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Since the doors closed at Kelly’s House of Crackpot Theories (AKA the TUAW Talkcast) on Sunday night, there has been a surprising amount of Apple-related news. Steve Jobs sent an email to all Apple employees explaining that he’s going on another health-related leave of absence, AAPL stock took a beating, and then the company announced yet another quarter of outstanding financial results and the stock went up again.

This afternoon on TUAW TV Live, I’ll provide some opinion and commentary on what happened in the last few days. Since I’m older than dirt and have seen a lot of changes since I started observing Apple 31 years ago, I’ll add a historical perspective to the entire “Apple without Steve Jobs” picture. I’m not a financial analyst, but I have some thoughts about hidden items in the financial report that I’d like to throw some light on as well.

Next week, the crack TUAW blogging crew will be in San Francisco covering Macworld Expo 2011. Our schedules and our bags are packed, the video camera lenses are polished, and our Macs, iPads, and iPhones are charged up and ready to roll. I’ve been attending Macworld Expo since the late 1980s, so I’ll give you an overview of what’s different about the Expo in 2011 as well as what we expect to see during the show.

The show starts live at 5 PM ET / 2 PM PT here at TUAW. Show up a few minutes before, and we’ll have complete instructions on how to view the live video stream and join the conversation in our chat tool.

TUAW TV Live at 5 PM ET: Covering the week’s Apple news originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The world’s largest purveyor of coffee with that just-burnt taste, Starbucks, is now accepting payments at company-owned outlets throughout the United States with their free Starbucks Card Mobile iPhone app.

We’ve covered the green lady’s apps before, and it was about eight months ago that the company expanded a small pilot program in Seattle and Silicon Valley to all of their caffeine-dispensing outlets in U.S. Target stores. Now you can pay for your Venti Double-Shot Caramel Macchiato by simply waving your iPhone — loaded with the Starbucks app — at that emo teenage barista who is trying very hard to look intellectual and off-put.

The payment system doesn’t use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to send your bank account numbers to Starbucks headquarters. Instead, the app is linked to your Starbucks Card account, and you use it to display a barcode that is unique to your account. Point that at the scanner in your Starbucks, and your digital wallet becomes magically lighter.

Starbucks Cards, whether digital or physical, are no small hill of Arabica coffee beans — the company reported that $1.5 billion in jittery transactions were made in 2010 alone. Apple and Starbucks have had a long, happy relationship, with Starbucks offering a free iTunes “Pick of the Week” in 2008 and Phil Schiller showing off an early prototype of the Starbucks Card Mobile app on stage at an Apple event.

A short, musical video touting the Starbucks digital payment option is on the next page. Now excuse me, I need to get a fresh cup of joe from my Keurig.

Continue reading Starbucks now accepting payments through iPhone app

Starbucks now accepting payments through iPhone app originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Roughly two months after announcing that a TiVo app was in development, TiVo Premiere for iPad was released on Tuesday. Users can browse program guides, schedule recordings, remotely control their TiVo and more. It joins a slew of other apps compatible with TV services such as DISH and DIRECTV.

Engadget got its hands on the app and did a pretty throughout roundup of it. It’s an excellent companion beyond a traditional iPad remote, and if you’re on the fence about wanting TiVo service, might be the deciding factor in choosing to sign up.

TiVo app available on App Store originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We were surprised to learn that an uncensored version of Playboy Magazine will hit the iPad in March, including a complete back catalog. Hef shared the news on Twitter, saying, “Big news! Playboy–both old & new–will be available on iPad beginning in March,” and “Playboy on iPad will be uncensored.”

It’s interesting, considering Apple’s stance on adult material in the App Store. Last February, Apple removed some 5,000 apps for what it called “objectionable content.” In an interview with the New York Times, Apple’s head of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller was asked why iPhone apps from Sports Illustrated and Playboy (which include images of scantily-clad but non-nude women), remained in the store. Schiller replied, “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format.”

Later that month an “Explicit” category briefly appeared in the App Store but was later removed.

There are no details on how the iPad app will be delivered and with what restrictions, but we’ll find out soon enough.

[Via Engadget]

Playboy Magazine to hit the iPad uncensored in March originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We took a look at BetterTouchTool last year and covered its usage with a Magic Mouse and a MacBook trackpad. As you would expect, this versatile utility can also be used to customize the functionality of the Magic Trackpad. The app features over 50 multi-touch gestures including taps, clicks, and swipes for one to five fingers. Each gesture can be customized to perform a wide range of predefined actions or assigned to a custom desktop shortcut.

You can even create your own gestures and add button commands (fn, ctrl, command, option) to each one. Besides quadrupling the number of available gestures, these buttons can also be used to prevent accidental activation of a gesture by requiring you to deliberately press a button prior to clicking, tapping or swiping. Gestures and actions are the focus of this application, but it has a few neat tricks up its sleeve that let you snap and resize a window like Windows 7 as well as control the trackpad speed and sensitivity.

Combine this tool with a Magic Trackpad and you can supercharge the input methods for your iMac, Mac Pro or Mac mini. If you have a Magic Mouse and a Magic Trackpad, you may want to check out BetterTouchTool. The unique ability of this application to assign actions to tappable hotspots around the perimeter of the trackpad lets you duplicate the functionality of the Magic Mouse and keep all the multi-touch gesture goodness that comes with the Magic Trackpad.

BetterTouchTool is available for free from boastr.net.

[Via Macworld]

Customizing a Magic Trackpad using BetterTouchTool originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A few weeks ago we mentioned IK Multimedia’s iKlip — an adapter that attaches your iPad to almost any mic stand. Around that same time, Griffin announced its own version of a similar apparatus at CES 2011: the aptly if not bluntly named Griffin Mic Stand Mount for iPad.

Griffin describes Mic Stand Mount for iPad as follows.

• Mount your iPad on a mic stand
• Screws onto industry standard (5/8″ 27-thread-per-inch) microphone stands
• Fully adjustable tilt and swivel; locks safely and positively into landscape or portrait orientation
• Rubber inserts securely grip your iPad on its four corners
• Full access to volume controls, dock connector, and audio jack

From the pictures we’ve seen, these two mounts look very similar in form and function, but — unless our eyes deceive us — we’re inclined to say the Griffin mount looks slightly more sturdy than the iKlip (but we can’t say for sure until we get to try them out for ourselves in the real world).

However, there appears to be one significant difference between the two. The iKlip attaches to the neck of a mic stand — leaving the actual head of the stand free to hold something else (like a mic). The Griffin Mic Stand Mount for iPad, on the other hand, is secured to the head of a mic stand alone. This basically means, if you’re a singer / instrumentalist, you’ll need a separate mic stand if you go for the Griffin mount

The Griffin Mic Stand Mount for iPad is priced at US$39.99 and will be available later this month.

[Via Pocket-lint]

Griffin adapter attaches iPad to mic stand, calls it Mic Stand Mount for iPad originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the arrival of virtual guitar effects on portable devices like the iPhone and iPad, many guitarists are re-thinking the way they set up and play their electric guitars. For the average player, an almost endless array of varied tones and effects are now available in high-quality virtual form at a fraction of the cost and weight of their real-world counterparts. It’s not surprising that many guitarists are turning to virtual pedal boards for practicing, band rehearsals and the occasional gig, too.

One of the biggest problems with virtual effects pedal boards is that they are, well, … virtual. They’re on a screen near your eyes and hands instead of being within reach of your feet as they should be, keeping your hands free to play while your feet manage effects.

Thankfully, with four assignable foot switches, a 1/4″ effects pedal input jack and a meter long dock connector cable, Griffin (in conjunction with Frontier Design Group) has taken the bold step (no pun intended) of bringing the pedal board back to where it should be with the StompBox pedal controller for iPad / iPhone and iPod touch.

The Griffin StompBox will work seamlessly with Frontier Design Group’s iShred Live virtual guitar effects app (sold separately), but (from what we understand) the StompBox “… can act as an assignable controller for other foot-switch-compatible applications,” according to Griffin’s website. However, we doubt the StompBox will have seamless compatibility with other virtual guitar effects apps at this stage. There’s no doubt in our minds, though, that some of the other big players will follow suit shortly with their own version of a foot-switch controller.

The StompBox is priced at US$99.99 on the Griffin StompBox website and will be available February / March.

[Via Engadget, Pocket-lint]

Griffin StompBox brings guitar effects app to your feet, lets your hands play originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I seem to have started off the week with some quality experimental gaming on the iPhone, so let’s continue that trend with this great title called Today I Die Again from indie developer Daniel Benmergui. I met Daniel at IndieCade 2009 in Culver City, CA, and this is one of a few “games” he’s brought to life. I put quotes around “games” because they’re more like interactive stories. Benmergui’s apps combine sometimes absurd graphics with words and sounds to create vignettes of experience, sometimes uplifting and witty, and sometimes sad and thoughtful.

As of this writing the app is a free download, though I’m not sure how long it will stay that way given that it’s being featured as a Free App a Day. But even if the price has gone back up, you can play through the game in its entirety for free online, then go buy the app if you want to support Benmergui and his terrific work. Make sure to play some of his other titles, too. I especially like I Wish I Were the Moon and Storyteller, but they’re all good.

Benmergui was doing his work even before Apple’s platform was publicly available, but the App Store has been and continues to be a great breeding ground for very independent developers. Maybe we’ll do a whole week here of interesting experimental games like these.

TUAW’s Daily App: Today I Die Again originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Over the weekend, we saw the swirling rumors around the specs for the (presumably inevitable) iPad 2 start to come together. One of the most intriguing suggestions, which Engadget claims to have a reliable source for (and MacRumors some corroborating evidence to boot) is a higher resolution screen to match the iPhone 4’s Retina Display — specifically, doubling in both directions, changing from 1024×768 to 2048×1536.

This has prompted some discussion around exactly what Retina Display means, and whether this would count. The iPhone 4’s screen is a mammoth 326 pixels-per-inch (ppi), whereas this rumored new iPad resolution is a somewhat lesser 264 ppi — quite a bit less. However, I believe it’s just as valid for Apple to call this a Retina Display as it was to call the iPhone 4 screen, and after the break I will explain why with some hopefully convincing mathematics.

Firstly though, it’s important to stress that these are only rumors and that 2048×1536 is an incredible number of pixels — 3,145,728 of them, in fact. That’s only 17 percent less than the 27″ iMac or 27″ Cinema Display, and it’s 52 percent more pixels than a 50″ 1080p television screen! This makes the screen expensive to make; it places greater strain on the graphics chipset to drive the screen, which makes that more expensive, too; it won’t do the battery life any favors either. All of this, to my mind, suggests this is one rumor that might come down to wishful thinking. As John Gruber said: “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Continue reading iPads and Retina Displays: Doing the math

iPads and Retina Displays: Doing the math originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We all like our apps, right? We especially like some of those beautifully designed OS X icons that Apple has created through the years. But did you know that a few of those very same icons have some secret meanings that many people don’t know about? Thanks to Electricpig, we can now understand the secrets, history and even inside jokes that those Apple icons put on display but many of us miss.

From the map on the iPhone’s Maps icon being 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino (Apple’s home base) to the iPod artist silhouette being of one-time Apple partner Bono to actual Java code written on the napkin in their Java icon, Apple has a long history of embedding secret meanings and Easter eggs in their icons.

While some Apple fans may own a limited-edition print of the original Mac OS icons or even felt keychains in the form of iPhone icons, not too many of us know all the secrets inside our icons — until now. The majority of the secrets exposed in the article are true, but readers should note that a few stand out as potentially incorrect or just a creative guess. For instance, “Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit Amet Etiam” found on the Apple Dictionary icon doesn’t mean “Hello world! Etcetera” as mentioned, but rather is just a deliberately corrupted version of a Cicero passage commonly used as filler text when writing copy. And as for creative stretch, well, we highly doubt that the Find my iPhone icon has a map of New York City on it because Steve Jobs once had an apartment there. But it’s certainly an interesting idea!

Do you know any other hidden secrets in either OS X or iOS icons that were missed? If so, please be sure to let us know about them!

The hidden secrets inside Apple icons originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Anomaly: Warzone Earth is a tower defense game with a twist — instead of placing towers to take down attackers, you actually control attackers, trying to navigate a convoy in between alien defenses. Through both a 14-mission story/campaign mode and a few endless options, you command your squad using deployables like Smoke and Decoy, various unit types that can be upgraded and tweaked, and whatever strategies you can dream up. The game is a nice mix of strategy and action, constantly driving your convoy through alien turrets while planning out the best and safest route to take.

The game has already been announced for the iPhone, iPad and the PC, but this post serves as the official announcement that the game is coming to Mac as well. It is scheduled for an early 2011 release, and we’re told that the Polish developer, 11 bit studios, is planning to bring the game to the Mac App Store, though a price hasn’t been determined yet. We’ll keep an eye out for the game when it releases — in the meantime, feel free to browse through and check out these exclusive shots of the game’s Tokyo level in the gallery below.

Anomaly: Warzone Earth coming to Mac, iPhone and iPad originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Two men have been charged with stealing the email addresses and personal data of over 120,000 iPad users last year. A 26-year-old from San Francisco and a 25-year-old from Fayetteville, Arkansas were charged with hacking into AT&T’s servers and stealing the data, scraped from AT&T’s website.

Both were charged with one count of identity fraud and one count of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization. They were caught in part due to IRC chat logs in which the hackers bragged about the theft and talked about trying to spin it as a statement against AT&T’s lax security. Prosecutors are scheduled to give a press conference about the case today, so the trial should be underway before long.

Feds charge two in June 2010 iPad 3G hacking originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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