Apple

Apple fans can breathe a sigh of relief this morning. After brief word last week that Steve Jobs was -- and I know this hurts -- dead, Infopackets has confirmed that the iPod's grandaddy is alive and well in Cupertino. To the shock of many in the ... tech and wider world, the Bloomberg business news wire last week ran an obituary describing the death of Steve Jobs, the man who "refashioned the mobile phone". The obit was published only for a few moments after a reporter added the news. Once superiors determined that the headline simply wasn't true, the headline was "immediately deleted". The obit ... (view more)

Thus far, Apple has launched the iPhone in 22 new countries with plans for a future Russian launch that could guarantee 1.8 million sales a year. The news has prompted one analyst to forecast the new 3G version of the device will sell 45 million ... units next year. The new markets opened up this week range from Argentina to Venezuela and include several countries in Eastern Europe and Africa. The Philippines was first to receive the phone legally, with reports of sold-out launch parties. Perhaps the most unusual launch came in Greece, where local laws meant the phone had to be sold unlocked. In ... (view more)

It looks as if Apple has attempted to fix the widespread connection glitches with the iPhone through a new software update. But it comes amid increased concerns about how much control the company has over users. As we reported earlier this week, ... customers worldwide have complained about calls mysteriously dropping . It still appears the problem is that the phone often fails to pick up even a strong 3G signal (the high-speed connection which makes many of the data features possible) and was repeatedly switching to a traditional network signal instead, which often triggered the glitch. The ... (view more)

iPhone users worldwide are complaining of dropped calls, and it's looking increasingly likely the cause is the phone itself. The problem appears to be occurring with the "3G connection," the fast-access which allows many of the smartphone features ... to operate. Because the phones aren't getting a strong enough connection on the 3G networks, they often need to switch to a traditional phone network in mid-call. This doesn't always go smoothly and is sometimes causing temporary disconnections which are enough to terminate the connection. There doesn't seem to be any strong geographical pattern in ... (view more)

iPhone users have spent $30 million on applications for the new 3G model in the month since it's released. But Apple will get 'only' $9 million of that take. Users can buy applications, produced by third-party developers, from the iTunes store. ... There have been around 60 million application downloads so far, though many of these (estimates say as much as 90%) are free. Paid applications range from around a dollar for novelty items to around ten dollars for games, so an average $5 price would fit the estimates. The most expensive item, a thousand dollar screensaver, was pulled by Apple recently ... (view more)

Apple has removed an unusual third-party product from iTunes: an iPhone screensaver costing $999.99. The product was listed by a developer named Armin Heinrich and sold through the iTunes Store's iPhones apps section, which allows people to buy ... add-ons for their phones. This particular product, named "I Am Rich", did nothing but display a glowing ruby on a phone's screen (though if you clicked on the ruby, it promised to display a mantra for success.) This wasn't a scam as such; Heinrich openly admitted it was useless in the product description, which read "The red icon on your iPhone or iPod ... (view more)

Apple has finally caught up with its rivals by issued a Mac-based fix for a major flaw in the Internet's workings. However, experts say it may not have fixed the problem. The patch is for a recently discovered issue with the Domain Name System ... (DNS). In short, DNS translates website addresses into the numbers which identify the computer where a website is physically stored. When you visit a popular website, Internet providers usually keep a copy of the relevant DNS data to make the site quicker to load for the next visitor. The problem is that hackers found a way to exploit the way the DNS ... (view more)

Apple has admitted that problems with its MobileMe service may mean 10% of emails have been lost for good. The service, aimed at users of mobile devices such as the new iPhone, gives access to features such as online data storage, an address book ... and calendar, and email, with data and setting accessible from all the user's devices. While the launch last month at first appeared to have gone without a hitch, some customers soon after reported problems accessing their emails (both new and old). According to a company blog, this issue only affected 1% of users -- however, Apple now says, "We ... (view more)

In the technological world, few other phenomena are receiving as much attention as "cloud computing". The concept pertains to files and programs that are stored in places beyond the hard drive, existing exclusively in the air around us (or in ... "clouds"). In actuality, this secured data is stored on some kind of encrypted Internet server. All of us have had at least one previous experience with cloud computing. Anytime you use an Internet-based backup service, an online word processor, or send an email using Windows Live Hotmail you are clouding. Microsoft has been staying ahead of their ... (view more)

Apple claims to have sold a million of its new iPhones in three days, but that doesn't mean a million people now have one. The company recently put out a press release saying it had sold the millionth iPhone 3G. Noting the phone is on sale in 21 ... countries, CEO Steve Jobs said "It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world." (Source: apple.com ) However, that figure is somewhat misleading. Fortune magazine reports that Apple only counts its own sales when somebody hands over the money in an Apple store. But ... (view more)