Apple on Wednesday release the first beta of iOS 4.3 for the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, bringing support for Personal Hotspot, new multi-touch gestures, the ability for third-party applications to use AirPlay, and a software option for changing the functionality of the iPad hardware switch.
The initial beta is available to developers in the iOS Dev Center. iOS 4.3 for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch is dubbed build 8F5148b.
Apple has refused to repair an iPhone 4 on the grounds that it was used in an ambient temperature below zero, in breach of the specifications. Norwegian rag Bergens Tidende reports it was -12 outside as Lenin Kristin Løvvik connected her iPhone to the car stereo for the provision of musical accompaniment on the way in to work.
Løvvik reckons the inside of the car was up to 20 degrees by the time the iPhone conked out on her. However, she told the paper, Apple is sticking to the line that the iPhone is not spec'ed for sub-zero operations.
The Apple rumor mill has had a busy week. The latest report came Friday from Digg founder Kevin Rose, who said on his blog that the next iPad is imminent.
"I have it on good authority that Apple will be announcing the iPad 2 in the next '3-4 weeks,' possibly Tuesday February 1st.," Rose posted. "The iPad 2 will feature a retina display and front/back camera. If you're thinking of buying an iPad, hold off for now."
Other rumors that have been reported about the next iPad include that it will feature a USB port, a larger speaker, and slimmer design.
Is Apple on the hunt for a new CFO?
The company says it’s not, but “people familiar with the matter” tell Bloomberg otherwise. They claim Apple approached Blackstone CFO Laurence Tosi about taking on the role, which has been held by Peter Oppenheimer since 2004, and he turned it down. Good thing for Oppenheimer, since according to Apple spokesman Steve Dowling he “loves the company and is extremely happy in his role.”
And apparently it’s a mutual affection. The response from the company is straightforward: “Peter is not leaving Apple. We are not conducting a CFO search.”
Apple has recently been granted a patent for administering and maintaining a network-booted operating system, possibly laying further groundwork for a cloud-based version of Mac OS X.
Apple was awarded the patent, titled "Method and apparatus for administering the operating system of a net-booted environment," on Tuesday. However, Macs have been capable of booting from a network since the inclusion of the NetBoot feature in the original version of Mac OS X Server.
Mac fans hoping to see Apple opening the doors of its App Store for Mac this morning are in for a disappointment as the Cupertino company seems content to keep us all waiting.
A Google search for Mac App Store turns up an ad which insists that the software distribution portal is open for business offering "more than a thousand Apps for your Mac" but following the link leads to the same "coming soon" teaser which has been up for weeks now.
A spare-parts firm named GlobalDirectParts claims to have got hold of some bits of the mooted fifth version of the all-conquering iPhone and apparently cobbled together a five-minute video of the pared-down device.
The video in question didn't last long on YouTube before being pulled on orders from Apple. That, at least, seemed to suggest that the parts were the genuine article. Some pictures remain floating about on the the Interwibble.
Before Intel formally unveils its next-generation of processors, likely to officially find their way into Apple's line of Macs in the future, hackers have managed to run Apple's Mac OSX on the new Sandy Bridge CPU hardware.
Tens of thousands of fraudulent iTunes accounts are for sale on a major Chinese website, it has been revealed. Around 50,000 accounts linked to stolen credit cards are listed on auction site TaoBao, the country's equivalent of eBay.
Buyers are promised temporary access to unlimited downloads from the service for as little as 1 yuan (10p) a time. Apple, which recently stepped up iTunes' security after a series of break-ins, declined to comment.
Ten years ago, Apple was facing tremendous uncertainty as the dotcom bubble burst, killing off liberal tech spending on high end products and hitting the company's core audience of creative designers particularly hard. To make matters worse, Apple had just launched its expensive new Power Mac G4 Cube in an attempt to cater to the demand for fashionable, high end gadgets just as that market was collapsing.
