Macgasm

Spotify, the new music sensation that’s sweeping the nation world, has finally hit the iPad. Let’s just say they’re fashionably late. The Retina application, which began propagating in the iOS App Store just moments ago, brings the music streaming experience to Spotify premium users ($10/month).The app includes new integration with AirPlay allowing you to send your music to compatible sound systems or your Apple TV. It also has gapless playback and crossfade (DJ time?), search for your playlists, users, and music tracks. It also allows you to check what’s hot and trending, and sync your playlists offline.

So go ahead. Delete Spotify for iPhone off of your device and download the iPad Retina-graphics substitute. Make jams and enjoy! Unless of course, you’re all about Rdio, Spotify’s biggest competitor.

How do you use your iPhone? You wake up, check your email and Twitter notifications. You plug-in a pair of ear buds and jam out to some music. You play Angry Birds and explore your creativity with Draw Something, rinse and repeat, with some applications interchanged. However, do you ever use your device out of the ordinary? To help someone or even save their life? Well hear this:

An iPhone’s video camera was used to help extricate a 2-year old boy who fell into a well in southwest China.

It’s evening in the Yunnan Province near Mengzi City. A boy playing with neighborhood friends plunges 40 feet deep into a nearby well. One hour has passed, and he’s all alone in a dark hole. Local villagers respond to his cries. Finally, one hour later, firefighters arrive on the scene and lower down a harness. However, it was created for an adult, not a child. The boy begins to slip out and is back to where he started – 40 feet below ground.

Enter the iPhone:

In a move that still has many baffled, the rescue team decided to lower an iPhone attached to a rope down to the boy. Using the phone’s 1080p video camera, they recorded the scene and used the footage to visualize how he was trapped. Within moments, guided by their recent knowledge, the team was able to successfully get a harness around the toddler and pull him 40 feet up to safety. Although he suffered some bruises, he lived.

This just goes to show that the functionality of a smartphone can transcend making phone calls and flinging birds at pigs.

Now, how did you say you use your iPhone again?

Today iPad users noticed the badge number on their App Store app go up by one, that is if they have Facebook installed. So what’s in the Facebook v4.1.1 update? The long-awaited Retina display support, offline chat status, expanded localization, and a few bug fixes, naturally. However, the biggest of these four is most likely the Retina support, which we reported on Friday.

To run through the update:

The Retina display support lets the social application take full advantage of the new iPad’s 2048×1536 pixel resolution at 264 pixels per inch. The offline chat status option can now be toggled by tapping on the settings icon and choosing to either go offline or online. However, as usual with the official Facebook app, there was disappointment with this app update: no Timeline. Unlike its sister iPhone app, Facebook for iPad remains “old-looking.”

The bug fixes solve the following issues:

• Profile picture appears for everyone
• Friends lists now includes all your friends all the time
• In sets of photos, your name is displayed correctly
• Friend-request notification only lights up if there’s a new request

Contrary to my opening statement, as AppAdvice pointed out, some folks aren’t seeing an option to update Facebook to v4.1.1. If you’re such a user, there’s an easy fix. Go into the Applications app and search for the Facebook app as if you don’t have it. When you spot it in the search, the blue box on the right should say “update” instead of “install” or “$x.xx.” Click that button and you’ll be good to go.

It’s a question that plagues every new owner of an iOS device. Should I, or should I not jailbreak it? I, for one, had a process for each iOS device I bought. Bring it out the box, jailbreak it, then load my apps and customize the mess out of it. But that has changed. I haven’t jailbroken anything in nearly a year. However, after watching this video by JailbreakMatrix, which compiles 100 reasons to jailbreak you iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad into just under 4 minutes, I had reason too once again.

Some of my favorites:

• Close all apps at once (the stock method is annoying)
• FaceTime over 3G
• Tracking iPhone thieves
• Email address shortcuts
• Tracking data usage in Notification Center

So have you jailbroken your device yet? If not, have any of the 100 reasons noted in the video moved you to join the 10 million+ existing jailbroken users?

Apple has just added the iPad 2 to its recycling program. So that means two things for you: you have another option for “selling” your outdated iPad, and you now have a method of recycling your device properly (if it’s in that bad of a condition). However, I think this will benefit those in search of the latter more than the first. Prices for good condition iPad 2s start at $205 for the 16 GB Wi-Fi only model and go up to $320 for the 64 GB Wi-Fi + 3G model. Yup, $320.

The process is like that of Gazelle, Amazon, and eBay‘s buy-back/recycling programs. First, fill out a questionnaire describing the current condition of your device. Apple then gives you an estimate, you ship out the device, and receive an Apple Gift Card (store credit) in return. If your device no longer functions and solely serves as a paper weight, Apple will make sure it’s recycled the right way thereby giving you peace of mind.

However, if you’re looking for a way to get as much cash as you can for your device, eBay is still probably your best bet. I sold my 32 GB Wi-Fi model for $420 on there. But then again, that was last week. As of today, Gazelle could still net you $350 for a maxed out iPad 2 ($30 more than Apple), and Networth is offering $220 for a 16 GB ($15 more than Apple). So you better get to it my friend! Everyday you put off listing your device on something, you’re loosing value – just saying. Take a look at the price decline of the original iPad when the iPad 2 was announced and went on sale.

Will this trade-in speed up your plans for purchasing “The New iPad?” Or are you gonna stick around with Mr. 2?

They’re back! Rumors about a 7.85-inch iPad, that is. Since the announcement of the ‘new iPad’ last Wednesday, these rumors have started to fly. According to the Taiwanese weblog DigiTimes, sources in Apple’s supply chain are reporting that Apple is hard at work on a smaller iPad to battle the lower-tier tablets like Amazon’s Kindle Fire and the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

It’s believed that Apple will price the sub 8-inch iPads at $249 or $299. Not bad considering the 16GB iPad 2 Wi-Fi only model is priced at $399. Rumors, most of which are coming from DigiTimes, also have it that Apple has already finalized a deal with AU Optronics for doing the displays, with production expected to begin in Q3 of 2012. ”Although the 7.85-inch iPads may not adopt Retina displays as in the recently released new iPads, the 7.85-inch model is likely to use IPS/FFS panels from LG Display and probably AU Optronics (AUO),” says the report.

I’m not to sure on this. I’m not writing it off because it definitely is a possibility. If Tim Cook and the rest of Apple wants the iPad to lead this “Post PC era” they speak of, the shiny tablet has to be both affordable to the masses and come in different sizes, just like the PCs. On the other hand, there’s the fact that late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs shot down rumors of a 7-inch iPad quickly while alive. His argument was that the screen would be to small for the user’s fingers. But don’t Android users say that about the iPhone? Steve defended its size saying bigger screens aren’t practical. However, it wouldn’t be the first time that Jobs said one thing, only for Apple to do the complete opposite. He did it with video on iPods; he also said that nobody read books anymore, and that netbooks weren’t better than anything. Apple then went on to release a video based iPod, the iBookstore, and the MacBook Air. Just saying.

Via: AppleInsider

Jony Ive is the Senior VP of industrial design at Apple. In other words, he’s the creative mastermind behind your favorite Apple technologies like the PowerBook G4, iMac, Macbook line, and iOS devices. But what he’s not, however, is the interviewing type. In fact, you could probably count the number of interviews he’s taken part in on two hands (or maybe even one). However, the London Evening Standard was able to get him to take part in a short Q&A. In it, he delves into the workflow at Apple, how they “innovate” instead of update, and their design process.

These were the questions and responses we found interesting. Of course, we had to include his recent knighthood.

Q: You recently received a Knighthood for services to design – was that a proud moment?

A: I was absolutely thrilled, and at the same time completely humbled. I am very aware that I’m the product of growing up in England, and the tradition of designing and making, of England industrialising first. The emphasis and value on ideas and original thinking is an innate part of British culture, and in many ways, that describes the traditions of design.

Q: What makes design different at Apple?

A: We struggle with the right words to describe the design process at  Apple, but it is very much about designing and prototyping and making. When you separate those, I think the final result suffers. If something is going to be better, it is new, and if it’s new you are confronting problems and challenges you don’t have references for. To solve and address those requires a remarkable focus. There’s a sense of being inquisitive and optimistic, and you don’t see those in combination very often.

Q: What are the biggest challenges in constantly innovating?

A: For as long as we’ve been doing this, I am still surprised how difficult it is to do this, but you know exactly when you’re there – it can be the smallest shift, and suddenly transforms the object, without any contrivance.

Some of the problem solving in the iPad is really quite remarkable, there is this danger you want to communicate this to people. I think that is a fantastic irony, how oblivious people are to the acrobatics we’ve performed to solve a problem – but that’s our job, and I think people know there is tremendous care behind the finished product.

It’s clear that since its foundation, Apple has taken great pride in the aesthetic appeal of its products, and the awesome team behind each and every one of them.

It’s the never-ending battle between Apple and Samsung. This time, according to a filing yesterday in a San Jose federal court, Apple is accusing Samsung of violating a court order issued in an infringement case. Apparently, Samsung was ordered by a judge to produce its source code for each of its 4G smartphones and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet. However, according to Bloomberg, Apple says that Samsung has only provided them with partial source code for one version of each “infringing device.” The other versions? Withheld.

Samsung “only partially complied with” the judge’s order and “at this point in the case, it is too late for Apple to make meaningful use of any late produced source code.” Basically, with limited time to check the new codes, Apple’s analyst won’t be able to properly analyze them. And with the codes due for release in less than two weeks, it seems that Samsung has won this shady game. Is anyone keeping tally? After all, this is only about the thirtieth lawsuit filed between the two companies. The next trial in the case is scheduled for August 25th.

What does this mean for the average user? Not much actually. However, in the long run there just might be more competition between Apple and Samsung to dominate the mobile space. That should mean better mobile technology and more innovations at a faster rate. Now that sounds good to me.