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IBM and Apple chip competitors? Not quite

Despite the fact that Apple has yet to produce an iPhone chip based on its own design, and that IBM doesn't design smartphone chips, the judge overseeing the Mark Papermaster noncompete case views the two companies as chip competitors.

Judge Kenneth Karas of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York filed his opinion Monday (click here for PDF) on why former IBM executive Papermaster should not be allowed to join Apple as head of the iPhone and iPod hardware engineering team. Karas' decision to grant a preliminary injunction preventing Papermaster from working at Apple … Read more

Apple's Black Friday deals

Update: New information has leaked about Apple's 2009 Black Friday deals. Read about it here.

Apple will be holding a one-day shopping event on Black Friday, according to a teaser up on Apple's Web site. Every sale on the Apple Store is an event, as it happens very rarely, and discounts on Apple products are meager throughout the year. That is, if this is an event full of discounts and sales. The interesting part is in the wording:

"Come back to the Apple Online Store this Friday for a special one-day-only Christmas shopping event. You'll find … Read more

2G iPod touch Processor Clocked Higher than iPhone's?; Benchmarks

TouchArcade reports that the second-generation iPod touch's processor runs at 532 MHz, while the iPhone 3G's processor runs at 412 MHz.

Both the iPhone and iPod touch use an ARM processor capable of running at 620-667Mhz. However, it appears that Apple down-clocked the processor in production devics, presumably to conserve battery life.

Nearly a year ago, iPhone Atlas broke the news that iPhone OS 1.1.2 delivered slight boost in operating clock speed. iPhones running firmware/software version 1.1.1 displayed a clock speed of 400 Mhz and a bus speed of 100 MHz, whereas iPhones … Read more

New iPod Touch faster than iPhone 3G

Apple appears to have upped the processing speed of the iPod Touch in order to help it go after the portable-game market.

Touch Arcade reports that the applications processor inside the second-generation iPod Touch unveiled in September is actually running faster than the processor inside the iPhone 3G, which runs at the same speed that the original iPhone and iPod Touch used. The new iPod Touch's ARM-based processor is running at 532MHz, while the iPhone 3G's processor runs at 412MHz.

A game developer interviewed by Touch Arcade noticed a huge difference in 3D-rendering speed as a result of … Read more

Verizon gets its own HTC Touch Pro

Without much fanfare, the HTC Touch Pro popped up on the Verizon Wireless Web site on Monday, complete with specs and pricing. The Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone is available for purchase online and through telephone sales now and in stores on December 1 for a pricey $349.99 with a two-year contract and after a mail-in rebate.

Verizon's version of the Touch Pro costs about $50 more than the Sprint model and AT&T's HTC Fuze, but offers many of the same features including a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, and a 3.2-megapixel … Read more

Customers line up for new BlackBerry Storm

Hundreds of people lined up outside some Verizon Wireless stores to buy the new BlackBerry Storm on Friday, but many walked away empty handed.

The Storm, which has been hyped for months, went on sale Friday morning. The device is the first BlackBerry phone to have a touch screen, making it a strong competitor to the Apple iPhone on AT&T's network. Since Verizon Wireless announced it would be the exclusive U.S. carrier for the Storm, the wireless operator has been expecting it to be a hit. In fact, it's the only new phone the company … Read more

Marware Game Grip for iPhone and iPod Touch

The Sony PSP is a gaming system first and a media player second. The iPhone and iPod Touch are the other way around: media players first and gaming systems second...or third, or fourth. (And, yes, I say that the iPhone is a media player before a cell phone.) Regardless of what they are, there's no reason not to take full advantage of a device's secondary features. Enter the Marware Game Grip, a $50 case for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Now, if you're thinking that $50 is a bit over the top for a silicone device … Read more

RSS with a twist

Flickr photos, Twitter and Facebook updates, and RSS stories are depicted as rafts floating along a river in Ziibii's creative iPhone app. You can slow or speed the current by flicking the screen in either direction, or pause at any time to delete or select a "raft." If you tire of the free application's aquatic theme, you can switch to list view to get your headlines oriented vertically, then flick left and right to further browse. To read stories from just one source, tap on Filter to select it. We appreciate the ease of posting headlines … Read more

Ziibii: iPhone RSS with a twist

It isn't so much the technology behind Zumobi's free app Ziibii that refreshes RSS on the iPhone and iPod touch as it is its presentation. Ziibii, which means 'river' in Algonquin*, extends the metaphor to depict posts from your various RSS feeds as rafts floating along a stream of information.

Watching posts float by is fun concept--for a few minutes at least--and one that's heightened by the fact that stories, photos, and friends' status updates appear in random order as a round-up of all your RSS subscriptions.

Ziibii's feed flexibility is good, but not great. Twitter, … Read more