Apple has just released their 3rd preview/beta of their upcoming Xcode 4 software. Hot off the heals for iOS 4.1′s golden master release, this new preview of Xcode for includes iOS 4.1 compatibility and a few new features. As always, bug fixes are included.

New features include a new activity interface for developers as well as a completely fresh user-interface for the new code completion technologies in Xcode 4. The second preview of Xcode 4 was issued to developers in late July and the first preview was provided exclusively to WWDC 2010 attendees in early June.

Apple seeded another release of Leopard version 10H535 today.  This one continues to focus on 3D Graphics, iCal, Mail, QuickTime,Time Machine, USB Devices and still gets foiled by VMWare.

Here’s Steve Jobs chatting about how he and Woz (his “partner in crime” from yesterdays event) used to illegally manipulate the phone networks for their own gain. “If we hadn’t made Blue Boxes, there’d be no Apple.”–Jobs

That’s something to think about next time the subject of jailbreaking comes up.

Woz’s version (below), as you’d expect, is a little more colorful.


Kottke via Giz

Ars Technica got an Apple spokesperson to relay the bad news to those Apple hobbiests that, until last week, plucked down $229 for the former AppleTV:

We confirmed with an Apple spokesperson that the maximum HD resolution of the Apple TV is 720p, consistent with recent rumors. Additionally, there will be no software update to bring the new features to older Apple TVs. Older Apple TVs will continue to work as they have been working up to this point, and they will continue to be able to purchase movies and TV shows even though the new Apple TV is rental-only.

Good news?  The Boxee community is likely to continue to update their fantastic (but often slow) offering.  Better yet, now you don’t have to feel guilty about hacking your AppleTV now that Apple has abandoned it.  (via Giz)

I know, I know. Flash on mobile devices isn’t what it is on desktops, which frankly isn’t that great either (as I try to write this on a Macbook Pro with memory and processor all but consumed by a Hulu video).

That being said, the Skyfire browser, which was submitted to the app store today, teases us with the ability to watch shows like the Daily Show and the Colbert Report for free using Apple-approved HTTP streaming.  The Skyfire browser can only do Flash video, not interactive games, ads and such.

Skyfire is a proxy browser like Opera Mini (which made it through the App Store gauntlet) so it isn’t an automatic fail.

Skyfire’s famed cloud-computing technology translates Flash video on the fly from millions of web sites into HTML5 formats, and supports iOS devices via Apple’s HTTP live streaming standard. Skyfire also avoids the concerns raised in Steve Jobs’ recent essay regarding Flash on mobile devices. By optimizing Flash for iPhones and network conditions in the Cloud, Skyfire improves performance and maximizes battery life while playing video.

Thoughts?

Press release follows:Flash Coming to the iPhone? Skyfire Submits First Mobile Browser to Apple Capable of Playing Flash Video

Skyfire’s Cloud Technology May End Public Standoff Over Flash on “iDevices”
Mountain View, CA – August 31, 2010– Skyfire is submitting a mobile browser to Apple’s App Store capable of playing Flash video while adhering to all Apple’s guidelines regarding HTML5 open-video standards on Apple devices.

Skyfire 2.0 for iPhone follows on the heels of Skyfire’s recent launch on Android, which has now become one of the most popular third-party browsers on Google’s mobile platform, with nearly a million downloads in its first three months.Skyfire 2.0 is the first mobile browser built for the social media generation and makes the mobile Internet experience faster, Flash-enabled and fun, including smart media recommendations.
What’s in Skyfire 2.0 for iPhone:

· Flash Video –The “Video” icon enables users to play millions of Flash videos around the web that otherwise do not play on mobile. This unlocks content trapped behind those error messages with question marks and blue Legos by transcoding the Flash content into HTML5 on Skyfire’s servers.

· Related Content – The “Explore” icon brings the most relevant content on the Internet to a user’s fingertips based on what they are viewing at the time. The Explore button pulls video, buzz, news, images and other sites from the wbased on what is on the current page.

Adherence to Apple’s Standards:

Skyfire for iPhone was built in tight accordance to Apple guidelines, including the use of a WebKit browser core shared with Safari, and h.264 adaptive streaming.
Skyfire’s famed cloud-computing technology translates Flash video on the fly from millions of web sites into HTML5 formats, and supports iOS devices via Apple’s HTTP live streaming standard. Skyfire also avoids the concerns raised in Steve Jobs’ recent essay regarding Flash on mobile devices. By optimizing Flash for iPhones and network conditions in the Cloud, Skyfire improves performance and maximizes battery life while playing video. The browser also avoids alternate runtime environments and other security vulnerabilities.
“We’re excited to submit a mobile browser for iPhone and iPod Touch that addresses Apple’s concerns regarding Flash deployment on mobile devices,” explains Jeff Glueck, CEO of Skyfire. “Rather than enabling Flash, Skyfire will translate videos into Apple standards. Skyfire supports HTML5 but at the same time, we recognize that the transition to HTML5 for 100 million Flash publishers will take years. We hope to bridge that gap and solve a problem for consumers who want access to millions of previously-unavailable videos on their iPhones.”
An Advantage for AT&T:
Not only does Skyfire enable Flash video while adhering to Apple’s guidelines, it offers a major enhancement to video data compression for AT&T. Skyfire compresses video data by an average of 75%, reducing buffer time, enhancing battery life and easing the network congestion that has caused user complaints in major metropolitan areas.
Be First in Line:
iPhone users who are interested in learning more about Skyfire on iPhone should find us on Facebook, or follow @Skyfire on Twitter to stay updated or sign up for an e-mail alert as soon as Skyfire 2.0 is approved for iPhone.

About Skyfire:
Skyfire is the creator of the Skyfire mobile browser, and has a mission to enable the “full internet” including rich media on mobile phones. The browser won the Best Mobile Application-People’s Voice at the 2009 Webby Awards and was named a Top App of 2009 by the New York Times’ Gadgetwise. Skyfire is based in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. For more information, visit www.skyfire.com, or follow Skyfire on Twitter attwitter.com/skyfire.

Even as Compal Electronics chairman, Ray Chen, warns investors that the non-Apple tablet market ain’t worth playing in, A4 processor manufacturing partner, Samsung, has introdced its Galaxy Tab tablet device.

Equipped with a processor similar to that used inside Apple’s iPad and iPhone, the Galaxy Tab runs Android 2.2 (Froyo) and is a 7-inch device.

You can expand memory using a card, but otherwise capacity is 16GB or 32GB. There’s WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G. Naturally, there’s a gyroscope, location sensor, accelerometer, and light sensor.

By far the most interesting feature for an Apple watcher is the processor used inside: the Cortex A8 1.0GHz processor.

A version of this is used inside Apple’s iOS devices. It carries 512MB of RAM and has a back-facing 3MP camera (with LED flash). There’s also a forward-facing camera for video-conferencing.

HD video contents are supported by a wide range of multimedia formats (DivX, XviD, MPEG4, H.263, H.264 and more), which maximizes the joy of entertainment.

Sadly the device runs Adobe Flash.

More here.

Apple’s playing an ace card with its iPad tablet — now competitors are beginning to walk away from the battle, with Compal Electronics chairman, Ray Chen, warning investors that the non-Apple tablet market is tiny, and competitors will “quickly quit” this difficult market.

Chen predicts non-Apple tablets to achieve 10-12 million sales in 2011 — that’s from all manufacturers. A mannufacturer managing to grab as much as a fifth of that market would still see no significant revenues, he warns.

Chen also noted that Wintel netbook sales have recently been devoured seriously by tablet PCs. The chairman also revealed that Foxconn is squeezing gross margins across the industry with its low cost production ability.

“Sources from component makers revealed that Compal is currently shipping a small volume of white-box tablet PCs and is cooperating with Acer, Dell and Lenovo for their tablet PC models. Compal is also aggressively trying to land iPad orders from Apple,” Digitimes reports.

Amazon is promoting Apple’s new iOS products on its homepage this morning so we thought we’d give them a shout-out.  They’ve got all of Apple’s new products today, which certainly still isn’t the case with the Kindle-competing iPad.  However, if you live outside of Washington or New York, you’ll also save a few more bucks on taxes and what not.  Shipping is free.

We, as always, use our affiliate linking whenever humanly possible

Twitter has just released their official Twitter client for the iPad. It’s a free universal binary (one download  for all devices) and it looks amazing!

The iPad version uses a lot of multi-touch so tweeting is fun again. We’re skipping the in-depth walkthrough (Giz has one) and going right to download. You should do the same if you want to be cool.

We’re pulling some more Ping info here.  When someone ‘Pings’ you you get an email like this:

That URL takes you into iTunes where you see this screen:

Of course here’s where Mark gets denied.  Ping is also showing up on the iPhone, below, but hasn’t propagated out.

On your mark. Get set. Go! iTunes 10 is now available as an 86mg installer..

Some Ping screenshots below

Notice you can connect on Facebook.  How come none of my friends have signed in yet?

Steve Jobs laid down some not-so-subtle hints that Apple thought Google was cheating in their activations counting in his event presentation today. Google responded, saying:

“The Android activation numbers do not include upgrades and are, in fact, only a portion of the Android devices in the market since we only include devices that have Google services.”

Oh, damn.

It is late in the UK, I’ve put stuff together here and here. There’s a few facts which might be of interest to some readers, so I thought I’d take a moment to put them down.

The Apple TV runs an A4 processor

OK, as I expected international audiences lucked out on the Apple TV. We have no on device purchases (so no random podcasts, either), and without access to $0.99 show rentals the product loses a lot of its pitch for international audiences. This is compensated slightly by Apple’s move to cut the price and to make set-up of new computers from which to stream content much, much easier — you don’t need to log in or use code numbers anymore.

A bloke from Apple confirmed the Apple TV is powered by an A4 chip. So while I can see the system doesn’t run apps yet (and lack of a drive makes this challenging) I can’t see any theoretical reason the device couldn’t in future run apps in some way, though perhaps only streamed versions of video games controlled and hosted on an iPad. Well, so I wish, anyway.

I also predict there will be demand in future to separate audio from video streams. This will let people play their audio via the AirPort Express on their huge phat music system while watching the movie on their gazillion-inch Apple-branded TV (did I get ahead of myself there?).

There’s no video in the iPod nano

Yeah, you read that right — that small screen won’t let you watch the tiniest video in the world. And there’s no camera also. Never mind thought, it is a really nice little device. And if all you want is music the iPod shuffle is pretty good, too.

The iPod classic

Speaking to my contacts I got no sense that the iPod classic is on its way to the great product graveyard in the sky. I suspect Apple will keep selling them until people stop buying them. I do think a capacity upgrade would be nice, particularly for those who like to use their classic to play lossless audio files. The product isn’t an A-lister anymore, but it is respected as a veteran product which opened a new world for AAPL. And it still sells.

Apple v MySpace and Facebook

Apple’s new social network for music *as Steve Jobs called it several times* is not just what it says. It is a starting point.

Think about how Apple gets into any new industry. It puts together a simple concept. tests it and makes it popular, then extends it incrementally. This is why I still believe the Apple TV will one day run apps, and also why I believe Apple’s taking a new initiative to get into social networking. Particularly now it has iAds and valuable location-based data to use, and is developing understanding of the value of that.

This is a nice and simple beginning. Can’t wait to see the Lady GaGa ad for it at some point in future.

Baffle ‘em with B.S.

Apple always offers up a few interesting statistics at the beginning of these events. Many of us Mac scribblers gloss over these while we wait for the meat. It is only weeks later that we find we need them and no one has written them down. Here’s what we learned in the first few minutes:

Apple retail

• Apple has 300 stores, Covent Garden, London was its 300th store
• Over a million people visit these retail stores some days in every month.
• Apple runs 80,000 one-on-one sessions per week in stores

iOS 4

• iOS 4.1 update fixes the Proximity bug
• 120 million iOS devices have shipped since one year ago – that’s 230,000 iOS devices per day.
• 25,000 iPad apps
• HDR photos are based on algorithmic treatment taken from three images, it pulls out enhanced detail by doing this.
• iOS 4.1 is for iPhone and the iPod touch. Available next week.
• iOS 4.2 comes a little later this year

Apple has sold 275 million iPods since 2001. (iPhone is already catching up. I’m sure it must be time for one of those info-graphics, but that’s beyond the call at midnight).

I’m sure some of these notes will help somebody. On a lean day, some of these are stories in themselves. (Incidentally, in previous years Apple has hosted a nice little party for Europe’s tech hacks. This year it didn’t — that’s fine, but it underlines the new austere age we’re in. Sigh).

Hot on the heels of Apple’s 99 cent episode renting announcement, Amazon has matched Apple by offering those same episodes for the same price.

It isn’t immediately clear if these are for permanent download or just for streaming like AppleTV. (it says “Own Episodes” but I think only Windows and Tivo can download for offline viewing).

Via Engadget.

If you thought Epic’s Citadel game was mindblowing ‘on a phone!’ during today’s event presentation, we have some good news for you. It is now available as a trial download for free. See what your iPhone/iPod/iPad can do:

You can download a demo of the game here. It looks insane on the iPad too (below)

Apple has posted their new iPod touch commercial to their YouTube account.

The new Nano commercial is below:

It is on the way down now.  Who wants it?

Just kidding.  Go find a developer who has it.

• iTunes 10 is already live or just the download button?. Update: So is the store. and Apple’s website
• iPod Classic is dead. Frommer gets a star?  Update: Maybe not. Still, no mention at the event doesn’t bode well long term.  Think more like ‘we made enough to last a few more months.’
• iPod nano is small (even smaller than the screen on the previous model) but also loses the camera which was nice on a device that small.  Even Steve said people would wear them as a watch, so I get a star.  Speaking of Stars, holy cow!  Mr. Nano mockup gets a galaxy of stars. Display is square(!) at 240×240 pixels. Still has FM.  Also has accelerometer.  It weighs under an ounce(!).  I think at 1.5 inches diagonally, it may be too small for videos but perfect for watches.
• AppleTV is awesome but maybe the coolest part is the Airport Express Video functionality.  Carrying around media on iPads, iPhones and iPods, it will be pretty cool to be able to shoot that right over to the TV.  Renting movies and TV shows does two things.  It makes cable optional.  It also means that TV shows now are a buck a pop or more.  If you watch 10 shows (Fox and ABC) a week, that is $40/month.  Not a bad tradeoff at that frequency.  $4.99 for first run movies is also OK, but I still like buying BlueRay for the good stuff.   AppleTV 1080P next year will be much more awesome.  Also…what’s that mini-USB port for?  Apple gets mega points for USB Stick/USB HD access but just like the older AppleTV, we’re not likely to be able to (officially;) use it.  Also, is does NOT do Gigabit Ethernet, which means your fastest method of streaming is N wireless which is marginally faster if there isn’t much overhead.  Also, this is the greenest TV appliance you’ll ever see with only a 6 watt power supply.  Thank the A4 chip for that. At $99, this will no longer be a hobby, but a popular iOS device accesory.
• Speaking of Airplay, it is coming to 3rd parties! (at least the audio component)
• iPod touch back camera is only 960×720(!!) pixels for stills.  That is abhorrant.  They should have made a thicker iPod touch with a decent camera.  This one is only good for video – just like the last iPod nano.  The entry price went up $30 to get an iPod but that $30 buys you an A4 processor, two cameras and Retina.  Not bad.
• The video stream of the event was good overall for us but there were definitely some hiccups along the way.  I’d rate it a success with the amount of traffic it must have received, but some improvements can definitely be made.
• Steve Jobs is looking better.  Perhaps that three week vacation in Hawaii last  month did him some good.

Our man on the scene Jonny Evans is getting some personal time with Apple’s new products.  Have a look at what his (first-gen) iPhone can capture — and some images taken by a rather nice Lumix camera, and take a look at some of his first impressions here: (NB: More notes to follow).

The newly-updated iPod range. iPod classic fans — don’t worry, it is still available, but has had no update. Will it last? Who knows. Apple won’t say. More below

Tiny, easy-to-use, so much functionality in such a small package — they’ll sell loads — but forget video, these things don’t do video. And no camera either. And while the interface feels like an iOS device, it isn’t. Don’t anticipate iOS apps on this in the new iteration.

I’m not usually hugely excited by packaging, but this is almost as nicely designed as the products inside. And if you can remember the packaging for the 2001 iPod which launched it all then you’ll know the difference this means for landfill, green issues, waste, transport costs and more. Good stuff.

This is the Apple TV remote. There’s no accelerometer though, and while this means you can forget iOS apps on the Apple TV right now, I have this hunch that A4 chip (confirmed by Apple) inside the Apple TV is set to do a little more than streaming media from an iPad and film rentals. I mean, c’mon!

Dialling yer FaceTime on an iPod touch. (All the poor Apple demo people jumped when I walked through the door, I was first — I can’t stand Coldplay, you see….

Making a FaceTime connection — talk to anyone with a WiFi connection, and save your money from those carrier people.

Here’s the connections on the back of the Apple TV. Note the Optical Audio connection which doesn’t get much notice — unless you own a super powerful entertainment system, that is. Oh — and did you know the Apple TV is 95 percent greener than the previous version? It uses a fraction of the power. And that’s a very good thing (the last version was a power glutton).

Side view of my favorite $99 product. Donations please

I really have taken better shots than this. Unfortunately not this time. Sorry. (It’s an iPod nano, by the way. It looks much nicer in real life…)