Macenstein

iPhone mentioned all over Apple’s Canadian website – sloppy coding or impending launch?

“Canadians may have universal healthcare, but WE have the iPhone!” This has long been the rallying cry of many an American as we lay dying from a tumor caused by excessive cell phone use. It’s a trade-off all Americans gladly accept, yet it looks like that may be about to change. No, we’re not getting universal healthcare – it looks like the iPhone may finally be coming to Canada! Read More  Read More

The Macworld iTablet: Ramblings of a Madman, or does he know something…?

Very rarely at Macenstein, someone who knows a little bit of something drops us a tip in the days leading up to a big Mac event, such as Apple’s Macworld this January. More often, however, we get crazy rambling letters from conspiracy nuts. The problem with discounting the conspiracy nuts out of hand is, of course, they are usually right. Apple probably IS working on a cold fusion rocket in some underground lab, and odds are we’ll never see it, but you never know… One... Read More

AT&T’s Stephenson spills the beans on 3G iPhone (sort of)

At a recent meeting of the Churchill Club in Santa Clara, California, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson (apparently fed up with the constant questions about the iPhone’s 3G plans) allegedly blurted out “You’ll have it next year”. Stephenson could not provide specific details on what the new iPhone would cost, saying only Steve Jobs “will dictate what the price of the phone is”. Engadget is for some reason guessing a 3G version would debut at... Read More

Why we’re not buying the Asus/Apple iTablet rumor

Just as I was able to confidently predict Apple would never release a touchscreen iPod, 🙂 so too am I convinced these recent Apple/Asus tablet PC rumors are untrue. I do not doubt Apple has an “iTablet” touchscreen portable prototype locked away deep inside its R&D labs, (after all, they submitted their patent for one back in 2005), but there are a couple things that, to my mind at least, still put the Apple tablet a fair ways off. First, what is the perceived... Read More

No Time Machine for AEBS disks?

Apple’s new list of the 300 + new features in Leopard is indeed causing us to look at 10.5 as a more important update than we initially thought. However, it seems that while many new features have been added, one may have been taken away. Faithful Macenstein reader (and disappointed AirPort Extreme Base Station user) Deej writes: “I was looking in the AirPort Discussion boards on Apple’s site, and noticed something which I think you’re reader should know... Read More

“Video out” coming to iPhone!

We’re not sure why no one is making a bigger deal about this, but it appears that one of the major omissions from Apple’s iPhone may be getting rectified in an upcoming firmware release – namely, video out! While browsing Engadget’s O2 event gallery, faithful Macenstein reader Wemberly noticed that the UK iPhone’s “iPod” settings list a host of new video preferences, such as support for closed captioning and setting whether a video resumes... Read More

Is the $100 iPhone gift card the “Bonus Fries” of technology?

It’s well known that we here at Macenstein love a good conspiracy theory, and this is all the more true on a slow news day. So it was great timing when faithful Macenstein reader Chris wrote us with this very thought-provoking 1 line message: “Do you think Jobs planned the $100 credit all along?”. Hmmm. Do I think Steve Jobs (aka Apple Inc.) planned to offer the early iPhone adopters a $100 credit from the beginning… Well, let me think about that. I... Read More

Apple announces iTunes movie rentals – sort of

Posted by Dr. Macenstein It appears that the big news regarding iTunes 7.4.1 is not the ability to purchase ringtones or the ability to brick your hacked iPhone, it’s that MOVIE RENTALS are coming to the iTunes store, and likely very soon! David Watanabe posted a screenshot of what for all intents and purposes will serve as Apple’s announcement of iTunes movie rentals. “I was trying to report a problem via iTunes, and this pop-up for selecting a reason contains... Read More

Will the iPod touch double as a Wi-Fi Phone?

Posted by Dr. Macenstein Faithful Macenstein reader Michael turned us on to an interesting article over at aplegazette, wondering if the equation iPod touch + iPhone’s Earbuds (with mic) = VOIP phone calls. They point out that since the same Safari web browser is installed in the iPod touch as the iPhone, and since the iPhone can run SkypeforiPhone, this could mean you could make free calls on the iPod touch via Skype. It’s an interesting idea, but I doubt it. There... Read More

Rampant Speculation: New 15-inch MacBook Pros Sept. 5th?

Posted by Dr. Macenstein Astute Apple shopper and faithful Macenstein reader Hendry pointed us to the online Apple Store, where for some reason the ship time on 15-inch MacBook Pros has slipped to 7-10 days. The 17-inch model, and all “normal” MacBooks seem to have ship times of 24 hours. Such a supply delay would normally not be overly suspicious in and of itself, however, Apple has coincidentally set up a “Special event” (aren’t they all?) to... Read More