MacRumors

Capacitive Capable Gloves

At Macworld, iTouch Gloves (left) and Telefingers (right) both offered solutions for using the iPhone's capacitive touch screen while wearing gloves. iTouch Gloves offer high end leather glove styles that start at $99.95.. They offer a variety of styles in both women's and men's styles.

Telefingers' solution is quite a bit less stylish but also much cheaper. For only $15 a pair, you can get a thinner (non-leather) pair gloves with specialized tips that allow you to control your iPhone screen. Either way, it's better than using sausages.

Xserve Racking Solution

Electrorack offers a wide variety of server racking solutions, but this one caught our eye. It's a rack enclosure for Xserves and RAID configurations that happens to styled like an oversized Mac Pro.

SurfaceSound in Your Helmet

TuneBug has been offering its SurfaceSound solution Vibe for some time already. Vibe is a small device that takes an audio source and turns any surface into a speaker. TuneBug has taken this same concept and applied it to both Bike and Snow/Skateboard helmets.

Shake connects via Bluetooth to your iPhone and then transmits sound waves throughout your helmet, letting you listen to your favorite tunes without headphones. Shake is expected to ship in April for $119.95.

U-Socket - USB Power in Your Wall

Fastmac claims this is the first of it kind due to some regulatory issues they had to clear. The U-Socket allows you to have a wall plate with both USB and regular power outlets. No more hunting for your USB->Power dongle, just plug your USB cable straight into the wall. U-Socket can be installed on any existing wall socket. The price is $19.95 now, but normally $29.95.

FloTV - Live Television on Your iPhone

If you've been missing a way to watch live television on your iPhone, Mophie and FloTV have teamed up to provide just that solution in the next couple of months. FloTV is a new wireless TV service that has been put in place across the U.S. It provides 18 channels of television service with broad coverage.

In order to achieve this on the iPhone, Mophie has integrated the FloTV chips into one of their iPhone battery packs (Juice Pack TV) (not pictured above). The FloTV application will be a free download from the App Store and will interface with the FloTV chips using Wi-Fi. The end result should be live TV viewing from your iPhone as well as additional battery power from the Juice Pack TV.

Square - Mobile Credit Card Processing

Square UP was showing their new credit card processing solution for the iPhone. They are planning on offering a no-hassle way for individuals to start accepting credit card payments. Simply buy their $1 app from the App Store, sign up for service, and they will send you a small hardware dongle that will swipe credit cards (shown right). No individual merchant account is required as Square UP handles all the processing and payments and takes a 2.9% cut of all sales.

The Square service is currently in beta testing and should arrive later this year.

iV Plus - Universal Remote, Camera Flash and Battery Pack

FastMac showed of their latest creation at Macworld. The iV Plus is a combination case, IR Remote, Flash LED, and Battery Pack. The enclosure wraps around the iPhone like a case much like the other battery solutions available, but the inclusion of the IR port and Flash LED add a significant amount of functionality.

FastMac will also be providing free Universal Remote software to work in conjunction with the case. The software allows you to customize your remote settings and a more advanced paid version will include live TV guide with show searching support. Meanwhile, support for the Flash LED is also coming in the form of a free camera app that will snap a picture and also trigger the flash.

The iV Plus is expected to ship in Q2 for $130.

Navigon MobileNavigator 1.5 - Integration with Other Apps

Navigon was out showing off its upcoming 1.5 update to its MobileNavigator turn-by-turn guidance software. The update is due in March and brings several new features:

- Panorama View 3D: NASA sourced elevation data to provide 3D views of the landscape
- MyRoutes: Gives you up to 3 alternative routes with different route recommendations based on current traffic conditions as well as your personal driving profile.
- Facebook and Twitter Integration: broadcast where you are and where you're going.

Also announced was a new OpenAPI "Appinteract" for Navigon's software that will allow other App Store developers to pass destinations directly to MobileNavigator. For example, if a restaurant is found within iPhone App Where To?, a single tap can launch and initiate routing within MobileNavigator. The actual data is simply passed as a specialized URL, so the implementation should be simple for developers, but is much more convenient to the end user. The 1.5 update to MobileNavigator should arrive in March.

Tales of Monkey Island

One of the big new announcements at Macworld was Tell Tale Games' release of a Mac version of Tales of Monkey Island available immediately. The company has also committed to delivering Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, Strong & Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, and Sam & Max to the Mac. The next game to be released is up for user vote.

Tales of Monkey Island is a 3D graphic adventure game based on the classic title Secret of Monkey Island and originally released for PC and WiiWare in 2009. Tales represents the 5th in the Monkey Island series and is the only modern version that has become available for the Mac.

Available for purchase now for $34.95 and a free demo is also available for download.

iPlayback - HDMI to mini Display Port

Want to use your 27" iMac as an HDTV? Kanex was showing off their HDMI to mini Display Port adapter that lets you connect your Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Blu-ray players to your 27" iMac. Both video and audio are transmitted across at a resolution up to 1920x1200. The retail price for the device will be $149 and its expected for release in the next couple of months.

Wireless USB A/V Adapter

That is a MacBook screen being shown on a HDTV wirelessly. Wisair announced Mac support for their wireless USB DisplayDock at Macworld.

The Wireless USB DisplayDock Set allows you to easily connect your MacBook using a single USB adapter. Both wireless audio and video are transmitted at up to 1440x1050 screen resolution. The wireless base station that connects to your TV supports VGA, HDMI, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

The Windows version of the device is shown on the website, and is sold at retailers under a variety of brands. The hardware is identical for the PC and Mac, but the official Mac drivers won't be here until the end of March. Those drivers should become available on the manufacturer's pages, or you can wait until a Mac-packaged version becomes available in about April.

Consumer Reports announced this week the results of a study it commissioned assessing the monthly data usage for customers of Apple's iPhone and other smartphones. The data, obtained from over 1,000 consumer accounts linked to online bill analysis firm Validas, reveals that iPhone users consume an average of 273 MB of data per month, five times that of BlackBerry users and nearly twice that of users of other smartphones.

On average, iPhone users consume 273 MBs of data per month. That compares with 54 MBs for consumer users of Blackberrys and 150 MBs for consumers who use other brands of smart phones, the Validas study found.

The disparity in data usage is particularly evident at low levels, where 80% of BlackBerry and 54% of "other" smartphone users consume less than 50 MB of data per month while only less than 20% of iPhone users maintain such low usage.

Consumer Reports points to the data consumption of iPhone users and the strain they have placed on AT&T's network in the United States as a possible key source of discontent that led to the carrier placing last in the magazine's recent overall and city-by-city ratings.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek and The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) report that Microsoft is set to demonstrate its next-generation smartphone software, to be known as Windows Mobile 7 or Windows Phone, at next week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. According to BusinessWeek:

On Feb. 15, Microsoft will unveil its latest effort to get back into the game. The renamed Windows Phone operating system, set to be introduced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, will "move the bar forward," said Robbie Bach, president of the company's entertainment and devices division.

With Windows Mobile 7, Microsoft is reportedly seeking to pursue tighter integration of its software with third-party hardware, looking to place stricter limits on the basic characteristics of devices running Windows Mobile 7 so as to ensure a more consistent quality of user experience and reduce the need for application developers to make sacrifices otherwise required for applications to run on the wide variety of hardware running Windows Mobile in its current form. From The Wall Street Journal:

New devices based on Windows Mobile 7, due out later this year, will be the first to reflect a much tighter focus at Microsoft on how its software works with hardware made by other companies. In the past, Microsoft has taken much the same approach in mobile software as it has in the PC market, licensing its operating system to nearly any hardware maker that wanted to install it on their systems.

Microsoft's new strategy addresses the level of integration possible in the iPhone, with Apple making both hardware and software, and Android, where Google has taken a more active role in handset design to improve the Android user experience. Microsoft has seen growth of its Windows Mobile user base stagnate, with Apple calculated to have passed Microsoft in U.S. sales as long as ago as late 2007 and moved beyond Microsoft in installed U.S. user base late last year.

Mobile analytics firm Flurry today released a report revealing trends seen in its user data for the month of January. Among the more interesting developments discussed in the report was a nearly three-fold surge of new App Store applications registered with Flurry to integrate its analytics into the applications. Such increases have typically been seen in advance of new device launches, and thus Flurry hypothesizes that the growth was the result of excitement surrounding Apple's iPad despite the fact that the device was not formally introduced until the very end of the month.

Developers integrating Flurry analytics into iPhone OS applications in January increased by nearly three times over December. This represents the single largest spike in Flurry history, with over 1,600 new iPhone OS application starts for January. Historically, Flurry has measured surges in new application starts within its system in anticipation of new device launches, including for the Motorola Droid and iPhone 3GS. As such, we hypothesize that excitement generated by Apple's iPad event in January is driving this growth. For developers who get a jump on customizing their applications for the iPad, there may be an opportunity to stand out early on, and earn more downloads.

Similar data for the Android platform has demonstrated steady growth ramping up over the past six months, with only a 25% jump in new project starts between December and January, substantially lower than that seen for iPhone OS. Consequently, the proportion of new starts dedicated to iPhone OS applications compared to Android rose to its highest level since last July.

Macworld Expo San Francisco 2010 kicked off yesterday with a presentation by The New York Times' David Pogue and guest appearance by actor LeVar Burton. While the Pogue keynote was a huge departure from Steve Jobs' traditional keynotes, it was infused with music, humor, theatre, and even an interview with the team behind AutoTuneTheNews (who happen to use Macs).

Here's a short clip of the beginning of Pogue's presentation which mocks Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:

Best of Show

Also new in this year's Macworld was a Best of Show DEMO session held immediately prior to the opening of the show floor featuring six of the best products at Macworld Expo.

The video embedded below shows off Ten One Design's Mac software which allows you to use the MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air's multi-touch trackpad as a pressure sensitive trackpad when using a Pogo Stylus:

The full list of "Best of Show" DEMO products are listed here:

- Ten One Design's Inklet- use your multi-touch trackpad as a drawing tablet
- Microvision SHOWWX Laser Pico Projector - Laser-power pico projector
- Canson's Papershow - Take hand written notes that appear on the screen in real time
- Carina's Skyfi and Sky Voyager - Spot stars in the sky with your iPhone and control your telescope with a Wi-Fi to serial adapter.
- Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite - Access, view, edit and share Microsoft Office documents on your iPhone
- Yapper - Easily build an iPhone App based on an RSS feed.

Impressions

The Macworld show floor was contained in a smaller space this year, but the early foot traffic seemed particularly busy on opening day. It was genuinely difficult to make your way through portions of the hall due to the number of attendees.

Impressions from both vendors and long time attendees were quite positive, given the number of visitors.

Virtualization developer VMWare was present showing off version 3 of Fusion which was released in October. Version 3 had brought Windows 7 support, Snow Leopard optimizations, and more to Fusion. VMWare Director of Personal Desktop Products Pat Lee seemed optimistic about the strong early showing at the event.

Macworld continues on Friday and Saturday, and dates for next year's Macworld Expo have been set for January 25th-29th, 2011.

Apple today unveiled a "Countdown to 10 Billion Songs" promotion via the iTunes Store, offering the contest winner a prize of a $10,000 iTunes gift card. A counter on the main iTunes Store page and Apple's home page currently displays in excess of 9.8 billion downloads.

According to the official contest rules, participants may make up to 25 entries per day either by purchasing/downloading songs from the iTunes Store or by filling out an entry form on Apple's web site. The contest begins today and ends once the 10-billion-song milestone is reached.

The prize will be awarded for the entry (either through a song download or through the non-purchase online entry) sent immediately following the download of the 9,999,999,999th song. The potential winner will be determined by the order of the entries received. In the event that more than one entrant would be a winner based on the simultaneous timing of entries, one entrant will be randomly selected from those entrants as the winner. Each entrants chances of winning are dependent upon the number of eligible entries received.

Apple has periodically offered similar contests in the past, such as its One Billion Song contest in 2006 and a One Billion App contest last year.

Apple today released Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0, addressing heat and performance issues experienced by users of Apple's Nehalem-based Mac Pros when processing audio.

This update is for Mac Pro (Early 2009) computers running Mac OS X v10.6.2. This update reduces processor utilization during audio activities, such as playing or recording music.

Full details on the update, which weighs in at 1.64 MB and requires Mac OS X 10.6.2, are included in the associated support document.

The issues, first reported in our forums last October, have manifested themselves in the form of excessive power usage and processor core heat load when performing audio-related tasks as simple as playing music through iTunes. While today's update addresses only Mac OS X Snow Leopard-based machines, users have also reported difficulties while running under Mac OS X Leopard. No issues have been observed by users running Windows under Boot Camp or on older, pre-Nehalem Mac Pros.

Silicon Alley Insider reports on information from a source claiming that rumors of Apple looking to develop its own search engine are untrue and that Apple's current deal with Google to provide default search functionality for the iPhone is currently worth over $100 million per year to Apple in revenue sharing.

Our source tells us "there's too many options" for search on the market, so there's no reason for Apple to build its own search engine.

Another reason Apple might not want to build its own search engine: It's getting over $100 million a year from Google in its revenue share deal, according to our source.

For Apple, that's not a lot of money. But, it's enough that it doesn't make sense for Apple to put considerable resources towards building its own Internet search engine. And, if Apple wanted more money or options, there's Microsoft -- with Bing and a big checkbook.

A report from BusinessWeek last month had in fact claimed that Apple and Microsoft have been in talks to make Bing the default search provider for the iPhone as the relationship between Google and Apple has reportedly soured as competition between the two companies has become increasingly intense.

T3 reports that Microsoft Senior Product Manager Mike Tedesco revealed during the Office for Mac 2011 preview event at Macworld that the company is "looking at" the possibility of bringing its Office productivity suite to Apple's iPad tablet device.

"Yeah, it's something that we're looking at," said Microsoft's Mike Tedesco, who is the Senior Product Manager for WindowsBU. "Obviously the announcement (of the iPad) is really fresh and there's nothing to announce or nothing that I can talk to you about today.

As the report notes, the release of an Office suite for the iPad would bring a significant credibility boost to the device, particularly in the eyes of business users with a critical need for such productivity software. For its part, Apple featured iPad versions of its iWork applications at the iPad media event last month, and will be offering Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for the iPad through the App Store at $9.99 per application.

Tedesco's comments come soon after Microsoft founder Bill Gates downplayed the significance of the iPad, noting that "there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say, 'Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'"