Doxie’s new DoxieGo + Wi-Fi: Demo video at Macworld iWorld 2012
Yesterday while I was on the show floor at Macworld | iWorld 2012, I came upon a 7-foot-tall scanner walking around. After I figured out that my cold medicine wasn't making me hallucinate, I knew that I was in the right place -- the Doxie booth. There I was able to interview Paul Scandariato of Doxie about their new DoxieGo + Wi-Fi mobile scanner and grab some video.
The new scanner communicates with your Mac or iOS device over Wi-Fi, and allowing you to scan straight to the cloud if you wish. Paul noted that many users scan their documents straight to Dropbox, then open them for viewing or annotation on the iPad.
The DoxieGo + Wi-Fi is priced at US$249, while the DoxieGo previously reviewed by TUAW remains at $199. For Macworld show-goers, you can the Doxie scanners for $50 off of list price through Saturday.
Here's the DoxieGo + Wi-Fi in action:
Doxie's new DoxieGo + Wi-Fi: Demo video at Macworld iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Seen at Macworld | iWorld 2012: $68,000 diamond speakers
Standing in the middle of the Macworld | iWorld 2012 exhibit floor looking a bit out of place, Alljack's $68,000 diamond-studded speakers -- fresh from CES -- are drawing a bit of attention.
Inspired by a wine bottle and a flower, the speakers are crafted with Russian diamonds, gold plating, simulated wood grain and other decorative metal. Alljack works with industrial designers and engineers to create their products, and these speakers are crafted from precision-controlled machinery.
Alljack is a prototype center from Taiwan, so these are most likely the only set of these speakers that'll be made. They're here more to show off Alljack's skill more than get a pair of these speakers in your home.
Seen at Macworld | iWorld 2012: $68,000 diamond speakers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Other World Computing at Macworld iWorld 2012
If there's one company at Macworld | iWorld 2012 that epitomizes the leading edge of Apple accessories, it's Other World Computing (OWC). At this year's event, the company is showcasing a number of new or soon-to-be-released products for Mac and iPad.
In the Mac realm, OWC is about to release two new versions of the venerable miniStack external drives for the Mac mini. The miniStack Max and miniStack have the same footprint as the post-2010 Mac minis, and features FW 400/800, USB 2.0/3.0 and eSATA (optional) ports, as well as an optical drive (Max only) and USB hub.
When it comes to enterprise storage, OWC has announced and was demonstrating their new Jupiter mini-SAS storage solutions. Jupiter features input/output speeds three times faster than fibre channel and twice as fast as Thunderbolt, all with an infrastructure cost much less than you'd pay for fibre channel storage.
Companies deploying iPads will like the new GripStand Station, which charges and secures up to eight iPads at a time. There's more to come in this short video from the show floor:
Other World Computing at Macworld iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
NYPD meets FMI: Cop nabs iPhone thief in NYC
Don't walk past police with a stolen iPhone in your boot.
According to the New York Times, a quick-thinking police officer and Apple's Find My iPhone managed to retrieve a woman's stolen iPhone. The woman was in a handbag store in Manhattan when a thief allegedly held her up at gunpoint and took her iPhone.
After searching the immediate area, NYC police officer Robert Garland entered the woman's Apple ID on his own iPhone and used "the iCloud feature" (we're going to assume that means Find My iPhone) to track the phone. Once they had arrived at its apparent location, the suspect walked past with the iPhone beeping in his boot. He was apprehended and the iPhone returned to its rightful owner.
Well done, Officer Garland! For another lost-and-found NYC iPhone story, check out Newsday's LIRR report.
NYPD meets FMI: Cop nabs iPhone thief in NYC originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Ex-Apple, ex-Palm exec Jon Rubinstein now leaving HP
Sometimes the revolving door spins quickly at the top. AllThingsD reported today that HP executive Jon Rubinstein is leaving the company for places unknown.
Rubinstein is perhaps best known for his days at Apple, when he spearheaded the rapid growth of the iPod music player -- the piece of Apple hardware widely remembered as the "gateway drug" that has since attracted millions of customers to the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. After Apple, Rubinstein worked at venture firm Elevation Partners, then moved to Palm.
In 2009, Rubinstein replaced Ed Colligan as Palm's CEO, overseeing the ill-fated switch from the old PalmOS to WebOS. The latter mobile operating system first appeared on the Pre, Pixi, and Veer smartphones. Rubinstein became an HP exec when the consumer electronics giant acquired Palm, and was at the driver's seat of the mobile division as the WebOS-powered TouchPad tablet crashed and burned.
When HP decided to get out of the mobile devices hardware market, Rubinstein was given a "product innovation role" at HP's Personal Systems Group designed to lessen the eventual impact of his departure.
Ex-Apple, ex-Palm exec Jon Rubinstein now leaving HP originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
2011 Best App Ever winners announced
Jeff Scott of 148 Apps has announced the winners for the Best App Ever for 2011, and you can review at the official site right now. Jetpack Joyride from Halfbrick was the overall winner in the iOS devision (which is a great app, but probably also benefited from actually promoting the Best App Ever vote inside the app itself). There are several other winners across various categories like Most Innovative (Codea), Most Useful (Amazon Mobile) and Best Time Killer (Tiny Wings).
Scott tells us that 148 Apps received a record 1.5 million votes this year, which is three times the total of last year's choices. Before voting began, there were 287,643 nominations across 7,243 apps. This year also featured Android winners in many categories, but Scott says that iOS topped the Android votes by a factor of 10:1.
The Best App Ever awards are always an excellent check of what's available on the App Store, so review the list and find some great new apps. Congratulations to all of the winners, and thanks to 148 Apps for putting the whole thing together.
2011 Best App Ever winners announced originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
AT&T’s iPhone “sales” versus “activations”: Doing the Math
Love Apple gear? Like math? TUAW's Doing the Math series examines the numbers and the science behind the hardware and software.
Several sites -- including TUAW -- reported yesterday that 80% of all smartphones AT&T sold in Q411 were iPhones, based on AT&T's quarterly earnings report. On closer inspection, however, there's a subtle but important detail that we overlooked in AT&T's wording. It reported "9.4 million smartphone sales" but "7.6 million iPhone activations" (emphasis mine).
So, consider the following series of events. Alice buys an iPhone 3GS back in 2009 on a two-year contract. In late 2011, she treats herself to a new iPhone 4S -- that's both a sale and an activation for AT&T. She gives the 3GS to her husband, the long-suffering Bob, who can finally ditch his flip phone.
Bob needs service though. His "new" 3GS is locked to AT&T -- unlike in many other countries around the world, most American carriers won't voluntarily unlock even out-of-contract handsets. Even if it were unlocked, though, it's not compatible with either the CDMA networks used by Verizon and Sprint, nor the oddball 3G frequencies used by T-Mobile USA. Finally, AT&T refuses to support iPhones on its pay-as-you-go GoPhone plan (although if Bob read TUAW he'd know he could work around this). So, with no other choices, Bob rings up AT&T and starts an iPhone contract so he can use the old handset as more than just an oddly-shaped iPod touch.
At the end of this process, AT&T has closed one new sale -- but counted two activations, one for Alice's new iPhone 4S and one for Alice's old iPhone 3GS in Bob's name. This means the 7.6 million activations includes some double counting, and can't directly be compared to sales.
We reached out to AT&T's Seth Bloom to confirm whether our reasoning was true. He said "You're right that activations are a bit different than sales -- and activations includes things like gifted iPhones as you suggest." However, he also added that "In this quarter, the number of activations from things like gifted iPhones doesn't change the math much. We aren't sharing a number, but gifted phones is a relatively small portion of total activations."
How much might a "relatively small portion" be?
Let's revisit those numbers: 9.4 million smartphone sales and 7.6 million iPhone activations. Suppose that 10% of all those iPhone activations were to used handsets. In other words, out of all of those brand-new iPhone sales AT&T made in the last three months, about one in ten of them (a virtual cookie to any commenter who spots why I had to say "about" there) were made to a person who a) already had an older iPhone and b) then proceeded to sell or give that handset away to someone else, who reconnected it back to AT&T's network. That would mean that AT&T activated 6.84 million new iPhones and 760,000 old ones. In turn, that means that the iPhone took 73% of AT&T's overall smartphone sales. The other 27% will be split between Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7.
More generally, we can plot a graph of how the iPhone's market share changes as a function of the recycle factor or the proportion of activations which went to reused handsets:
If we revisit AT&T's statement we can also see that "82 percent of postpaid sales were smartphones." This means, remarkably, that unless 25% of iPhone activations went to reused handsets (which seems unlikely in light of Bloom's comments) then over half of all contract phones AT&T sold were iPhones. This story is repeated on Verizon too.
The bottom line is: Apple kicked all kinds of posterior in the smartphone market during the last three months of 2011. Can it continue to do so in 2012? It might not be able to maintain quite this stupendous a lead. The timing of the iPhone 4S launch (in autumn, versus the previous summer iPhone introductions) likely boosted sales by causing some greater-than-usual pent-up demand. Supporting this hypothesis, Tim Cook admitted that sales of the older models waned between July and September. It'll be fascinating to see what this massive quarter does to the overall smartphone market share of iOS versus Android in the coming months.
AT&T's iPhone "sales" versus "activations": Doing the Math originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Love Box is a low-fi video mixer for iPhone
Creativity is a splendid thing. It lets you come up with never-before-considered ideas, and leads to the creation of products like the Love Box. The Love Box is a videography accessory for the iPhone that lets you mix two videos together in real time.
It's a wooden box with a slot for your iPhone and a sliding mirror. You position the phone's camera in front of the mirror, which lets you record both the action in front of you and the action behind. You can slide the mirror to show just the rear, just the front or something in between. To get a better idea of how it works, you should check out the YouTube video below.
It's a novel concept created by the Honest & Smile agency in Barcelona, Spain. The Love Box is available from Etsy for about US$80. It's a limited edition, and only 100 will be made.
[Via Wired]
Love Box is a low-fi video mixer for iPhone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Chinese readers respond to story of Apple’s Chinese suppliers
The financial world's eyes are on Apple this week after it announced record-breaking quarterly earnings. In the midst of all this commentary and congratulations, there was also a sobering article by New York Times reporters Charles Duhigg and David Barboza. Titled "In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad," the story was critical of Apple's relationship with its overseas manufacturing partners.
The piece details the purported harsh working conditions found in the factories of the contract companies that build Apple products. The 7-page article claims Apple puts incredible pressure on its partners to produce a large volume of components in a short amount of time and for little profit.
This incredible pressure forces companies like Foxconn and Wintek to cut corners and risk the safety of their workers to meet Apple's demands. Apple supposedly turns a blind eye to these practices and will even cut money to companies that complain. The article ends with a statement that implicates Apple fans in this scandal by saying "And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China."
This report was reprinted in the Chinese business magazine, Caixin, and elicited equally emotional responses by the Chinese who both support and condemn Apple. Here are a few samples of the comments left on the Chinese report,
If people saw what kind of life workers lived before they found a job at Foxconn, they would come to an opposite conclusion of this story: that Apple is such a philanthropist. - Zhengchu1982
Apple has gained so much sales revenues from China. Do you think the company really cares about the conditions of those workers? I think they are just proud of having an Apple product. - 李凌云-深圳
1.) It is a pity that, we know that for Apple fans, such a story won't stop their enthusiasm. Just like people are still buying Nike and Adidas shoes, knowing that shoe manufacturing is highly environmentally hazardous; 2.) if a government cannot guarantee the welfare of its own 120 million disadvantaged population and even suppresses their appeals, then how could we require an overseas company to protect the labor rights in a Chinese factory? - Jionglegejiong
When the explosion happened, I was working for media in Chengdu. Domestic media were all silenced and only allowed to use the (Xinhua) official report, because that (Foxconn factory) was a key project. Compare to what The New York Times wrote, the gap really saddened my heart. - Chen Qiye
Without Apple, Chinese workers will be worse off. I hope China can some day soon have dozens of its own companies like Apple, who (only) work on high-end research and development and send manufacturing lines to Africa. - Anonymous
In the end, there's no easy answer to this problem. Apple tries to be transparent and releases an annual report that details its progress in improving supplier working conditions. Apple can pressure its suppliers to conform to its standards, but it has no control over regulation in a foreign country.
Is Apple doing enough, or does it need to do more to ensure the safety of workers at other companies? Right now, the best thing we can do is bring this problem to light and get people (and companies) talking about it.
[Via AppleInsider]
Chinese readers respond to story of Apple's Chinese suppliers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
EFF petitions to extend legal iPhone jailbreaking
In 2010, the Copyright Office said jailbreaking a handset did not violate the DMCA and the jailbreak community breathed a sigh of relief. What many people didn't realize was that the exemption covering jailbreaking will expire later this year. When it expires, companies can go after jailbreak developers like the iPhone Dev Team using the DMCA. They could face jail time and monetary penalties for their involvement in creating jailbreaking tools. Needless to say, this would put a halt to most, if not all, jailbreaking.
To prevent this from happening, the EFF created a webpage that tells you how to contact the Copyright Office and ask them to extend this exemption. The advocacy group also wants to extend this protection to tablets and video game consoles. They have instructions on where to send your comments and a guideline about what to say in your communication with the government agency. Comments are due by February 10 at 5 PM Eastern Time. If this is a cause you believe in, head over the EFF and take some time to help keep jailbreaking alive.
EFF petitions to extend legal iPhone jailbreaking originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.