It was both a blessing and a curse to be an Apple fan last week, with the iPhone 4S announcement immediately overshadowed the death of co-founder Steve Jobs. But now, the second full week of October is in full swing, with more than a million preordered iPhone 4S units headed to customers this Friday. Here’s what else is making news for Monday, October 10, 2011.
If there’s one internet company with an identity crisis right now, it’s Netflix. According to a posting on The Netflix Blog by CEO Reed Hastings, the company has reversed their decision to split the streaming and DVD services up, with the optical discs being shuffled off to a new site called Qwikster. Those plans are now dead, with everything staying put under the Netflix shingle. However, the CEO didn’t say what will be happening to the company’s plan to start offering video games via Qwikster, so there could still be some blowback yet to come from that camp.
Still looking for a slick IM app for your iPhone? How about one that also does double duty on your iPad as well? Look no further than Verbs IM, which is celebrating the arrival of a universal version 2.2 with full iPad support with a price drop to 99 cents for a limited time only. The app delivers GTalk, AIM, MobileMe and Facebook IM chat in a slick, clean interface, but take note: You’ll need to shell out $4.99 via in-app purchase if you want Pro features like push notifications or keeping your account logins valid for up to seven days.
Apple’s Phil Schiller gleefully touted a 2x increase in speed with the iPhone 4S over the previous model, but was it all just marketing chatter? Apparently not, with MacRumors reporting on the first hands-on video from AppVV.com, where the handset scored 89567 using BrowserMark, a Mobile Safari-based benchmark tool. By comparison, an iPhone 4 running iOS 5 clocked in at a poky 44856 -- just a hair under the promised 2x speed boost. Sounds like we’ll all be flying come October 14!
iCloud is rolling out to users on Wednesday alongside iOS 5, but according to AppleInsider, Apple will be rolling out some necessary updates ahead of time to get you ready. Japanese blog Macotakara claims that OS X Lion 10.7.2 and a new version of iTunes are both due either Monday or Tuesday, but they failed to mention that iPhoto will also need an update to support the iCloud Photo Stream feature. Developers have been beta testing iTunes 10.5, but no one knows for sure if that will actually be the version pushed out this week to support iCloud. Stay tuned!
According to 9to5Mac, Apple CEO Tim Cook has fired off an internal email to employees, announcing the company’s plans for a private celebration of co-founder Steve Jobs’ life which will take place on October 19 in the outdoor amphitheater on the Cupertino campus. The full email can be found by hitting up the link above, which opens with Cook confessing, “I have experienced the saddest days of my lifetime and shed many tears during the past week.” While it’s hard for all of us as fans, you can only imagine how difficult it will be for those who actually worked side by side with the man.
In related news, Bloomberg today confirmed that Jobs died at his home in Palo Alto and a death certificate released this afternoon listed the cause of death as respiratory arrest caused by a “metastatic pancreas neuroendocrine tumor.” The time of death was listed as 3pm PST on October 5; no autopsy was performed and Jobs was buried at a “non-denominational cemetery in Santa Clara County” on October 7.
Facebook has just rolled out a big iOS version 4.0 update, including the addition of native support for the iPad as part of the newly universal app. There are seriously a huge amount of changes noted with the release, so it’s probably easier to just head to the App Store and get downloading rather than sitting here reading this. Seriously… just do it.
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JonY
October 11, 2011 at 5:13am
This new FB update is nothing short of the kiss of death to your iPhone... temporarily!!! This latest update messes up the phone for about an hour and a full restore may be on the horizon, so back up before you do this install.
