Author: Blancer

It amazes me that for all the amazing technology and innovation out of Cupertino, they can still manage to screw up a simple alarm function on the iPhone. Chris wrote about this issue on New Year’s Eve, but it appears the Clock app is still having trouble setting off one-time alarms as of today. Naturally, Apple hasn’t said much, aside from a blip to Engadget about “awareness” and a sort-of fix (set a repeating alarm instead). There’s a raft of angry customers on the Apple discussion boards, however, and my personal Twitter feed lit up this morning with people I know who were hit with the bug when they relied upon their iPhone to wake them up for work. What to do?

In my case I don’t have time to go buy another alarm clock today — which is ridiculous anyway considering the tech in the iPhone. I’m heading to CES tomorrow morning, and I’m quite nervous about waking up on time. So I’ve set up an account with iPing to send me a wake-up call on my iPhone (and yeah, it’s free but the message will likely have an ad — small price to pay for convenience). I’ve also purchased two alarm apps — one for my iPhone and one for my iPad. In my case I bought Clock Pro HD (US$3.99) for iPad and Awaken for my iPhone (US$.99), which we’ve reviewed before. Mashable has a few recommendations as well.

A simpler solution is to set a repeating alarm instead of a one-time alarm. However, I have seen reports of repeating alarms failing as well. Some suggest you should delete all alarms and set a repeating alarm, or alternatively set a countdown timer for the hours you’d like to stay asleep — but it appears there is no easy answer. Apple’s claim that it’ll start working “beginning January 3” rings untrue given my own anecdotal evidence and this report from International Business Times. It’s a mess, honestly, but we’re hopeful tomorrow alarms on the iPhone begin to function properly. Or maybe Apple will issue an update addressing the problem. Or maybe we’re all just waking up wrong.

Update: I managed to get a non-repeating alarm to fire off when I deleted all my previous alarms and set the new one. I’m still relying on all of my other alarm apps, just in case.

iPhone alarm still not working for some, here are a few solutions originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In the hackintosh tradition, we present this method of installing Mac OS X onto a Chrome Cr-48 notebook using hexxeh’s Luigi firmware toolkit. You’ll void your machine’s warranty in the process, as you’ve got to remove the bottom cover to activate developer mode.

Once that’s done, you can flash the machine, install the custom firmware and then install Mac OS X. It seems like a lot of work to us. If you like watching videos of a computer booting over and over again, blurry, illegible terminal commands and ear-splitting music, you’ll find a real treat after the break.

For full details on what’s going on, check out hexxeh’s blog post.

[Via MacStories]

Continue reading Install Mac OS X on a Cr-48 Chrome notebook

Install Mac OS X on a Cr-48 Chrome notebook originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After blasting through the $330 per share for Apple’s stock today, the company now has a market capitalization valued at around $302 billion dollars. While market cap isn’t everything, this is a substantial shift from the way things used to be. Apple used to be the underdog!

Remember when Apple was on life support in the ’90s after a series of bland and uninspiring CEOs and product lines? Since the return of Steve Jobs and his hand-picked crew of innovators, however, the company has seen a truly remarkable rise in profits and marketshare while expanding into completely new markets for the company. Apple is on the rise in a big way, and if what we saw in 2010 is any indication, 2011 will see even more growth for our favorite mobile device company.

Apple’s market cap passes $300 billion originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We admit, we tricked you a bit with that headline — India’s Krishna Kalyan actually ate a cake for New Year’s Eve, which is not nearly as extraordinary (or painful) as actually chowing down on a Retina Display and an A4 processor. But it was a cake that looked remarkably like an iPhone 4 — as you can see to the right, the screen is very detailed, with fully-rendered icons (and even some push notifications waiting to be read as well). Sure, the shape is a little more cake-like than iPhone-like, but I like the tasty little home button and the frosting dock connector down below.

The only thing missing? Get those icons in some folders, man! You’ve just got them hanging out all over the place. And while we’re at it, does anyone really keep their Photos or iTunes Store apps on the front home screen any more? We’ve all pushed those off of the first page for more useful apps, right?

At any rate, excellent cake. Happy New Year to one and all — hope you all had a good and safe one no matter what you were doing. Now back to work!

Man eats iPhone 4 at New Year’s Eve celebration originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New numbers from Nielsen research show Apple still in the top spot in US smartphone sales. Android numbers continue to surge, while Blackberry is declining.

Citing November 2010 data, Nielsen says Apple has 28.6% of the domestic smartphone market, up ever so slightly from 27.9% in October. Blackberry has slipped to 26.1%, while Android has amassed a 25.8% share.

Even more interesting is data that says of those buying a smartphone in the last 6 months, 40.8% bought Android phones, while iOS phones had a 26.9 percent share, RIM grabbed 19.2% of the new buyers for its Blackberry phones.

What the numbers will do when, as expected, the iPhone comes to Verizon early this year is harder to predict. If the trends continue, it’s likely Android will be in the smartphone numbers lead soon, but many analysts continue to predict Apple will remain number 1 in profitability.

Nielsen says Apple is holding onto the smartphone lead for now originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that the iPhone’s built-in Clock app has suffered two alarm-hindering hiccups, some users are ready for an alternative. Sure, Apple says the latest issue, affecting non-recurring alarms set for January 1st and 2nd of 2011, will be “fixed” as of January 3. However, some of us here at TUAW experienced the problem again this morning, and others are just sick of the shenanigans.

Fortunately, we’ve reviewed a number of alarm clock apps for the iPhone over the years, and we present the best here for your consideration (all prices are USD).

Awaken

We last looked at Awaken 1.2 for iPhone. Today it has matured to version 1.9 with support for iOS 4.2, the iPad and more. With iOS 4.2, Awaken supports local notifications for alarms, so the app needn’t be running in order to wake you. Both the iPad and iPhone version offer multiple clock faces to choose from, with an additional photo frame option that’s unique to the iPad. An alarm can trigger either your favorite iTunes track or one of the app’s built-in sounds. You’ll also find a sleep timer and a flashlight feature, for those late-night sojourns beyond your bed.

Continue reading Alarm clock apps for iOS and Mac

Alarm clock apps for iOS and Mac originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hardmac has kicked off the new year with some more rumors about Final Cut Studio being updated. We already knew (since the app wasn’t updated past September) that Final Cut Studio has been due for some streamlining, and Hardmac says that indeed, there are multiple beta versions running around. There are reportedly both versions for Snow Leopard and the new OS X Lion being tested at Apple, with the Lion version taking advantage of some new video magic made available in Quicktime. Apparently the featureset isn’t completely nailed down yet, but Hardmac reckons that both new versions should be available by March or April.

Hardmac’s rumor report also mentions the Xserve, but before you get too excited, all they’re saying is that there was a wave of strong feedback after Apple discontinued the hardware, including some from an Apple board member. The feedback reportedly says that the issue with Xserve wasn’t ever the hardware — it was the way Apple sold it. But it remains to be seen if that will change anyone’s opinion about bringing it back in Cupertino, especially since a lot of that feedback was public anyway.

And finally, Hardmac claims to have read an internal memo from Steve Jobs himself about Blu-ray, and he reportedly holds his position that Blu-ray’s DRM and licensing deals are far too restrictive for Apple to get involved with the standard. That’s nothing new — Jobs also says without DRM on iTunes, Apple was able to hit sales records and even finally get the Beatles, and that the future of media is in digital distribution and streaming, not a physical medium. All solid thinking, if you ask me.

[via AppleInsider, MacRumors]

Final Cut updates due in March or April, Steve Jobs still sour on Blu-ray originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Things are fine in Denmark, but they’re rotten in Greece.

Dr. Dimitrios Papadimitriadis (@papadimi on Twitter) was disturbed by some dark spots on his iMac’s display, so he took it to Systemgraph (AKA System Graph Technologies), Apple’s official warranty support provider in Greece. Systemgraph recommended that the iMac LCD panel be replaced, and that the entire computer receive a good cleaning inside and out.

When Papadimitriadis picked up his iMac a few days later, he was dismayed to find that not only was the LCD panel still defective, but there was evidence of moisture behind the screen. The good doctor took advantage of some verbiage in the Greek Civil Code and demanded a refund or replacement of his iMac, which was still under warranty. Systemgraph refused, saying that he had not purchased the iMac from them. Papadimitriadis says he was following Apple’s warranty repair procedures to the letter.

With no help forthcoming from Systemgraph, Papadimitriadis even went to a consumer ombudsman to begin the lengthy process of gaining some sort of resolution. Becoming a bit frustrated, Papadimitriadis posted a note about his experience on a forum (translation here). He didn’t say anything particularly bad about Systemgraph in the forum, but simply described the situation.

The response from Systemgraph? They sued him for €200,000 (about US$267,000), claiming that he had damaged the company’s reputation. The company is saying that now that this situation has begun showing up on Twitter and Apple websites, there’s “an organised attempt to slander and insult” Systemgraph’s name.

After all of the public relations damage that Systemgraph has done to itself, it might be a lot less expensive to just replace the iMac. There’s a hearing on January 19th for the two parties. Good luck, Dr. Papadimitriadis. And Apple might want to take a look at how warranty work is done in those countries where the company doesn’t provide their own support.

Apple’s Greek support provider sues customer for hurting its feelings originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A report circulating over the holiday weekend suggests Verizon is buying up Verizon iPhone-related domain names in anticipation of an impending CDMA iPhone launch. The domain names, iphoneonverizon.com and iphoneforverizon.com, were transferred to Verizon Wireless Trademark Services, LLC, a company that also holds the main Verizonwireless.com domain.

While hopes are high that Apple and Verizon will unveil a new iPhone model in the upcoming months, the purchase of a few domain names is not a reliable indicator of an impending launch. As MacRumors points out, the domain names in question, iphoneonverizon.com and iphoneforverizon.com, were transferred to Verizon Wireless back in 2008, but have sat idle in the intervening years. Rather than a dummy page at Verizon, the domains apparently still point to the original link farms. If Verizon had big plans for these domains, they most likely would not point to a worthless link farm.

In the end, this rumor does little to confirm or deny the existence of an upcoming Verizon iPhone. We do think a Verizon iPhone is possible in the future, but we need more evidence than a few domain names to convince us that its debut is right around the corner. Show us a CDMA model you picked up in a bar and then we can have this conversation again.

Verizon grabbing iPhone domains originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BarMax, the US$1000 iPhone app to help law students pass the bar exam, has made its way to the iPad. The California edition of the popular bar exam prep software is now available on the App Store. BarMax for the iPad is designed to take advantage of the larger screen real estate of the iPad by offering an outline layout of course content, a redesigned multiple choice section and the ability to highlight text, add notes and bookmark pages.

The BarMax app may cost a pricey $999.99, but its 1 GB of data softens the financial blow. Customers receive two months of lecture material, thousands of pages of documentation in electronic format, sample MBE questions, sample essay exams, flash cards and a built-in calendar and task list to help them study. Once a student purchases the app, he or she has lifetime access to the course materials and a direct connection with Harvard-educated lawyers who will field any questions. The primary competitor to BarMax is BARBRI, another bar exam preparatory company that lets customers add a $295 iPhone option to its $3,000-$4,000 traditional paper and computer-based course.

$1,000 bar exam prep BarMax app now available on iPad originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple stock (AAPL) has hit a new all time intra-day high by a mile rising 7.25 percent as of about 11 AM. At last look it’s sitting at $329.81 and is happily ringing in the new year on the first day of 2011 trading.

It may be totally coincidental, our old friend Gene Munster, analyst for Piper Jaffray has announced a few predictions for 2011. The first non-surprise is that he (and just about everyone else) believes that the iPhone will come to Verizon, but he thinks it won’t be until the March quarter with a 95 percent probability. I think he’s betting low on that one. He gives a 90 percent probability to iTunes offering a cloud-based service, and an 80 percent probability that cell phone providers will begin subsidizing 3G iPads, since this is presently happening in other countries, so why not here?

Gene also has some predictions that he considers rock-solid, including new laptops coming soon, and a refresh of the Mac Pro in the first half of the year along with new iMacs in the second half of 2011. The iPhone 5 will rear its head this summer (I’d bet the house on that one), and the iPad 2, if that’s what it winds up being called, will flower in the Spring. Another no-brainer will be that new iPods will be out in the Fall, but then again, new iPods are always out in the Fall.

[via The Mac Observer]

Apple stock hits a new intra-day all time high and Gene Munster weighs in originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It seems like whenever somebody decides to become an iOS developer, the first thing they do is come out with a new Twitter client. Twitter clients were the fart apps of 2010. As a result, most of the time when word of a new Twitter client appears in my inbox, I trash the email without even looking.

Trickle (US$0.99) is refreshingly different. It does just one thing, and it does it very well: it displays the latest tweets of people you’re following in bold white Helvetica letters on a black background. That’s it. You can’t use the app to respond or come up with your own clever tweets; you just read ’em as they come in. Developer Caleb Thorson refers to the app as a “passive Twitter client.”

For consuming tweets, Trickle is awesome. It’s easy to read tweets at a glance, and if you’re busy, that’s a perfect way to keep up with what’s happening without being tempted to blast out your own opinion. Trickle is orientation-blind and looks good in portrait or landscape on iPhone or iPad.

There are two buttons that appear on the Trickle screen that give you an outlet to retweet or favorite a tweet. See something that’s witty, interesting, or useful? Tap the retweet button (r) and get back to business. Read a tweet that is the best thing you’ve seen in years? Tap favorite (f).

Continue reading Trickle: A Twitter client with a refreshing difference

Trickle: A Twitter client with a refreshing difference originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Quick — you’re watching House, M.D. with a friend and he suddenly complains of lightheadedness and heart palpitations, then passes out on your couch. Is it a common atrial fibrillation, or is it a third-degree atrioventricular block needing emergency atropine and an electrical pacer?

Soon, assuming you’re either a medical professional skilled in electrocardiography or you play one on TV, you’ll be able to make the differential diagnosis using just an iPhone 4 and the AliveCor iPhonECG.

The iPhonECG is a sleek, low power case that turns the iPhone 4 into a wireless, clinical quality cardiac event recorder. It was invented by Dr. David Albert, a self-described “serial entrepreneur and inventor who happens to be an engineer and a physician with 30 years in cardiology.” Dr. Albert sold his last company, Data Critical, to GE Medical Systems, where he then worked as Chief Scientist of GE Cardiology.

Albert’s goal was to make heart monitoring affordable both for chronic heart patients and third world caregivers. Instead of devices costing tens of thousands, he wanted to make a device anyone could afford.

Continue reading iPhonECG turns your iPhone 4 into an affordable cardiac event monitor

iPhonECG turns your iPhone 4 into an affordable cardiac event monitor originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is there a better way to start a new year than to get an innovative new case for your iPhone 4?

Bioserie recently sent TUAW two of their iPhone 4 cases to review and give away to our readers. As you know, we get a lot of different iPhone and iPad cases to test, so what makes these different? It’s that they’re not made out of petroleum-based plastics like most of the other cases we receive. Instead, the Bioserie cases are made of bioplastics derived from plants.

The company does a very good job of using environmentally friendly materials in their packaging of the cases as well. The cardboard box is made of 100 percent recycled materials printed with soy inks, and the plastic “window” of the box is also made of bioplastic.

The cases we received are rather simple in design, but they do a good job of protecting the back glass and sides of an iPhone 4 while allowing easy access to the ports and buttons. The case snaps onto the iPhone 4 in a flash and can also be removed for cleaning. There is a texture to the Bioserie cases that makes them less slippery than some cases I’ve reviewed.

Continue reading Bioserie bioplastic iPhone 4 cases: Review and giveaway

Bioserie bioplastic iPhone 4 cases: Review and giveaway originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I have to admit that I never played Super Blast, but the sequel has entertained me for a little while now. It’s a straight-up shooter game with a nice, easy control scheme. All you do is tilt your device to aim and shoot, and you can occasionally tap the screen to clear it with a bomb. It’s a tried-and-true premise, and it works well. My one complaint is that it’s hard sometimes to tell how your ship is doing and/or when the enemies are actually taking damage. On bosses with large amounts of health, you usually have to just fall back on watching the numbers, and that’s a little more boring than it could be.

The game’s power-ups are quite fun, and the graphics are excellent, featuring almost whimsical 3D alien models with extremely high resolutions that look excellent on the Retina Display. There are plenty of particle effects to go around, and when you do it just right, cutting through the well-rendered bad guys is really satisfying. Game Center integration helps you keep the fight going as well.

Super Blast 2 is just US$0.99 on the App Store right now, and while it’s somewhat simple, it’s definitely worth a download.

TUAW’s Daily App: Super Blast 2 originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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