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MacBooks have been getting their fair share of updates recently, and today Apple is providing a supplemental 10.6.7 update for the 13” MacBook Air (Late 2010) to resolve unresponsiveness when using iTunes. The previous 10.6.7 v1.0 (build 10J869) update must be installed in order to apply the supplemental update. If you have a 13” MacBook Air, check Software Update or download the 461 KB file from the posted support page below.
Supplemental 13” MacBook Air Update: DL1370
With the success of iOS devices and Macs, and the release of the iPad 2 that saw huge lines across the world, analysts are now revising their estimates for Apple’s revenue in 2011 and are predicting Apple might be on track for a $100 billion revenue year:
Last night we reported Apple will announce its Q2 2011 financial results on April 20th. The company is expected to provide sales numbers for the iPad 2 and the Verizon iPhone, which was initially rumored to have sales “below Apple’s expectations”. There is no doubt the release of the iPad 2 will play an important role in Apple’s 2011 strategy; the iPhone 5, in the meantime, is generating different reports about a possible “delay” that is making Wall Street Analyst update their estimates again.
Today an update to the Justin.tv iPhone app brings AirPlay functionality to the app, letting you stream one of the thousands live-streaming Justin.tv channels straight onto your big screen television via an Apple TV.If you aren’t familiar with Justin.tv, it is a similar service to Ustream, which gives users the power to create a live video stream and broadcast themselves to the world live.
The app update also fixes a couple of bugs that were causing some users to experience the app crashing on them. Also remember that some third-party apps let you use AirPlay to stream to other devices, helpful if you don’t have an Apple TV but want to stream it somewhere else.
If you’ve been intrigued by what exactly is different between the WiFi, GSM (AT&T) and CDMA (Verizon) versions of the iPad 2, well iFixit has you covered yet again with some very nice comparisons of the internals of those three base models. The above photo shows you the logic board of the three (WiFi up top and 3G below the ruler) but iFixit also documents the other key vitals of the iPad 2 on their site from the various antennas, 3G chips and the headphone jack.
The key differences to note are that the CDMA model has an additional antenna compared to the GSM variety and it also uses a Qualcomm Gobi dual-mode radio with integrated GPS that actually supports both CDMA and GSM, but the GSM compatibility is unused by the iPad. As for the GSM models, they use an Infineon GSM chip and a Broadcom GPS chip. Interestingly the hardware for both the CDMA and GSM iPad 2 follows the iPhone 4, in which the GSM versions used that Infineon and Broadcom chips whilst the Verizon CDMA version used the single Qualcomm one.
Want to see more? Jump through to the iFixit site and don’t forget to have a look at the full iPad 2 teardown and Smart Cover teardown that they also did earlier this month.
[Via Engadget]
Ah science, where would we be without it? Well it turns out that in a few years time we could all be using iPods and mobile phones that don’t even require batteries or mains power for their source of power. Instead they could rely on the movements of our own bodies to generate electricity – whether it be our heart beating, our legs moving or the pinch of our fingers!
A team of scientists presented their findings at a National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, in which they used zinc oxide nanowires to generate electricity when strained and flexed. Dr. Zhong Lin Wang of the team said of their findings:
This development represents a milestone toward producing portable electronics that can be powered by body movements without the use of batteries or electrical outlets.
Our nanogenerators are poised to change lives in the future. Their potential is only limited by one’s imagination.
Their latest development of the concept was thousands of times more powerful than their previous attempts and Dr. Wang is hopeful that if they can sustain the rate of improvement the nanogenerator could be used for a “broad range of other applications that require more power.” Five nanogenaroters can currently produce a cumulative total of about 1 microampere at 3 volts, which is equivalent to 2 AA batteries – a substantial increase from previous versions.
[Via The Telegraph]
As widely anticipated in the past few days, Apple has scheduled its q2 2011 earnings call for April 20, 2011. The conference call will be streamed live on Apple’s website (audio-only) here.
Apple’s conference call webcast discussing Q2 - 2011 financial results will begin at 2:00pm PT/5:00pm ET on Wednesday, April 20, 2011.
Please note that comments made during this call may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements.
In Q1 2011, Apple posted a record revenue of $26.74 billion with 7.33 million iPads sold, 16.24 million iPhones and 4.13 million Macs. The company posted record net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share. 19.45 million iPods were sold during the quarter. In the year-ago quarter, Apple posted revenue of $13.50 billion with 2.94 million Macs sold, 8.75 million iPhones and 10.89 million iPods sold.
The Q2 2011 earnings call is expected to provide more insight into Verizon iPhone sales numbers and the iPad 2, which was released on March 11 in the US and also went on sale last week in 25 more countries – just in time to fit into Apple’s second fiscal quarter window.
In the past months, I’ve taken a look at different calendar applications for the iPhone and iPad that aim at bringing more functionalities (either through particular interface approaches, extended Google Calendar support, or other features) to a device’s built-in calendar software from Apple. The iOS calendar app, a tiny version of iCal for the desktop, is fast and elegant and works just fine for most users, but sometimes you want or need more from a mobile calendar or agenda. For instance, the possibility to have more views available (rather than the List, Day and Month ones designed by Apple) or “do more” with events and reminders. And while I know most of MacStories readers are huge fans of Calvetica and Cloud Calendar for the iPhone and iPad, respectively, I’m pretty sure some of you have been looking for a slightly more “powerful” or, dare I say, “geeky” alternative to Calendar.app. If so, meet Week Calendar.
The name says it all: Week Calendar’s biggest feature is the weekly view that’s the focus of the entire experience and undoubtedly something that Apple’s calendar app really lacks. In the app’s weekly view you can pinch & zoom vertically or horizontally to show / hide hours and days, double-tap to focus on a specific event or rotate to landscape mode to gain an even broader view. Tapping on the top toolbar allows you to select a date to jump to, whilst selecting an event opens a desktop-like popup with related information. Tap on the popup, and you get to another screen with all the details you’ve entered and buttons to share, print (that’s right, AirPrint) or create a template off the event itself. You can edit an event at any time, and even display the assigned location on a map. Something that I really like about Week Calendar (well, weekly view aside): you can link contacts from the Address Book to an event. Like I said, everything’s pretty full-featured to offer a wide array of options and choices.
“Choices” seems to be a prerogative of Week Calendar: from the main screen, an iPad-like popover lets you switch between 7 different views: List + Search, Day, Week, Month, Year, Agenda, and Today. The “Go to a Day” shortcut lets you manually enter a date to open. Switching between sections and views felt fast and highly responsive to me, although I have to say I’ve only configured the app with two calendars: my personal one, and US Holidays. The app comes with this kind of optional, built-in subscriptions that you can activate from the Settings. Speaking of which, there’s a lot of stuff to choose from in there: from Time Zone support and “Week starts at” to an auto-coloring system for events with a specific title, you can stay assured the option you’re looking for has been implemented in Week Calendar. I can see how many will prefer the simplicity of an app like Calvetica, but sometimes an application for “nerds & power users” is more than welcome. Other features of Week Calendar that impressed me for the quality of the implementation were fullscreen support (you can activate it with a single / double tap and choose what UI elements to hide), possibility to cut and drag & drop events in any view for easy re-arrangement and TextExpander integration.
Week Calendar is an app that needs to be used for weeks – even months – to be fully appreciated. There’s so much stuff to play with, configure and customize it’s not really easy to fit everything into a single article – plus, I believe all these options have the added value of turning the app into a completely different experience depending on how you use calendars. So, head over the App Store now and buy Week Calendar 3.0 – at $1.99 it’s possibly the most “serious” calendar app for iPhone I’ve seen so far. Read more
If you missed out on snapping up a WWDC ticket, which is very likely considering the tickets sold out in less than 10 hours, but still desperately want one you could consider swallowing your pride (and emptying your wallet) by jumping on eBay. There has been at least one developer selling his extra unactivated ticket that was supposedly meant to go to a colleague who decided he couldn’t make it out this year.
But unsurprisingly the ticket is being sold at an insanely inflated price of US$3,500 – more than double the original price of $1,599. In fact that’s nearly $2,000 more. Whether or not the story from the seller is genuine, this ticket scalping will probably attract the attention of Apple’s legal department. But it’s unlikely to stop others from at least attempting to resell their tickets, given the incredible demand for tickets – so if you are desperate you may want to keep your eye out on eBay, Cragislist and even Twitter.
[Via TUAW]
If you recall, last week we reported on a request from four US Senators that Apple remove apps that warn and alert users of where DUI (driving under the influence) checkpoints are. Well the Association for Competitive Technology, a group of thousands of independent software developers has responded to this request by the Senators and objected to the reasoning of the claims.
Rebutting the contention that the apps are “harmful to public safety”, the group’s president, Jonathan Zuck, said that the concerns raised are actually “in conflict with the public interest on the issue of traffic safety.” Citing the National Highway Safety Administration, he goes on to say that heightened awareness of DUI checkpoints acts as a deterrent to illegal behaviour and that “several of the apps in question have received particular commendation from the law enforcement community.”
Furthermore some of the apps in question, including PhantomALERT (which is part of the A.C.T. group) and Trapster use data from the public domain - some of which is required by law to be published, this data will continue to live on regardless of whether some smartphone apps are pulled. Meanwhile, RIM last week removed PhantomALERT from it’s app store and was applauded by the Senators who issued a statement saying “Drunk drivers will soon have one less tool to evade law enforcement and endanger our friends and families. We appreciate RIM’s immediate reply and urge the other smartphone makers to quickly follow suit.” Jump the break for the A.C.T. group’s full response to the Senator’s request.
[Via Cult of Mac]
