MacRumors

Skitched 20130509 162226A fourteen-year-old has discovered that the tiny magnets inside the iPad can inadvertently shut off implanted defibrillators if the device is left on the chest, such as might happen if the user falls asleep with the iPad lying on them.

Apple builds magnets into every iPad it sells for use with its Smart Cover accessory.

Gianna Chien made the discovery as part of a science fair project that didn't win first place, but she will be presenting her findings to 8,000 doctors at a meeting of the Heart Rhythm Society in Denver, reports Bloomberg.

The research offers a valuable warning for people with implanted defibrillators, which deliver an electric shock to restart a stopped heart, said John Day, head of heart-rhythm services at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah, and chairman of the panel that reviews scientific papers to be presented at the Denver meeting.

If a person falls asleep with the iPad2 on the chest, the magnets in the cover can “accidentally turn off” the heart device, said Chien, a high school freshman in Stockton, California, whose father is a doctor. “I definitely think people should be aware. That’s why I’m presenting the study.”

As a safety measure, implanted defibrillators can be turned off by magnets. The magnets in the iPad are too small to affect implanted defibrillators in normal use but can affect them if held close enough to the chest.

Chien's study found that 30 percent of patients with defibrillators who put iPads on their chest were affected by the device. Most defibrillators will turn back on once the magnet is removed, but some must be reactivated manually causing a potentially life-threatening situation.

Paracable is a new company that is hand-wrapping Lightning-to-USB cables with paracord, a lightweight rope originally used in parachutes. The cables are not official 'Made for i' cables, but Paracable founder Travis Beck told MacRumors that they have sourced high-quality cables from China and have tested them thoroughly.

The company buys cables without the USB-end attached in order to wrap the paracord, then attaching the end and using a hardening resin to ensure it is firmly attached.

ParacableAs Paracable explains, they were trying to create a cable that would not be destroyed by the founder's cat Baxter quite as easily as Apple's OEM Lightning cables.

After much thought and prototyping, the first Paracable was born. As a byproduct of the Baxter-proof cable, we had also created a beautifully textured and colorful cable worthy of the iPhone's gorgeous industrial design. "We can make these in all sorts of colors and patterns," we thought. And so we did.

Each cable is hand assembled and soldered one at a time using a unique process that ensures it's longevity and durability. We spent many months perfecting the process in order to create the best cable possible. One that not only looks good, but will last.

Paracables are available in more than 20 different colors for $27.95 each from the company's website.

itunes_radio_round_iconApple is still in negotiations with Sony and Warner over its iRadio streaming music service, reports the Financial Times. Apple had offered roughly 6 cents per 100 tracks streamed, but later reportedly raised this to 12.5 cents per 100 tracks -- similar to the rate paid by Pandora.

Although the company has reached an agreement with Universal Music, the largest record label, the FT claims other labels are still looking for better terms. Apple is reportedly working hard at reaching a deal and wishes to launch the 'iRadio' service at some point this summer, perhaps at WWDC in June.

Some music industry executives argue that cash-rich Apple should pay a higher rate than Pandora, which had 70m "active listeners" in April, because of its broader ambitions for iRadio. These include using data it already has from hundreds of millions of iTunes users to predict the selection of tracks they will enjoy, and a plan to allow listeners to purchase songs seamlessly via the iTunes store.

The people familiar with the terms said that Apple was offering labels three tranches of revenue: a royalty per track streamed, a share of iRadio’s advertising revenue and a guaranteed minimum sum over the course of the contract that would provide a safety net in case the number of plays or amount of advertising sold disappoints.

The FT notes that Apple is intentionally not launching an on-demand service like Spotify in order to avoid cannibalizing purchases from its iTunes Music Store. Instead, the iRadio service will allow customers to discover new music and likely direct listeners to the iTunes Store to buy music they enjoy.

Earlier today, Nowhereelse.fr highlighted new part photos posted by Japanese vendor Moumantai showing what is claimed to be from the iPhone 5S or perhaps Apple's lower-cost iPhone. The part corresponds to an iPhone 5 part attached to the top end of the main logic board, but does contain some layout differences.

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Nowhereelse.fr and other sites have speculated that the part is related to camera functionality given its proximity to the front and rear cameras on the iPhone, but we chatted with iFixit's Miro Djuric and determined that it appears to be primarily related to wireless antenna functionality, although its exact role has not been confirmed.

The corresponding iPhone 5 part houses a low noise amplifier from Skyworks that is involved in cellular connectivity. The part shown in the new photos also contains an antenna connector, which appears to correspond to one located nearby on the main logic board in the iPhone 5. That iPhone 5 connector is believed (but not confirmed) to be for the device's Wi-Fi antenna.

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While Apple has tweaked the layout of this part somewhat, it is very similar to the corresponding iPhone 5 part and does not immediately reveal any major changes for the device that will use it.

Minor parts for the next-generation iPhone have been leaking over the last several months, although identification of the devices associated with those parts has been made more difficult by rumors that Apple is looking to introduce both an iPhone 5S and a lower-cost iPhone later this year. In past years, Apple's strategy has been to release just one new model while keeping previous models available at lower price points.

Related Forum: iPhone

NewImageAmazon is developing a number of new hardware products to complement its Kindle line, The Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Amazon hopes to release the devices, which are being developed at an Amazon lab in Sunnyvale, California, in the coming months, but the WSJ is quick to note that some or all of them may be killed at the last minute for a variety of reasons.

One of the devices is a high-end smartphone featuring a screen that allows for 3-D images without glasses, these people said. Using retina-tracking technology, images on the smartphone would seem to float above the screen like a hologram and appear three-dimensional at all angles, they said. Users may be able to navigate through content using just their eyes, two of the people said.

Amazon is also reportedly working on an audio-only streaming music player, perhaps an iPod-like device with 3G and Wi-Fi built in for streaming music from Amazon's servers.

This device could make sense given the company's moves to beef up its digital music efforts. In recent months, Amazon has given customers free digital copies of all CDs ever purchased on Amazon.com and introduced a new "scan and match" service similar to iTunes Match.

Last month, it was reported that Amazon was developing a set-top box to stream video over the Internet via its Amazon Prime and Instant video services.

The hugely popular Pixelmator continues to add features to its image editing app, this time adding an extensive collection of shapes and related tools, a new paint selection tool, and more. There is also a new tutorials website with videos showing how to use Pixelmator to its fullest.

Pixelmator
The last update to Pixelmator added CMYK support, color profile management. The software is becoming more and more powerful for image editors, while keeping its competitive price of $14.99 -- significantly less than Adobe's Photoshop, which the team considers its primary competitor.

“We’re excited to deliver even more, easy-to-use, advanced features to our Pixelmator fans and continue to create the best and most enjoyable image editing experience,” said Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team. “With new state-of-the-art Smart Shape Tools, people can fully enhance their images, create logos, Web layouts, posters, and much more, all easier than ever before.”

Pixelmator 2.2 Blueberry comes with more than 100 new features and improvements


Pixelmator 2.2 is available now from the Mac App Store for $14.99, free for current owners. [Direct Link]

In honor of Mother's Day, Best Buy has discounted its MacBook Airs by a total of $125. The company is offering a base discount of $100, plus a 'MOM25' promo code that drops the price another $25.

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The prices with the discounts are as follows:

11-inch MacBook Air 4GB/64GB - $874.99
11-inch MacBook Air 4GB/128 GB - $974.99
13-inch MacBook Air 4GB/128GB - $1074.99
13-inch MacBook Air 4GB/256 GB - $1274.99

Best Buy has also lowered the price of its $100 iTunes gift cards to $85. The deals will last for three days, ending on Sunday, May 12 2013. To get the full sale price, customers will need to use the 'MOM25' promotion code at checkout.

netflixNetflix has updated its iOS app to version 4.1, adding several options to encourage continuous content viewing like auto-play for television episodes and post-movie recommendations.

With the new features, after watching an episode of a television show, the next episode will automatically begin to play. Additionally, after a movie ends, Netflix will offer three recommendations for similar movies. The update also includes enhanced second screen options.

- Added post-play feature where, when one episode of a TV show ends, the Netflix app automatically cues and then starts the next episode

- In post-play for movies, the three best movie recommendations are displayed at the end of the movie currently being watched

- Added enhanced second screen options

The universal Netflix app is available for download from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Apple today increased its promotion for the upcoming milestone of 50 billion downloads from the App Store, an event the company is marking with a contest in which the person who downloads the 50 billionth app will receives a $10,000 iTunes Store gift card while the next 50 downloaders will receive $500 gift cards each.

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The milestone is now being promoted as the main feature on Apple's front page, with an animated counter being accompanied by a rotating series of iPad mini app photos with associated facts to put the "50 billion" number in perspective:

- "With 50 billion steps, you could walk around the earth more than 800 times." [Solar Walk]

- "With 50 billion bricks, you could build 12 Great Walls of China." [ProCamera HD]

- "Counting to 50 billion would take you 1600 years." [Intro to Math, by Montessorium]

Apple announced the contest one week ago, and the counter stood at slightly over 49.2 billion downloads at the time. With the counter now registering a little over 49.6 billion downloads, it should take just under another week to reach the milestone.

(Thanks, Ben!)

As noticed by iGeneration [Google translation], Apple has added new Flyover imagery and 3D buildings for Paris, France. The new imagery, which extends into the Paris suburbs, marks a significant enhancement for Apple's 3D maps in France given that the only previous coverage in the country was for the city of Lyon.

paris_3d_flyover
Apple maintains a list of cities for which it offers 3D building coverage, as well as other iOS 6 features, but it has yet to update the list with mention of Paris or any other potential recent additions.

As noted by AppleInsider, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today published three Apple patent applications related to the company's Lightning connector introduced on its iOS devices late last year.

lightning_connector_patent_1

Perspective view of Lightning connector

The first application describes the hardware itself, while two nearly identical applications outline the adaptive technology used to assign pin functions. The only difference between the latter two applications appears to relate to one describing implementation on an electronic device while the other addresses its use on an accessory.

The present invention generally relates to connectors for connecting two devices. Specifically, certain embodiments of the present invention relate to reversible connectors with configurable contacts. [...]

Embodiments of the present invention provide techniques for dynamically configuring contacts of a host-side connector that is associated with a host system. In one embodiment of the present invention, a contact in the host-side connector is capable of being assigned one of several functions. The function to be assigned to the contact (and other contacts in the connector) may depend on the accessory coupled to the host system and the signals provided/used by the accessory. For example, when an audio only accessory is coupled to the host system, at least one of the contacts on the host-side connector can be configured to carry audio data.

lightning_connector_patent_2

Example pin-out diagram of Lightning connector

As part of the hardware-focused patent, Apple shares several examples of implementations for the Lightning connector, including the Lightning Digital AV adapter, Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader, and even an as yet unreleased Lightning dock of similar design to the company's iPad dock for the first-generation iPad with its 30-pin connector standard.

Apple's three patent applications published today were filed in November and December of last year, but are continuations of similar applications filed on September 7, 2012, five days before the company officially announced the standard as part of the iPhone 5 introduction. The patent applications can, however, be traced back even further to several provisional patent applications filed by Apple in November 2011.

Tag: Patent

Aio Wireless, a new prepaid cellular brand from AT&T, today announced that it has launched operations in Houston, Orlando, and Tampa, with additional cities coming over the next year. The brand offers customers access to increasingly popular prepaid cellular services alongside popular devices including the iPhone.

"We talked with no-annual-contract customers and created our service around what they want. They want simple, easy plan choices with unlimited offers; first-class service at affordable prices; great devices; nationwide voice and data coverage; and no annual contracts. Today's wireless customers don't want to compromise," said Jennifer Van Buskirk , president of Aio Wireless. "We are set up to win over value-conscious customers who are increasingly moving towards smartphones and mobile broadband."

iphone_5_aio
Aio offers two no-contract plans for smartphone customers, with the carrier's "Aio Smart" plan priced at $55/month offering unlimited talk, text, and data, with a 2 GB soft cap on high-speed data. An "Aio Pro" tier priced at $70/month increases the data soft cap to 7 GB. Aio offers the iPhone 5, 4S, and 4, with devices carrying full unsubsidized prices that see the iPhone 5 start at $650.

As noted by GigaOM, Aio mentions in its press release that the carrier offers "4G download speeds of up to 4Mbs per second", indicating that LTE is not currently supported with high-speed data limited to HSPA+ networks.

Related Forum: iPhone

storylogoDisney today announced photo and video sharing app Story, which allows users users to share photo and video collages, or "moments", with their families and friends.

The app organizes user photos by location and time and creates specialized photo/video collages that users can edit or arrange. The collages can then be shared via Facebook or email as well as be available on the Story.us website.

The Next Web notes that the app is intended for families with young children with a focus on sharing special moments so sharing, for now, is limited to more closed social networks like Facebook, but that Disney is looking at expanding sharing options to networks like Twitter and Google+ in the future.


Story for iPhone is available for free in the App Store. [Direct Link]

Just a day after reporting that its consumer electronics revenue would drop more than expected in the second quarter, perhaps due to weakening iPad mini demand, Apple manufacturing partner Pegatron has announced that it will boost its workforce by 40% in the second half of the year. The significant increase is fueling ongoing rumors of a lower-cost iPhone, as the firm has been reported to be handling production of the device.

Pegatron's Chief Financial Officer Charles Lin told Reuters on Thursday that 60 percent of the company's 2013 revenue would come from the second half.

He declined to comment whether the cheaper iPhone was among the new products to be made in the second half.

pegatron_logo
Pegatron is a longtime manufacturing partner for Apple, currently handling the iPhone 4S and iPad mini, although the majority of Apple's iOS device assembly is handled by the larger Foxconn. Pegatron currently employs 100,000 workers in its facilities, with yesterday's report indicating that the iPhone 4S and iPad mini each account for more than half of Pegatron's revenue for its communications and consumer electronics divisions respectively.

Related Forum: iPhone

Jim Dalrymple, the veteran Apple journalist behind The Loop, is launching a new magazine for iOS devices today. Rather than simply being an iOS version of the existing site, the magazine version of The Loop is a separate publication hosting longer form writing from a variety of contributors and perspectives. As Dalrymple notes in his welcome message:

For many years people have been asking me why I didn't release an app for the iPhone and iPad. The answer was simple: I couldn't find anything that added value to what I did on The Loop. I wanted something more than a side-scrolling news app that basically imitated what I'd already linked to or written on the Web site. [...]

It wasn't until I saw the format that Marco Arment used in The Magazine that I realized what I really wanted for The Loop -- a design and reading experience that matched what I had on the Web site. An easy to read magazine that focused on original content, not on selling ads.

the_loop_magazine
The inaugural issue of The Loop magazine includes a half dozen articles:

- A piece on enduring design from developer Matt Gemmell
- An autobiographical piece from Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess talking about the impact of technology and how he has embraced it in his work
- An essay on the impact of the smartphone revolution bringing computers into our pockets from Creative Strategies analyst and Time contributor Ben Bajarin
- A look at the balkanization of the Mac gaming industry by The Loop co-founder and iMore senior editor Peter Cohen
- A personal look at disruptive problem solving from Flexibits co-founder Michael Simmons
- A brief introduction to wine for newbies from event planner Brenda Singer

The Loop magazine is available through Apple's Newsstand automatic subscription delivery service and published twice per month, with subscriptions priced at $1.99 per month. [Direct Link]

FiftyThree has updated Paper, its popular sketching app for the iPad. Version 1.3.1 includes a new gallery setting, a long awaited pinch-to-zoom feature, and performance enhancements.

Originally released last March, Paper is designed to offer an intuitive way to capture ideas on a distraction free canvas. With the addition of pinch-to-zoom, Paper users can sketch with far greater detail than ever before. Unlike traditional zooming tools, Paper utilizes a magnifying glass-style circle that allows artists to zoom in on a specific area of the image.

paper
The update includes a gallery that displays a stream of artwork created using the Paper app. As with Paper's other features, the gallery uses simple touch gestures for navigation. FiftyThree has also optimized Paper's performance, upgrading its Expressive Ink Engine with OpenGL for faster rendering.

Paper by FiftyThree is an iPad-only app that can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

As noted by 9to5Mac, Apple today seeded build 12E47 of OS X 10.8.4 to developers. The release comes eight days after the previous build 12E40, and marks the sixth beta iteration of OS X 10.8.4.

12e47
As with previous beta releases, Apple continues to ask developers to focus on Wi-Fi, Graphics Drivers, and Safari.

The update is available through the software update tool in the Mac App Store and Apple's Developer Page.