Macenstein

Celebrity Mac Chick sighting: Hannah Montanna… err… Miley Cyrus

Cyber hacker extraordinaire trainreq apparently hacked into Miley Cyrus‘ iPhone last month and found some semi-racy photos she has taken of herself last year meant for Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers. Given her Vanity Fair debacle, Miley should really stay clear of cameras. If you don’t know who any of these people are, you are more lucky than you know. Unfortunately, I hear I will be taking my 6-year old daughter to see Miley “Hannah Montanna” Cyrus... Read More

The only thing lamer than standing in line for an iPhone is…

…being the “color commentator” reporter who is sent down by a local news affiliate to cover the people standing in line for the iPhone. (Of course, I suppose being the Mac news site that covers the guy who is sent to cover the guys standing in line might be even lamer…) Take KTLA’s Eric Spillman (please). Eric, when asked to go down and report on the line in front of a California Apple store, decided to do his best “Triumph the Insult Comic... Read More

“Plastic” iPhone 3G actually stronger than the 1st gen? Made of zirconia?

Everyone loves WillItBlend.com, the site where Tom blends all sorts of gadgets (but only gets page hits when they are made by Apple) in his TotalBlender. Well, a little bird asked us to check out the latest WillItBlend video of the new “plastic” iPhone 3G being destroyed, and then compare it to the original, “metallic” iPhone’s blended experience. See below. Above: As you can see, the 1st gen iPhone was reduced to powder, aside from the metal screen... Read More

Developers furious over App Store “Line Cutting”

There’s a bit of bad blood brewing between developers of iPhone Apps these days. It seems several different companies have renamed their iPhone games to begin with either a space, a quotation mark, or some other symbol so that they appear first in the list of 197 games on the iPhone portal to the App Store. Jirbo, who often puts a space in the front of its applications’ names, is one of the developers trying to cut to the front of the line. One developer, who... Read More

Is Apple even looking at the iApps before listing them?

Take a look at this iApp, called “Hold On“. Let’s ignore the fact that there’s a good argument it really shouldn’t even have been allowed on the iApp store in the first place – can anyone make the argument that it should be listed under “Productivity“? I’ll assume IMAK Creations was being ironic when they submitted it to the iApp store, but where’s Apple’s Q/C? Were they in that big a rush to hit 500 apps for... Read More

WTF? All iApps now have a “0” popularity score

Hmm… well, we know at least 290 people must have downloaded that… Remember how we got those first quick stats about Super Monkey Ball, where we learned it had sold 3927 copies in the first couple hours after the leaked iPhone firmware came out? That’s because Apple includes a “popularity” counter below each app that allows you to see just how many people have downloaded each app (this is not viewable via the iTunes version of the app store, just... Read More

Plano Texas Apple Store evacuated for bomb scare during iPhone launch

Well, the Plano Texas Apple Store has officially won the coveted 2008 “Worst iPhone Activation Experience” Award. While various Apple stores have all had their fair share of activation problems/server outages this morning, the launch at the Plano Texas Apple Store in particular deserves special mention. Faithful Macenstein reader Trish tells us that in addition to all the “normal” bottlenecks would-be iPhone purchasers had to deal with, apparently Mall... Read More

And the iPhone activation problems begin…

Those of us who managed to live through the painful debacle that was the last iPhone launch (my activation took 5 days, thank you very much AT&T) may be interested to know that Apple may not have learned all its lessons from AT&T’s mistakes. According to faithful Macenstein reader Dave, Apple is having some slight technical problems at its Ann Arbor, Michigan store activating the new iPhone 3G for customers. “Word from Ann Arbor, MI: an Apple rep came out... Read More

Screw the iPhone! We got all your Zune news RIGHT HERE!

Yeah, I know iPhone launch day has already begun to be celebrated all across the world, but quite frankly, I am getting sick of reporting on the iPhone. So I thought I would take a quick look at what’s going on with the Zune in the news today. Surely Microsoft has some sinister plans to steal Apple’s thunder! Let’s see what it is! Just hold on one second while I Google “Zune”… hmmm… OK… Well, um, apparently teen actress Paige... Read More

Win one of 10 free copies of the new DOT.TUNES V2 iPhone Plugin!

That’s right, Macenstein and DOT.TUNES have joined forces to give away 10 free copies of the soon-to-be released DOT.TUNES iPhone Plugin V2 in celebration of the 3G iPhone launch. DOT.TUNES is the awesome iTunes companion application that allows you to easily stream your entire iTunes music and video collection from your home computer (Mac or PC) to your iPhone/iPod touch via Wi-Fi, or now… 3G, as well as share your library with friends and family over the internet. ... Read More