Macgasm

Finally, we’ve got some word out of Cupertino about the shipping of the Apple TVs. Amidst rumours of delays and expedited shipping cost refunds, it appears that the new Apple TV is shipping this week. Customers who placed orders immediately after the announcement have received confirmation that the devices have shipped, and that they should be showing up by Friday.

Not all of the orders have shipped however; some people are getting notices that their Apple TVs are “Prepared for Shipment,” so we should be seeing a second wave of deliveries in the upcoming days. There’s also no word on when the devices will begin showing up in Apple Stores.

Article Via The Loop

In another step towards keeping your wallet in shape and your pace through life that little bit faster, Visa has unveiled the idea behind their payWave app, which allows you to access the Metro by simply waving your iPhone over a pay-point. No more fiddling around for that card in your pocket – or in my case, trying to locate my ‘always hiding’ Oyster card in the endless void that is my handbag.

Visa is trialling this right now in New York with plans to open it up to all sorts of payment types, including a collaboration with the Bank of America. We’ve heard of this sort of thing before with Barclaycard’s contact-less payments in the UK, so consumers can pay for the littlest things, like lunch and coffee, without having to count up the pennies. Having it as a way to pay for your public transport seems like a really handy idea, and will definitely make it much easier to keep everything in one place – i.e. your iPhone.

It’s not completely clear whether you have to pay for your usage online before you travel, like topping up a travelcard, or if you foot the bill afterwards, but either way it’s still a brilliant idea. Have a watch of the Visa video and let us know if you’ll be using this app when it’s finally rolled out nationally.

The European Union has dropped its preliminary antitrust investigation into Apple over the weekend. Citing Apple’s recent relaxing of restrictions on the use of third party development tools for developing iOS apps and the introduction of cross-European warranty services, the competition commission ended its probe satisfied with the changes Apple had made. It began its investigation in the spring of 2010, specifically looking at the App Store and iPhone restrictions. Previously, Apple announced that it would only allow developers to use its own development tools to develop iOS apps, sparking controversy between Apple and Adobe. It was seen by many as a direct attempt to block the porting of Flash applications onto the iOS platform.

The commission was also investigating Apple’s restrictions on the warranty service for iPhones, which only allowed repair in the country where the iPhone was purchased. Such territorial restrictions within the European Union are considered illegal.

“Apple’s response to our preliminary investigations shows that the commission can use the competition rules to achieve swift results on the market with clear benefits for consumers, without the need to open formal proceedings,” said Joaquin Almunia, the Competition Commissioner.

Article via The Wall Street Journal

Does the lack of a physical keyboard got you down? Do you feel like your iPhone just can’t live up to a Blackberry? Personally, I think you’re nuts. But, there are a lot of you out there who think you need a physical keyboard, so we thought we’d pass this neat little gadget from ThinkGeek along to you, you know, just in case.

The TK-421 is an iPhone case that includes a full on QWERTY keyboard for your iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS. The keyboard swing out like a Sidekick, so it’s out of sight when you don’t need it.

I had to check the calendar to make sure I didn’t wake up from a coma on April 1, 2011. Props to the ThinkGeek group for realizing that there’s probably a market out there for these things. There’s plenty of people still stuck in 2002.

If you want to pick one up, the TK-421 iPhone case will be shipping in November, and it’s currently available for $49.99 on ThinkGeek’s website.

The free bumper extravaganza is coming to an end pretty quickly (September 30th), and it seems only logical that once demand has been reached, Apple will send their supply back to their online and brick and mortar stores.

While the bumpers have yet to make it back to their rightful places on the shelves in North America, it seems like the bumpers have found their way to China.

The attached photo clearly shows that black bumpers are on sale at the newly opened Beijing store, and that consumers can pick them up right off the shelves. So, here’s the next obvious question: are they issuing immediate refunds to people buying them in China until the 30th, or are they letting people walk out of the store after paying full price for them?

I’ve long said that the antenna problem is B.S. and that there doesn’t seem to be an issue outside of the US, but, if everyone else is taking advantage of the situation and getting free bumpers, why shouldn’t the Chinese as well?

Image Credit and Article Via 9 to 5 Mac

Apple’s showing their commitment to the Ping network today, as they pushed out an iTunes update that focuses on intertwining the music service into the key areas of iTunes, along with the traditional bug and security updates.

Most people seem to have a hard time caring about Ping, and rarely find themselves using the service, previously only available in the side bar, but clearly Apple sees the potential, and continues to streamline the process.

As of now, you can see a Ping sidebar from your main library. You will have a clear view of what your friends are purchasing and rating while listening to your music, as well as notices of their comments on other people’s posts.

It has also seemed to disable the genius sidebar, which in my opinion was infinitely more useful. The icon still appears in the bottom-right corner of iTunes, but you don’t seem to be able to toggle it on or off — très bizzare.

You can, however, still get Genius Recommendations in the iTunes store. If you want to create a Genius playlist, you’ll have to right click on a track and then click the start Genius option.

Disable the Ping Sidebar

You can hide the Ping sidebar if you hit “Command+Shift+G”. It’s a really simple way to close the sidebar temporarily, but if you’re looking to remove it entirely, so that you’ll never have to see it again, you can enter the following terminal hack into Terminal.app

defaults write com.apple.iTunes disablePingSidebar 1

and then turn it back on by:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes disablePingSidebar 0

Remove the Ping drop down menu in 10.0.1

If you’re hating the ping drop down menu that appears when you click on the track, you can disable it with a nifty little terminal hack.

Type the following into the terminal after closing iTunes:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes hide-ping-dropdown 1

If you want to get it back type:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes hide-ping-dropdown 0

Article Via The Loop
Hacks Via OSXDaily

Apple, in an attempt to bring more utility to iTunes, has added a new Game Center badge to the App Store so that iPhone and iPad users can immediately find out if a game supports Game Center.

It’s a big step forward, and it’s going to help us buy some more games. Up until now, most have found it difficult to figure out which games support Game Center and which do not. As more and more games start to include the Game Center functionality, it’s going to become increasing difficult for Apple to add them to the Game Center page—the badge helps eliminate that problem.

If you’re interested you can add me on Game Center — I’m Macgasm.

I got a huge kick out of this when I stumbled across it this afternoon. I, and probably most of you, loved Where’s Waldo growing up, but it’s just not the same these days. Unless you have kids, or know a couple of young kids, playing Where’s Waldo has lost its lustre. But, the game can live on in this very fine Where’s Jobs website.

The object: tracking down the artificially inserted Steve Jobs face in a sea of faces. In the first picture, there’s a Steve Jobs lurking around, and if you find him, well, you’re pretty damn good. If you can’t figure it out on your own, you have the luxury of looking at the image directly following it for the answer.

So here’s your first go at it!

If you want the answer, check out the Where’s Jobs website. And trust us, Steve Jobs is in this picture. It just might take you a minute or two to track him down.

Article Via Reddit