TechCrunch posts

Filed under: Hardware, Portables, Odds and ends

The Apple tablet that wasn't

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Oct 29th, 2009

TechCrunch has posted pictures of what they're calling an "unlaunched Apple tablet." In 1990, as the story goes, Apple was supposedly working on a pen-based touchscreen tablet called the Pen Mac that was actually extremely small for the time -- just about an inch thick, with a screen the same size as a Mac Portable. They were bringing a few different companies in on the deal, and apparently it worked well -- ran a full Mac OS, used a pen to control or let you plug in a mouse and keyboard, and there was even a smaller version called the PenLite (bulky by today's standards, but remember that this is 20 years ago now).

So why weren't we all using tablet computers 20 years ago? TechCrunch blames John Sculley, who apparently thought the tablet idea was out, and the PDA idea was in, and we ended up with the Newton instead. I won't second guess him -- while it's easy to think that anything could have beaten the Newton, would the current Apple touchscreen tablet craze even be here if it weren't for the iPhone? And isn't Apple's smartphone just a hop, skip and a jump from their original PDA?

Tags: apple, control, history, john-sculley, keyboard, mac-portable, mouse, newton, pda, pen-mac, penlite, tablet, techcrunch, touchscreen

Filed under: iTS, Software, Freeware, iTunes, Deals, Music

Doubletwist introduces in-app music store powered by Amazon

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Oct 8th, 2009

We posted about Doubletwist earlier this year -- it's a pretty innovative music app (developed in part by Jon Lech Johansen, otherwise known as DVD Jon) that not only plays you play whatever you like, obviously, but even lets you share and send music off to anyone, even other people who don't have the app itself. Now Doubletwist is stepping up even more closely to becoming an iTunes competitor: they've announced a partnership with the Amazon music store to sell music directly from within the app. No TVs or movies -- just music, purchased directly within the app, and then able to be sent out to any devices or social networks as usual.

TechCrunch says the store's simplicity is actually a selling point -- iTunes has ballooned up to do way more than just sell music, and in Doubletwist it's much more straightforward. Here's the other bonus for Mac users: while we originally had to wait for an app release, the music store is currently only available on the Mac version of the software. A PC version is coming soon.

It's doubtful Doubletwist will replace iTunes for many people, given all of the various things iTunes does for a Mac user. But then again, if you are using the Amazon MP3 store with any frequency, Doubletwist is probably worth a look: it's a free download on the website.

Tags: amazon-music-store, doubletwist, movies, simplicity, techcrunch, tvs

Filed under: Apple, iPhone

Foxconn builds 800,000 iPhones per week?

by Cory Bohon (RSS feed) on Aug 4th, 2008

TechCrunch is reporting that Foxconn (the Taiwanese Apple manufacturing plant) is building over 800,000 iPhones per week in order to meet demand. They are also reporting that this means the plant is working "above current full capacity" and notes that the quality control might not be the best at this time.

Apple has moved more than 6 million iPhone units in just the first year. According to TechCrunch, Apple's run rate for the iPhone 3G is over 40 million units per year.

Tags: Foxconn, iPhone, manufacturing, Tech Crunch, TechCrunch

Filed under: Leopard

Leopard starting to land for lucky users

by Michael Rose (RSS feed) on Oct 26th, 2007

Good morning everyone! As our 24 Hours of Leopard marathon continues, our UK, Aussie and Kiwi readers are beginning to report in that their mail-order copies of Leopard have arrived (although it's hard to read the tips; apparently the drops of drool and little bits of torn shrinkwrap are clogging up their keyboards). TechCrunch's Duncan Riley had his copy by 9 pm Pacific time and has already upgraded two machines to mostly positive results. One warning from Riley that I can echo from experience with the dev seeds: if you turn on Time Machine right away, be prepared for a slow go until the initial full backup is completed. You may want to wait to activate TM until you sign off for the night; by the time you wake up that first pass should be all done.

Not everyone's install experience was so smooth -- Bryce's upgrade got wedged and he had to erase and install before everything got back to normal. Fortunately, he had backed up first; a wise warning for us all... remember, Carbon Copy Cloner and/or SuperDuper! are your buddies.

Are you blogging your Leopard installation experience? Let us know.

Tags: leopard, leopard-install, os-x, osx, techcrunch, time-machine, upgrade

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