Apple posts

A lot can change in a week. Last week Apple hurried to add the Motorola Droid X to its growing list of “look, these guys antennas don’t work either!” videos. This week the videos get pulled completely. Maybe one of the other big guys got serious with a legal threat. Maybe Apple wants to begin drawing focus away from the whole thing. Maybe the vein in Steve Jobs forehead finally stopped pulsating at 300 bpm. Either way, it’s pretty clear that no one was really too impressed with Apple’s attempt to draw the entire mobile industry into the antenna attenuation debate. The page on Apple’s site where the videos…

Both closeted and outed Star Trek geeks can now enjoy the Star Trek Captain’s Log app for the iPhone 4. The new app from Paramount integrates with Google Maps and Facebook to allow you to add photos, GPS mapping locations of your travels, and to either share your logs with other Captains or keep them private. Access to your own personal Captain’s Log will only cost you $1.99, and the divulging of your personal information to Paramount. I say if I can add a funky Star Trek logo to everywhere I’ve eaten at in the past week, they can know as much about me as they want….

Blackberry is hoping to get all up in the iPad’s business with a new tablet device being released in November, claim a fuzzy source of “two people familiar with RIM’s plans”. The device will be roughly the same dimensions as the current iPad. The name of the device will be Blackpad, and will feature a full touchscreen and a slideout QWERTY keyboard for typing e-mails, which, let’s face it, would be a nice addition to the current iPad. The Blackpad is just one of many tablet devices slated for later this year and in early 2011 to try to grab some of the market share away from Apple’s iPad….

I have a feeling Apple’s FaceTime is going to play out just fine. How can I be sure? Because now, the adult industry is on board. Steve’s gonna be so pissed. Like it or not, the adult industry has always been a (and arguably the) major player in deciding which entertainment technologies live, and which die. After all, it was porn that popularized the VCR. It was porn that championed VHS over Beta. It was porn that helped usher in the DVD. While unsavoury, porn is nothing if not on the cutting edge of tech – adult film producers are some of the earliest adopters. And now, they’ve got their sights set on FaceTime….

Oh, hi there. You okay? You look a little red. Y’know what, that’s probably the burning desire you have to know about everything Apple released yesterday that wasn’t a trackpad. You look bloody awful. Here, let me tell you about this stuff so you can cool down a bit, yeah? Yeah. Let’s go over the key features. The New iMac $1299+ A dual- or quad-core Intel Core i3, i5, or i7 now rocks out with its socks out, meaning the Core 2 Duo is now relegated only to the Mac Mini. Graphics are now discrete, which means dedicated memory on its own card. The screens have adopted the iPad’s IPS technology, giving the iMac…

Isn’t the iPod Touch the worst, guys? It’s an iPhone for all intents and purposes, save the notable exception of, y’know… the phone part. That’s gotta be frustrating. Enter the Apple Peel 520. Developed by a company fit to call itself Yosion, the Apple Peel is a fancy hack which attempts to do the impossible: turning your (presumably jailbroken) iPod Touch into… well, not an iPhone proper, but close enough. Retailing for a rumoured Â¥300 – Â¥500 ($44 – $74), the case allegedly also acts as a beefed up battery (800mAh) to account for all the calls you’ll be making. That is, of course, if you’ll be…

If you’re on the ball, you already saw this this morning. If not, welcome to the internet! Let me be the first to introduce you to the Apple Magic Trackpad. Look familiar? If you use a Macbook at all, you’ll note that this is its trackpad, blown up to match the scale and angle of a wireless Mac keyboard. The device connects via Bluetooth and allows for a gestured-up multitouch experience. And the best part is, quite possibly, that it retails for only $69. But hang on a minute. Look, Apple, you guys are the kings of interaction design, so I don’t mean to get on your case, and I’m going to reserve final judgment…

AntennaGate continues, and Apple is determined to alienate every single other mobile tech company in the world in order to prove that its iPhone 4 antenna really isn’t that big a deal. With the Blackberry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris and Nokia N97 mini already displayed on their “we’re no worse than anyone else, honest!” page, it was only a matter of time before Apple got hold of a Droid X and tried to figure out how hard they had to grip it to kill the antenna signal. Blackberry has already denounced Apple’s allegations, so the wait is on to see if Motorola will take the mature approach and remain dignified…

The other day, while digging around for the day’s news, I chose not to cover an iPad app that seemed to be grabbing a bit of attention. This iPad app was Flipboard, the social news doodad that presents your Twitter and Facebook accounts as a sexy analog of print media. ‘So what,’ I said, ‘it’s an app. Whatever.’ Boy, do I have egg on my face. Colour me all kinds of mistaken. Hype for the app has reached a fever pitch, and an ocean of users attempt to log in. ”Due to overwhelming interest,” the app’s error message reads, “we are currently limiting the rate at which we are accepting new Facebook and Twitter…

And the peasants rejoiced; For iOS4 was released, and so did it support multiple tasks; And Steven smiled, for it was good. And for a time, it was good. And then, so too did come Skype v2.0.1, and so it did support the multiple tasks; And it did threaten with a totally scary voice, “[Skype 2.0.1] supports multitasking. This means you can receive Skype calls while other apps are running, even when your iPhone is locked.” And the peasants rejoiced; for this could essentially all but replace their regular phone service, on top of making cheap international calls. And thus did this ring true; For Skype…