhone 4 hold button go!?” When a making a call, the hold button has been replaced by FaceTime. But if you tap and hold the mute button in call, you’ll put that Android guy on the other end on hold! Awesome tip.

[The Mac Observer via The Loop]