MacWorld

Macworld/iWorld 2015 canceled, event on indefinite hiatus

Bad news for the Apple community on Tuesday, as news broke that the 2015 Macworld/iWorld Expo has been canceled, and the trade show is going on an indefinite hiatus. IDG made the announcement this morning, thanking the community for “30 amazing years.”

The group didn’t offer up any explanation for its decision to cancel the event, but it’s not hard to guess what happened. Attendance at the annual convention has been on the decline since 2009, when Apple decided to quit attending and host its own media events.

Daylight Viewfinder: a hardware/software combo for taking photos in bright light

Have you ever tried to take a photo with your iPhone on a bright and sunny day and were not even able to see what’s on your screen because of high glare? If like me you live in a sunny area, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Comes the Daylight Viewfinder, an eyepiece and app combo for taking iPhone pictures in bright or high glare areas. I had heard about it a week or so ago, but I got to go hands-on with the hardware/software combo during a preview at MacWorld today in San Francisco…

Indie biopic ‘jOBS’ hits theaters April 19 (video)

As previously reported, ‘jOBS’ biopic will debut tomorrow as the closing-night film of the Sundance Film Festival in Part City and now word has reached us that the flick, which depicts Steve in his early years (1971-2000), will be premiering in theaters nationwide on Friday, April 19. The indie project stars Ashton Kutcher, who portrays Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs, and his fellow actor Josh Gad, who plays another Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak. An exclusive clip from the movie can be seen right after the break…

jOBS star Ashton Kutcher to kick off MacWorld

Actor Ashton Kutcher who stars in jOBS, the upcoming indie biopic about Apple’s late co-founder, will kick off MacWorld Expo, now known as iWorld. The conference runs January 31 – February 2 in San Francisco’s Moscone West. Kutcher will take the main stage on January 31 at 9am to kick off the three-day conference and talk about the flick, which is scheduled to hit theaters in April after its debut at the legendary Sundance Film Festival later this month…

Apple’s New Thunderbolt Technology Could Eventually Come to the iPhone

Apple recently introduced a new connection technology dubbed “Thunderbolt.” In Apple’s MacBook Pro refresh, the Thunderbolt port has been added as a new wired connection architecture that Apple hopes will unify its connection technologies.

The key feature for the Thunderbolt architecture is speed. Thunderbolt promises to be lighting fast (pardon the pun) and offer incredible speeds for data transfers. The need for Thunderbolt is evident for the desktop, but it’s not a stretch to imagine that Thunderbolt could eventually make its way to iOS devices.

iPhone Hardware and Accessories from Macworld Expo

The Macworld Expo is a giant technology conference that takes place once a year in California. Unlike the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Macworld is totally focused on everything Apple. The entire conference is devoted to Macs, iPhones, iPads, iPods, hardware, accessories, etc. Journalists and Apple pundits meet at Macworld to discuss the state of Apple’s technology and speculate about what is to come.

Hardware is a huge part of Macworld, with more and more attention increasingly being given to iOS hardware and accessories. The guys over at Mac Life posted a great gallery of some iOS hardware/accessories that stood out at Macworld this year. Here are a couple highlights from their findings…

‘TV Hat’ Turns Your iPhone Into a Personal Cinema, You Into a Crazy Looking Futuristic Beekeeper

I can empathize with anyone who wants to push an accessory for the iPhone while at Macworld, hey, there’s a lot of money to be made in this business. What I won’t do is condone ridiculousness. The following is an example of said ridiculousness.

The TV Hat Personal Theatre for the iPhone is an article of clothing that you wear on your head; it has an iPhone pouch strategically sewn into its bill. Not only that, but it features a small drape that covers your entire face, ensuring that no light leakage ruins your personal cinema experience.

This brings new meaning to the term Retina Display, because having an iPhone this close to your eyes for extended periods is bound to sauté your retina, cornea, and ever other important feature of that visionary apparatus you call eyes.

Full video of the sheer ridiculousness ahead!

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone Coming Up Soon

We’ve talked in the past about Sling and their SlingBox, a digital box you connect to your cable box, dish receiver, or DVR and allows you to grab either live or recorded video from that source, anywhere in the world that you can connect to the Internet.

It seems that Sling will be demonstrating SlingPlayer for the iPhone at MacWorld this week and they will be submitting their app to the App Store sometimes in the next few weeks. SlingPlayer will allow you to watch cable TV directly from your iPhone!

Here are a few highlights from the press release:
“SlingPlayer Mobile is ideally suited for the iPhone’s large touch screen display and I know iPhone users are eagerly anticipating the application’s availability,” said Blake Krikorian, co-founder and CEO of Sling Media. “Add to that HD streaming support for Slingbox PRO-HD customers and live TV support on our video entertainment site, Sling.com, and you can see Sling Media is committed to delivering great solutions for Mac users.”

SlingPlayer Mobile gives consumers their entire home TV experience, including local channels, local sports teams, video on demand, pay per view, etc. Any program that you can watch on your sofa back home, you can now watch via your iPhone using a standard network connection (3G Cellular, WiFi). In addition, SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone users can also control their home digital video recorder (DVR) to watch recorded shows, pause, rewind, and fast forward live TV, or even queue new recordings while on the road.

Pricing and Availability

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone will be submitted to Apple for testing and approval in Q1. The price has not been determined at this time. SlingPlayer for Mac HD will be available for free via the web-based SlingPlayer within Sling.com later in Q1. Mac customers will be able to use either Safari or Firefox web browsers to get both HD streaming and Live TV within Sling.com.