Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"On Wednesday, March 10, 2010, Certified Public Accountant Stephanie Davies, age 39, was at her place of business, the Financial Services Group, located on SW Miley Road in Wilsonville. Ms. Davies reports she was approached at the front counter of her business shortly after 9 a.m. by a young male subject seeking directions to a local motel. The male asked that these directions be written on a piece of paper, and Davies complied with his request. During this moment of distraction, the male suspect grabbed Stephanie Davies' iPhone from the counter and fled the area in a motor vehicle."

Ah but little did he know she had purchased a tracking program for her iPhone. Once the deputy arrived to talk to her, he logged into the victim account and then used his own iPhone to track it down. The funny thing is, this happened at our agency, so I was the dispatcher for the event. Another successful recovery, and according to the deputy, the thief was quite surprised. I don't know which program she used (initially I thought it was MobileMe) but as soon as I find out, I'll let you know.

UPDATE: Turns out she was using the AT&T Family Locator service, $9.99 USD per month for up to two phones, or $14.99 USD per month for up to five phones. You can find more about the service here.

"How about a nice thick wooden case for that upcoming iPad? While it does double the width of the iPad and make it significantly more unwieldy, it does look nice. This is certainly a "case" of form over function. Har."

I can see using this, if I wanted to use my iPad for a picture frame, cycling through my iPhoto library. Other than that, not so much. They are going to sell for $79.95 USD and are from a company called Vers, which also sells iPhone cases made from wood.

"Not content with answering tech questions from Americans, Steve Jobs this week answered a question from all the way over in Sweden."

So Jezper asks via email if he will be able to tether his iPhone and his iPad, to which Steve replies via email from his iphone... No. 

"To celebrate the one-year anniversary of its Schlage LiNKTM home-management system, Schlage today announced it is offering a $50 rebate for Starter Kits purchased through April 30. Lowe's and RadioShack will offer an instant rebate at the cash register while all other rebates will be mail-in."

If you aren't in any hurry, you can also enter the Schlage giveaway over at iLounge. Details about the rebate though, are here, and you can pick the starter kits up at a number of stores, brick and mortar as well as at Amazon.com, where they offer the Schlage LiNK Wireless Keypad Deadbolt Starter Kit System, Satin Nickel as one of the applicable products.

"Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was in attendance at the Oscars Sunday night, and during the telecast the first iPad ad revealed, upon closer look, prices for some titles in the new iBookstore."

So some eagle eyes out there watching the first commercial noticed prices on some of the books, ranging from $7.99 USD to $14.99 USD. Jobs was also on hand, in his words, "To see Up win," which it did, so perhaps he was good luck.

"Last April, I wrote about the Dell Mini 9 netbook I'd purchased (see In Praise of Netbooks), and how - despite Steve Job's put-downs of the entire netbook product category as "a piece of junk" - I found it a usable little computer, trading off screen, keyboard, and trackpad size against portability and low cost."

The author ran into problems when he tried to turn his Dell Mini-9 into a Hackintosh, but he finally worked through it and his pain is your gain if you are trying the same thing. Interesting article on how you go about hacking your Dell.

"Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi issued a 13-page report last week in which he estimated that the iPhone's gross profit margins were an astounding 57.8%. Those margins tower above Apple's competitors with RIM estimated to have 43% profit margins, Nokia 33%, Motorola 32%, and HTC 31.7%."

And while it may decline in the future per The Street, Saconaghi thinks it will increase since prices have increased since Q3 2009 to Q1 2010, from $588.00 USD to $638.00 USD, and demand doesn't seem to be subsiding. He also sets a target stock price of $250.00 USD. Well, let's see what June brings.

"The wait for the iPad is, er, well, it's just beginning I suppose. On Friday, Apple announced that the new device would go on sale on Saturday, April 3 in the U.S. Customers who want to pre-order can put in their claim on March 12-just a week away, so get your clicking fingers ready."

Again, this is only the Wi-Fi version so I expect you will have to wait until late April for the 3G versions to roll out. Countries outside the U.S., specifically Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K. per Apple, will have to wait until the end of April for either one. On March 12th you can pre-order either version from the Apple online store. Here is the press release if you are interested. Better start saving now!

"When Apple does eventually get around to shipping the iPad, which may not be as soon as many of us had hoped, we'll at least have some good quality, familiar content to enjoy on the platform according to an internal announcement by Condé Nast as reported by the New York Times."

They plan to have Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour ready to go after the release of the iPad, by staggering the launch of each title over the course of the next six months, ending sometime this summer. These will all be sold through iTunes, and I don't think they will be the only company doing this. I'm hoping Zinio has something available since they already have an iPhone app, as well as many titles to choose from. But I'm really hoping some kind of Kindle app will happen so I can use it for all those books I own.

"As the battle between HTML5 and Adobe Flash continues to heat up, Virgin America has chosen a side: its brand new web site design ditches Flash in favor of HTML."

I read in a story not long ago that the iPhone might be a driving force in this, and now it appears that is coming to pass. Virgin wants to make their site as compatible as possible with the mobile user, specifically the iPhone, so customers can access their site as well as do mobile check-ins. How many other companies are going to make this switch? What are your thoughts?

"If you've been watching TV over the last few days (and who hasn't, with that USA / Canada hockey game and the tsunami coverage), you may have seen the latest in the series of iPhone ads."

So mom obviously is happy since she says "It's unbelievable how much better family trips have gotten..." She uses her Southwest Airlines App, then slides over to her Gate Guru app and to top it off she checks out her lights at home with the Schlage app. Speaking of Schlage, their LiNK system does a lot more than turning on and off lights. You can also lock and unlock doors, live-stream footage and control your thermostat to name just a few. I'm in the process of remodeling our kitchen and living room, and I'm tempted to buy one of the locks to give it a try. I'll let you know how that goes. I'm not exactly what you would call a "handyman" when it comes to home repair but I think Schlage makes it pretty simple. 

"Apple is a consumer-focused company first and foremost. They have enterprise sales departments but the bulk of their marketing and support effort go into consumer sales."

Image Credit: www.maconlysource.com

Now that Apple filed paperwork to trademark "Joint Venture" they may be rethinking all of this and heading into the enterprise market. The paperwork they filed described the trademark as including "Maintenance, installation and repair of computer hardware, computer peripherals, computer networks, and consumer electronic devices; information, advisory and consultancy services." Sounds business oriented to me, and also it seems like it is about time they focus on this aspect of the computer market, or at least devote more resources than they have in the past. What are your thoughts? How do you think Apple is going to do in this part of the market?

"iLuv today made available the latest generation of its iPhone- and iPod-ready clock radios. Unlike nearly any other alarm clock, the iMM178 has a "bed shaker" pod that vibrates to wake those who either don't respond to sound or need to keep the alarm quiet. The shaker also provides a less risky alternative to headphones in bed as it has a speaker for its own listening environment."

This supports 2004 or later dockable iPods and iPhones, and it will use the time from your device in case you lose power so that is a nice feature. It's available today according to the news, however at Amazon they show it as not released yet [affiliate link]. It sells for $99.99 USD, and you can have it in any color as long as it is black. If you want one that works with regular iPods (doesn't appear it works with iPhone or iPod Touch) you can still get the previous version at Amazon [affiliate link] for $41.02 USD.

"Would you enjoy Netflix on your iPhone? Netflix would really like to know. Not that they are considering putting their app on the iPhone, or more importantly, on the iPad. But hypothetically, if they did...would you be interested?"

The last time a survey came out they were in preparations for PS3 and Wii versions so hopefully this means that Netflix will offer something for use on the iPad at least, if not the iPhone. In case you are wondering, the text of the survey was this:

"Imagine that Netflix offers its subscribers the ability to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on their iPhone. The selection availability to instantly watch includes some new releases, lots of classics and TV episodes.

There are no advertisements or trailers, and movies start in as little as 30 seconds. You can fast-forward, rewind, and pause or watch again. The movies & TV episodes you instantly watch are included in your Netflix membership for no additional fee.Whenever you want to instantly watch content on your iPhone, your iPhone must be connected to a Wi-Fi network (such as one you might have at home or at work, or in public places like coffee shops, book stores, hotels, airports, etc.)If this functionality were available, how likely would you or someone in your household be to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on your iPhone via a Wi-Fi network?"

I would likely watch, what are your thoughts?

"Happy March! The super hip and trendy South-by-Southwest music and tech festival is coming up this month, and like many tech conventions these days, AT&T is working on a plan to keep their network up and running as thousands of iPhones descend on Austin, Texas to send around voice, texts, and data."

You may or may not remember but last year at SXSW the performance of the AT&T network was less than stellar. You can visit the GigaOM site to see just how they plan on beefing up the coverage and it also goes into some detail about cellular networks and what it takes to keep one functioning.

"Apple has this week won the rights to three patents, all covering the construction of unibody MacBooks. Two of these document the MacBook Air, which was the first Apple notebook to use a combination frame and casing made out of a single block of aluminum. Aside from external design, the other patent covers the Air's multi-touch glass trackpad, which has also since spread to other Apple portables. Its origins can be traced back to the iPhone."

The last of the patents awarded was for the MacBook Pro, shown above. I think it is about time for a revamp of this line don't you?

"While Tuesdays are known for Apple product launches, today the company announced not a new Mac but a lawsuit over patent infringement related to the iPhone. The target was mobile phone maker HTC, and none other than Steve Jobs was making the accusations."

According to Steve Jobs, "We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours." Lately it has been Apple on the receiving end, such as when Nokia sued Apple in December, so this time it is kind of interesting that Apple is tossing down the gauntlet. The phones involved or named in the suit include Google's Nexus One, the T-Mobile G1, the Droid Eris, the Touch Diamond, the Touch Pro2, and the Imagio. Apple obviously considers this a serious enough breach to warrant a lawsuit. You can see more details specific to the lawsuit at cnet. Or if you want to see what Jason and the gang think head on over to our sister site, Windows Phone Thoughts. 

"The latest version of the Boxee beta, v0.9.20.10708, should now install normally on the Apple TV, its developer says. While it was possible to put the update on Apple's set-top prior to today, the process involved SSH, making it impractical for a casual user. The situation has changed thanks to a "resurrected" atvusb-creator tool."

To install you still have a few steps, outlined here, and those upgrading are "encouraged" to do a clean install.

"Unless you've been hiding in a cave, you'll have known that Apple was having serious issues with that gorgeous new 27-inch iMac that they released for the holidays last year (but got pulled during the holiday shopping season)."

And now Apple has said that due to "production problems" there were some issues and if you are affected, contact Apple Care. At least now you have an outlet to get your iMac fixed or replaced, officially. If you are concerned you might have one, you can go to this test and find out. If any part appears yellow, you may have one of the problem iMacs.

"We've previously written about AT&T's MicroCell device and service here at TUAW. It's a tiny cell tower that you plug into your home cable or DSL connection to boost your phone reception. This is particularly handy for those with home offices who may currently be plagued with poor reception on their iPhones."

And now five more markets have been added to their trial list. Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Las Vegas and San Diego residents now can set up their very own MicroCell, but only if they want to spend the additional $19.99 USD per month on top of the existing AT&T bill (besides the $150.00 USD the device costs). The MicroCell covers an area up to 5,000 square feet and is perfect for those with spotty coverage in their homes. Seems like a steep price to pay for this though, should AT&T just fix the coverage issues for their customers?