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The Apple Blog
The Apple Blog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products.
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Apple Recalls iPhone 3G Ultracompact USB Power Adapter

Today Apple released a statement recalling all iPhone 3G ultracompact USB power adapters.

It seems a small percentage of the adapters have a predisposition for the metal prongs to snap off in the electrical socket, potentially having some unfortunate side effects.

The ultracompact USB adapters were only sold with the iPhone 3G in the following countries: US, Japan, Canada, Mexico, and some Latin American countries. The power adapters sold with the original iPhones are not included in the recall.

Apple did stress that if you have one of the ultracompact adapters that you should stop using it immediately.

Starting October 10, 2009 you may take your adapter to any Apple store and exchange it, or you can use this form to request that Apple ship you a new one. New adapters will have a green dot on them (pictured below) to differentiate them from the faulty line of adapters.

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Google Maps for Mobile Announces New Features, Unless you Have an iPhone
Google Maps continues to improve their mobile version, and this week they announced some nice new features. Alas, just like last time, these aren’t immediately available for the iPhone. You may remember the iPhone 1.1.3 update in January 2008. Google Maps got a few new features, including the cell tower triangulation location approximation, a feature that had already been available for other Google Maps users since November of 2007.

In this new version of Google Maps, Google brings street view to the phone as well as business reviews and walking directions. All of these are very nice updates to an already great application, but I believe Street View is going to get the most attention, and it’s the feature iPhone users will be pining for. Personally, walking directions would be super-helpful. It’s happened a number of times where I’m traveling to an unfamiliar city, want to walk somewhere, but get weird directions from Google Maps because of a bunch of one-way streets.
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Microsoft's New "I'm A PC" Ads Air; Something Is Fundamentally Wrong
Tonight, during The Office, Microsoft began airing its “phase 2″ of their $300 million ad campaign (after giving Seinfeld the boot) which features regular, everyday users saying “I’m A PC”…yes, it’s a direct response to Apple’s I’m A Mac/I’m A PC ads.

The ads are actually better than I thought they’d be but something still just doesn’t sit right for me. I still don’t feel like they’re selling their brand or even their products. Sure, all of these people say they are “a PC”, but I’m not sure everyone will equate that to the Microsoft brand.

As John Gruber so eloquently put it, the problem here isn’t that the ads themselves are bad – in fact they are quite well made – the problem is that Microsoft effectively doesn’t have anything to sell. They don’t stand for anything. They’re just there. A “blah” company, if you will.
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Daily Apple: iPhone Development, QuickTime Vulnerability, Turtlenecks & Android
iPhone Dev Process - Some really great insight from developer Mike Ash on the whole development and app store submission process for NetAwake.

Zero-Day Exploit Code For Quicktime Posted - Supposedly Apple has ignored a submitted vulnerability and in turn the person who found the vulnerability has published it online.

Jobs and his turtleneck out in public - Jobs met in Brussels today with the EU Competition Commissioner and what did he wear? None other than this trusty turtleneck and jeans. I wonder if he wears that every day?

Apple updates Compressor, Apple Qmaster - Apple updates two apps in it’s suite of pro video applications. Many of the updates are basic performance and stability enhancements.

Google’s Android to dethrone mobile platform control - Today at Mobilize Conference, Google’s Rich Miner gave an overview of how Android will be making a splash.

iPhone Configuration Utility 1.0.1 - iPhone Configuration Utility lets you easily create, maintain, and sign configuration profiles, track and install provisioning profiles and authorized applications, and capture device information including console logs.

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The Economics of Mobile Development

The very first panel at today’s Mobilize Conference was on the economics of mobile development.

The iPhone was thrown around a bit (and more specifically, the distribution format of the App Store), but the overall topic was a bit more broad.

Representatives from Microsoft, Adobe, RIM, and others were on the panel to talk about the future and economics of development for mobile platforms. Will the web prevail as the development platform over native apps? Is a centralized market the way to go for application distribution or is distributed the way to go? Should apps be bundled or solely user installed? Should platforms be open sourced or proprietary? These are some of the questions presented to the panel.

Of all the questions, the one with the most interesting discussion was the topic of web applications prevailing over native applications. Adobe’s Gary Kovacs felt strongly that the web browser would ultimately be the winner. The browser has some way to go before it gets to that point but the logic behind the web being the platform is that it significantly lowers the barrier to entry and distributability of applications. If a developer can spend their time and resources developing for a single platform but still get distribution across all devices, that would obviously be ideal.

John O’Rourke, from Microsoft, talked about Adobe’s Flash becoming a platform in itself. It’s technology that is already here and capable of producing a rich experience. The benefit of using Flash for this is that it is already an established technology with a huge developer base.

It’s hard to imagine the web as a legitimate platform that creates a seamless experience across all mobile devices, but I think we’ll see browser functionality and capabilities expand significantly in the coming years as browsers like Chrome start to rethink how we use the browser and how the browser interacts with the OS.

Where do you see mobile development going in the coming years?

[UPDATE: Here is the video of this particular panel.]

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Microsoft's New Marketing Tactic: Let People Know That You Are "The PC Guy"

Microsoft, what are you thinking? Seriously.

Crispin Porter, the agency behind Microsoft’s seemingly failed ad campaign (and if not “failed”, then certainly “confusing”), has been kept on board for “phase two” of Microsoft’s $300 million ad campaign. The angle they are taking for phase two is a direct response to Apple’s successful Get A Mac ad campaign that features John Hodgman as “PC Guy”. In fact, the ad even has a lookalike.

Reportedly, the ads will feature real-life Windows users who proclaim their love for Windows-running computers after the Microsoft “PC Guy” states “Hello, I'm a PC, and I've been made into a stereotype.”

On top of that, starting this evening, users can go to windows.com and upload videos and photos of themselves proclaiming the fact that they, too, are PC’s. Seems Microsoft has already forgotten that Apple has created the persona that “PC Guy” isn’t who users should want to be.

Honestly, this just feels childish. Apple, being the one with less market share, launched their Get A Mac campaign to convince people to switch. Microsoft, instead of coming up with an original ad that actually touts some reasons people would want to stick with Windows, can only come up with an ad campaign that effectively says “No fair!”

Microsoft is just trying too hard. While Apple’s ads do indeed take jabs at Microsoft, they also clearly and concisely give you reasons you’d want to get a Mac. If there’s anything Microsoft should take out of Apple’s playbook, it’s the value of quick, simple, and clear communication. Quit making your message overly complex and unoriginal and just tell people the answer to the ominous “Why?”.

Why on earth Seinfeld is getting the axe and not Crispin Porter is beyond me.

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Rotate Movie Clips with QuickTime Pro

Have you ever taken some video clips with your point-and-shoot digital camera, downloaded them to iPhoto, and found them playing sideways? This is a common occurrence in our house. We’ll get some great footage of our kids doing something cute or funny, only to find that it was shot in a portrait orientation instead of the landscape orientation that it ultimately should play in. Luckily QuickTime Pro comes in very handy in situations such as these.

While this isn’t a new trick by any means, ~~I’ve found that it’s not well-known~~ (As I grabbed the link, I noticed it states right on the product page that you can rotate video - so there you go, I’m not making this stuff up!), and figured sharing it here would help a few of you stuck in the same boat. I’ve had QuickTime Pro for years, so I couldn’t tell you if the functionality is now available in the free version (though I suspect not - feel free to comment if you know differently). So understand that for this exercise, I’m using the Pro version of QuickTime, which costs $29.99 in the Apple Store.
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