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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Audio, Hardware, Multimedia, Music

Sonos adds a portable music player with room filling sound

by Mel Martin (RSS feed) on Nov 14th, 2009

Sonos, best known for wireless music systems that link to your iTunes library and internet services like Pandora, Rhapsody and Napster, is offering a one piece, 5 speaker system that can be placed in any room. It's called the Zone Player S5 and it's US $399 direct from Sonos or dealers around the country.

Sonos shipped me a review system to try for 30 days, and I thought the sound was great. I already had a mutli-room Sonos system so adding the new portable player was just a matter of plugging it into AC power and pressing two buttons on the S5.

If you don't already have a Sonos system, you have to plug your unit into a router to connect to your music library and the internet. If that doesn't work in your home layout, you can buy what Sonos calls a Zone Bridge (US $99) that plugs into your router and lets the S5 make a wireless connection. Once that basic pairing is made, you can add as many other Sonos music systems as you like, all connecting over a wireless mesh network.

The system sounds quite good, given the limits of the small desktop-friendly size (8.5 x 14.4 x 4.8 inches). There are 5 speakers, two tweeters, two 3" mid-range drivers, and one 3.5" woofer all driven by individual amplifiers. The woofer is a ducted port design and the rear port serves double duty as a carrying handle.

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Tags: iTunes, music, Sonos S5, SonosS5, wireless music systems

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Corporate, Hardware, OS

Psystar dealt crushing blow in ongoing legal proceedings with Apple

by Lauren Hirsch (RSS feed) on Nov 14th, 2009

Yesterday, Judge William Alsup, United States District Judge for the Northern District of California, dealt Psystar a crushing blow in its ongoing litigation with Apple over whether or not Psystar could market and sell non-Apple computers running modified copies of Apple's operating system. If you're not familiar with the circus case, I refer you to, well...grab a coffee and click here. The two companies, embroiled in litigation since early last year, recently completed pre-trial discovery and each filed cross motions for summary judgment.

Judge Alsup put the ultimate hurt on Psystar when it granted Apple's motion for summary judgment and denied Psystar's motion for the same. In a sweeping order (courtesy Groklaw), the court agreed with Apple's take on the case and dismissed all of Psystar's defenses, both on the merits and for having waived and failed to properly plead.

The end result was a dramatic and startling court order in an ongoing series of dramatic legal squabbles between the two companies. And at least one of Psystar's attorneys saw this coming. The litigation doesn't end here; various issues still remain for trial such as breach of contract and trademark infringement, but Psystar has been gutted. The court is clearly unsympathetic to Psystar's core position and while damages on the copyright issues falling in Apple's favor in the order have not been ruled upon, it would probably behoove Psystar to start looking under the couch cushions for spare change.

A hearing is scheduled for December 14 on the remaining issues and for damages.

Read on for a more detailed analysis of the court's order....

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Tags: apple, clone, copyright, EULA, lawsuit, litigation, psystar

Filed under: Gaming, Apple, Developer, iPhone, App Store, SDK

Apple rejects Unity games on the App Store

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Nov 14th, 2009

Touch Arcade has the news that the long-awaited Ravensword and a number of other games built on the Unity game engine have been rejected by Apple from the App Store. The problem appears to be a number of API calls in the engine (though not specifically the game themselves, as I understand it) that allow the games to access the iPhone's number and send it back to the developer's servers.

Apple considers these to be private APIs, and they also got games developer Storm8 in trouble earlier this week; their games were pulled from the store in response to a lawsuit alleging that they were collecting data from users without their knowledge.

Chillingo, publishers of Ravensword, contacted us about this story, and they said that while the Unity engine does allow developers to use these calls, they did not use them or collect any user information. We're also told that the problem APIs "have been removed," and Chillingo has resubmitted the game for App Store approval.

As I understand it, this is the same type of issue that came up with Google a while back. It's not the same APIs (Google was using the proximity sensor back then), but now as then, it's Apple's call whether they will allow developers to use these private and undocumented calls. Obviously some apps on the iPhone have to access the address book from time to time, but it's Apple's call whether they can use APIs like that or not. This time, it appears, they said no.

Tags: app store, AppStore, chillingo, google, private apis, PrivateApis, ravensword, undocumented apis, UndocumentedApis, unity engine, unity-engine, UnityEngine

Filed under: Accessories, Humor, Odds and ends

The gift of love; the gift of recycled Mac and iPhone jewelry

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Nov 14th, 2009

Are you looking for that perfect holiday gift for a loved one? Is that someone special a Mac geek or geekette? If so, then the clever people at PowerBook Medic have a wonderful gift idea for you!

They make a living out of repairing old Mac laptops and iPhones, and it's apparent that over the years they've accumulated more than a handful of buttons from machines that need fixing. PowerBook Medic is now making earrings from iPhone home buttons (see photo at right) and the power buttons from aluminum, black, and white MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

These lovely personal accessories can be yours for only US$14.95 per pair, so it's probably a good idea to order a complete set so the recipient doesn't think you're a complete cheapskate.

The company is also giving away 15 pairs of the iPhone earrings to lucky winners. Details of their Twitter-fied contest can be found here.

Tags: earrings, hgg, iphone, jewelry, macbook, macbook pro, MacbookPro

Filed under: Humor, Cult of Mac, Odds and ends

Stink Different with an Apple toilet

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (RSS feed) on Nov 14th, 2009

We've long heard jokes of the iCar, the iToilet, and other iCrap, but until now we'd never seen a real, working example of one of these things. Well, here's your iToilet, gang. It doesn't connect to the internet in less than three steps, but it does connect to a series of tubes.


Tipster Mike Jones actually had this made for himself, but through Rival Toilets, makers of custom, printed potties. Yep, the owner of Rival, Fred, has figured out a way to get decals under a coat of specially-formulated finish (a trade secret), resulting in some glorious toilets you see in the gallery. They last, they are custom and they are really quite something to see.

Rival's specialty? Sports team toilets with rival team logos in a "special" place on the bowl. I'm told the Apple version seen here has a similar "rival" logo in the bottom of the bowl. I'll leave the specifics to the reader's imagination. I don't think it's IBM, however.



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Tags: apple toilet, AppleToilet, cult of mac, CultOfMac, custom, fanboy, itoilet, rival, think different, ThinkDifferent

Filed under: Software, AppleScript

Sal Soghoian talks Automator use in education

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Nov 13th, 2009

Total Apps has published a nice guest post from Sal Soghoian, Apple's Production Manager for Automator, intended for teachers. He describes how educators have a limited amount of instruction time with the kids, and even less for maintenance tasks like making sure the proper software is installed, that students are on the proper web page, and so on.

Sal wants to help, and points out a number of links useful to anyone (not just teachers) who wants to automate these repetitive and often time-consuming tasks. Best of all, he shares a link to The Teacher's Helpers (scroll down a bit), which is a free collection of Automator actions specifically written to assist teachers with Macs in their classrooms.

If you've been put off by AppleScript, give Automator a try. Its drag-and-drop interface is much easier to use.

Tags: applescript, automator, sal soghoian, SalSoghoian, teachers

Filed under: Audio, Software Update, iPod nano

Apple quietly updates the 5th Generation iPod nano to 1.0.2

by Joachim Bean (RSS feed) on Nov 13th, 2009

This week Apple issued an update to the iPod nano, bringing it to version 1.0.2. Fixes and additions include:
  • Fixed audiobook playbook setting so Normal, Slower, Faster, works for audio podcasts
  • Resolved issue where Genius Mixes did not work when using the Nike+ Sport Kit
  • Accessibility setting for Mono Audio in now working
  • Fixed bug so VoiceOver menu items are no longer skipped when using headphone + and - volume buttons to navigate
As always, you can download this update by clicking on the "Check for Update" button in iTunes when you connect your iPod nano to your computer.

Tags: accessibility, iPod nano, IpodNano, podcasts, update

Filed under: Odds and ends, iPhone

Whoa! AT&T has had enough of the Verizon slams

by Mel Martin (RSS feed) on Nov 13th, 2009

AT&T is clearly not going to take it anymore. Today, they blasted back at Verizon for the nasty ads about AT&T coverage.

In a press release today, the communications giant pulled out all the stops:

"AT&T's wireless data coverage reaches 303 million people – or 97% of the U.S. population, where they live and work.

AT&T is the #1 network for smartphones, with twice the number of smartphone customers than Verizon, our closest competitor. Some of the reasons include:

Most popular smartphones. Unlike Verizon, AT&T offers the most popular smartphones in the industry.

More wireless apps. Unlike Verizon, AT&T customers have access to more than 100,000 applications, more than with any other wireless company.

Talk and E-mail at the same time. Unlike Verizon, AT&T's 3G network lets wireless customers simultaneously talk and surf the web or do e-mail.

Fastest 3G in the nation. Unlike Verizon, AT&T has the nation's fastest 3G network."

It's a bold move to respond to someone doing a number on you. Microsoft tried to counter Apple pricing with mixed reviews, and AT&T, unlike Apple, has a lot of unhappy customers. This will be fun to watch, but one wishes AT&T was improving service and features (tethering anyone?) instead of getting into these lawsuits and public mud baths.

Tags: ATT, coverage, ihone, lawsuits, Verizon

Filed under: Software, Internet Tools

Dropbox is taking suggestions on new features, vote for resource fork support!

by Matt Heerema (RSS feed) on Nov 13th, 2009



Dropbox, one of my current top 5 favorite apps, has opened voting for their features roadmap. Some neat suggestions so far, but the most cryptic of the top 5 is among the most useful for Mac users: resource fork support!

For those less technical among us, the resource fork is metadata attached to a file that helps Mac OS better understand a file. Things like custom icons, folder info, spotlight comments, openmeta tags, and even file type are defined here. This is how Mac OS can do extension-less file names. This resource fork information is stripped in many backup applications (including Dropbox).

Go vote this feature request up (sign-in required) so we can all rejoice!

Here's the top 5 requests at time of writing:
  1. Selective sync. Ability to choose which files or folders get sync'd to which computers.
  2. Watch any folder. Sync folders outside the My/Dropbox folder
  3. Share folders without forcing other members to lose space.
  4. Email files to Dropbox.
  5. Mac resource fork support

Tags: DropBox, feature requests, FeatureRequests, resource fork, ResourceFork

Filed under: Hardware, Odds and ends, iPhone

A new accessory for your iPhone: a NASA-developed chemical sensor

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Nov 13th, 2009

What's better than a handful of sensors for determining if some hostile enemy has set off chemical weapons in a city? How about hundreds of thousands or millions of sensors? If research being done by NASA Ames Research Center under the Cell-All program in the US Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate is taken into production, your next smartphone might contain chemical-sensing circuitry.

A recent article in OnOrbit described a proof of concept that was developed by Jing Li, a scientist at Ames, and a group of other researchers. In order to test out the tiny nanosensor-based chemical sensing circuitry, Li and his team created a device that plugs into the dock port of an iPhone.

To quote the original post,
The new device is able to detect and identify low concentrations of airborne ammonia, chlorine gas and methane. The device senses chemicals in the air using a "sample jet" and a multiple-channel silicon-based sensing chip, which consists of 16 nanosensors, and sends detection data to another phone or a computer via telephone communication network or Wi-Fi.
A newer version of the sensor has 64 nanosensors built-in and is less than 1 cm on a side. Isn't it cool that your iPhone is getting to be more like a Star Trek tricorder every day?

[via Gizmodo]

Tags: chemical warfare, ChemicalWarfare, DHS, iphone, nasa, sensors, toxic chemicals, ToxicChemicals

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