Appletell

At the recent Design And Art Direction (D&AD) Awards, Apple picked two of the prestigious Black Pencils.  Apple is now the company with the most Black Pencils in the D&AD’s 45-year history, having won many in the past.  Although Apple has only six Black Pencils (First Place) in past years, they have picked up at least one award since 1999.  The most notable awards this year was a Black Pencil for the aluminum iMac in the Work & Industry category, and another Black Pencil for the iPhone in the Leisure section.  Other awards include the Wireless Aluminum Keyboard which got a Nomination Pencil also in the Work & Industry category.  Apple also cleaned out the Leisure category, with the iPhone at the top, the iPod Touch taking the Yellow Pencil (Second Place) and the iPod Nano receiving the Nomination Pencil.  Chris Foresman for Infinite Loop couldn’t have said it better:

“While many have often scoffed at paying an “Apple Tax” for cool design, Mac users know that the care and attention to detail are more than skin deep. This recognition of Apple’s hard work should further support the fact that design matters, even in a computer.”

This is the first year in which Apple has done so well, and this year brought their win total to six.  One of the main reasons why the Black Pencil is the most coveted award in the event is because in past years, D&AD have actually refused to hand out the Black Pencil due to a lack of a deserving contestant.  These awards are a sure testament to Apple’s superiority in design.

[D&AD] via [9 to 5 Mac]

We all suspected that Mac OS X would one day support a multi-touch interface, similar to the iPhone’s - but not from a third party company. Lux is currently an experimental framework that brings multi-touch in full screen to Mac OS X. Christian Moore has managed to get this entire multi-touch system running on Apple’s low-end MacBook laptop. He claims that his framework can in fact run on any platform. The gesture recognition and animation of the interface are comparable to that of Jeff Han or the Microsoft Surface. Lux is scheduled to go public in June. See the video after the jump.

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A new patent from Apple this week could greatly help in expanding what an iPhone can do for you.  This patent expounds upon the service that allows Starbucks customers to purchase coffees from their phone and is extremely interesting.  Basically, this patent implies that Apple would have services like this in businesses and various locations all over the world.  For example, an airport could show flight schedules right on your phone or you could save your dining preferences and wirelessly order with a digital menu at any restaurant involved with it.  Even better yet, if a concert used this you could be able to buy the bands tracks wirelessly right then and there.  It would work by connecting to a local wifi network that contained specific instructions on how to handle wireless devices that connect and are made by Apple.

This whole idea is actually pretty fascinating and I can see it becoming popular sometime in the future.  People carry their wireless devices everywhere and if Apple manages to get more of a market share or this extends to all wireless devices someday, it could become extremely handy.  Imagine simply walking into a restaurant and pulling out your phone to check the menu or being greeted with a tourist map when arriving in a new city.  If Apple ever does put this into effect some way or another, I can really see it taking off.

According to AppleInsider, build 9D32, which will become Mac OS X 10.5.3, is on track to be ready for release at this years WWDC.  With over 220 bug fixes and various updates, this download is going to be a pretty large file, 416MB to be exact.  However, this isn’t the only rather large update expected.  There is also an update anticipated for the iPhone that will bring the App Store to the device as well as the normal bug fixes.  I presume that this file will be relatively large itself, at least for an iPhone update.  With all this updating going on who knows, there may even be some sort of update for other iPods also.  We will have to wait and see, but I’m excited either way.

With all these software updates expected from the conference, I’m sure there is going to be a lot of traffic in the bandwidth from people downloading the new products.  I got to say, I sort of feel bad for my ISP when it comes to events like this.  I usually do the normal web surfing, podcast downloading, bandwidth non-intensive sort of downloading that probably makes my ISP happy with me.  However, when updates like this come around me, along with many others, head over to Software Update as quick as we can click to get the new software, potentially causing a major plug in the pipes.  I look forward to seeing what happens.  Let’s hope you don’t get throttled!

Apple isn’t the only one preparing for the launch of the 3G iPhone, AT&T is also undertaking some steps of it’s own.  The first of these actions came from a memo that AppleInsider got a hold of.  According to the memo, starting on May 14th AT&T customers will only be able to purchase one iPhone at a time which is down from the limit of three that was originally in place.  Furthermore, there will have to purchase the device with a credit or debit card, ruling out cash or checks.  This is most likely to assure that they have some stock left until the 3G version is launched.

The second step is probably the bigger of the two.  On Wednesday, AT&T said it plans on having its 3G wireless network up to speeds of 20 megabits per second by 2009.  AT&T’s mobility leader, Ralph de la Vega, says, “It’s clear to us that we are in the very early stages of what I would call a wireless data revolution.” Better yet, he adds that this upgrade will hopefully not require as many hardware modifications as usual in these sorts of updates.

Its clear that AT&T realizes they really need to improve their network in preparation for the iPhone and other new devices such as the Blackberry 9000.  If they want to stop people from jailbreaking their iPhones and simply using another carrier, they need to give them a reason to stay.  This would be the first step in that direction.

We interrupt our regular blog programming for a little bit of an important news. Apple was rated as the second most gay-friendly company based on the result of a study conducted by Prime Access and PlanetOut. The survey was polled to 2,259 people with age range of 18 to 62, 1,502 of them belongs to the general public, while 757 belonging to the gay and lesbian communities, Apple got a 23% approval from the general public and 39% approval from the gay communities.

Perhaps one of the reasons why Apple got into the 2nd rank is the fact that it is one of the first company to give out benefits to their gay and lesbian couple employees. And since the perception on being gay-friendly relies mostly on advertising and the influence of friends and the media, it is but understandable that Apple tops the survey.

Incidentally, taking the top spot of the most gay-friendly company is Bravo Network which runs gay-friendly shows such as Project Runaway, Workout and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Following Bravo Network are Showtime, HBO, Absolut and Levi’s.

While taking the lowest seal of approval from respondents of the survey are Samsung, Wal-Mart, Dunkin Donuts and Cracker Barrel.

Via [Macnn]

In a report released Thursday, Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann announced that iPhone sales in Germany have reached and passed 100,000 units.  With exclusive rights to the German iPhone, Deutsche Telekom saw sluggish sales through January, but sales looked up after that.  Sales saw an even bigger jump when the company announced a gigantic €300 (over $460!) discount on the 16 GB iPhone until June 30. 

Hamid Akhavan, Deutsche Telekom’s board member at T-Mobile, told Dow Jones Newswires earlier on the sidelines of a corporate event that the sales figures for the iPhone are “about in line” with the company’s internal targets. Akhavan also said that the current price reduction of the device had boosted sales.

Only question is, what does Apple think about the discount?  If Apple took legal action on a UK iPod seller from offering a ₤15 ($30) iPod discount, there is no saying what action Apple will take against the German iPhone purveyor.

[Telekom Europe] Via [CNN Money]

Fueled by the recent snowballing of Mac sales and interest in the iPhone’s mobile WiFi platform, this year’s Apple World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) has sold out for the first time in history.  The exact number of spaces that were available was not put out by Apple, but soon after making the “sold out” announcement, they released the following statement. 

“Response to this year’s WWDC has been off the charts and we are delighted with the show of enthusiasm and support from the developer community for the new iPhone SDK. The conference is now sold out.”

There are many speculations as to what will happen at WWDC ‘08, ranging from 3G iPhones to Tablet Macs (the latter taken with quite a sizable grain of salt).  Based on past WWDC history, chances are slim that any new computer designs will be introduced, as those larger announcement are usually saved for MacWorld (small design updates for the Mac line up are more of a possibility).

Luckily for those who didn’t snag a seat at the conference, videos of the session will be on iTunes shortly after for purchase.

Read [Mac Megatsite]

Time Machine is Leopard’s built-in backup solution. Backing up every hour, Time Machine keeps all of your files safe on either an external FireWire/USB drive, or a networked drive like Apple’s own Time Capsule. Time Machine is a pretty limited service at the moment - you can only have it back up every hour, and it will not prevent backups from being corrupted when your laptop runs out of battery.

According to AppleInsider, Mac OS 10.5.3 is going to bring us more options and features for Time Machine. The latest build of 10.5.3 (9D29) seeded to developers shows an updated version of Time Machine which lets laptop users stop background hourly backups when using battery power. No doubt this update also includes some various “bug fixes” for Time Machine, and hopefully makes it more speedy at preparing backups. It should eliminate a lot of battery loss from backing up over a Wi-Fi connection, and incomplete backups when your battery dies.

Telefónica Europe’s Chairman and CEO, Matthew Key, made a pretty important comment the other day (Telefónica Europe is O2’s parent company).  During a conference about their 1st quarter earnings, Key said that executives from his company and some Apple execs would be announcing the 3G iPhone - get this - within weeks!  This is the first time we have actually heard confirmation of the 3G iPhone from anyone in the know.  Key refused to give an exact place, but stuck to his word that it would be in the “coming weeks”.  He also confirmed that the UK and Ireland will be getting the power of 3G soon after.

With iPhone sales headed skyward world wide, the 3G iPhone can only pump those numbers higher.

Read [http://www.9to5mac.com/02_iphone_in_weeks]