Macenstein

No Obama Hoops for you!

Whether or not you voted for Obama last week, odds are you’d like to play underwater basketball with his head. Unfortunately, Apple has decided to call a foul on Aquaaps’ proposed Aqua Obama app. Aqua Obama from playtoniq on Vimeo Yes, Apple’s approval team would not give them an assist, and instead put the full-court-press right at the buzzer on what was sure... Read More

MacBook Pro battery has 20% less juice than predecessor

Remember during Apple’s notebook spectacular when Steve mentioned that the new MacBook Pro could get a whopping 5 hours of battery life (when using the lamer 9400M chip, that is)? Well, it looks like that number is even more impressive than it originally sounded. Ryan Block noticed that the new MacBook Pro’s battery actually has less juice to work with than its predecessor... Read More

WTF?! Was Tim Cook wearing a Blackberry at today’s event?

Hmm… at an event some say was designed to show that Apple is composed of more company men than just Steve Jobs, it appears Tim Cook did not get the “There’s no Blackberry in Team” in memo. Joel Esler over at Random Thoughts from Joel’s World noticed that Tim appeared to have a Blackberry attached to his hip throughout today’s event. Now, it’s... Read More

“Unlimited number of iPods” = 5 iPods?

Faithful Macenstein reader Phelim ran into an interesting problem I had never heard of while copying music to his friend’s iPod. Apparently despite Apple’s claims that you can put DRM songs purchased via iTunes on “an unlimited number of iPods”, that isn’t always the case. Apparently there is a 5 user limit per iPod, meaning if you are like Phelim,... Read More

Macs don’t cause cancer… PEOPLE with Macs cause cancer!

Valleywag reports on the findings of a French publication called The Liberation of France which claims that Mac Pros emit leukemia-causing agents (such as Benzene) into the air when used. Multiple reports coming out of the Apple support forums mention strong toxic odors believed to be caused by “a protective resin coating on the RAM PCB’s and/or RAM riser card PCB’s... Read More

Forget the iPhone apps, Apple needs to QC the Widgets!

OK, so am I crazy, or should Apple give some kid $10 an hour to weed through the widgets on its download site? Why is it so important to Apple to keep “crap” off our iPhones that actually took some effort and might actually be amusing to some people (like the Pull My Finger app that I know my kids would have loved) but it lets us put even lamer crap on our PCs? And... Read More

iPhone 3G temporarily replaced with Siemens C65

Above: Hmmm… not sure what Marian’s problem is… As I prepare for my 4th iPhone 3G restore in the first 2 weeks since buying it, even I am getting tired of all the complaining about the iPhone’s version 2 firmware (although, I’m not as sick of the complaining as I am of the smart-asses who say “I have never had a problem yet, you must be doing... Read More

If your iPhone 3G has lost all its data and your 3rd party apps crash on launch, clap your hands!

CLAP! CLAP! Yes, that’s right, I bought me a new 3G iPhone this Saturday, even after all my whining about how I was going to wait for a 32GB model to be released before updating my 1st gen. And honestly, I would have waited, if not for a series of somewhat odd circumstances which occurred over vacation last week involving an emergency room. (If you care to hear about them,... Read More

Apple threatens MobileMe customers with an additional 60 free days of service – haven’t we all suffered enough?

Apple has announced that in order to make up for the numerous and seemingly unsolvable glitches running rampant throughout their MobileMe service, they will be offering yet another free 2 month extension to MobileMe subscribers in addition to the 30 day extension they already have doled out. To me this like going to a restaurant and ordering a thick, juicy steak, only to be served... Read More

Apple: “We still have no idea why MobileMe isn’t working”

Remember when “David G.” started that MobileMe status blog at the personal request of Steve Jobs to keep everyone up-to-date on MobileMe’s flaky outages? “Be assured people here are working 24-7 to improve matters,” wrote David, “and we’re going to favor getting you new info hot off the presses even if we have to post corrections or further... Read More