There have been reports of iPhone owners complaining about “dead spots” on their iPhone touch screen forcing Apple to replace some of these defective units. It’s not very clear how widespread a problem this is at the moment since many of the support threads with user’s complaints have apparently been pulled from the Apple support website. One good thing though - Apple does appear to be willing to replace the units if there really is a problem with them. I know that my own iPhone’s touch screen has occasionally been unresponsive to touches - but it’s not a fully reproducible event.

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Technorati Tags: iPhone, Touchscreen, Dead spots

As reported earlier today by Mike, Apple announced several new products as well as product updates to their Mac lineup. Here are the details that you need to know.

Apple iMac gets a facelift!

Apple’s famous all-in-one computer gets a new look with an emphasis on aluminum and glass. The outer chassis employs an anodized aluminum frame with a glass cover and the screen size has been upped to a massive 24 inch display (with two lower end models featuring a 20 inch display). In fact, Apple claims that every iMac is made from a single sheet of aluminum. You won’t see any seams or screws except for a single compartment on the bottom for access to the memory slots.

The iMac’s keyboard has been redesigned and now features an ultrathin anodized aluminum enclosure with low profile keys. There are special function keys for one-touch control of specific Mac features such as Dashboard and Expose.

iMac models (nothing really different here) - with two of them featuring a 20 inch display and the high end model featuring the incredible 24 inch display.  Here’s the high level breakdown of what you get with the three models:

The Mac mini is NOT dead..

Although the new iMacs were definitely the focus of today’s product announcements, there was one other bit of news for the small Mac mini product line. Apple finally released a hardware update to the Mac mini line - getting rid of the Core Duo processor and replacing it with the current Intel Core 2 Duo processor. There’s still a $599 and a $799 model but the $599 model now comes with a 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 processor and the $799 comes with a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 processor.  The $799 Mac mini also comes with 4MB of L2 cache while the $599 Mac mini comes with 2MB of L2 cache. Finally, the new Mac mini’s feature iLife ‘08.

It’s not all about hardware folks.. iLife gets new life

Yes.. today wasn’t just about new Mac updates. You’re able to get new hardware yes.. but you also need new software to make use of that new hardware right? Well Apple introduced iLife ‘08 today which will cost you $79 dollars. iLife ‘08 will come with new versions of iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, iDVD, and GarageBand. Every application under iLife received some sort of upgrade and iMovie itself was completely reinvented with an emphasis on getting movies created in a short amount of time.  Here’s a quick list of new features in iLife ‘08:

iPhoto ‘08:

• Organize by events
• Build a web gallery using .Mac
• New editing tools
• Unified search
• New calendars and books
• Theme based home printing

iMovie ‘08:

• New video  library
• Skimming and playing features for faster footage review
• Fast moviemaking
• Add enhancements quickly
• View and share anywhere
• Expanded format support including DV, HDV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and AVCHD

iWeb ‘08:

• Web widgets support
• Google Adsense and Maps
• My Album pages
• Enhanced photo pages
• Theme switching
• Personal domain names

GarageBand ‘08:

• Magic GarageBand  play with a hand-picked band on a virtual stage
• Arrangements support
• Multi-take recordings
• Visual EQ
• Automation of tempo effects and instruments
• New Vocals Jam Pack

iDVD ‘08:

• Ten new animated themes
• Better performance
• Advanced menu customization
• Stunning Slideshows
• Pro-quality encoding

Check out the iLife page here on Apple’s website for additional details about the software suite.

Technorati Tags: Apple iMac, Apple Mac mini, iLife \'08

In today’s press conference, Steve Jobs introduced new aluminum and glass iMacs, complimentary keyboards, a new Mac mini, and new updates for iWork, iLife, and .Mac applications.

The Apple Store is down, presumably being updated with the latest products.

A lot more at Engadget, Gizmodo, PCWorld, CNET, ComputerWorld.

Technorati Tags: Apple iMac, iWork, iLife, .Mac, Mac mini

Apple unleashed a number of patches this evening including their first update to the iPhone device. According to News.com, a total of six downloadable were made available covering Mac OS 10.3.9 (Panther), Mac OS 10.4.10 (Tiger) on PowerPC, and the Universal version of Mac OS 10.4.10. These patches also covered the server versions of the Mac OS. Each download contained several patches to correct flaws and vulnerabilities within the OS. You can download the updates to your OS by either visiting the Apple support website or by clicking on “Software Update” within your Apple menu.

Additional, Apple released the first update to the Apple iPhone tonight. The iPhone update is being delivered via iTunes - similar to how iPod updates are delivered. The update corrects issues within Safari as well as in Webcore and Webkit.

Last  but not least, Apple announced a new version of Safari 3.0 for both Windows and the Mac OS platform. The version is now at 3.0.3 and can be downloaded here.

[Check it out]

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Now here’s something interesting for you iPhone owners out there. GearFuse has posted an article showing what possible future applications could be in store for the iPhone down the road. How did they figure this out? Simply by looking at the firmware on the iPhone. The firmware tree apparently shows icons for several other applications including:

• Unit converter
• Address book
• Possible radio
• Dictionary
• Translator

There’s no way for sure to know if these apps are definitely coming to the platform or not but we can hope can’t we?

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: iPhone, firmware

ChipChick has published a short review of the ShieldZone invisibleSHIELD cover for the Apple iPhone. Announced back during the iPhone launch, invisibleSHIELD provides scratch proof protection for the iPhone without adding any bulk to the phone. The really cool part? You can still use your iPhone even though invisibleSHIELD is covering and protecting the device.  You can purchase invisibleSHIELD for $24.95 and ShieldZone provides a lifetime guarantee to the cover. Here’s what ChipChick thought of the shield:

Overall, the invisibleSHIELD has proved to be a great way to protect your iPhone and I believe that the $24.95 price tag is a fair one for it, especially since they include a lifetime guarantee. My only gripe is that it doesn’t cover the iPhone completely. Also, it’s important to keep in mind that while the InvisibleSHIELD is strong, it’s not strong enough to protect your iphone from the impact of a bad fall.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: ShieldZone, invisibleSHIELD, ChipChick, Review

Apple is now selling a new smaller MagSafe Power Adapter for the MacBook Pro notebook. This 85 watt notebook charger has all the features of its larger cousin including:

• Magnetic DC connector which disconnects the power cable if there’s strain on the cable
• LED located at the head of DC connector
• Wind the DC cable around the adapter for easy cable storage

The MagSafe Power Adapter is now on sale at the Apple store for $79.00 dollars except it’ll take you 3-4 weeks to get it.

[Check it out via GearFuse]

Technorati Tags: Apple, MagSafe Power Adapter, MacBook Pro

All I can say right now is - I wish I had purchased Apple stock last year.

Apple released their earnings announcement today after the close of the stock market and by all measures, they had an incredible fiscal third quarter. The company reported quarterly profits of $818 million on revenues of $5.41 billion dollars. This comes out to $0.92 cents per diluted share. Compare this to the year-ago quarter results of $4.37 billion dollars in revenue and a quarterly profit of $472 million or $0.54 cents per diluted share. What’s even more impressive - gross margins went up to 36.9 percent from 30.3 percent a year ago.

Here are the interesting numbers as reported on News.com:

• We’ll start with the iPhone because that’s what everyone cares about these days. Apple sold 270,000 iPhones during the first 30 hours before the quarter ended on June 30th. This is higher than the reported AT&T number of 146,000 iPhones. Why the difference? The 146,000 number is the number of activated iPhones - not the number of units actually sold. Remember a lot of users had trouble activating their phones? Well it turns out there was A LOT of trouble.
• The 270,000 iPhones includes phones sold to AT&T for distribution in its stores, units sold by Apple through their retail stores and some units in transit when the third quarter ended. These numbers do not include iPhones purchased over the Internet.
• Mac shipments accounted for 60 percent of the company’s revenue during the 3rd quarter and grew by 33 percent compared with a year-ago.
• Notebook shipments increased 79 percent compared with a year ago
• There were 9.8 million iPods shipped during the third quarter - up from 8.1 million last year.
• iPod revenue grew at a smaller clip to 1.57 billion - up from $1.5 billion last year this quarter
• Apple expects to ship their 1 millionth iPhone by the end of September
• It’s confirmed that Apple is receiving payments from AT&T related to the sale of iPhones though no details have been provided

Finally, Apple provided conservative guidance for the fourth quarter which ends at the end of September. The company expects to record $5.7 billion in revenue and earn $0.65 cents a share - a pretty big fall off from 0.92 cents a share.

[Check it out]

[Check out the Apple press release]

Technorati Tags: Apple, Earnings Announcement, 270, 000 iPhones

Apple has finally unveiled their AppleCare Protection Plan for the iPhone. The AppleCare Protection Plan extends your iPhone’s repair coverage (which is 1 year of hardware repair coverage and 2 years of technical support) to two years from the original purchase date of the iPhone. The plan is available to owners of the iPhone within its one year limited warranty period. The warranty covers the iPhone and iPhone Bluetooth hands-free headset and included accessories. You can purchase the plan here for $69 dollars.

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Technorati Tags: AppleCare Protection Plan for iPhone, iPhone warranty

The early iPhone numbers are finally in - at least from AT&T’s perspective. AT&T reported that the company signed up 146,000 new subscribers in the first two days that it offered the new Apple iPhone. This is lower than what Wall Street analysts had hoped for which was in the neighborhood of 200,000 new subscriptions.

According to News.com, while initial sales were not as strong as expected, AT&T did state that approximately 40 percent of the subscribers that purchased an iPhone were new customers to AT&T. AT&T executives have stated that sales continue to be strong in the month of July and one would expect this to be the case. Gene Muster, an analyst for Pipe Jaffray, believes Apple will ship 45 million iPhones by 2009 - that’s a whole lot of iPhones folks. It’ll be interesting to hear what Apple’s numbers will be tomorrow afternoon and how it jives with AT&T’s numbers.

You can read more about the earnings announcement here at News.com.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: AT&T, iPhone, new subscribers