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In an surprisingly frank and fresh exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph, Steve Wozniak has left us some new gems of wisdom regarding the past, present, and future of Apple. Among his thoughts on Apple's fanboyism, stock overvaluation, upcoming products, and the iPhone limitations, the most surprising is his prediction that the iPod success will die soon, just like the Walkman and transistor radio did:
In case you wanted to create your challenge to the world's longest ringtone, CNET has an interesting little video tutorial up that'll show you how to do so on the iPhone using iTunes. Turns out the music software lets you choose the start and stop times of a song, rename the extension and create a custom ringtone. You'll need Garage Band if you want to get fancier than that, but who needs fancy when all you want to do is make a 62 minute-long song? [CNET TV]
A new European Union rule could spell the end to the iPod's pesky integrated batteries. The EU's proposed "New Batteries Directive," which mandates that batteries in electronic appliances need to be "readily removed" would force Apple to change the iPod's design for the European market.
Less than a month after Apple initiated the recall process for its USB iPhone power adapters, customers are reporting that their replacements have been received. The original adapters had metal prongs that could break off and remain in a power outlet, which carried an electric shock risk. The new one looks exactly the same as its predecessor, except it's bedaubed with an extra green dot. [TUAW]
Another bug in iPhone OS 2.1, which we have tested and reproduced, is that it will no longer fetch emails in the background while in sleep mode on battery power. It's most probably one of the power-saving tweaks introduced in 2.1, since Apple says that the 15-minute fetch interval is the worst wear on the battery because it never lets the phone go into deep sleep mode. This Apple discussion thread chronicles the problem at length. It's possible it'll be fixed in the next update—a reader tells us that Apple confirmed it's a "known problem" and that they are looking into it, but in the meantime, don't lean too hard on fetch. [Apple - Thanks Josh!]
While this iPhone security hole isn't nearly as gaping as the last one we covered (which was fixed by Apple), it too exploits the emergency call feature in password-protected mode. In password-protected mode, there's an option to disable SMS preview, so if someone picks up your locked phone, they can't see incoming text messages. However, if you activate a locked phone's emergency call mode, and it receives a text message, it'll show you the full text in preview. And yes, this is with 2.1. Again, a sorta minor security oversight, but if you're super-secret about your texts (for whatever reasons), this is definitely a problem and needs to be fixed in the next update. [Karl Kraft via Daring Fireball]
News about the possibility of manual auto-correct shut-off showing up in the iPhone 2.2 software has sparked a minor debate amongst the editors about the usefulness of such a feature. Most people would probably leave it on, but it would be nice to type the word "fuck" now and then without iPhone wholesomeness turning it into the word "duck." Let's face it, emailing someone to call them a "stupid duck" kind of disarms the comment altogether. However, with a consistent regimen of swearing, the iPhone will eventually stoop to your level. That having been said: has your iPhone learned swear words? Would you shut off auto-correct if it were implemented?
Whether people were holding out for 3G, the $US199 pricepoint or just for their damn contracts to run out, in a market where carriers are pretty much forced to steal customers from each other, the iPhone 3G has been a Batman-worthy thief. One out of three iPhone 3G buyers jumped from other carriers to AT&T, though it might surprise where they came from.
After being sent out to developers last week promising only "compatibility testing" enhancements, the pre-release version of iPhone software 2.2 is starting to spill its secrets. The folks at Mac Rumors have dug up evidence that appears to indicate Google Maps' Street View finally making it into the Maps app, after popping up in the regular mobile Maps applications for non-iPhones as well as, of course, Android, with the cool Compass view feature. On top of Street View, they've also uncovered a few other new features, including the ability to disable the text auto-correction feature while typing.
Eagle-eyed reader Phelipe Hamoui snapped these shots of the giant iPhone display in Hong Kong running Mac OS X. This marks a nice change from that embarrassing little slip-up that revealed a U.S. display was running (gasp upon gasp!) Windows XP. So take a deep breath, Mac Army. Everything's gonna be okay. [- Thanks, Phelipe!]
