According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is ready to finally push iTunes 11 right out of the gate Thursday, November 29. Apple delayed the software for a month because the redesigned media player was "taking longer than expected" and the company wanted to "take a little extra time to get it right". The Journal reports that the new iTunes has been delayed due to unspecified "engineering issues" that apparently required parts to be rebuilt...
Hot on the heels of rolling out the improved Drive app with spreadsheet editing capabilities, Google today also refreshed its excellent Chrome browser for the iPhone and iPad. Google Chrome version 23.0.1271.91 (seriously? what's up with the versioning scheme?) is now available for download, bringing with it support for Apple's Passbook app on iOS 6 devices, better handling of PDF documents in external applications, new text encoding setting and more. Jump past the fold for your changelog and more tidbits...
Just spotted an interesting notice over at the online Apple Store, where Apple promises to deliver your iPad mini by Christmas if orders are placed by midnight December 5. "Order iPad mini by midnight December 5 for guaranteed delivery before Christmas", reads Apple's holiday shopping page.
A lot of kids' faces in the U.S. are gonna light up after unwrapping their Christmas gift. Over in the United Kingdom, however, shoppers must order the gadget by midnight today, or by December 4 in Canada. Apple's also sweetening the deal with free shipping and laser engraving. Hopefully, Santa won't say you've been a naughty boy...
Google's cloud-storage iOS client has received a nice little update today which brought out useful editing capability to Google spreadsheets. Google Drive version 1.2 arrives a little more than a month after the previous release brought us native Docs support and collaborative editing.
What's more, the software now finally allows for rich text copy-paste within a document and registers itself as a system-wide handler for uploading to Drive from other apps using the “Open in…” prompt.
The Android client was also refreshed with the ability to edit text within tables in documents and add a shortcut on the homescreen of your device to any specific file in Drive...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_t_PAs9eh0
If you've played Angry Birds Star Wars through and are yearning for more, check out the first content update, now available for download. Expanding on the initial levels on planet Tatooine and the Death Star, this content update contains new levels set on the icy planet of Hoth. Another surprise: Pink Bird debuts as Princess Leia. Also, looks like there are some AT-AT walkers to take down and pigtroopers to fight, too...
http://vimeo.com/53426724 If a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth a thousand pictures, this one's worth gold. Taking iPhone photography to a whole new level, director Arturo Perez Jr. edited together a total of 1905 photos of San Francisco for the song “Invasión” by Mexico City-based band The Plastics Revolution. It tells a tale of a young couple finding love amid an indie-pop backdrop. The snaps were taken mostly on an iPhone and ss you can see for yourself, the results are nothing short of amazing....
Apple's been distancing itself from Samsung for quite some time, by purchasing components elsewhere. The company recently added new display and battery providers to its supply chain.
This summer, it started increasing spending on Elpida memory chip at Samsung's expense.
But as Apple increasingly sources major components from other suppliers, it has yet to make a switch to a non-Samsung silicon foundry. According to the latest chatter from Asia, Tim Cook and Co. remain adamant to take Apple's chip making contract to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) as early as possible.
But though TSMC, the world's largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry, has enough capacity to make the 200 million+ processors Apple needs annually for iPhones, iPads and iPods, such a move bears a significant risk of upsetting TSMC's major buyers such as Nvidia and Qualcomm...
Fans of iPhone photography have a field day with today's news of the brand new 500px for iPhone app and a significantly reimagined Vimeo iOS build. So, remember hip-hop artist and the Black Eyed Peas leader Will.i.am announcing a 14-megapixel iPhone camera attachment last week?
Today, we learn that the accessory bearing his name and dubbed the i.am+ is set to launch December 6. It's gonna be available in contemporary and vintage version for the iPhone 4/4S, with the flagship iPhone 5 unit arriving at some point next year and sporting a dedicated 14-megapixel camera sensor and flash...
500px (pronounced five hundred pixels), a web-based photography community, launched in October 2009 and quickly established itself as the premium photo sharing destination. If your photo needs go beyond Instagram's recognizable filters and low resolution snaps of people's food and pets, you may have stumbled upon the 500px web site where people share only their best work in a manner that has nothing to do with the simplification (some would say, dumbification) of Instagram.
The Toronto-based startup has now updated its iPad app, released a year ago, with native iPhone support and boy is it gorgeous...
http://vimeo.com/54298665
Vimeo has updated and reimagined its iPhone app to simplify video uploads and improve sharing via Facebook and Twitter. Vimeo was released on the iPhone back in March of last year. It was updated in January with native iPad support and full-screen video playback. Today's update is the first build created entirely in-house and features a cleaner interface that forgoes the grid system in favor of a tab-based navigation.
The clunky video editor is gone and the program now begins uploading your videos in the background while you're still editing tags, captions and other meta data. Go past the jump for more information and changelog....
An interesting opportunity has presented itself to Microsoft following news that Canada-based Research In Motion has lost a legal dispute with Nokia over wireless technology patents. As a result, RIM could see BlackBerry handsets banned unless it agrees to pay royalties to Nokia. As things stand, Nokia has already filed cases in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom to enforce the ruling, a move that could see all Blackberry smartphones removed from store shelves.
"In order to enforce the Tribunal's ruling, we have now filed actions in the US, UK and Canada with the aim of ending RIM's breach of contract", Nokia said in a statement. If the courts enforce the sales ban, consequences for the ailing BlackBerry maker could be devastating while opening door to Microsoft's Windows Phone becoming the #3 mobile platform...
Skype was recently updated with a taller UI tailored for the iPhone 5. Today, Microsoft pushed another update, bringing a few new features to the popular communications client. For starters, you can now merge your Skype and Microsoft account, which also enables the software to connect to Microsoft's other messaging properties. Most notably, this means you can now chat with Messenger, Hotmail and Outlook.com contacts right from Skype...