AppleInsider | Apple’s new MacBook Airs to bring back backlit keyboards – sources

According to people familiar with the matter, backlit keyboards will join the string of hardware enhancements planned for the new 11.6- and 13.3-inch notebooks, which are also expected to adopt high-speed Thunderbolt ports, an upgrade to Intel’s Sandy Bridge architecture, and possibly high-speed 400MBps flash memory.

While it seems silly for touch typists, there is something really gratifying about the backlit keyboards on Apple’s laptop. While they certainly make keys easier to see, they just look cool and make the whole machine seem more high tech. Even it was too dim to add much over the light from the screen (e.g. the first 17″ PowerBook), the backlit keyboard was one of my favorite features and one I missed when I switched to the original MacBook.

I’m still undecided about whether I’ll go for the 11″ or 13″ Air, but I’ll definitely be choosing a model with a backlit keyboard.

AppleInsider | HTC says Apple would rather sue than compete ‘fairly in the market’

Responding to the latest legal challenge from Apple, people speaking for handset maker HTC on Tuesday said they are “disappointed” that Apple is suing its competitors “instead of competing fairly in the market.”

There are many sites reporting this “news” today. Whether you agree with the statement or not, it’s the usual corporate spin. How is this useful information?

So much for my theory on iCloud being a new and improved Time Capsule. Nonetheless, I expect a new set of Apple wireless products soon, hopefully with Thunderbolt.

Also, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the 27″ display updated with Thunderbolt out and a FaceTime HD camera.

Everyone has been assuming that iCloud has something to do with Apple’s NC data center, but consider this:

Many Apple apps are tied to a single account on a single computer (e.g. iTunes, iPhoto, etc.). This necessitates that iOS devices that want to use media on these machines sync to this one account (on this one machine) to avoid manual copying. Apple could centralize storage for these types of media, but renting this kind of storage is expensive and makes many people nervous.

What if iCloud is not something served by the data center at all, but instead a product, something you can buy. A home server that stores your home’s media collection. When you buy something new, it goes into your iClould. Because you control the storage, it could store as many different file types as you liked, or even all your files. The iCloud could also serve as a backup for both MacOS and iOS devices.

The iCloud could run independently of a computer. In fact, it would be a computer, probably running iOS. Apple could even allow a Mac to serve as an “iCloud server” using Lion’s optional Server add on. Since speed is critical, iCloud could essentially replace a Time Capsule, also serving up fast Wifi. It wouldn’t surprise me if it also had Thunderbolt for storage expansion.

Twitter / @Eldar Murtazin:

Just one comment. Apple iPhone 3Gs wont be upgradable to iOS 5.x. iPhone 4 will.

This tweet from the editor of Mobile-Review is getting a lot of attention, but it shouldn’t be a big surprise. This, along with the relatively late arrival of iOS 5 points to ambitious upgrade that will likely pack a lot of new features including, I suspect, much more advanced speech recognition. The only bit of discomfort here is that the 3GS is STILL being sold right now, albeit heavily discounted (at $49) and only from AT&T, not directly from Apple.

Apple’s in a tough situation here – the iPhone 4 is nearly a year old, and will be well over a year old by the time the iPhone 5 arrives. One way to address this would be to discontinue the 3GS next month, and drop the price on the iPhone 4…maybe as soon as WWDC.

The iPhone has a lot of useful functions, but one that comes in particularly handy around the house is the Clock app. Not for telling the time, but rather because it has a timer. There’s lots of things to time, especially around the kitchen. The clock apps timer is simple, but functional, and it’s built in. Why look for something more complex.

Due is why. This $5 app is fantastically useful. Let’s start with the timer functionality. You can set up pre-set timers for things you frequently use. I have a coffee roasting timer, a pizza timer, a tea brewing timer, and others. Timers can set to operate on “alarm mode”, so you are constantly reminded until you intervene, or can stop after the first alert. If that was all Due did, it would be great.

But there’s also reminders. Set a reminder for a specific time and Due will, well, remind you to do it. Need to drop something at the post office before it closes? Have Due remind you an hour before. Want to start the laundry when you get home? Set Due to remind you a little after you expect to be home. It’s for all those things not quite important enough to schedule in your calendar, but still important for you to remember. If certain times generally have significance in your life, you can have easy presets for these (e.g. when you wake up, at lunchtime, when you get home, before bed).

It’s got a lot of features, and my only critique is that there should be better documentation for the what exactly the various icons in its beautiful interface actually do…but they are easy to figure out with a little experimentation.

I haven’t really used the iPad version, but I use the iPhone version all the time, and it will sync between your devices using Dropbox. For more info, see the Due website or the App Store.

I’m not a huge fan of Adobe’s Flash, but it’s still sometimes useful for certain websites. Adobe’s certainly felt the pressure from Apple’s lack of support, if not outright encouragement for people to abandon the platform (stimulated in large part by the lack of Flash support in iOS).

If you do use Flash, however, the latest update is definitely worth getting. 10.3 adds a new preference pane that allows for two key new functions:

• Setting of security preferences and allowing users to delete so-called “Flash cookies” (which prevent sites from bypassing your browser’s security by using Flash to track you).
• Finally providing the Mac with auto-updating.

Grab it now.

The newly released iMacs add some nice new features, like faster speeds and dual Thunderbolt ports (allowing from 3 displays). On previous iMacs, the Magic Trackpad could be ordered as an additional option (along with the Magic Mouse). That’s still an option, but the reality is that you don’t need both. Apple was cautious at first, thinking the trackpad couldn’t act as a full replacement for the mouse, but I’ve been a convert ever since first trying it. I haven’t felt the need to use the mouse, even for detailed graphics work. Given the increased use of gestures in many apps (and in the upcoming Lion OS), the Trackpad makes sense as a mouse replacement. Now you can swap the mouse for the trackpad for no extra cost:

Apple – Press Info – Apple Q&A on Location Data

Apple would like to respond to the questions we have recently received about the gathering and use of location information by our devices.

I criticized Apple for this delayed response, but they seemed to have played it strategically, burying it along with simultaneous releases about the white iPhone 4 and increased iPad availability.

The quick summary seems to be:

• Apple is collecting location data and storing it on your iPhone. It’s not your location per se, they argue, but the location of nearby cell towers and WiFi base stations (a minor distinction).
• This data is sent anonymously to Apple and cached locally on your phone to improve performance of location services.

Some obvious questions come up:

• Why does Apple store so much historical data, up to a year’s worth?
• Why does Apple store this data at all if location services are turned off?

Apple’s answer is that these are bugs and will be addressed in a software update (it seems more likely that it’s just become a liability now). Apple also says they plan on excluding this data from the iPhone’s backup and, eventually, encrypting it on the device itself.

I’m struck by how poorly written the release is and by its use of jargon (“crowd-sourced” is used several times). This could be sloppiness due to the rapid response, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was intentional, so the message becomes:

We’re not tracking you. This hubub is all about some complex technical stuff you don’t understand. Any concerns will soon be addressed. It’s safe to buy the new white iPhone 4: go for it!

Aside: a more interesting reveal was that Apple is collecting traffic data for a future traffic service. I’m sure Google Maps will be gone as a standard app by iOS 6 or sooner.

The latest media buzz about the iPhone surrounds the discovery (or rediscovery, as it turns out) that the iPhone stores a history of the location’s your phone has been in a local database. There has been a lot of confusion about what’s actually going on here, so, as Obama says, let’s be clear:

• The iPhone keeps a location history in a database stored on the device itself.
• Like everything else on your iPhone, this is backed up to your computer when you sync with iTunes.
• You have the option to encrypt your iPhone backup, including this database, but you have to turn this on by checking an option in iTunes.
• This location information likely already exists, even if you don’t use an iPhone, with your wireless carrier, since they know which cell phone towers your phone has connected to, and when.
• If you don’t encrypt your backup, and someone got access to your computer account, and they knew how to interpret the location data in this file, they could theoretically determine where you (or at least your phone) have been.
• There is no evidence that this location database is being transmitted anywhere other than to your computer (when you sync).

The last item is what has some people spooked, but it seems a bit ridiculous to me. If someone got access to my computer, there is a lot of more valuable information than my location history that they would gain access to. To prevent this, I password protect and encrypt my home directory (and I suggest you do to), but this is not because of any particular risk around my location database.

A bigger issue, however, is that Apple’s PR has been totally inept at responding to this issue, allowing it to fester in the media and spread uncontrolled without any clear message about the facts. This, in the age of instant communication, is a major blunder.