Photo via iFixit

The iFixit guys did what they said they would do and are up with first-look photos and analysis of their dissection of the iPhone they bought this morning in Auckland, NZ. They report the only other American outfit there with them was a team from Engadget.

The photos posted on the iFixit page link to hi-res images for a better look inside the new phone. Some good news is the iPhone battery, while secreted away beneath a sealed case, is not soldered-on inside, which should reduce the cost of replacing one after it withers from surfing the web at 3G speeds.

Update: reader Michael Pantoja shares his experience with aTV Flash in the comments, worth a read.

The AppleTV is great for playing video from iTunes, but can’t play video from alternative sources like file-sharing networks. Now, a software update from Apple Core, called aTV Flash promises to unlock tons of great functionality for the Apple TV.

aTV Flash is essentially a bundling of open source hacks for AppleTV originally published at awkwardtv.org into a convenient flash based package that promises to take the guesswork out of applying the updates. aTV ships as a flash drive, that automatically updates your AppleTV as soon as it’s plugged in. The package claims a plug-n-play installation with 1 year of free updates.

Features include:

- Play most video formats (DivX, Xvid, AVI, WMV, RMVB + more)
- Play DVD files WITHOUT converting them
- Sync, organize and watch non-iTunes video files
- Browse the web with a Safari based web browser
- Rent & watch Hi-Def movies from Jaman.com
- Stream media from UPnP(v1) media servers
- View local weather forecasts
- View RSS Feeds
- Enable SSH access

As well as supporting just about all popular CODECs, the $60.00 flash update could greatly enhance your AppleTV experience.

Caveat

Applecore’s website asserts that when applying these patches you’re not voiding your warranty, that said you are hacking the OS of your AppleTV, and preventing it from updating itself in the future. While we researched the manual patching process at awkwardtv.org and it does seem to be reversible we do believe that one should enter into such endeavors eye’s wide open.

Filed under pure, wild speculation…

Many Mac Pro’s since Leopard are experiencing interment signal drops with their Airport Extreme wireless cards. This issue was first brought to my attention only after I lugged my seventy-pound monster three blocks and hoisted it up on the counter of the Genius Bar.

“It’s a known issue with Leopard,” I was apprised and sent on my way, boat anchor in tow.

Not being content with a computer that’s price compatible with a mid-tier Hyundai, and similarly incapable of navigating the Internet with any reliability, I decided to dig into this a little bit deeper, what follows are my observations only.

#1. The problem seems to be especially active when Bittorrent clients are running.
With a BT client running I’m experiencing a drop at least every 15 minutes or so. I have segregated networks (a G only network, and a N only (5mhz) network) both are Airport networks. My Mac Pro and Macbook pro are the only two computers on the N network. When the Mac Pro drops connection the Macbook Pro does not.

The engineering answer to the problem of signal drop with a BT client active is that we’re pushing bits so hard and fast the silicon might be over heating, which causes signal loss on at the computer. I could believe this except:

#2. The problem doesn’t seem as active (with a BT client running) when the Network Preferences dialog is open.
Now this I discovered purely by accident. But If I leave my network preferences pane open (not minimized) on my second monitor, my signal doesn’t drop hardly at all. I have noticed a signal drop, but it is VERY infrequent. This suggests the problem lay in code, not in hardware.

Evil Speculation: Is there some connection intentional or otherwise between dropping wireless connections and the use of BT clients? Correlation does not equal causation but I have to wonder particularly in light of:
#3 I don’t seem to loose signal when we’re not running a Bittorrent Client.
I can’t go so far as to say that the signal drop problem doesn’t occur at all when my bittorrent client isn’t running, but after several days not running a BT client, I’ve yet to observe a signal drop. I also took steps to push bits as hard and fast as I could, downloading Linux distributions over HTTP, uploading thousands of photos over FTP. The signal seemed to stay rock solid.

So I’m back to Evil Speculation again: Is there something in code that is causing these drops to happen (at all or at least more frequently) when running Bittorrent clients?

I’d like to ask our fellow Cultists to run their own experiments. If you’re not having dropping problems fire up a bittorrent client (the problem happens with either BitRocket or Transmission) and download and seed a legal torrent (can I suggest Leander’s book?) and see if it starts happening. If you are experiencing the dropping problem: are you running a BT client in the background, does it go away when you stop?

If there are any bit-jockeys out there who can trace the actual code in memory, can we find a real connection, or is this just paranoid speculation?

As if we needed another piece of evidence that the MacBook Air is the ultimate lust object of the style-conscious intelligentsia, consider this: Charlie Rose, the PBS talk show host known for his deep, probing and often ponderous conversations with celebrities and authors, appeared on his show the other night with a bandage on his eye that he earned diving to the pavement headfirst to protect his Air. Sooner his face - a TV host’s most important asset - than his computer.

I stand corrected. Without any question, Apple has completely reframed the value of a computer. It’s worth more than a career on PBS.

Via GadgetLab

You want to know what’s 800 times as expensive as a 1GB iPod shuffle and twice as ugly? That would be the iDiamond shuffle, an absurdly encrusted former Apple product coated in white and pink gold and dozens of diamonds. See that ear bud? It still doesn’t sound any good. But hey, only $40,000!

Techotic via Digg

Less than a week after Apple showed off all of the tantalizing SDK and Enterprise features of iPhone OS 2.0, the iPhone Dev Team has announced that it has fully unlocked the iPhone, patching its firmware to work with any carrier and allow the installation of any application, not just what Apple distributes through iTunes.

This is a really big deal, and I’m curious to see how it plays out in the coming months. Apple has made it very clear that it will do whatever it can to relock the iPhone whenever an exploit is discovered. According to the Dev Team, however, this firmware patch, called “Project Pwnage” is unfixable by Apple. I don’t buy it yet, but if this code remains quiet until the official launch of iPhone OS 2, this could be an invaluable tool for anyone who wants the full iPhone experience without AT&T.

Still, a lot of time between now and then, and Apple is as dedicated to lock things down as the hacking community is to opening them up.

Via Gizmodo

The iMac is a beautiful all-in-one desktop solution capable of handling most every need. But it’s also a bit pricey, especially compared to the dirt cheap Mac mini. Jon Doty decided to do something, fusing a Mac mini with a commodity LCD monitor to create a homemade iMac that I can only describe as…elegantly janky.

Make sure to check out the gallery - the whole process is detailed to a charming degree.

Via Digg.

The tinkerers at iFixit have taken apart the MacBook Air to discover:

• The battery isn’t hard to remove, but it isn’t something you’d do mid-flight when the battery dies.
• Most of the internal volume is taken up by the battery.
• The logicboard is surprisingly small: it looks like something out of an alarm clock, not a reasonably-powered laptop.
• The touchpad uses the same hardware as the iPhone and iPod Touch, which may allow Apple to add new multi-touch gestures via software.
• The hard drive is the slim 80-Gbyte model, not the chubby 160-Gbyte drive found in the iPod Classic. Unfortunately, 80-Gbyte is the maximum capacity of drives this size (5mm deep).
• It’s held together by 88 tiny screws.

Gotta love that sky-blue. I know some people aren’t into the fatty nano, but I didn’t know they were especially prevalent in Thailand. Flickr user Mr. Neutron sets us all straight on that point.

Via BoingBoing

I love new technology, especially when it’s enhanced by really old technology. And that’s why I endorse Nanoscope, a bizarre mod of an early 1970s slide viewer that Mark Irwin dremeled down to make it an ideal iPod nano video expander. Pop it in, and you get a huge, beautiful picture — that just happens to be a little warped at the corners.

I’m in. Who else wants one?

YouTube - Introducing Nanoscope
Via Gizmodo

Tags: hack, hardware, nano, ipod

I love the creativity of Mac users. Marcelo, a reader of Lifehacker, put together a great DIY laptop stand he cobbled together from an IKEA paper towel holder. He’s got tips for how to do it, but you really do need some serious hardware:

This was made from some plexi and an Ikea paper towel holder that I had laying around. I drilled some holes in the stainless steel crosspiece (don’t try this without a drill press and graduated high speed bits).

Gorgeous. Totally matches the aesthetic of the MacBook Pro. More pics at his Flickr stream.

Via Lifehacker.

Last month, after a couple of eggnogs at the office, I drenched my keyboard in a cup of coffee. Kind readers suggested running it through the dishwasher. Of course, putting keyboards in dishwashers is the kind of thing you read on the internet all the time, but never believe it actually works.

So, skeptical that it would work, I tried it myself.I’m happy to report that running a filthy, coffee-stained keyboard through the dishwasher works great. The keyboard is spotless, and it works perfectly.

Feel me: dishwashers make keyboards better than new.

Full procedure after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Since Mac OS X replaced the Classic Mac OS, nothing has galled users more than the Spinning Beach Ball of Death, also known as the “I’m thinking, but I’m thinking in rainbow colors!” icon. Ask your Mac for more than it wants to handle at a given moment, watch as your precious pointer becomes a useless spinning beachball.Dutch artist Gijs Gieske has taken that icon of Mac frustration and turned it into a giant work of art to remind us all how much easier our lives could be, although he claims he made it “for no particular reason.” Just look at it — it’s like staring into hell…

Source: MAKE via GadgetLab via Engadget

So cool. Ben Fino-Radin is doing some awesome work with retro-tech. In addition to the Hacked Mac shown here, he has made needlepoint 128k Mac replica. He hasn’t done anything new in several months, but I’d say he’s earned a break.

Via Boing Boing’s Mark Frauenfelder.

Leander’s got the full story over at the Mothership. Anyone else have some gorgeous laser-etched Apple stuff they’d like to share?

Image via Flickr

Well, it’s command-line for now, but the iPod touch has been hacked to enable VoIP calling by a modder going by Eok.
The hack uses the utility SvSIP, which was originally created to enable the same capability on the Nintendo DS. It’s pretty far from usable by mere mortals for the time being — typing can be enough of a pain on the virtual keyboard, let alone doing any mucking around in a shell script — but this is fun. The touch is an iPhone in all but communication connectivity only anyway, why not make it a true little brother to the iPhone?

Also, can I get a German layout for my iPhone? I love the look of “QWERTZUIOP”.

Via iPodNN

A video from 1996 at Newton just resurfaced after years of obscurity. Basically, the erstwhile Apple division had 4,000 spare modems for the PDA that they just had to get rid of. Soon, a spectacular display was planned. Over at MacLife, Maurice Sharp, a former Newton Engineer, explained what happened…

I remember making this video… the simple beginning of an email letting people know there were some modems if you wanted one, the discovery that a few was 4,000 or so, then the start. Luckily I lived very close by so I rushed home to get my video camera.

During this time, the Newton group was still in it’s heyday. We were pushing the envelope. We had fun disagreements on what the optimal design was for our customers. There should still be a Newton prototype around somewhere that was built into an empty Palm Pilot shell (now that would have been interesting, though the cost of the Newton would have been much higher.) And the return of Jobs and demise of Newton was not even a bad dream.

I really admire the faith of the Newton true believers. Right up there with the Amiga faith.

Via MacLife

A lot of people, like me, had the misfortune of buying a 3G iPod, loving it, and absolutely hating its terrible battery life. Apple eventually provided a product recall following a class-action suit, but the replacements weren’t that much better. At this point, my factory installed battery literally averaged just 45 minutes of life each charge. Less if I tried to skip a song or change playlists.

To really get this lovely vintage gear in top shape, an upgrade with longer life is called for. Lots of companies are now offering service to install new batteries, but that’s for wimps!

Ready to take on the challenge, I ordered a DIY kit for iPod battery replacement last week, and tonight I got the process down. It’s easy, and it’s fun. So click through for a complete step-by-step photo guide to installing a third-party battery.
Read the rest of this entry »

In case you don’t speak Geeky Acronym, the gibberish above means that someone (in this case, Ryan Block of Engadget) has dropped a 64-gigabyte solid-state drive into a MacBook Pro. The incredible drives, which are still extremely expensive compared to conventional hard drives, use flash, not platters for storage, and as a result, have no noticeably moving parts. They’re virtually silent, and they’ve been claimed to up battery life to unheard of levels (I’ve heard 11 hours on a Toshiba subnotebook). Block hasn’t provided a battery life figure yet, but I’m kind of drooling. In two years, virtually all laptops will have moved in this direction…

Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: macbookpro, ssd

Remember when Mac OS X only ran on Macs? That era is a thing of the past, as a group of hackers have already managed to install Leopard on vanilla PCs, with only a modicum of effort required. As DailyApps reports:

Well its been only a day since the Mac OSX Leopard was released officially by Apple and the hackers have managed to create a patched DVD that everyone like you and me can use to install Leopard on PC’s without having to buy a Mac. Please note the tutorial that I am going to post is still experimental and things might not work the right way simply because it is still early days in hacking Leopard to work on PC’s. Well if you don’t mind your PC getting screwed then go ahead and try out this tutorial.

I always expected that this was a possible consequence of Apple’s shift to Intel processors, but this still boggles the mind. Has anyone else tried to non-suckify their Wintel box yet? And does the vibrant iPhone hacker community have anything to do with this change?

Hack Attack : Install Leopard on your PC in 3 easy steps! | dailyApps
Via Laughing Squid

Tags: leopard, hacks