Home / tuaw.com rss archive / September-20-2007


Macworld 2008 registration now open
Filed under: MacworldMacworld Conference & Expo is the social event of the Mac season. Once a year Mac geeks gather to bask in the glow of new products, learn some cool stuff, and meet Mac notables and fellow Mac users. I've been to my fair share of Macworlds, and it is always a good time.That's why I am happy to report that registration for Macworld 2008, happening in San Francisco January 14 through the 19th, 2008, is open. If you register before October 5th you can get a free Exhibit pass (using Priority Code: 08-E-VF0) or special rates for the higher end passes (which allow you into the various classes and labs offered at the Conference).TUAW will be on the ground, running around blogging, interviewing folks, and shooting some cool videos (well, at least we hope they will be cool). Hope to see you there.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

iPod touch: state of the jailbreak
Filed under: iPod Family, HacksGallery: GRestoreThe iPod touch jailbreak attempts continue but there's little progress and less to report. Martyn, one of the hackers, has disassembled his touch and has attempted to read the chips directly. This hasn't been a huge success. I have been using iPhuc's grestore mode and my digital camera's video to try to see if we can learn more about the vocabulary the touch uses to communicate with iTunes. You can view my extremely blurry pictures in the attached gallery.Does the touch indicates the future of the iPhone? The news looks bleaker by the day.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

iTunes: Free Thursday
Filed under: iTS, Features, DealsHere's your Thursday iTunes update. Today brings a bunch of extra free items that weren't available this past Tuesday. You've got some great videos and the Jpaan single of the week.Continue reading iTunes: Free ThursdayRead | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Construction continues on Boston's future Apple Store
Filed under: RetailWhen Apple opens Boston's flagship Apple Store on Boylston street, it's going to be huge - both literally and figuratively. ifoAppleStore has had a webcam pointed at the construction site for months now, and today's image is impressive.The building looks like it extends from Boylston street to Newbury street behind it, making me wonder if it will have an entrance on either end (check out the overhead photo).This store is scheduled to open in 2008. Oh yes, I'll be there.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Apple issues iTunes Store credits
Filed under: Apple Corporate, iTunesThe Apple Blog is reporting that Apple has begun issuing Apple Store credit for customers who had trouble getting songs last week.It seems that several customers were unable to download purchased songs, despite having provided a valid credit card number. Specifically, Apple has issued an email that reads, "Please accept the following Five Song Credits as an apology for the delay in receiving your purchase. These credits are good for five songs of your choice from the iTunes Store."Have any of you received this message, or made use of your credits?Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Shipley confronts Apple on "contain and engage"
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Steve Jobs, Apple, DeveloperWil Shipley (he of Delicious Monster) has a big piece up about Apple, the iPhone, and the iPod that's making the rounds of online Mac onlookers. He calls out Apple (as they've been called out before) for leaving the iPhone a closed platform, and he answers a lot of questions that were asked by Erica's article the other day.Shipley says that Jobs made a number of mistakes, the first of which was combining forces with other companies, including the record companies and AT&T. In the early days of all this, Jobs was seen as a hero, convincing the record companies to change their minds, and bringing AT&T into the realm of a really great phone. But, Shipley says, Apple plus another company doesn't equal Apple anymore. As much as Apple seemed to have brought record companies around to its point of view, it turns out that the record companies have brought Apple over to their side as well.Case in point:...

Orange gets French iPhone in November
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple, iPhoneIt's official: Orange has the iPhone in France.France Telecom, Orange's parent company, says they won't subsidize the iPhone, but also didn't say anything about price, according to CNN Money. They also didn't give a release date other than November-- the UK and Germany are getting it on 9th November, so it should be close to that point.Reader Samuel, who sent us this French article (all I know is "sacrebleu," sorry), also notes that Apple seems to be signing with the national operators in each country, so the prediction for Italy is TIM, Belgium is predicted Belgacom (although reader Jelle says he saw the iPhone on Base's website, so who knows), KPN in the Netherlands, and so on.I'm clueless about French wireless providers-- is Orange good? Does this deal have you Francophiles saying oui or no?Thanks to everyone who sent this in!Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Mossberg reviews the iPod touch (he likes it)
Filed under: iPod Family If there was a grand poobah of tech journalists it would Walt Mossberg, the tech columnist for the Wall Street Journal. His opinion can make, or break, a product. Luckily for Apple Walt tends to love their stuff, and the iPod touch is no exception.The iPod touch gets high praise for its iPod functionality, and the mobileSafari addition is welcome. Walt also enjoyed the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store (which I am anxiously awaiting on my iPhone). There are some things he didn't like, though. The battery life fell short of Apple's specs, and the lack of physical controls (the iPhone has physical volume controls) makes it tough to use the iPod touch when it isn't in your hand. The lack of a mail program also gets Walt's goat, but he chalks it up to Apple not wanting to compete too much with the more expensive iPhone (which has a mail program built in).TUAW readers, are you enjoying your iPod touch as much as Walt?Read | Permalink | ...

Steve Jobs subpoenaed by SEC
Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple Financial, Steve Jobs, Bad Apple, AppleRemember that whole stock backdating scandal that was threatening to throw a wrench into the unstoppable train that is Apple? Yeah, Apple would prefer you forget about it too, but the SEC (that's the Securities and Exchange Commission) hasn't. They have subpoenaed Steve Jobs to testify in relation to a trail involving Nancy Heinan, Apple's former General Counsel (we covered her involvement here).Keep in mind that no charges are being brought up against Steve, but whenever the CEO of a publicly traded company is brought in front of the SEC it is big news.[via Macuser]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Secure your Mac: Do as the Federales do
Filed under: SecurityMore security notes from the underground TUAW vault. Up until Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, you could see your tax dollars at work very readily, as the National Security Agency published OS-specific guidelines for hardening your OS X installation -- mostly commonsense items like "use strong passwords" and "turn off unneeded services," but it was nice to have a document with the imprimatur of the US Government's most professional paranoids that you could show to your spouse/boss/Russian friends and say "See, it's secured!"As of Tiger, however, the NSA has handed over the security stick to Apple and endorsed the vendor guides to securing both OS X and OS X Server as "[tracking] closely with the security level historically represented in the NSA guidelines." You can download the Server version of the PDF from the NSA's website, but oddly the client version seems to hang on download (spies! saboteurs!), so you can grab that one directly from the mothership. Between the...

Undercover: stolen Mac recovery tool
Filed under: Portables, Software, SecurityThinking about recovering your laptop in case of theft? Undercover from Orbicule (we've mentioned it before once or twice) sports a nice additional "feature" in terms of a money-back guarantee. If your Mac is reported stolen Undercover will monitor and report IP addresses that should narrow down the search, as well as take both screenshots and iSight snapshots at regular intervals and send them back. Finally, it will mimic a hardware problem presumably prompting the thief to take it in for repair or sell it, in which case it will display a message indicating that the computer has been stolen, etc. Orbicule is apparently so confident that Undercover will allow you to recover your machine that they're offering a money-back guarantee for the cost of the software if you do not. They have an interesting account of the recovery process in an actual case.Undercover is $49 ($39 for students; education site licenses are available).[via Daring...

Rapidweaver 3.6.3 hits the tubes
Filed under: Software, Internet ToolsA quiet morning at TUAW Headquarters (located in scenic Wellsboro, PA, home of the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon); we're all pooped from yesterday's Talk Like a Pirate festivities. Time for a quick update on one of our favorite web authoring apps, RapidWeaver: version 3.6.3 is out, featuring Greatly improved memory usage when exporting websites Fixed issues with bold/color attributes and the main view displaying incorrectly Option-Double Clicking on photos now opens the files in a Photo AlbumPlus more (including all the changes from the 3.6.3 public beta). You can now share your love for RapidWeaver at the new iloverapidweaver.com site, a mini-testimonial page for rabid enthusiastic RW fans. 3.6.3 is a free upgrade from 3.6, $25 from prior versions.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments