The Winter Festival Of Artisanal Software
He’s the same guy of the Antenna Song, the one Apple played before the special iPhone 4 conference two days ago. Now we must be happy for the popularity he gained, and recorded a new song - only for Steve Jobs.
I wonder if Steve is going to listen to this every morning on Youtube.
Oh yeah people, get ready for every cellphone maker that was mentioned by Apple yesterday to respond with an official statement.
Of course first is RIM. You know, those behind Blackberry. They’re saying that Apple’s attempt to show a common issue is unacceptable, that RIM is a global leader in antenna design and that Blackberry users don’t need to wear protections on their phones.
Check out the full statement below.
Brian X.Chen, reporting for Wired:
“Led by Ruben Caballero, a senior engineer and antenna expert at Apple, the tour gave about 10 reporters and bloggers a peek at Apple’s custom-built wireless testing lab, which consists of several anechoic chambers to measure frequency of each device in various settings.
Apple called the lab a “black” lab because it was a secret facility that even some employees were unaware of. The company made the lab public to show the world that Apple takes antenna design and wireless testing seriously.
“This is the most advanced lab for doing RF studies that anyone in the world has,” said Phil Schiller, vice president of marketing at Apple. “The designs we do wouldn’t be possible without it.”
Each test chamber is lined with blue pyramid-shaped styrofoam designed to absorb radio-frequency radiation. A robotic arm holding gadgets such as iPads and iPhones spins 360 degrees while a piece of analytics software (ironically running on Windows XP) visualizes the wireless activity of each device.
“To do the most challenging design in the world, this is what we have to do,” said Bob Mansfield, Apple’s senior vice president of Macintosh hardware. “This is hardcore stuff.”
Following the official apple.com/antenna webpage, Apple has also introduced a section dedicated to its Antenna design and test labs.
Following today’s press conference over at Cupertino’s campus, Apple has just launched a new webpage: apple.com/antenna where they explain all the details regarding the signal degradation issues people have been recently reporting.
The Android comes with free Google Maps Navigation. iPhone owners will often downplay this feature of Android handsets, but for me it’s the definitive feature that has kept me from using an iPhone handset for my daily needs. Google Maps Navigation is super convenient to have, and I’m looking forward to when Apple releases a similar, competitive product of its own (if they ever will that is). As Apple’s and Google’s relationship dissolves in the smart-phone market, they may be looking to absolve themselves of Google’s services at some point down the road. Mainly their Maps feature.
Ok, so we know FaceTime is a great technology. Video calling is nothing new, but Apple’s implementation is perfect: one-tap calling, simple UI, easy to use.
How stable and compatible can Apple’s FaceTime be, anyway? We’ve read reports of firewalls blocking its connection. Still, the good folks over at TUAW have managed to talk with a reader who was on a plane, thousands of feet above Earth, using Gogo in-flight Wifi service. The same service which blocks Skype and other VOIP softwares, it worked just fine with FaceTime.
The quality of the call is good, and Bills even changes camera to show that he’s actually on a plane, FaceTime with us poor Earth dwellers. Check out the video after the break.
For those unfamiliar with Psystar, they’re the guys who adamantly want to sell OS X on PC hardware. They sold cheap alternatives to Apple products, and were challenged by Apple to cease and desist all activity. The courts issued Psystar a permanent injunction against making Mac clones, though that hasn’t stopped the crazed company from pursuing the case in the most ludicrous ways possible. They’ve now requested an Appeal against their injunction, and of whatever breath of life Psystar has left, they plan to persuade the “court to adopt a radical revision of the Copyright Misuse doctrine that would in effect destroy copyright and force all copyrighted works to be licensed.” A little insane, but expected from the bunch.
TUAW reports Apple’s response, stating that “Psystar’s grossly overbroad per se theory of copyright misuse would eliminate fundamental rights guaranteed by the Copyright Act – the rights to control the reproduction, modification, and distribution of copyrighted works.”
Honestly, this whole saga would have been a lot more awesome if Psystar had made an OS X tablet. I mean, they could have been cool at least.
[The Mac Observer via TUAW]
Apple has just started sending out emails to remind Mac OS X developers that they can now submit Safari Extensions to Apple to be featured in the upcoming Extension gallery.
