Apple

Rumors first floated a month ago that there would be a magnetometer built in to the next version of the iPhone. Now there appear to be corroborating screenshots, which Boy Genius Report has obtained.

The images show a debugging menu with the option to "show in compass," that is purportedly going to show up when the upgraded iPhone debuts.

One of the interesting things you can do with a digital compass is introduce augmented reality-type applications, as MacRumors suggests. Mobile augmented reality can use a phone's camera and compass to let a device capture an image of … Read more

Well, Apple has finally approved an update to the official iPhone app for industrial-rock band Nine Inch Nails, after previously rejecting it due to objectionable content pertaining to the band's 1994 album "The Downward Spiral." No changes were made from the rejected version

Maybe Apple relented just to shut up NIN frontman Trent Reznor, whose bloggy rant against Apple was pretty much the equivalent of trashing Steve Jobs' hotel room. Not only did he tell Apple to "think your policies through and for f***'s sake get your app approval scenario together," good heavens, he … Read more

AT&T may slash the price of its iPhone service plan by $10 when a new version of the touchscreen smartphone is launched this summer, according to a story on TheStreet.com.

The article cited analyst Michael Cote of Cote Collaborative saying that there is a "strong possibility" that AT&T will drop the entry-level price of its service plan to $59 from $69. Apple is expected to unveil the latest iPhone on June 8 during the company's World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

AT&T declined to comment for this story, and Michael Cote did not respond to an e-mail request for an interview.

The price cut would likely help make the iPhone, which now retails for $200 with a two-year service plan with AT&T, more appealing to more mainstream customers. I've been saying for quite some time that the biggest hurdle to widescale adoption of the iPhone or any other smartphone in the mainstream market is the high price tag of the service contracts.

Consumers have shown that they are willing to pay anywhere between $100 and $200 for a sophisticated smartphone device. But the monthly service charge, which starts at $69 for the iPhone, is much harder to swallow.

It puts the real cost of the iPhone 3G over the life of the two-year contract at a whopping $1,856, which includes the price of the 8GB phone and 24 months of the most basic iPhone voice and data plan. It doesn't include the activation fee or taxes and other fees associated with the account. For subscribers who need more voice minutes or unlimited texting, the price tag is even higher.

Still, a $240 reduction in the overall cost of the phone over the life of the contract could entice some cost-conscious consumers.… Read more

An Apple job posting suggests the company might be thinking about adding 3G wireless radios to future MacBooks.

Apple's Mac Hardware Group is looking for a quality-assurance engineer with experience in the various networking technologies popular in the personal computing market, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, "and/or 3G Wireless WAN," according to the job posting spotted by Computerworld. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Ethernet are the standard network interfaces on the Mac at the moment, while 3G Wireless WAN is a technology confined just to the iPhone inside Apple.

A few years ago, notebooks with embedded chips that could … Read more

Correction, 5:03 p.m. PDT: This story had an incorrect title for Art Levinson. He is the former CEO of Genentech.

The Federal Trade Commission has decided to take a look at the cozy relationship between Google and Apple, according to a report.

The New York Times reported Monday that Google and Apple have been informed that the FTC would like to investigate whether the fact that Apple and Google have two members of their boards of directors in common--Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Genentech CEO Art Levinson--amounts to a violation of antitrust law. The Times attributed the … Read more

Apple's iPhone has won another J.D Power award for customer satisfaction among consumers, after taking the business crown last year.

J.D. Power and Associates released the results of a customer satisfaction study measuring consumer tastes on Thursday, and ranked the iPhone highest among smartphone consumers judging five factors: ease of operation, operating system, features, physical design, and battery function. Apple scored particularly well in everything but battery life, which appears to be a sore spot for iPhone owners.

The iPhone received an overall score of 791 on a 1,000-point scale, ahead of LG's 772 points … Read more

Apple could be getting ready to cut prices on iMacs and MacBooks, according to a report.

AppleInsider is reporting that Apple plans to introduce less-expensive versions of its two most popular Macs at some point over the next several months. It's not clear how much of a cut Apple has in mind, or whether it plans to offer more value at current prices, but Apple has apparently decided that it wants to hedge its bets against a proliferation of cheap Netbooks over the last year or so, according to the report.

Mac pricing has certainly been a big topic over the last several months, as Microsoft has aggressively pushed the notion of the Mac as an expensive bauble unfit for recessionary spending. Apple responded to those ads with its standard message that Macs are more capable than PCs, therefore PCs aren't quite the bargain they appear to be.

This move, if it comes to pass, would therefore represent a change in Apple's strategy of positioning the Mac as a premium experience. Apple did cut the price of the MacBook last year, keeping an older system around for $999 while introducing the new unibody MacBooks in October. The company also lowered the cost of acquiring certain features previously reserved for the high end of its notebook line, which to some extent has a similar effect to a price cut.

Times have changed since then.… Read more

Sometimes, information can be gleaned from the most unexpected sources. In the yet-to-be-released iTunes 8.2, Blu-ray was mentioned on the "About iTunes" splash screen.

For those not well-versed in the world of Apple computers, Mac machines currently do not support Blu-ray Discs. Though you can install a third-party optical drive in the Mac Pro, you'll still need to boot into Windows to read Blu-ray media. However, if iTunes is going to allow ripping from these discs, we might finally see Macs and MacBooks with fully integrated Blu-ray support and drives.

Back in October, Apple CEO Steve … Read more

Apple CEO Steve Jobs was not feeling well enough to attend a marathon town council meeting Tuesday night over the fate of his Woodside, Calif., mansion, according to his lawyer.

"I don't think he would be strong enough if we were here until 1 a.m., and I think there's a strong possibility of that," said Howard Elman, Jobs' representative before the Woodside Town Council, as reported by the San Jose Mercury News. Jobs is currently on medical leave from Apple, and is scheduled to return to his regular schedule by the end of June.

Anyone … Read more