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Several European countries saw their online Apple stores go down for several hours earlier today, with the familiar yellow sticky note greeting customers in the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and others. Some speculated this meant a new product launch, but stores in Asia/Pacific and North America remained up all day. It turns out that in at least one country, the UK, something new did debut on the Apple Store today: higher prices. The increase in the UK’s value-added tax (VAT) from 17.5 percent to 20 percent went into effect today, and Apple has raised its UK prices to account for the difference.

In some cases the price rise is relatively modest. A 16 GB iPhone 4 now costs £11 more than it used to, while a 16 GB Wi-Fi iPad costs £10 more. However, MacBook Pro and iMac prices have increased by a minimum of £21, and a Mac Pro will now cost a minimum of £42 more.

Some had expected Apple to eat the cost of the VAT increase and keep its UK prices the same, but a recent GST increase in New Zealand from 12.5 percent to 15 percent saw Apple raising its prices here, too. Though Apple will surely cite “margin preservation” in defense of raising its prices, Apple already charges more for its products in countries outside the US. While there may be economic reasons for doing so, that’s hardly comforting to international customers.

It’s unclear why the other European stores had to be taken down for a UK price hike; if prices have also risen in your country today, let us know in the comments.

[via Mac Rumors]

Apple’s UK prices rise after VAT increase originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ask any parent, and they will tell that you need to start your kids young and surround them with toys to stimulate their development. There is no better toy for the next generation saurik or geohot than the not-so-creatively named “Smart Phone” toy fresh out of China.

Why is this phone so perfect for budding anti-DRM enthusaists? The toy cell phone features an array of iPhone application icons, including one for the renegade Cydia application repository, enabling young jailbreakers to get their first taste of unofficial apps even before the apps actually work. Thanks to the good folks in China, this “Smart Phone” has been jailbroken prior to shipment and is available in dollar stores for your child’s indoctrination enjoyment.

Start ’em young with a jailbroken iPhone toy originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[via MacStories]

Steve Jobs portrait made out of Apple products mosaic originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Right before the year switched over, Citibank released its “US Internet Stock 2011 Playbook,” and in there was an interesting prediction about the App Store. Despite what seems like constantly falling prices, and the rise of “freemium” apps, Citibank expects Apple to pull in $2 billion in gross app revenue in 2011 alone. That’s comparable to gross revenue for the entire online video advertising market, according to TechCrunch. And presumably this is just the iOS App Store — later this week we’ll be seeing the first fruits of the Mac App Store arrive, and it’s likely that market will pull in a nice chunk of change for Apple as well.

Smartphone software in general is set to grow as well — Citibank says that by 2013, the app market should be worth around $27 billion (that includes, of course, Android and any other platforms that should emerge in the next few years). Demand is strong for smartphone hardware, but I don’t think the exponential growth of apps will continue for years into the future. Then again, who can tell? This is a market that barely existed just a few years ago, so where it’s headed from here is anyone’s guess.

[via Loop Insight]

Citibank: Apple could pull in $2 billion in App Store revenues in 2011 originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Could “no-look” touch gestures be coming soon to the iPod nano? Recently discovered by ipodnn, a 2009 patent application by Apple shows that it is looking into letting users control their devices using no-look gestures which only require a touch-sensitive surface like a trackpad and not necessarily a graphic interface as Apple currently employs on the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.

Diagrams filed with the patent application show different methods that owners could use gestures on their device, such as a single tap to play and pause media playback, a double tap to skip forward tracks, or a triple tap to skip backwards to previous tracks. This would allow users to still control their device if they were unable to interact directly with the graphical interface we have all become so familiar with. This has been one of the main concerns with the nano switching over to a no-button touchscreen, so a good solution along these lines would be quite helpful

Of course, I imagine that all of you guys have gotten used to calling your friends using only your nose so learning gestures to control your iPod or iPhone shouldn’t be too difficult in comparison!

[via ipodnn]

Apple patent describes touch gestures on iPod nano originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been over a year since the amazing free DVD ripping software (also known as a “video transcoder”), HandBrake, has been updated. Life is good, and Handbrake 0.9.5 has now been released.

There are a ton of changes in this release, and you can get into the details in the change release notes. For the Mac version of the software, the biggest news is that PowerPC is no longer supported. If you’re still holding on to an older Mac, it’s time to either consider a hardware upgrade or you’ll be using HandBrake 0.9.4 for the rest of eternity.

Other Mac changes include VLC detection in both the /Applications and ~/Applications directories, a new Audio Panel supporting more than 4 audio tracks, and support for multiple instances running simultaneously.

I noticed that the update wasn’t accessible through the “Check for Updates” feature in version 0.9.4, so you’ll probably want to go to the HandBrake website and just download the installer in order to update.

Thanks to Adam for the tip!

HandBrake 0.9.5 released, adds presets and more for easier DVD ripping originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel, the company that makes the processors used in every Mac currently being manufactured, officially announced the details of the new Sandy Bridge processors, otherwise known as the Intel Core 2011 processors. These are the second generation of the Core processors found in many of Apple’s products (i.e., the Core i3, i5, and i7 CPUs), and the new silicon could herald good news for future Macs. The Sandy Bridge processor family uses Intel’s 32nm microarchitecture and is the first to put the processor, memory controller, and graphics on the same die. In a nutshell, this means more performance and better energy efficiency.

TUAW reported back in early December that Apple has committed to use the integrated Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) of the Sandy Bridge processor in future MacBooks, providing speculation that most future MacBooks may do away with a separate GPU. At the current time, the entire MacBook family uses NVIDIA GPUs to accelerate graphics processing. By using the built-in GPU of the Core 2011 processors, the component cost of Apple’s future Macs will be reduced slightly. Whether or not that will translate to lower prices for consumers is unknown at this time. More on the new hardware after the break.

Continue reading Intel announces Core 2011 processor details; hackintosh fans post benchmarks

Intel announces Core 2011 processor details; hackintosh fans post benchmarks originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:00:00 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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