The Front Page

Do these photos reveal the iPhone 5? Probably not, Boy Genius Report, as the screen actually looks smaller than the current iPhone. That said, it's not too hard to imagine the iPhone 5 as simply being a more refined version of the iPhone 4, perhaps with a few added curves here and there for aesthetic appeal.

An excellent piece from TechCrunch, who brilliantly put forward the notion that the iPhone has no competition where it matters most: profit. Forget about market share, users, or how many apps all the other smartphone platforms have —*at the end of the day, profit is what keeps those iPhones ahead of the pack.

From the MacStories review of the MacBook Air: " ...the MacBook Air has become Apple’s most successful and iconic Mac laptop, showing the path toward a future where iOS and OS X will intertwine in the most delightful ways – mobility, stability of the OS, speed, user experience, quality of construction, and reliability."

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Back in 2009, Intel started talking about a new technology called Light Peak. The concept was that of a link directly into the high speed PCI Express bus in your computer. By linking in this way, the bottlenecks associated with traditional external interfaces on computers can be by-passed and, in theory, an external device can communicate at speeds normally only found with internal devices.

It wasn’t until early in 2011 that Apple became the first adopter of this technology with the introduction of a model update to the MacBook Pro lineup. Over the past six months, the interface has been rolled out across the rest of the Apple range (with the notable exception of the Mac Pro which you would have to expect is now long overdue for a refresh).
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If you're late for your Genius appointment and get offered the next one, what do you do? If you're in Australia you might be at an Apple store that's inside a massive shopping complex so you might go elsewhere, but in the US you may very well stay and listen to what people have to say about the new MacBook Air.

Look, anyone can be an Apple analyst! All you have to do is read a bit into Apple culture, know a bit about Apple stuff, and make up some prediction that is half plausible and announce it to the world like you've just discovered the best thing since sliced bread! Oh, and Apple are going to merge iOS with OS X in 2012.

In all the MacBook Air hubub over the past week, the poor Mac Mini that was updated at the same time was somewhat glanced over. No more. What good is a home theatre PC that doesn't have an optical drive for DVDs? That's essentially the point posed by the Engadget review of the 2011 Mac Mini, and you know what? They're kind of right —*no matter when the last time you used a DVD was.

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How do you use your Mac? No, not what apps or input devices do you use - what position are you in? Do you sit at a desk, on the couch or maybe in bed? Or maybe you stand at a bench? Are you comfortable right now? I sure am. Have you ever seen a cat make a pillow its bed? Have you ever wanted a giant pillow that you could manipulate for your comfort? I’m sitting in a Sumo Omni Beanbag Chair so read on if you want to hear all about it. I’ll break it down.


Sumo make a large range ...

No, according to the Guardian the new iPhone will launch in September as previously stated, and here's why: they have inside info claiming that new iPhone models have already been transported to carriers for testing. To ensure compatibility with their networks and so on, you know how it goes.

As part of their iCloud beta rollout, Apple also released beta versions of their iWork for iOS apps that feature iCloud support for documents, as well as an iPhoto beta which features Photo Stream support.

Fun fact: Apple didn't own the ipods.com domain up until a few days ago, where the World Intellectual Property Organisation ordered the owner of the domain to transfer ownership across to Apple.

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With the release of the iCloud beta yesterday, it has been revealed you can buy more iCloud storage at three difference pricing tiers, similar to how the Dropbox pricing scheme works. Australian pricing isn't too bad: $21, $42, and $105 annually for 10, 20, and 50GB extra respectively. (Thanks Kristofor!)

Speaking of iCloud, Apple's online services offering has error pages with what MacRumors are calling personality, but they're kinda cute. It's nice to see the human side of Apple once in a while, even if it represented by a cloud-shaped figure in various poses.

The Amazon App Store for Android apps has a Free App of the Day promotion that isn't such a great deal for developers, as Australian development company Shiftyjelly have found (those cool kids behind Pocket Weather AU, among other great apps). Over a hundred thousand copies of the app given away, and Shiftyjelly didn't see a cent.

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Ooh, shiny! There's a nice iCloud beta over at iCloud.com, and some of the interface decisions remind me of those modal popups I've seen on my iPhone. This Is My Next have a plethora of screenshots for you to browse through if you just want to check it out*— I for one don't think I'm ready to transfer across my MobileMe content just yet.

October? The Apple rumour mill are saying the new iPhone will launch in October now, instead of the previously-speculated date of September. Meanwhile, next model iPad speculation seems to have mysteriously quietened down... Read into that what you will.

Wanted to buy a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1? Too bad, you can't —*because Apple has blocked the sale of the device in Australia due to infringing a number of their patents. Unfair or just a repercussion of the (broken) patent system? You be the judge.

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It's official: Apple, Inc now has more cash than the US government. Apparently the US only has a total operating balance (whatever that is, I'm no finance expert) of some $73 billion, and Apple has cash that equates to about $75 billion. If you read into this there's a whole lot of (interesting) stuff about debt ceilings and the general financial crisis in the US, but that's not really what we're here for.

Folks, you've now heard it from 9 to 5 Mac: the iPhone 5 will launch in the second week of September, with the iPad 3 landing sometime a little late, and if the rumour mill is to be believed on this occasion, then the iPhone 5 will be thinner and have a larger home button, too.

New MacBook Air buyers, hope that your MacBook Air comes with a Samsung SSD, not a Toshiba one. For whatever reason, there's a strange anomaly between the two types of drives that means the Samsung drive is 2.5x faster in random writes, with the Samsung drive being faster in pretty much every other aspect as well.

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