What Should Apple’s iCloud Look Like?

I'm very interested to see what the future has in store for us technology wise, its going to be pretty epic!

Friday morning, John Paczkowski of Digital Daily confirmed Om’s report earlier this week that Apple acquired the domain name iCloud.com. Apple has acquired and not used domain names in the past, but if Cupertino is planning to use the iCloud brand, what should that trademark encompass?

There’s already plenty of speculation out there about what plans Apple might have in store for cloud service offerings. A revamped MobileMe complete with iOS device remote media streaming of your photos and music is one frequently mentioned possibility. Clues that a service called Photo Stream is coming to iOS have already showed up in code from Apple’s mobile operating system, and rumblings that a cloud music storage and remote streaming service is on its way are only getting louder.

Apple also probably won’t take away any of the existing service it already offers. It’s currently in the process of moving all MobileMe Calendar data to remote server storage, and cross-device email, notes and address book syncing also seem like likely candidates for any larger cloud service package from Cupertino. Indeed, AppleInsider is now reporting that this is in fact the case.

But what else do you want from a cloud service offering from Apple? Are the existing MobileMe offerings even something you’re interested in? Are mobile bandwidth costs a concern? Should Apple’s cloud plans include a basic free offering, and what extras, if any, would you be willing to pay for?

Original Article.

White Iphone 4 chunkier than its Black sibling?

Hello happy Friday!! well yesterday my boyfriend bought the new white iPhone 4, and i will admit its soo sexy! looks elegant, expensive, it just looks nice! i want one for my self but sadly i do not have at&t or Verizon, so the white iPhone 4 can be slightly chunkier, but either way its damn sexy, who said bigger was bad?

After nearly a year of waiting for the white iPhone 4, which went on sale Thursday, it seems the phone is -- and take your choice here of words — fatter, chunkier, thicker — than the black version.

Those who bought the much-desired white iPhone, which became available Thursday, compared the thickness of the phone next to its black version, and find it to be about 0.2mm thicker than the black iPhone 4.

On Apple's website, the technical specs for the iPhone 4 show it to be the same, although a photo of the black iPhone is used for the tech specs, which lists the depth of the phone at 9.3 mm, or .37 inch.

"I noticed it when my trusty Case Mate Barely There case barely fit on my new white iPhone 4," said Rene Ritchie on TiPb's website. "In fact, it fit like my old black iPhone 4 id back when it had BodyGuardz front and back. It still went in, but it was a much closer, almost too close fit compared to the black iPhone 4. Whether the extra thickness has to do with opacity, a layer of UV protection, or something else is unknown."

Ryan Cash, who handles marketing for a company that makes business apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, also saw the difference after comparing a colleague's newly purchased white iPhone to his own black iPhone.

"I was a bit surprised when I picked it up off his desk (I had my black 32 GB in my other hand at the same time) — it immediately felt thicker," he said on his blog. "We placed them side-by-side on his desk, and sure enough, the white iPhone was a hair thicker."

Over at DVICE, there was this to say: "First, Apple makes its customers wait 10 months for a white iPhone because it needed a special UV coating and second, it's now fatter than the black one and might not fit in your old case? Forget it."

We've asked Apple about the size difference, but have not heard back yet. The white iPhone has been problematic since it was first announced last summer.

"It was challenging,” Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller told Ina Fried in an interview this week for All Things Digital. "It’s not as simple as making something white. There’s a lot more that goes into both the material science of it — how it holds up over time…but also in how it all works with the sensors."

Schiller, Fried wrote, "said that it turned out there were a lot of unexpected interactions between the color of the device and various internal components. Also, like fair-skinned humans, white iPhones need a little more UV protection from the sun."

And, perhaps a little help in the diet department, too.

Original Article.

Twitter Looks To Widen Appeal To More Users

Who tweets? anyone? lol i tweet and so does almost everyone i know tweets or has a twitter account, but they make a good point, you can tell when the account is active or not. anyways enjoy the article, I'm about to tweet it :)


Twitter Inc., trying to put recent management changes behind it and build its business, is taking steps to broaden the appeal of the well-known messaging service.

Twitter is making a concerted effort to educate its users about what, exactly, it is. WSJ's Amir Efrati explains why to Stacey Delo.
.The San Francisco company, which lets users broadcast and view short messages, wants to make it easier for new users to navigate the service and help longtime users find interesting content.

While Twitter has more than 200 million registered accounts, it doesn't say how many are active users. Users discuss a variety of topics, but some people—especially adults—view the service as a vehicle for celebrities to broadcast their thoughts online.

Twitter wants to show how the service works to first-time users by highlighting tweets from people in their geographic regions, such as local politicians and musicians, when they first sign on, people familiar with the matter said.

Jonathan Strauss, chief executive of Awe.sm, which tracks marketing campaigns on Twitter and Facebook Inc., argues that Twitter needs to attract more mainstream Internet users if it wants to justify its multibillion-dollar valuation. "Most people understand Twitter exists, but they don't understand what Twitter is and how they can participate," he said.

For more experienced users, Twitter is developing ways to create a narrower stream of the most relevant tweets rather than requiring users to wade through messages in chronological order.

As it looks to add tools for power users, Twitter is also in advanced talks to purchase a program used by many Twitter users to view and manage tweets, Tweetdeck, for around $50 million, people familiar with the matter said.

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Bloomberg News

Jack Dorsey, a Twitter founder, recently returned as its product chief. He has become more active advising the company.
.It is unclear when the changes will be introduced or how Twitter may use Tweetdeck. A spokesman for Twitter, which has made seven small acquisitions to date, declined to comment. TweetDeck Inc.'s chief executive, Iain Dodsworth, couldn't be reached.

The moves come as Jack Dorsey, the founding chief executive of the four-year-old company, formally returned as product chief three weeks ago after being pushed out by the board two-and-a-half years ago.

Mr. Dorsey remained chairman of Twitter's board after his ouster, and also leads a mobile-payments company named Square Inc. Mr. Dorsey has been laying out his vision for Twitter to its executives, said a person familiar with the matter.

Twitter allows users to post messages of up to 140 characters in length, and those messages can be viewed by other users. People log on—often through their mobile phones—to track everything from sporting events to transportation delays to natural disasters. Egyptians, for example, used the service to organize revolutionary protests earlier this year.

The company has been slower to build a business around its popularity than some other Web players, such as Facebook. The research firm eMarketer puts Twitter 2010 ad revenue at $45 million and expects ad revenue to reach $150 million this year.

Yet Twitter investors are buying up shares of the privately held company on secondary exchanges or through individual middlemen. Twitter completed a financing at the end of last year that valued the company at around $4 billion, though it has argued for higher valuations in low-level talks with potential acquirers, including Google Inc., people familiar with the matter have said.

The company this year will try to make the breadth of its content more visible to first-time visitors, helping them quickly discover information about stocks, sports and other organizations and individuals they care about, the people familiar with the matter said.

One possibility is showcasing tweets by well-known people or organizations located in the user's region, or from certain types of users, such as athletes or musicians.

Twitter users already have created thousands of "lists" in which such content on specific topics is grouped together, and Twitter is looking at ways to promote such lists, said a person familiar with the matter.

Twitter is also exploring concepts similar to a Facebook technology called "EdgeRank" that highlights posts by a user's closest friends—an effort that is being aided by Ashish Goel, a Twitter research fellow and Stanford University professor, these people said.

"Most of the time what people want is the most relevant and important information, and without filtering its content for individual users that's difficult for Twitter to satisfy," said Awe.sm's Mr. Straus

Original Article.

Samsung defends itself over Apple tablet, phone suit

My Boyfriend just told me about this yesterday as a matter of fact, i guess this one just goes into more basic details about the problems. Hope you enjoy the article! is pretty funny since Samsung makes all of Apples screens!

The relationship between Apple and Samsung looks to be taking a dramatic turn for the worse, as Apple sued the company over alleged copying of its iPhone and iPad devices in Samsung's own products. Specifically named was the Galaxy Tab tablet as well as the Nexus S, Epic 4G and Galaxy S 4G smartphones.

Apple filed the suit on April 15 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, and claims that the appearance and methods of operation of Samsung's devices directly violate patents held by Apple. Indeed, as of late the Korean electronics maker has mimicked Apple's popular products in its own efforts.

Its tablets and smartphones do have some sort of Apple-like appearance, and even the packaging the devices come in looks like something out of Cupertino. Apple has been quick to notice this. "This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas," an Apple spokesperson said.

Last week's suit is symptomatic of a deteriorating relationship between Apple and Samsung, once strong partners. The Korean electronics maker is a significant supplier of components across many of Apple's products, but its moves into Cupertino's turf -- and its success doing so -- may have given Apple some pause.

At its unveiling of the iPad 2, CEO Steve Jobs specifically called out Samsung, also paraphrasing a statement incorrectly by a representative from the company. Regardless of what Jobs or Apple is saying, Samsung may have decided up until now to deal with it -- Apple makes up about five percent of the company's total revenues, and is Samsung's second biggest component customer behind Sony.

The free pass may be over, through. On Tuesday, Samsung appeared to say enough is enough. "Samsung will respond actively to this legal action taken against us through appropriate legal measures to protect our intellectual property," it said in a statement.

A report by Yonhap News Agency also quotes unnamed sources as saying that Samsung believes Apple has violated the company's own patents, so a countersuit may not be far behind. It also said the sources claimed the company "had no choice" but to respond strongly.

Original Article.

Apple Is Said to Ready White IPhone Following 10-Month Wait

ITS ABOUT TIME! even tho i was looking forward to the Iphone 5, which is rumored to not come out until 2012.. hmm well either way i know my boyfriend will be very excited for this!

Apple Inc. (AAPL) will start selling a white version of its iPhone 4 in the next few weeks, following a 10-month delay, three people with knowledge of the plans said.

The new model will be available from AT&T Inc. (T) and Verizon Wireless by the end of April, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. The release was stalled as Apple resolved manufacturing challenges, including paint that peeled under heat, one person said.

Adding a white model may help spur demand as Apple works on the next generation of its top-selling product. Apple, the world’s largest technology company by market value, isn’t planning to unveil a new iPhone at its June developers’ conference, breaking with its practice in past years, two people familiar with the matter said. It may instead introduce the next iPhone in September, according to Mike Abramsky, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto.

After releasing the iPhone 4 in June, Apple announced the delay of the white version, citing unspecified manufacturing trouble. Complications with a sensor used in the device was one difficulty, one of the people said. Until now, it’s only been available in black.

Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, indicated last month that a white model would be available soon, writing on Twitter that it would be on sale by spring.

Since the introduction of the first iPod media player in 2001, white has been a popular color for Apple’s gadgets. The earlier iPhone 3GS model was available in white, as is the iPad 2, which went on sale last month.

The iPhone accounted for 39 percent of Apple’s sales in the fiscal first quarter, which ended in December. The Cupertino, California-based company is due to report second-quarter financial results on April 20.

Apple fell $3.71 to $332.42 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have advanced 3.1 percent this year. AT&T, based in Dallas, rose 11 cents to $30.29 on the New York Stock Exchange, and has gained 3.1 percent this year

Original Article.