Apple News

The iPad launch may finally be right around the corner, but it looks like Apple might still have some considerable work cut out for itself before the big day. According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is still negotiating with various media companies in an effort to drop the price on TV shows offered on the device, and it's even reportedly put some potential deals with newspaper, magazine and textbook publishers on the backburner as it focuses on other content. ..read more

Filed under: Apple A new Apple patent is going around that offers up something called "iGroups" functionality -- it seems to be a kind of location-based social networking, including an ad-hoc currency functionality between a crowd of Apple devices. It's pretty interesting, though it sounds more like an idea Apple is playing with than an actual service they're going to debut. They specifically mention rock concerts and tradeshows (including WWDC), with the plan that someone would start up a "group," and ..read more

No need to spot clean your spectacles, and no need to brush the cobwebs out of your dome -- you really are seeing yet another IR dongle for Apple's dear iLineup. Hot on the heels of New Potato's FLPR, ThinkFlood's RedEye mini and Power A's solution comes this: an all-too-similar way to convert your iPod touch, iPhone or forthcoming iPad into a universal remote. Functionality wise, there's really nothing here that the other guys don't provide, though the beefed-up database ..read more

Filed under: iPad News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch was interviewed last week by Fox Business Channel. During the interview Murdoch blasts Google for stealing his content and talks about how tablet devices will reinvigorate the advertising industry for new media. As for the iPad, Murdoch states, "...all media will be coming to the iPad whether it be music, or books, or newspapers or movies" and contrasts it with the "black and white" Kindle. He imagines reading a newspaper article with a ..read more

Filed under: App ReviewPhotoAvatar (US $.99) is a remarkable iPhone/iPod touch novelty app from the makers of HourFace, an app I liked quite a lot when I reviewed it a few months ago. PhotoAvatar turns a properly taken photo into any one of three alien avatars, each so realistic that it's eerie. Using a carefully taken photo snapped by the camera or taken from a photo library, you decide on which alien you want to be and the app does the ..read more

Filed under: Steve Jobs, iPadEver wonder what tech sites Steve Jobs reads? Well, according to Silicon Alley Insider some of those sites are our very own sister site Engadget, along with Gizmodo, The New York Times Tech section, and the Wall Street Journal. SAI's source was in one of the meetings with Jobs when he visited Manhattan on his media tour with the iPad in February and he clearly saw those four sites bookmarked in Safari on Steve's iPad. The source ..read more

Apple board member Jerry York died of a brain aneurism after collapsing at his Michigan home last night. York had served as a director at Apple since 1997. Read More: ..read more

Filed under: Apple Corporate [Apple has updated its home page with the tribute above.] Apple board member Jerome York died today after reportedly suffering a brain aneurysm on Wednesday. York, 71, has been on Apple's Board of Directors since 1997. His former positions include chief financial officer at IBM and Chrysler, chief executive officer of Micro Warehouse and a vice chairman of Tracinda. At the time of his death he was the chairman, president and CEO of Harwinton Capital. York was a graduate ..read more

Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Odds and ends, Graphic Design Got a desire to mess with some pictures you have by controlling blur or making full-sized objects look like miniatures? I've just played with some software called Tilt-Shift-Focus that mimics the way tilt shift lenses work. By artfully applying selective blur, you can make objects look they are part of a train set. There is another effect that duplicates the look of zoom movement in a still photo. There are several modes ..read more

Amazon's Kindle software for Mac has finally arrived, a hair over six months after its Windows counterpart. The free application allows Mac users to read books from the Kindle Store on their desktops and sync their items across other devices, including actual Kindles, iPhones, BlackBerrys, or Windows machines using the Kindle software. Since we gave the PC version a (semi-successful) run through, we thought ..read more