Apple TV 2, Magic Wand Outlined in New Steve Jobs Email
Steve Jobs outlined a potential future for the Apple TV in an email correspondence with top Apple executives in 2010, a year before his death, noting potential plans for the “Apple TV 2″ that included TV subscriptions, apps, browser and a “magic wand” control device. The email was published today as a part of Apple’s lawsuit trial with Samsung (via The Verge).
8. Apple TV 2 – David Moody, Jeff Robbin– Strategy: stay in the living room game and make a great “must have” accessory for iOS devices– sales so far, projections for this holiday season– add content:– NBC, CBS, Viacom, HBO, …– TV subscription?– where do we go from here?– apps, browser, magic wand?
Jobs’ email also goes over other subjects for Apple’s 2010 Top 100, a secret meeting in which top Apple employees discuss strategy for the upcoming year, including plans for the “plus” iPhone 4 that was eventually named the iPhone 4s and a low cost iPhone model based on the iPod touch that would replace the iPhone 3GS.
Plans for the future of iOS are also mentioned, with Jobs noting that strategy should be to “catch up to Android where we are behind (notifications, tethering, speech…) and leapfrog them (Siri, …)”.
The subject of Apple’s now defunct MobileMe service makes up another large part of the email, with Jobs acknowledging that Google was “way ahead of Apple in cloud services” and that both the search giant and Microsoft had better technology than Apple but had not “figured it out yet”. The email also notes that Apple’s plan was to improve MobileMe to the point where it tied all Apple’s products together and made its ecosystem even more “sticky”, so that it would be more difficult for customers to leave for a competitor.
Finally, the email makes mention of Apple’s desire to further its lead over Google in music and great apps in the App Store as a part of Apple’s “holy war” with Google, with mentions for both The Beatles and iTunes in the Cloud.
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The time travel movie 12 Monkeys is becoming a TV show in 2015
If you’re so enamored with time travel in TV shows that even Doctor Who isn’t enough, we have good news: you’re about to get a lot more of it. Syfy has ordered production of a series based on Terry Gilliam’s classic movie 12 Monkeys. While the show will go without most of the apocalyptic flick’s cast and crew when it airs in January 2015, its first season (appropriately 12 episodes long) will involve original producer Charles Roven as well as veteran actors from Nikita and X-Men: The Last Stand. The story arc will likely be familiar to anyone who watched the 1995 film — or 1962′s La Jetée, for that matter — but we’re not going to complain about revisiting one of sci-fi’s most enduring concepts.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: NBCUniversal
Engadget Podcast 391 – 4.4.14
Things are heating up in the podcast studio this week and its either Terrence’s cardigan, Amazon’s new Fire TV or the residual effects of Joseph’s encounter with a real action hero. There’s also a pile of news that came out of Microsoft’s Build conference, which isn’t surprising considering how long it dragged on. Redmond’s own has released Windows Phone 8.1 — complete with notifications (!) and the Cortana voice-search tool — amidst a flurry of other news. Having had a few days with Amazon’s new streaming box already, the crew offers insights about the development of the Fire eco-system and its chops as a gaming device. We’ve got plenty in store, so be sure to head to the streaming links below for this week’s episode of the Engadget Podcast.
Hosts: Terrence O’Brien, Joseph Volpe, Ben Gilbert
Producer: Jon Turi
Hear the podcast:
02:27 – Having a chat with Cortana, Windows Phone’s new personal assistant
05:32 – Windows Phone 8.1 and Cortana officially revealed at Build 2014
06:31 – Microsoft Build 2014
08:57 – Having a chat with Cortana, Windows Phone’s new personal assistant
19:13 – Microsoft pushes universal apps that run on everything Windows
19:27 – Microsoft teases a classic Start Menu for Windows 8.1 with built-in Live Tiles
24:56 – Amazon’s Fire TV promises a premium set-top experience
27:05 – Fire TV ‘isn’t trying’ to be a game console, but is Amazon’s first real investment in gaming
36:14 – An afternoon with the Fire TV
55:55 – Amazon’s first Fire TV games include in-house titles and Minecraft
01:03:20 – Felix Baumgartner is the man who fell to Earth and lived to tell the tale
01:04:50 – Apple confirms WWDC 2014 will begin on June 2nd
Subscribe to the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC).
[RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.
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Download the podcast:
Contact the podcast:
Connect with the hosts on Twitter: @terrenceobrien, @jrvolpe, @realbengilbert
Email us: podcast [at] engadget [dot] com
Filed under: Podcasts
Will.i.am claims he developed a smartwatch that will launch in July (video)
Will.i.am hasn’t exactly had the best track record with hardware projects, but that doesn’t seem to have dampened his enthusiasm for buzzy gadgets at all. That’s why he showed off — what else? — his own smartwatch during a recent appearance on a British chat show called Alan Carr: Chatty Man.
“I started the company myself,” he said before apparently tapping at a wrist-mounted touchscreen. “I funded it, used my own money to develop it.”
The rapper-turned-entrepreneur is no stranger to tech (Intel named him its “Director of Creative Innovation” for reasons we can’t quite fathom) but we’d advise you keep a few grains of salt handy anyway. We get a very brief glimpse at a display that actually seems to work, though the phone dialing sounds and music that he supposedly played seemed a bit too loud to be genuine. That said, he claims that his smartwatch doesn’t need to be connected to a smartphone — it can apparently stream stored music via Bluetooth and make calls all on its lonesome. Not enough for you? He also mentions it can access Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
So is this the real deal, or is Mr. I. Am a dedicated troll? Who knows, but if it’s the latter he’s really committed to the con: eagle-eyed forum goers at Smartwatch Fans snapped some images of that device strapped to his wrist while he was on the The Voice UK earlier this week. We’ve reached out to his camp for more info, and we’ll update this story if they ever get back to us.
Update: A new tweet from the man himself indicates the device could launch in just a few months.
@chattyman I want to give you my device before it launches in july…
– will.i.am (@iamwill) April 4, 2014
Update 2: And now he’s tweeting at us to confirm the smartwatch’s existence.
Yes, it is really real @emily…I will definitely share more info with you soon…http://t.co/yat2Gax1WJ
– will.i.am (@iamwill) April 4, 2014
Source: YouTube
Daily Roundup: 5-year-old hacks Xbox Live account, Amazon Fire TV teardown and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Watch a 5-year-old spam the spacebar to access his dad’s Xbox Live account
How difficult is it to break into a password-protected Xbox One profile? Well, 5-year-old Kristoffer Von Hassel managed to crack into his dad’s account account by simply pressing the spacebar. A lot.
Apple buys tech that could take Siri offline
TechCrunch is reporting that experts from the speech recognition firm Novauris are working with Apple to improve Siri’s vocal chops. Since most of Novauris’ work deals with locally processed recognition, it’s possible Apple’s voice tech may be in line for offline functionality sooner than later.
Amazon Fire TV teardown reveals an easily accessible media hub
That was quick. The folks at iFixit have already taken the Fire TV through the wringer, and it turns out the set-top box is relatively easy to fix. So, aside from a tricky outer casing, maintaining the internals should be a breeze for the average DIYer.
Samsung promises truly flexible electronics sooner with graphene breakthrough
Graphene’s back — well, according to Samsung, anyway. In the past, producing useable sheets of the allotrope has been a tricky business. But thanks to input from the South Korean manufacturer, the process could be refined for commercial applications.
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Filed under: Misc
Apple Spent Years Designing iPhone for ‘Normal People’
Apple senior software engineer Greg Christie took the stand today in Apple’s second patent trial against Samsung, where he shared some details on the development of the “Slide to Unlock” function Samsung is accused of copying and gave additional details on the development of the original iPhone.
One of Apple’s major arguments against Samsung is the fact that developing the iPhone was a serious risk for the company as it was new territory, a point that Christie reiterated in his testimony as he described the three year journey of the iPhone’s development (via CNET).
The iPhone went through hundreds of different design tweaks as Apple worked to make the phone function in a way that anyone could understand. The company’s focus on simplicity remains to this day, with Apple designing for “normal people,” as described by Christie.
“One of the biggest challenges is that we need to sell products to people who don’t do what we do for a living,” Christie, one of the inventors of the slide-to-unlock iPhone feature, said. When designing products, Apple keeps in mind that it wants “normal people – people with better things to do with their lives than learn how a computer might work – to use the product as well as we can.”
Christie helped develop some of the original iPhone’s key features and he is known as the inventor of “Slide to Unlock,” a function that prevents the iPhone from being activated accidentally while within a pocket. During his testimony, Christie also detailed the creation of the function (via Re/code), noting that Apple had originally aimed to have the device’s screen on at all times.
A screen that was always on proved to be infeasible, with Christie citing an inability to meet power requirements. “We had to resort to a power button,” he said, stating that the company was also concerned with “pocket dialing.”
“We knew we had to have a locked mode, or a locked state, where it wouldn’t let you do most things, except you could unlock it,” Christie said.
That need resulted in the development of Apple’s famous Slide to Unlock function, which Christie testified was an important feature on the phone because it is the first thing a customer sees on the iPhone, both in store and at home.
During this second patent trial, which covers newer devices, Apple was limited to levying just five patents against Samsung, making each one vital to the case. Apple is aiming to prove that each patent is highly valuable to the company and is seeking $2 billion in damages from Samsung.
Greg Christie gave additional details on the development of the original iPhone ahead of the patent trial, which can be found in his March interview with The Wall Street Journal.
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WSJ: Get ready for more ads in your Twitter feed
Tired of seeing inane Promoted tweets in your Twitter feed? Well, if the social media company has its way, you’ll likely see much more than that before the year’s over. According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitter plans to debut 15 new types of ad products over the next six months as a bid to gain more advertising dollars and mobile game developers over to its side. The first round of advertising will apparently be an app-install ad unit embedded within Twitter’s mobile app, which is similar to what Facebook has done. Users will see the ad in the form of an expandable tweet, or Twitter card. When they tap on the ad, they’ll be kicked over to Apple’s App Store to purchase the application, and will be reeled back to the Twitter app once the download begins. Word is that companies like Spotify are already on board, though that has not yet been confirmed. Details are scant as to the 14 other kinds of advertising Twitter wants to do, but we’ll likely see this first attempt in the next few weeks.
Filed under: Internet
Source: Wall Street Journal
Gresso’s Azimuth is the dual-SIM phone the rich have been waiting for
The one percent have long had smartphones from Porsche and Vertu to quench their high-end thirst, but when it comes to dual-SIM handsets the elite have had to settle for something a little more ordinary. For those in need, Gresso created Azimuth, the first dual-SIM, luxury handset. Starting at $2,000, the phone is made of titanium, with both the keys and logo crafted out of 18K or white gold. Since appearances are all that matter, you’re getting some pretty low-end specs under the hood, including 2GB of “internal memory,” a 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.0 and a tiny 1,100mAh battery. To put things in perspective, Samsung’s Galaxy S5 starts with 16GB of built-in storage, a 16-megapixel camera and a 2,800mAh battery. The difference being, anyone can buy an S5. Only 999 Azimuth’s will be made, because no one who’s anyone wants a phone 1,000 people can own.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
Via: Pocket-Lint
Source: Gresso
Amazon’s Dash lets you refill your pantry using your voice and lasers
Let’s be real: Amazon isn’t going to stop until you can go your entire life without setting foot in an actual brick-and-mortar store. Now the company wants to make buying groceries and sundries from its AmazonFresh same-day delivery service even easier, and it’s doing it with a tiny little gadget called the Dash. Yes, move Fire TV — Amazon’s newest bit of hardware is a free (for now?), WiFi-capable barcode scanner.
Alright, maybe it’s a bit more complex than that. It appears to be a pint-sized laser scanner (we’re checking with Amazon on that) that’ll capture the barcode of whatever items you need, but you can add to your list by speaking the name of the product into a built-in microphone. That voice recognition bit seems like it would be better suited to generic products like apples, but the teaser video shows a young lady adding guitar strings to her cart — presumably you can fine-tune choices like that once you jump onto the AmazonFresh site or mobile apps.
Word of the Dash definitely came as a surprise (especially on a lazy Spring afternoon), but it falls right in line with Amazon’s existing hardware plans. These days the e-commerce giant is all about pushing low-cost gadgets to reduce the friction of buying more stuff. Itching to read some Feynman? Fire up the ol’ Kindle. Need to watch the last season of Luther? It’s just a few clicks away on the Fire TV. What’s really neat (if maybe a little scary) is that Amazon has finally found a way to make that formula work for real, physical products. Sadly, chances are you won’t be using one of these things anytime soon. The AmazonFresh service is still only live in parts of California and Washington State, though rumors maintain that New York will get access to the program at some point.
Source: AmazonFresh
Google Play’s ‘People’ section highlights apps your friends like
You trust your friends for restaurant recommendations, so why not apps as well? That’s the idea behind Google Play’s new “People” section, which attempts to leverage Google+ as a way to show which apps your friends like enough to award a +1 (you’ll be able to see their ratings on those apps too). And it’s not just restricted to your buddies either; the section will suggest other folks on G+ that you should follow to get even more app recommendations. The update should have rolled out to your Android handheld by now, but you can view the same reviews and ratings under the “From Familiar Faces” heading on the web store as well.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Google
Source: Google Play
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