iPhone

Apple engineers working on ARM-based CPUs for iPhone

The magic of social networking has confirmed that Apple plans to make its own ARM-based processors for future versions of the iPhone.

The New York Times spotted the LinkedIn profile of Wei-han Lien, Apple's senior manager of CPU development, over the weekend. Lien's job description, according to his profile, involves managing the ARM CPU design team for Apple, an extension of his previous work at P.A. Semi.

It's been pretty clear for a while that Apple bought P.A. Semi earlier this year to work on developing its own chips for the iPhone, but as the … Read more

Apple to Podcaster: No App Store for you

Apple's App Store policies are really starting to frustrate application developers.

Over the weekend, a good old-fashioned Internet-style kerfuffle arose over Apple's decision to reject Podcaster--an iPhone application that lets people download podcasts directly to their devices without going through iTunes--from the App Store. The developer of the application said that Apple told him the application "duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes," apparently making it unfit for the App Store.

This has been a persistent question hanging over Apple's decision to vet every single iPhone and iPod Touch application sold through the … Read more

Will 2.1 be what 2.0 was supposed to be?

As per usual, at the most inopportune time when I was already running late, I decided to sync my iPhone as I was getting ready to leave home today. Like clockwork, iTunes asks me if I'd like to update to Firmware 2.1. Would I? Unlike last time, I actually downloaded the update and took off to make my a Saturday class.

During a break, my fellow iPhone-laden class attendees got out their iPhones to check email, text messages and voicemail and the discussion turned to Firmware 2.1.

"Did you get it?" one fellow classmate asked … Read more

Apple stomps bugs with iPhone 2.1 software release

Apple has released version 2.1 of its iPhone software, promising a wealth of bug fixes for a pioneering device that suffered a number of problems.

Chief Executive Steve Jobs had promised the iPhone update in a speech Tuesday during a launch event for next-generation iPod music players, saying, "This is a big update, and it fixes lots of bugs."

The company's software update page shows just how big:

Decrease in call setup failures and dropped calls Significantly better battery life for most users Dramatically reduced time to back up to iTunes Improved e-mail reliability, notably fetching … Read more

Genius makes iTunes 8 a worthy upgrade

Although I was expecting more from Apple's latest announcements, I've had a few days to play with the Genius feature introduced in iTunes 8 and I'm quite impressed. Pick any song, and it builds a playlist of other songs that fit well with that one. It's a fun and useful feature for those of us too lazy to build playlists by hand, and bored with the auto-playlists (such as by genre, song length, or date added) and the random shuffle feature.

I was worried that the feature would be too obvious--for example, that it would just … Read more

Steve Jobs' speech in videos

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled updated iPods and a new version of iTunes at the company's fall music event Tuesday at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Here, we've rounded up short video clips from his speech featuring some of the highlights. Check out the live blog from the speech here, and see our complete coverage, with all the latest news, analysis, and photos here.

Apple's iTunes 8 with Genius Jobs sings the praises of the latest version of iTunes and announces the return of NBC shows, now in HD.

Apple's newest iPod … Read more

What will Apple announce today? Something with the iPhone 3G battery? We can hope.

In a crazy world, Apple would announce a "we-are-so-sorry" iPhone swap today: All first generation iPhone owners and all new iPhone 3G owners would be given a new free iPhone Plutonium, which, of course, has endless battery life. Perhaps this massive reset could be founded by the liquidation of Halliburton or perhaps as part of a massive government effort to promote consumer-spending, oh wait, that was Fannie May and Freddie Mac....

Stranger things have happened. What's the line? We can only hope for change?

But seriously folks, the biggest complaint I've seen (and experienced) is dismal … Read more

iPhone to ingest EA's 'Spore Origins'

Electronic Arts is bringing its new creature feature to the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The game giant's EA Mobile unit announced Friday that it will offer Spore Origins for Apple's gadgets, starting later this month. The variation on EA's new Spore game is designed to take advantage of the motion-sensing technology in the iPhone and the iPod Touch so that players can tilt and angle their way through a digital take on evolution.

The full-fledged Spore goes on sale Sunday in North America. Players get to design their own creatures before beginning on an evolutionary quest through … Read more

Apple to developer: No, you pull MY finger

Apple apparently doesn't think fart jokes are very funny.

The developer of Pull My Finger, an iPhone application, told MacRumors that Apple decided to reject his application from the App Store because it was "of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community." Pull My Finger does pretty much what you would expect it to do, generating about five or six different sounds of flatulence from your iPhone depending on your preference.

Regardless of whether you think fart jokes are the linchpin of comedy (we're running roughly half and half right now in … Read more