Think of Mac

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)

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)

Apple has upgraded its current line of Mac mini computers, plus added a server version. The base mini ($599) gets a slightly faster Core 2 Duo processor (2.26GHz versus 2GHz), double the previous memory (2GB, up from 1GB) and a beefier hard drive (160GB versus 120GB.)

The $799 version includes a 2.53GHz processor, 4GB of memory (versus 2GB previously) and a 320GB hard drive.

Full Story: Cult of Mac

It’s no secret that the iPod Touch is capable of more than Apple lets on – or rather, more than Apple will let the device do.

Last month a ‘teardown’ of the third-gen iPod Touch by iFixit revealed the presence of a Broadcom wireless chip which packs an FM receiver and FM transmitter (along with 5GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi). A refresh of the iPod Nano, released at the same time as the new Touch, added an FM radio along with support for ‘live pause’ and iTunes Tagging.  Read more... (133 words, estimated 32 secs reading time)

By now, you’ve seen the Windows 7 commercials and read the reviews. PCMag will have far more to say in the coming days and weeks about the quality and performance of Microsoft’s Windows 7 OS, as well as how it stacks up against its primary competition, Apple’s Snow Leopard. But have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could watch executives from both companies really have at it? Not with snarky commercials, but with an honest discussion of the technologies that drive these operating systems? It won’t happen, of course, but this is pretty close.  Read more... (251 words, estimated 1:00 mins reading time)