Think of Mac

The iPhone can already be used to buy coffee; now it can sell it too. Square, a new venture from Twitter co-creator Jack Dorsey, lets retailers swipe credit cards using a tiny reader that plugs in to the audio jack on an iPhone.

Using an iPhone to collect money is nothing new, and apps like Credit Card Terminal and iSwipe Pro have been around for awhile. But Square marks the first time a card can be physically swiped — and, says a post in Wired’s Epicenter, that also means the ability to accept gift cards.  Read more... (189 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

iPhone developer Pandav has informed MacRumors that they have spotted usage records for an unreleased iPhone in their app’s analytics. The app used was iBART [Free / Paid], a public transportation guide for the San Francisco train system.

PinchMedia who provides the analytics for the application breaks down customer usage including what specific devices are being used. This list of devices is reported to developers using internal device identification numbers assigned by Apple. In this case, “iPhone3,1″ was first spotted in Pandav’s usage logs in November. This “iPhone3,1″ identifier does not match up with any shipping iPhones. The last iPhone released to the public was the iPhone 3GS which carries the identification string “iPhone2,1″.  Read more... (187 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans got their first taste of the iPhone on Saturday as the multifunctional communication and entertainment device made its long awaited debut in one of the world’s most technologically sophisticated societies.

Though already available in other Asian countries such as Japan – where it went on sale last year – the slim smartphone got a late start in South Korea amid regulatory hurdles and tough negotiations between manufacturer Apple Inc. and a local telecommunications company.

But the waiting finally came to an end for about 850 South Koreans who took possession of their coveted iPhones at a boisterous official launching event in Seoul characterized by blaring music and flashing lights.  Read more... (230 words, estimated 55 secs reading time)

The 21-year-old Australian guy who got chewed out by his parents for launching the first iPhone worm landed a job with an app company.

Ashley Towns wrote Ikee, calling it an “experiment that got out of hand,”  a worm that  switched iPhone wallpaper for an image of 80s pop singer Rick Astley. Astley, who sang the 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up,” who morphed into the Internet prank known as “Rickrolling.” The bait-and-switch worm replaces an ordinary video with one of Astley.

The day after the worm infected jailbroken iPhones, Towns said he had received a death threat, media attention and job offers.  Read more... (159 words, estimated 38 secs reading time)

There is some news about Apple’s case against Psystar. Now it appears that Psystar was planning on selling millions of Macintosh OSX clones through 2011.

According to Gregg Keizer on Computerworld, Psystar was found guilty of violating the DMCA act by copying and creating special versions of OSX that could be installed on non Apple PC hardware. However, both companies are still fighting it out in Federal court.  Read more... (135 words, estimated 32 secs reading time)

In less than two and a half years on the market, Apple’s iPhone has managed nearly a fifth of the total global smartphone market, thanks to nearly 50 percent year-over-year growth in sales in the third quarter of 2009.

New data released by research firm Gartner Thursday showed that the iPhone has taken a 17.1 percent share of the worldwide smartphone market in the three-month period ending in September. The report said Apple’s share is only expected to grow, with even stronger anticipated sales in the fourth quarter, thanks to expansion into China and the addition of new carriers in multiple countries.  Read more... (216 words, estimated 52 secs reading time)

When asked about Steve Jobs in a TV special that aired this week, Bill Gates said the Apple co-founder has shown “more inspiration” than any other leader in the tech industry.

The program “Warren Buffett and Bill Gates: Keeping America Great” aired Thursday night on CNBC. The “Town Hall Event” featured questions from the audience directed towards two of the world’s richest men.

One audience member asked Gates, to laughter from the audience, what his thoughts were on Jobs and the work he has done as CEO of Apple. The Microsoft founder had fond words for his rival.  Read more... (232 words, estimated 56 secs reading time)

The cat and mouse game between Apple continues… George Hotz aka geohot, creator of blackra1n and the original iPhone jailbreaker/unlocker (before the days of the iPhone Dev Team) has made an announcement that he has successfully unlocked the latest ‘unjailbreakable’ baseband aka 05.11.07. From his site:

I have an unlock for 05.11.07. I will be releasing on 11/04/09, for $0.00

First off, Jody Sanders, I am declining your $10,000. Why? Because you, and the rest of the iPhone unlock sites out there are scum. You make money selling freeware; that’s not cool, and I am in no way going to legitimize it.  Read more... (189 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

BERLIN — Nokia, the world’s biggest cellphone maker, sued Apple on Thursday, claiming that Apple illegally used 10 of its patented technologies to make the iPhone, its innovative touch-screen smartphone.

Nokia said it had filed a patent infringement suit in United States District Court in Delaware. The complaint claims Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., illegally used Nokia’s patents for wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption to make its iPhone work on GSM, UMTS and WiFi wireless networks.  Read more... (161 words, estimated 39 secs reading time)

Apple’s new Magic Mouse brings multitouch technologies first exposed on the iPhone and MacBook touchpad to the venerable mouse.

The new design presents a solid acrylic surface on a low-profile body, lacking any physical buttons or the scroll ball of Apple’s previous Mighty Mouse.

More significantly, it shifts the use of the mouse from sensing movement of the device itself over a surface, to one where the user’s fingers are sensed as they move across the surface of the device. The new mouse still uses laser optical tracking to find its relative coordinates, but the new multitouch surface turns it into a closer cousin of the trackpad.  Read more... (112 words, estimated 27 secs reading time)