Tech All Day

Apple Unveils New MacBook, iMac, Magic Mouse, Mac Mini

alexlwagner — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:48:19 +0000

Today Apple took its online store down, prompting everyone to continue wearing out their F5 keys, hoping to see what new products would be released. Let’s have a quick run through of all the new products:

iMac
- New aluminum Unibody construction
- 21.5 or 27-inch LED screens
- 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo processors, upgradeable to 3.33 GHz, also with 2.66 or 2.8 GHz Core i5/i7 processor
- 4 GB of RAM, upgradeable to 16 GB
- Starts at a 500 GB HDD, upgradeable to 2 TB
- Includes wireless keyboard and new wireless “Magic Mouse”
- Check it out here.

MacBook
- Unibody plastic enclosure
- 13.3-inch LED screen
- Non-replaceable 7 hour battery
- Multi-touch glass trackpad, similar to those found on current MacBook Pros
- 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo processor
- 2 GB of RAM
- 500 GB HDD
- Check it out here.

Mac Mini
- 2 GB of RAM, upgradeable to 4 GB
- NVIDIA 9400 M graphics processor
- 160, 320, or 500 GB HDD
- Check it out here.

Magic Mouse
- Multi-touch capable
- New design
- Check it out here.

Interesting Article About Verizon iPhone

alexlwagner — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:20:38 +0000

Just a quick update today. Read an interesting article on SlashGear about when the iPhone will be on Verizon. Check it out here.

New Verizon Ads Attack AT&T, iPhone

alexlwagner — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:05:25 +0000

Looks like Verizon is going on the offensive. Big Red recently released an ad called “There’s A Map For That”, an obvious play on the tagline Apple uses in their iPhone commercials “There’s an app for that”. The Verizon ads actually attack AT&T more than the iPhone, though, showing 3G maps of both Verizon and AT&T. See the ad here:

Tonight (Saturday, Oct. 17), Verizon is going to release another ad, this time targeted toward the iPhone itself. Little is known about the ad other than it will be highlighting just what exactly the “iDevice” doesn’t do. The commercial will be shown tonight during the Yankees baseball game, and will supposedly receive heavy rotation during the NFL games tomorrow. I guess this means that Verizon won’t be getting the iPhone any time soon…

Photoshop for iPhone/iPod Touch

alexlwagner — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:17:29 +0000

There are many photo editing programs available for your computer, but none are as widely known as Photoshop. And now it seems that the same thing may happen to the iPhone and iPod Touch. Today Adobe, creators of Photoshop, released the Photoshop Mobile app for the iPod Touch and the iPhone. And while Photoshop for your computer can cost hundreds of dollars, Photoshop for your iPhone or iPod Touch is free. There are a ton of other photo manipulation apps on the App Store right now, and while these apps may be great, many cost money and don’t have the name recognition that the Photoshop title brings. I can see this app becoming very popular, because of the name, as I said before, but also because of the look and the ease of use. After opening the app, the user is given the option of selecting a photo that they have already taken, or taking a new photo. Next, as seen in the photo below, the user is given many different options along the top of the screen, such as crop and rotate, messing with the tint, saturation, or converting a photo to black and white, as well as many different filters. It’s definitely a pretty, easy to use application for quick photo editing. Check it out here.

Original Photo:

Photoshop In App:

After Photo:

Verizon Finally Getting Android

alexlwagner — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:08:16 +0000

It looks like Verizon is finally getting in on the Android craze, leaving AT&T to be the only carrier without an Android device for sale. The Motorola Sholes (or Tao, or Droid) looks like a great Android device, and is one of the few Android handsets with a physical QWERTY keyboard. The phone has a 3.7 inch touchscreen with a 5 megapixel autofocus camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a sliding QWERTY keyboard, and comes with an 8 GB micro SD card installed. So far it looks as though Verizon will leave Android untouched, and the phone may not even include Motorola’s new Android skin, titled BLUR. According to the Boy Genius Report, the handset is slated to launch before the holidays, possibly on October 30th. I think the phone looks like a great device, and I would love to get my hands on one to try it out. I think Android looks like a great mobile OS, and will continue to improve. All will be revealed at the end of October, I suppose.

Sony Releases PSP Go

alexlwagner — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 06:55:46 +0000

Sony has finally released the PSP Go, the new UMD-less, all digital version of the PSP. The Go is priced at $250, a bit of a premium over the comparable PSP-3000, which can be had for $170. The PSP Go features a sliding design, a slightly smaller screen, and 16 GB of flash based on-board memory, which is expandable with a Memory Stick Micro. This means that you can’t even transfer your old memory stick from the old PSP into the new PSP Go. Sony really seems to be alienating older PSP owners, although I suppose with the high price and lack of an option to download PSP games you already own for the PSP Go, those aren’t exactly the people that Sony is gunning for. Early reviews seem to show that while the Go is a decent device, it is hard to recommend over a regular PSP, especially with the big difference in price between the two. Anyone out there run out and buy a Go? What are your thoughts?

Tweetie 2 For iPhone/Mac

alexlwagner — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:52:29 +0000

The hugely popular Twitter app Tweetie is about to receive a major overhaul. The developer goes over all of the changes in store on the official blog. Most notably, there will be push notifications for specific users that you can set, the ability to tweet videos, linking up the people that you follow to entries in your Address Book, plus the ability to read tweets offline. This is definitely a huge update, and the developer has decided to make the iPhone version an entirely new app that will cost for $2.99. This means that there will be no free update for current Tweetie owners, which is a little disappointing. If all of the new features turn out well, though, the update could very well be worth it. The new features will be also be coming to the Mac desktop version, though at a later date. This update will be free to users who already own the paid version.

It sounds like Tweetie’s developer is getting ready to send the update to Apple for submission, so expect something soon.

iPhone MMS Launch Tomorrow

alexlwagner — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:55:26 +0000

Tomorrow AT&T will finally be launching MMS for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS via a carrier file update in iTunes. AT&T will be rolling out the update throughout the day tomorrow so that they won’t overload their towers more than they already will be. The update will start tomorrow in the late morning, and will continue throughout the day. From what I’ve seen, this update won’t affect jailbreakers or unlockers at all, so if you fit into one of those categories, feel free to update and begin sending random photos to all of your friends to prove that your iPhone is just as capable as their standard, non-smartphones that have been capable of MMS for a while now.

Google Adds Push Gmail For iPhone

alexlwagner — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:57:44 +0000

Today Google answered many iPhone owners prayers by (finally) adding push e-mail support for Gmail on iPhone. It uses Microsoft Exchange Active Sync, which many owners see as a downside considering the iPhone is only capable of supporting one Exchange account at a time which may already be in use by the owner’s work e-mail account. Still, this is a great addition, and something iPhone owners have been clamoring about for a while now. I just added the Exchange account to my phone, and it’s taking a while for e-mails to push to my phone, even just test ones, and the bodies of the messages are taking some time to download. Hopefully this is all just because Google’s servers are getting hit hard right now because of all of the iPhone users adding push to their accounts. More info can be found here.

AT&T Announces MicroCell

alexlwagner — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:19:08 +0000

AT&T has finally annouced it’s own femtocell, called the 3G MicroCell. A femtocell is a device that plugs into the user’s existing broadband internet connection to broadcast a cellular signal in the user’s home, usually around 5,000 square feet. The user can set the femtocell up so that only certain phones can use the signal to prevent your neighbors from using your cell signal like they use your unsecured Wi-Fi network.

AT&T’s MicroCell will cost $150, and does not appear to lock the buyer into any kind of contract. There is no monthly charge unless you would like unlimited minutes with the femtocell, which would cost $20 a month (there is a discount for existing AT&T DSL or landline customers). This doesn’t sound bad since many AT&T customers often rack up thousands of rollover minutes that end up just sitting there and getting stale. The unit does appear to only broadcast a 3G signal, so you must have a 3G-capable phone to take advantage of the enhanced signal.

AT&T is playing catch up with the release of the MicroCell, since the other three big carriers have had their own offerings for a while now. Sprint has the Airave which runs between $5 and $25 a month and can often be had for free if you complain enough, Verizon has the Extender, which will run you about $250 and doesn’t do 3G, and finally T-Mobile has Hotspot @ Home, which gives you unlimited calling for $10 a month. All in all, it is kind of lame to have to pay to fix AT&T’s network, but the price isn’t terrible considering that you don’t have to pay a monthly fee if you accrue enough rollover minutes. More info can be found on AT&T’s site.