Appletell

You still cannot get The Beatles in iTunes, but slowly all four members are all showing up. You can now find music from Paul McCartney, John Lennon and now Ringo Starr. The iTunes Store have made Ringo’s post-Bealtes EMI catalog available including the new digital greatest hits collection “Photograph” which is an iTunes Plus album. Possibly the upcoming Apple special event on September 5th will give everyone the Beatles catalog also, in the mean time 3 out of 4 is a good start.

Read [MacNN]

There’s a new thread over at Apple’s Discussion Forums pertaining to bugs still present in the latest version of Keynote. Apparently, it will cause a Mac to suddenly reboot should a user press the “play” button or use the keyboard shortcut to start the presentation.

Despite being a fairly mature product that’s been in use at such great events like MacWorld and WWDC, it’s surprising to find such significant bugs lurking around. The problem seems to be isolated to MacBooks and iBooks right now; lets hope for a fix asap.

Read [Apple Discussion Forums]

As someone who works from a home office I often am looking for a change in scenery and find myself up at the local Starbucks, that way I can get a great cup of coffee and get some work done at the same time. Using the T-Mobile HotSpot service I am easily able to connect and get to work, except with the HotSpot connection my internet traffic has always been unsecured and therefor open for snooping. It turns out that T-Mobile offers a Connection Manager software for Windows but nothing for Mac.

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If you fancy Mac OS X’s default aqua wallpaper, and I’m sure lots of fans do, you might be wondering how to go about creating one from scratch. PSDTuts has a simple tutorial that walks you through all the steps in creating those smooth curves and gradients.

There are roughly 15 steps which would take a good 10 minutes to complete. You will require Adobe’s Photoshop, but this tutorial only uses the most basic of tools (layers, gradients, etc.) If you’re a Photoshop whiz, you’ll get through this in no time. Check it out.

Via [PSDTuts.com]

The Apple special event has been confirmed for September 5th and the rumors are now out in full force. We are seeing reports of everything from new touchscreen iPods running OS X to Product (RED) Shuffles to The Beatles finally coming to iTunes.

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Need software? Feel like giving some money to charity? Well hey, here’s your opportunity to do both at the same time. Seth Dillingham is auctioning off $30,000 in Mac software. And 100% of the proceeds help fund cancer research (sans those damn eBay fees). If you win one of the many auctions, a CD is sent to you containing the purchased, pre-registered to your name apps.

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A few weeks back I decided it was time to start shopping for some new speakers. My current Altec Lansing set was purchased at a clearance price, and it was a great deal considering it came with four speakers and a subwoofer. But at the time, I was just happy to have some decent speakers.

This time around I was looking to spend a bit more cash and the only requirements I had were that I wanted a 2.1 stereo set and I would prefer that they matched my current setup, which, for the most part, includes a white Macbook with an external display, keyboard and mouse.

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Accelerometers are everywhere these days, mostly to protect movable parts during a fall. The iPhone also comes with its own accelerometer, but Apple only uses it to adjust the display’s orientation (depending on whether it’s in landscape or portrait). As usual, smart hackers are already one step ahead.

In a blog posting earlier yesterday, iPhone hacker Erling managed to read from the tiny 3-axis accelerometer (LIS302DL) and actually used the raw data in some really innovative applications. Check out the video here. If you’d like to join in the fun, you’ll be pleased to know that the source code is available.

Read [Medallia]

According to AppleInsider, the unique red color on the current iPod Nanos could be coming to an iPod Shuffle near you, possibly as early as 5th September. While its bigger brothers (the iPod and iPod Nano) are supposedly receiving an upgrade to Mac OS X, the iPod Shuffle seems to be getting only minor updates.

(PRODUCT) RED products are part of the (RED) charity, founded by Bobby Shriver and Bono from U2. The organization aims to fight AIDS in Africa by seeking donations from big businesses like Apple, Converse and Motorola. Apple currently gives $10 for each purchase of a (RED) iPod Nano.

Read [AppleInsider]

For those who love hacking the iPhone and are fans of iFuntastic v2, you’ll have even more reasons to love version 3. One of the biggest improvements: PowerPC compatibility. So for those of you out there still running on those classic machines (raises hand), you too can now hack your iPhone to your heart’s desire. It also allows you to install applications via a file browser, upload those old NES ROMs for all you nostalgic folks, and many more features, which will be listed below.

In iFuntastic v2, you could re-arrange your home screen icons, which was cool and all, but now in v3, you can have multiple pages of icons for all your applications that you may install. Also on the home screen, you can now put a wallpaper on there and also rotate to your liking. iFuntastic v3 can also rip the 30-second iTunes Music Store preview for you and upload it to your iPhone as a ringtone. Full list of features below:

* PowerPC support! Finally. Thanks for keeping the faith :-)
* One-time unjailing - called ‘Unshackling’.
* Drag and drop any file onto the phone in the new ‘File Manager’ (formerly Browser :-)
* Edit text files directly on the phone.
* Drag and drop installation of native applications - no restart of the phone necessary.
* Info page: a one-stop-shop for all documentation (still sparsely populated right now, sorry.)
* Troubleshooting page: a one-stop-shop for pummeling the phone and inquiring about its status.
* Much improved ringtone installation.
* Drag and drop replacement of system sounds.
* Completely reworked Home Screen Editor. Place applications anywhere you want them (gaps are OK.)
* Support for multiple home screen ‘pages’. Have up to 80 applications at your fingertips!
* Custom home screen ‘wallpaper’, better called home screen backgrounds, to distinguish from the ‘real’ wallpaper.

Click the link below to download iFuntastic v3.0.3 and report back with your experiences.

Via [iPhoneAlley]