iPhone Cruncher

SAN FRANCISCO – A new version of the free iPhone app for Skype SA will let users make and receive video calls.

Users of the Internet calling and messaging service will be able to use both Wi-Fi and ATT Inc.’s 3G cellular network. FaceTime software, which comes with iPhones, works only with Wi-Fi.

The app, which is being released Thursday through Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store, will let iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS users make free video calls to other Skype users who are using the app or have access to the feature using Skype on their computer or other video phone.

Those with the latest iPod Touch will be able to make video calls over Wi-Fi. The app allows the iPad and previous-generation iPod Touch to receive video calls, too, Skype said.

Skype’s software offers free services such as voice or video calls to other Skype users.

Users pay to do things such as make calls from a PC to a landline or cell phone.

In the first half of 2010, video calls made up 40 percent of all minutes spent using Skype’s free calling services, the company said.

The iPhone 4, which was released in June, was the first iPhone to include a front-facing camera for video chat. It includes FaceTime, which enables users to make video calls to others who have the iPhone 4, the latest iPod Touch or a Mac computer. So far, however, FaceTime doesn’t work over the cellular network and doesn’t allow calls to Windows-based computers.

Skype, which is based in Luxembourg, is not the first third-party app for the iPhone to allow free video calling over ATT’s cellular network. Apps such as Fring and Tango offer the capability as well, although neither has as many users as Skype.

The updated app comes about a week after Skype suffered a major service outage that lasted 24 hours and cut off service for millions of users. On average, 124 million people use Skype each month, though the total number of registered users is more than four times that.

In a Wednesday post on the company’s blog,

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The saga continues. Seemingly unwilling to let the year end without at least one more rumor about Apple’s iPhone heading to Verizon, a reliable source has told Bloomberg that Apple is planning to wait for the roar of CES to die down before finally, finally putting to bed the years of rumors, and officially unveiling the Verizon iPhone. The source did not know an exact date on when that announcement would come, nor was it clear on when the phone might actually be heading to Verizon, but the long, long, long road might finally and mercifully be coming to an end.

The source did say that the announcement is coming very soon, and Apple was simply waiting for CES to have its day first. Within a few weeks after CES, which runs from January 4-9, Apple should announce that it will be hosting an event, at which time the worst kept secret in the tech industry could be unveiled.

The real question then becomes what kind of effect will the iPhone on Verizon actually have? Verizon already offers a wide selection of comparable phones, and it is set to unveil its first 4G phone—possibly the HTC Thunderbolt—next week at CES. So far this year, Android sales have accounted for 75-80-percent of all Verizon smartphone sales, making the operating system the current darling of Verizon’s smartphone lineup, something that is unlikely to change with the introduction of the iPhone.

So while the idea of a Verizon iPhone has continued to dominate the rumor mills for months, analysts are suggesting that the actual sales will be relatively small, and Apple may only sell around 2.5 million new phones. To put that in perspective, 5.2 million iPhones were sold by ATT last quarter alone. The greatest impact of the Verizon iPhone may actually be felt by ATT, who stand to lose a significant number of customers to Verizon. ATT is currently the lowest rated U.S. carrier in terms of

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Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from the Today @ PC World blog at PCWorld.com.

• 
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  Remains of the Day: Beer me

The iPhone in 2010 wasn’t just topping headlines for color defects and faulty phone connections. Apple’s smartphone also had a seedy underbelly over the past 12 months, filled with robberies, muggings, murder, and assault. Numerous criminals tried to get away with iPhone-related schemes this year, but were often foiled thanks to the handset’s capabilities, such as GPS, Wi-Fi, and video capture.

A run-in with the iPhone may also have led one man to violence, and almost put a news editor in jail. Police busted up an organized crime ring in 2010 that had a certain fondness for Apple’s iDevice, and two people were identified as criminals via their iPhone.

Here’s a look at the 10 strangest iPhone-related crimes from 2010.

Youth smackdown

A senior citizen allegedly punched a teenager in the arm during a Southwest Airlines flight headed for Las Vegas on Tuesday. Russell Miller, a 68-year-old resident of Boise, Idaho apparently became enraged that his 15-year-old seat companion refused to shut off his iPhone in preparation for the plane’s landing, according to KBOI2 News. Miller has been charged with misdemeanor battery.

iSwat team

The cops in Australia won’t hesitate to bring in the big guns to take down smartphone felons who run off with someone’s iPhone. In mid-December, a 16-year-old thief stole a woman’s iPhone from a Melbourne area hospital and fled the scene on a bicycle, according to the Australian daily The Age. Unfortunately for the young iPhone nabber, the police

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The debut of the iPad earlier this year threatened to throw a wrench into the gears of e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle, but some surprising trends have emerged over the last few months.  Most notably, studies have revealed that the tablet owner and the e-reader owner are two very different people.  But is that trend going to stick?

To get a better idea of what we can expect from the tablet/e-reader race in the next year, let’s recap.  The Kindle was first introduced to the world in November 2007.  It was a clunky piece of hardware with 250 MB of internal memory, making it capable of holding 200 books.  The price: a tidy $399.  But the people wanted it—desperately.  The first generation Kindle sold out within five hours and remained out of stock until April 2008. 

The first generation Kindle was followed by the much improved and lighter Kindle 2 in February 2009.  With 2 GB of memory, the Kindle 2 was capable of holding 1,500 books.  Finally, in July 2010, the Kindle 3 debuted with Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities, 4 GB of memory capable of holding 3,000 books, and a battery life of one month (with the Wi-Fi turned off).  The price also dropped from $399 to $139 for the Wi-Fi only Kindle.  The third generation proved to be Amazon’s top seller—rumored to have sold eight million units in 2010 compared to two million in 2009.  The company recently announced that the Kindle 3 is its highest selling item of all time.

While fewer people own the iPad, it, too, has seen rapid growth since going on sale in April.  Apple sold three million iPads in 80 days (which is one million more units than the Kindle is rumored to have sold in 2009) and more than 14 million units for 2010. 

But research has shown that not only do more people own e-readers than tablets, but that they make up an entirely different demographic altogether.  Women and non-whites are more likely to own an e-reader and purchase e-books while men and white respondents

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By Daniel Eran Dilger

Published: 01:00 PM EST

Apple is seeking to hire engineers to design a new CPU micro-architecture, expanding upon its acquisitions of two fabless chip design companies and the release of its new A4 application processor used in the iPad and iPhone 4.

The company has posted a job description for engineers to “design microarchitecture and [] meet the functionality requirements, performance goals, and physical constraints such as power, area, and timing,” indicating the work will focus on producing chips for mobile devices.

The position seeks candidates who will “work with performance modeling engineers to develop design options and select the most suitable one for design,” suggesting that the company is aiming to create original works, not just overseeing the production of existing chip technology.

Apple’s recent chip history

In the spring of 2008, Apple acquired PA Semi, which at the time was building very fast and efficient PowerPC processors know as PWRficient. That purchased sparked some speculation that the company might be seeking to return back to PowerPC CPUs in its Macs, just two years after its Intel transition.

Instead, Apple was motivated to design its own custom mobile processors for future iOS devices based on the ARM Architecture. The company had been evaluating Intel’s Atom line, then known as Silverthorne, and found it to not be competitive with the ARM processors it had been using in the iPhone and the company’s iPods before it.

Apple had originally worked with Acorn Computer in the late 80s to develop a mobile ARM processor suitable for use in the Newton Message Pad. Throughout the 90s, ARM greatly expanded, licensing its technology to other firms that created unique designs around it, including DEC’s StrongARM used in the last Newton models. ARM is now by far the world’s largest and most successful mobile processor design.

Core beats PowerPC, ARM beats Atom

Apple stopped using ARM processors when it discontinued the Newton in 1998, spending most of the 90s working to migrate its Mac line to PowerPC chips. However, ARM

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Some of the companies behind recent iPad 2 case listings at online retailers like Alibaba have claimed or strongly implied that the information was obtained directly from Foxconn’s parent firm Hon Hai. Fullchance Industrial, one of these companies, said in an interview on Friday that it was actively working with Hon Hai and had schematics directly from the contract manufacturer. The details were “extremely accurate,” he told the Wall Street Journal when asked.

The Fullchance worker was nonetheless aware that the deal was likely a breach of contract, if not illegal, and refused to provide his name or explain the issue. It was “very serious,” he said. Other companies promoting cases either refused to say anything or hung up immediately.

Officially, Hon Hai has either denied there being any evidence of leaked data or else called assertions by companies like Fullchance “hostile” towards Hon Hai. The assembler, whose main factories operate out of Shenzhen in southern China, has at least publicly maintained a policy of honoring the secrecy requests from those hiring it to make their devices.

Southeast Asian leaks have grown with increasing regularity in the past few years and have often seen pre-production iPhone and iPod cases emerge months before the finished product was ready. Although never truly confirmed, it’s widely believed that key staffers at Hon Hai’s Foxconn factories are routinely either bribed or strike illegal deals to supply information to small companies near the plants that want to get a head start on manufacturing. In at least one or two cases, this may have even involved escaped prototypes that appeared as far away as Vietnam.

Many other companies also often get spare parts or the technical details to build them, leading to the clones that often populate the Chinese market. The practice is common enough that a nickname, Shanzhai, has been given to a certain class of cheap and frequently imitative electronics sold in the country.

Apple hasn’t publicly commented but has virtually confirmed that it’s aware

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1) Cracked Screen

Jailbreak version: You will need to jailbreak an iPhone or iPod Touch on iOS 4.2 (How to jailbreak iPhone 4.2 tutorial here). Then you can search Cydia for Cracked Screen (It’s under the BigBoss repo). From there, you simply take a screenshot of the Home Screen (here’s how to do that) and open it in the App to simulate a cracked screen. It’s not the most convincing effect in our eyes, but it will definitely freak out an unsuspecting victim at first glance. 

Non-Jailbreak: You probably won’t be able to find an App on the App Store that simulates a cracked screen. However, it’s pretty easy to find a screenshot that looks like a cracked screen. Andy Hargreaves, a poster at Mac Rumors put together this little screen. Simply follow the link and save that image on the victim’s iPhone. Then open the image while using the device and give them a worried, “Oh, man, I just broke your iPhone” kind of face.

2) iSteam 99 cents

This little App has seen some amazing success, and we have no idea how it took off. We have nothing against it, we think it’s awesome that whoever came up with it found themselves on the road to success because of this App. Still, who ever would have thought that a simple little App that simulates condensation on your iPhone’s screen would be so successful? The App isn’t created for the purpose of pranking someone, but it can be used that way. Download and run the App, then you can go to your victim and say something like, “Did you just leave your iPhone in the bathroom?” as you carry it to them with a foggy screen. It even has a realistic wipe effect so that you can write stuff on the screen with the condensation.

3) Moving App Icons with Graviboard

This one also requires a jailbreak (Article source: Read More

December 31, 2010    

In the interests of ensuring everyone has a safe and happy new year, we urge you not to drink and drive today. Instead, save your drinking for when you’re at home in early 2011 when you’ve got to kill time waiting through the final days of the pre-Verizon iPhone era and then entertain yourself during the inevitable Steve Jobs keynote in which the Verizon iPhone 4 is introduced (no, you won’t feel the urge to drink while Steve is talking. But “Schiller Time” rhymes with “Miller Time” for a reason, and if you’ve ever heard the CEO of Verizon speak…). So here’s a guide to (responsibly) getting through the early, Verizon iPhone-less days and hours of 2011:

- When Verizon’s CEO talks about nothing but Droids during his CES keynote next week, take one sip but don’t go crazy. We’ve known all along that this wouldn’t be a Verizon iPhone introduction.

- When Apple announces its next invite-only press event, if it includes some clever Mac-related tagline which roughly translates to “this is not about the Verizon iPhone” then take as many sips as you want, because in that case you’ll be waiting for awhile.

- If Apple announced said press event but the tagline is a variation on “Can you hear me now?” then get ready to rumble.

- When Steve opens the Verizon iPhone 4 introductory event by running through a list of impressive statistics followed by breathtaking photos of new Apple Store openings that are too far away for you to ever go and visit, drink as much as you want. Unless you’re planning a road trip to the latest Apple Store opening, in which case don’t.

- When pricing plans and contractual aspects of the Verizon iPhone are revealed by Apple to be no better than what ATT is offering, take a small sip as you’re still getting your Verizon iPhone you’ve been wanting. However, those naive to have expected Verizon’s iPhone offerings to be any better than that of its rival should

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By Courtney Banks

2010 has been called the Year of the App, and some tech pundits have even suggested that apps could eventually replace Web browsers as the primary tool for using the Internet. Sure, apps have been around for a few years now. But in 2010, they went mainstream and became an industry of their own — moving beyond Apple Inc.’s iPhone onto Google Inc. Android devices and others.

Here, in no particular order, are 10 smartphone apps that made impressions in 2010, in five of the hottest areas for app makers:

Casual gaming:

Angry Birds (Rovio Ltd.; iPhone, 99 cents; Android, Free) was the top paid app in the iTunes store this year, prompting the question “Why do smart people love seemingly mindless games?” The simple, physics-based game involves a series of avian kamikaze missions in which plump, ticked-off poultry are launched via slingshot at piles of green pigs.

Screenshot of Cut the Rope (ZeptoLab) for iPhone.

Other casual games caught our fancy too. In Fruit Ninja (Halfbrick; iPhone, Android, 99 cents), melons, apples, pineapples and other fruits are lobbed into the air, and the player must slice through them with a sword (producing a satisfying squelch) before they hit the ground. Cut the Rope (ZeptoLab; iPhone, 99 cents) is a deceptively tricky puzzle game that involves cutting a series of ropes to release candies into an eager pet monster’s mouth. The company says the paid version has been downloaded more than 4 million times since it launched in October.

Photography:

With smartphone cameras becoming increasingly high end, it’s no surprise that some of the most popular apps of the year involved photography. Hipstamatic (Synthetic Corp; iPhone, $1.99) lets you give your iPhone photos a vintage, Polaroid-style panache with a variety of filters, film and flash options (some at a price).

And Path (iPhone, Free), a new photo-sharing service that launched last

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SymbolPriceChangeAAPL323.660.00CSCO20.230.00GOOG598.860.00HPQ42.260.00RIMM58.070.00{“s” : “aapl,csco,goog,hpq,rimm”,”k” : “a00,a50,b00,b60,c10,g00,h00,l10,p20,t10,v00″,”o” : “”,”j” : “”}

With Apple’s (NMS:AAPL) iPad dominating the consumer market for tablet computers, rivals including Hewlett-Packard and Research In Motion are focusing on business markets for their upcoming tablets.

But they’d better hurry. Apple already is making serious in-roads in enterprise markets.

Tablet, or slate, computers are expected to be a major story at next week’s annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The Consumer Electronics Association, which produces CES, expects some 80 tablet computers to debut at the show.

Companies expected to show off new tablets include Acer, Asustek, Cisco Systems (NMS:CSCO), Dell (NMS:DELL), HP (NYSE:HPQ – News), Motorola (NYSE:MOT – News), NEC, BlackBerry maker RIM (NMS:RIMM), Samsung and ViewSonic.

“Everybody and their mother is announcing tablets,” said Shahid Khan, chairman of digital media firm MediaMorph.

As usual, Apple won’t be exhibiting at CES. It prefers to hold its own events. But its impact will be felt.

Consumer electronics and PC vendors have been scrambling to respond to iPad since the media tablet hit the market to great fanfare in April. The iPad is a combination e-reader, video game player and Web-surfing device. The thin, lightweight gadget features a 9.7-inch LCD

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