Apple

New iPhone software improves Safari stability

Apple has released a minor iPhone firmware update that is supposed to help improve the stability of its Safari browser.

The update should be popping up Tuesday if you connect your iPhone to iTunes. Update 2.2.1 is the first tweak released since Apple added Google's Street View to the iPhone's software back in November with the 2.2 release.

Despite the brief list of new features and fixes, this update is just as big as that release, weighing in at 246.4MB. As a result, it's taking awhile to download and install. I'll let … Read more

Apple approves Podcaster-like iPhone app

The iPhone developer behind Podcaster has found a way to get into Apple's App Store without invoking the wrath of iPhone Inspector No. 5.

The developer, who has a private Blogger profile but appears to go by Alex according to Uneasy Silence, has a new application called RSS Player that duplicates the basic function of Podcaster--letting you download podcasts to your iPhone or iPod Touch--but without some of the features that Apple appears to have disliked. For example, you can't search for podcasts through the app, you have to subscribe to the RSS feed for those podcasts.

Back … Read more

Who has cash to survive the downturn?

The Financial Times points out that many technology companies are cash-rich and intend to stay so in order to ride out the recession. Apple sits atop nearly $26 billion in cash, while Microsoft keeps $19 billion in its pocket (and is probably grateful that its bid for Yahoo was declined, given how that would have decimated its bank balance).

Surprisingly, IBM is relatively cash-poor, with only $3.3 billion in the bank, and Oracle? Well, let's just say Oracle needs its acquisition strategy to start feeding it fat profits because its bank balance is $700 million underwater.

As for … Read more

iPhone: Apple's Key "Multi-touch" Patent Awarded

The US Patent Office has, as of January 20, 2009 awarded Apple, Inc. patent number 7,479,949, which is titled "Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics". The patent covers the multi-touch and all its gestures (swipe, pinch, rotation, etc.) that are used on the Apple iPhone and was originally filed in September 2007.

A portion of the patent reads:

"A computer-implemented method for use in conjunction with a computing device with a touch screen display comprises: detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display, applying … Read more

Apple awarded key iPhone multitouch patent

Apple has been awarded a patent that appears to cover much of the iPhone's multitouch user interface.

World of Apple (via MacRumors) spotted the patent, which was awarded last Tuesday to several Apple executives, including Steve Jobs, iPhone software chief Scott Forstall, and Wayne Westerman, one of the founders of a company called Fingerworks that Apple acquired in 2005.

The patent is extremely long, and covers many of the methods used by the iPhone to display data, such as pinch-to-zoom Web browsing and swipe-to-scroll.

This patent likely influenced COO Tim Cook's comments the day after it was awarded … Read more

Digital City: Episode 16

On this week's installment of the Digital City podcast, we discuss New York's bankrupt unemployment system, Circuit City's liquidation sales, playing around with Windows 7, Apple's iPhone vs. iPod Touch, and Joey gets some hate mail for his PS3 fanboyism.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Valleywag: Steve Jobs undergoing surgery Monday

Valleywag is reporting that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is undergoing surgery at Stanford Hospital on Monday.

The report did not explain what type of surgery Jobs might be having. It cited a secondhand account passed along from a employee at Stanford.

Jobs is currently on medical leave from Apple while he recuperates from health problems that have caused him to lose significant weight over the last year.

Bloomberg reported two weeks ago that Jobs was considering a liver transplant. A Stanford Hospital representative would only say that "due to federal patient privacy laws, we're unable to provide any … Read more

CNET News Daily Podcast: Blues for the BlackBerry?

CNET News' Maggie Reardon on the lukewarm consumer reaction to the Blackberry Storm--and this despite a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to promote its debut.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Today's stories:

Obama orders review of California emissions bid

Sprint Nextel to cut 8,000 jobs

Analyst: New iMacs could be around the corner

Gates Foundation to up spending despite recession

BlackBerry Storm customers complain

Wishing Steve Jobs well for Mac's 26th anniversary

As my way of celebrating the Mac's 25th birthday last week, I posted my review from 1984 where I referred to Steve Jobs as "Apple's young chairman." Jobs, who personally supervised much of the Mac's development effort, isn't quite so young anymore, but he's just as creative and even more influential.

Jobs' genius is not that he creates cutting-edge technology. Instead, he and others at Apple take advantage of the innovative technology around them by creating products that delight people by their elegance and, in some cases, seeming simplicity.

Apple didn't invent … Read more