Edible Apple

MacRumors reports:

Netflix has updated its iOS app to support iOS 6 and to provide support for the iPhone 5’s 4″ screen. The update also claims to improve the browsing, searching and watching experience.

In case you missed it, there was a riot recently at a Foxconn plant over poor working conditions (such as overcrowded dormitories) that involved nearly 2000 employees. The factory in question was temporarily shut down as a result but things have since resumed to the status quo, with everything up and running again. But in the interim, nearly 40 employees were reportedly hospitalized.

In the wake of that, Conan O’Brien – who was great on the Simpsons, but is rather lackluster as a talkshow host (yeah, I said it) and his team put out the following video for iShiv, the latest Apple parody to make the rounds.

This one’s okay, and definitely funny by Conan’s standards, though some are understandably saying that it’s in poor taste.

iFixIt tears down Apple’s iPhone 5 A6 processor and has some interesting findings.

Journey to the center of the A6. The most prominent features inside are the Dual ARM cores, and the three PowerVR graphics cores.

When compared to the rigid, efficient layout of the GPU cores directly below it, the layout of the ARM cores looks a little homespun—at first.

Generally, logic blocks are automagically laid out with the use of advanced computer software. However, it looks like the ARM core blocks were laid out manually—as in, by hand.

A manual layout will usually result in faster processing speeds, but it is much more expensive and time consuming.

The manual layout of the ARM processors lends much credence to the rumor that Apple designed a custom processor of the same caliber as the all-new Cortex-A15, and it just might be the only manual layout in a chip to hit the market in several years.

AppleInsider has spoken with a cabling expert who has examined Apple’s new Lightning connector, and the finding is that the 8 pins on the connector are dynamically assigned.

When it unveiled Lightning earlier this month, Apple noted that the new, all-digital connector “features an adaptive interface that uses only the signals that each accessory requires.” But Peter’s testing has shown that Apple’s cable goes even further to allow for reversible use in either orientation.

Some features of the Lightning cable, such as USB power connections, are symmetrical on each side of the plug. That means that if the pins on Lightning are numbered from one to eight on each side, pin one on the top row connects with pin eight on the bottom row.

This allows users to flip the connector and plug Lightning into an iPhone 5 in either orientation. With this design decision, the lower right pin always makes contact with the same spot in the corresponding Lightning jack on the iPhone.

However, while the USB power connection is symmetrical, Peter’s testing found that the data connections in Lightning are actually asymmetrical. As such, he believes that dynamic Lightning pin assignment is performed by a chip included on the iPhone 5.

Translation? You might want to avoid any unauthorized third party cables you might come across. Apple wants all of that moolah for itself.

via AppleInsider

What you’re looking at on the left is the Apple’s new clock design in iOS 6 for the iPad. And on the right you’re looking at a famous clock design originally designed by Hans Hilfiker, the copyright to which is now owned by the Swiss Federal Railways Service.

Note the striking resemblance?

Needless to say, the Swiss Federal Railways Service (SBB) wasn’t entirely thrilled to see Apple rip off their intellectual property, especially considering that it’s already licensed to the Mondaine Group which manufactures a slew of watches with the very same design. In other words, avenues already exist for Apple to license out the design.

Apple, in somewhat typical fashion however, forged ahead without seeking permission, perhaps holding true to the sentiment that it’s sometimes better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.

The SBB, however, wants a financially fair resolution to the matter and have already contacted Apple to see if the two sides can come to terms.

We’ll keep you posted.

via Network World

The photos of foibles in Apple’s new Maps app continue to roll-in, and we’re essentially at a point where we can all collectively say, “okay, we get it. Apple’s new Maps app needs some fixing up.”

Over the past few days, more details have emerged regarding Apple’s decision to abandon Google Maps in favor of its own solution. The gist of it is that Apple wasn’t thrilled that Google Maps on Android provided a much better user experience, what with the inclusion of vector maps and of course turn by turn directions.

It’s been about a week since Apple’s iPhone 5 came out and Apple was quick to answer the flood of complaints regarding its new Maps app. In a statement released to All Things D a few days ago, Apple explained:

Customers around the world are upgrading to iOS 6 with over 200 new features including Apple Maps, our first map service,” said spokeswoman Trudy Miller. “We are excited to offer this service with innovative new features like Flyover, turn by turn navigation, and Siri integration. We launched this new map service knowing it is a major initiative and that we are just getting started with it. Maps is a cloud-based solution and the more people use it, the better it will get. We appreciate all of the customer feedback and are working hard to make the customer experience even better.

Since then, the narrative has shifted slightly from “What the hell did Apple do?!” to “Why the hell did Apple abandon Google Maps?”. Either way, the issue remains at the forefront of many people’s minds, especially given that maps on a smartphone is generally considered to be the second most used app behind email.

Having said all that, Apple is at the very least owning up to its mistakes and is not attempting to shift the blame to any other third party.

Speaking to the New York Times, an Apple executive explained, “We own this; we manage the vendors. This is no one’s issue but ours.” The executive also reiterated that Apple is going to more as much “time and manpower into repairing Maps as it takes.”

The Times adds:

Within the app, the prominent Report a Problem button offers one-tap options like “Pin is at incorrect location” and “Place does not exist” (don’t you hate when that happens?). Apple also learns from the location data that pours in from those millions of iPhones as they roam.

Apple passes the error reports to TomTom or whichever data vendor is responsible. Eventually, the vendor makes the correction, and hey, presto: Maps gets better.

It ain’t gonna happen overnight, but hey, at least it’s got Apple’s attention.

Related:

Photo of Apple’s Map Development Team

Apple pushing to hire mapping experts from Google

The saga over Apple’s new Maps app just continues to get more interesting by the day. The Verge is reporting that Apple’s contract with Google regarding Google Maps on the iPhone still had 1-year remaining but that Apple surprised the folks at Google by announcing their own Maps initiative at WWDC this past year.

The decision, made sometime before Apple’s WWDC event in June, sent Google scrambling to develop an iOS Google Maps app — an app which both sources say is still incomplete and currently not scheduled to ship for several months.

At the root of Apple’s dismay with Google Maps was that the iOS version lacked turn by turn directions, something which its Android counterpart had had for years. This left Apple’s iPhone at a distinct functional mapping disadvantage, and when Apple tried to broach their concerns with Google, Google naturally wanted their own concessions from Apple, namely more prominent branding on the iPhone and the inclusion of features like Google latitude.

Apple didn’t wan’t to play that game and so they were forced into a decision – go ahead with its own Maps app or wait silently for another year as the iPhone remained a premier smartphone without built-in turn by turn directions. Apple was going to have to cut the cord at some point and no matter when that was going to be, it would have elicited a backlash. That said, hopefully Apple can work out the mapping kinks its experienced thus far rather quickly.

What you’re looking at above is a photo of an intentionally scratched up iPhone 5. Yep, you got it – some folks are interested in purposefully scratching up their new iPhones with keys and then complaining about how easily it gets scuffed up. Crazy stuff. I mean I also heard that if you drop your new iPhone from a height of 5 feet, it’s liable to shatter!

In any event, and snarkyness aside, one iPhone 5 owner emailed Apple’s Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller and inquired about the scuffs and scratches he was seeing on his phone.

Schiller’s response was obtained by 9t05Mac and it reads, “Any aluminum product may scratch or chip with use, exposing its natural silver color. That is normal.”

Overall, aluminum may scratch easier than glass, but it’s a lot more durable during an accidental drop, so we’ll take the former over the latter any day of the week.

The folks over at DisplayMate took an in-depth look at the iPhone 5 screen and came away with the conclusion that it’s the best smartphone display they’ve ever seen.

The display on the iPhone 5 is a significant improvement over the display on the iPhone 4. Apple has uncharacteristically understated how much better the display is on the iPhone 5 – something that could be an important factor for those considering whether to upgrade. In every category that we measure (except Brightness Decrease with Viewing Angle), the performance of the iPhone 5 display has improved over the iPhone 4, sometimes by a bit and sometimes by a lot. Everyone knows about the 18 percent increase in screen area, but here are 3 major display enhancements on the iPhone 5 that we will discuss in detail below:

Screen Reflectance on the iPhone 5 has decreased substantially – the iPhone 4 has 52 percent brighter reflections than the iPhone 5. This means you won’t be distracted as much by reflections that appear on the screen. The iPhone 5 has among the lowest Reflectance values we have ever measured on a Mobile device.

The iPhone 5 has the highest Contrast Rating for High Ambient Light for any Mobile device we have ever tested, and it’s 57 percent higher than the iPhone 4. This means screen readability in bright ambient lighting has improved substantially – both the image colors and contrast won’t appear as washed out outdoors as on other Smartphones, including the iPhone 4.

The color quality and color accuracy have improved substantially. The iPhone 5 received a Color Gamut and Factory Display Calibration upgrade similar to the new iPad. While it’s not quite as accurate as the Excellent calibration on the new iPad, it is still Very Good and probably more accurate than any consumer display you own (including your HDTV), unless you have a new iPad.

Apple’s legal victory over Samsung, and its resulting $1.05 billion judgement, set off a flurry of comments and analysis about a number of broad topics. Of course, one of the major narratives to emerge in the wake of the trial centered on just what exactly should be patentable. After all, the idea that Apple was able to patent the overall industrial design of the iPhone naturally rubbed some people the wrong way.

In the weeks since, the following photo began making the rounds. It’s clear that the idea behind this little comparison chart below is to try and convey that Apple itself has been known to borrow, if not downright steal, design elements from other products. Some have even pointed to charts such as the one below as evidence that Apple is a hypocritical corporate machine that sues others for being inspired by Apple designs while, at the same time, unabashedly stealing the design aesthetic of others.

So does this chart raise a good point? Is Apple wrong to go after Samsung when it’s seemingly been inspired by previous Braun designs?

Hell to the no, and here’s why.

There’s a world of difference between Apple looking to the past for design inspiration to creates products that are completely different from the inspirational pieces themselves and Samsung who flat out copied Apple’s design to churn out the same type of product.

Apple’s iPod was never in the market competing with Braun’s T3 pocket radio. And the same goes for all of the Bruan products shown above. In contrast, devices like the Samsung Galaxy S3 compete directly with Apple’s own products, the same products Samsung has clearly looked to for inspiration.

No one has ever put forth the argument that all of Apple’s designs are wholly unique and original. The work it did on the iPhone, however, was a completely new product with an innovative and wholly original user interface. Samsung copied that to an exhaustive degree, effectively piggybacking off of the hardwork put in by Apple in an effort to make a quick buck.

In short, Samsung relied on Apple to compete. Apple perhaps looked to decades old designs as inspirations to create entirely new products.

Apple’s Jony Ive certainly has no shortage of design accolades to his credit. Indeed, he has had his hand in nearly every major Apple product release over the last 15 or so years, from iMacs to iPods and of course iPhones and iPads. But now it seems that Apple’s design guru will be taking on a completely new project – designing a camera.

And no, that’s not to say that Apple is working on a standalone camera – though who’s to really say. In any event, at a Leica special event earlier this week – where the Leica M  was unveiled – it was announced that Ive has been tapped to design a limited edition camera. And when we say limited edition, we mean it in the strictest of senses. You see, the company will only manufacture one unit of Ive’s design.

Aside from announcing this camera, not much else was revealed. It is, however, for more than just a publicity stunt: the camera will be auctioned off, and the proceeds will be donated to charity.

So, get ready. If you’re one part Apple fanboy, one part Leica fanboy, and all parts extraordinarily wealthy, then you’re going to want to pull out that checkbook soon.

It’ll be interesting to see what Ive is able to come up with in creating a product outside of the Apple domain.

via PetaPixel

What you’re looking at below (on the right) is the 2005 HTC Wizard sitting next to the Samsung Galaxy S3, the iPhone 5, and the iPhone 4S all combined. And they’re about the same level of thickness!

Andy Ihnatko, who tweeted the photo the other day, nails it when he writes “How Far We’ve Come.”

Indeed!