The internet, or rather the corner of it dedicated to Apple speculation, has gone gaga this afternoon as MacRumours reveals a white headphone jack, snaffled from Chinese repair site Luna Commerce. It seems to add more weight to the rumours of a white iPod touch coming out of Cupertino soon. But could it also pave the way for a white MacBook Air?
There’s still no ETA for iTunes Match in the UK but the the developer beta has just gone live in the US revealing more details on how the iCloud-based music sharing service will work. The big news is that iTunes Match will allow you to both download tracks from your cloud library to a Mac or iOS device and stream them directly.
To kick off iTunes Match will scan your music library and compile a list of tracks from what it finds. Songs already in Apple’s cloud library will be streamed from a master recording at 256kbps.
Music that iTunes Match doesn’t recognise will be uploaded to iCloud based on your local copy. You’ll then be able to access the cloud library of up to 25,000 songs on up to 10 devices (five of which can be computers). Take a look at iTunes Match in action on video after the jump…
Id Software has used the Facebook Like button for good. It promised to make Rage and Rage HD free if it reached 100,000 Likes on its Facebook page and it’s done just that. For the next week, you can grab the game for free from the iTunes App Store.
That’s a great deal as the on-rails shooter set at a mutant-hunting gameshow is still one of the best iPhone games out there and has had some nice updates since we first raved about it back in November last year. If you’ve got an iPhone 4, the original iPad or the iPad 2, grab Rage HD to enjoy high quality mutant mauling.
Apple’s battle against smudges and fingerprints began in earnest with the iPhone 3GS but the oleophobic coating it currently applies to iOS devices wears off in time. That could be set to change though thanks to a new and improved process outlined in a new Apple patent filing.
While Apple patents often come to nothing or relate to developments that are years away, the fact that this one describes an improvement to something the company is already doing warrants closer inspection. The document was filed in February 2011 and could mean the first truly smudgeproof iPhone will be the iPhone 5. Read on for details of how Apple plans to fight fingerprints in the future…
Once again someone has dared to claim a date for the next Apple event. Kodawarisan, a Japanese Apple site, claims it has heard from a well-placed source (aren’t they always?) that Apple will hold its next event on Wednesday, 7 September with new iPods and the iPhone 5 on the agenda.
Predicting an Apple event in September isn’t the boldest step. The company has revealed new products in early September every year since 2008 and outed the new iPod touch, iPod nano and iPod shuffle on September 1 last year. But with the iPhone 5 remaining unannounced, this year’s event is even more anticipated.
There’s conflicting stories about whether the iPhone 5 will actually launch in September or hit stores in October but until Apple decides to make a move, it’s all just speculation. Kodawarisan has been on the money with rumours in the past though – it correctly reported the new Mac Mini launch date ahead of time in 2009.
An Apple patent has been uncovered this afternoon which reveals hints that the company may add integrated projectors to its iOS device line. The schematic (pictured above) also shows a laptop with a connected projector accessory, possibly connected via Thunderbolt. Will the next generation of iPhones, iPads and iPods include projectors?
This is not the first time we’ve heard rumbling of integrated projectors from Apple. As Patently Apple notes, back in 2009 the company first hinted they would one day integrate a projector system into iOS devices. Then in 2010 a broad patent application surfaced concerning networked projection systems and later that year research teams began working on integrating a projector into a MacBook.
On Friday, August 6th, Apple began seeding iOS 5 beta 5 to its developers. As OTA updates and manual installations commenced, the team behind redsn0w worked furiously to jailbreak the 700MB+ update. Redsn0w version 0.9.8b5 is a tethered only jailbreak for third and fourth generation iPod touch, iPad 1, iPhone 3GS and GSM iPhone 4 users.
The expansion of Google+ continues apace. After oddly choosing not to make its Google+ iOS app universal when it was released last month, it has now updated it to include iPad and iPod touch users. It’s a fairly rough update though with the iPad basically getting a blown up version of the iPhone interface rather than a dedicated redesign. Still, Google+ Android app users rocking Android Honeycomb tablets have the same issue so it’s not discrimination!
Like the recent Google+ Android update, the new version of the iOS app features improved Huddle settings and aggregated notifications to make the whole experience a lot less noisy. It also promises the kind of performance and stability improvements you’d expect from a service that’s still in its teething period. You can grab the updated Google+ iOS app at the link below. Hit the headline and jump into the comments to let us know what you think of it.
Out now | £free | iTunes
