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Wow!  Those mockups were perfect!  24-hour battery.  ”Can be worn on your wrist - iWatch (told you so!) $149 for 8GB, $199 for 16GB.

HD Movies from ABC and Fox are $.99.  (Other studios might jump on board later but are at $2.99 still).  Netflix built in too.  YouTube HD and Flicker and MobileMe still supported.  No hard drive, all streaming.  Rotton tomato reviews.  $4.99 to rent first run movies.  Airplay can stream content from iOS device to AppleTV, making the iOS device an awesome remote/storage container.

it is smalllll

It comes in six colors, two more than the shuffle. It will cost $149 for 8GB and $179 for 16GB.

The new nano can be preordered today, and will be released next week.

Edit: The just-released tech specs show that not only is the camera gone, so is video playback entirely.

TUAWNew iPod nano dumps scroll wheel and video for square screen originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAWResearchers create pixels eight times smaller than the Retina Display originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you have lousy cellphone reception in your house, you may have wished you had a cellular tower nearby. Well, now you can buy your own and plant it right inside your home.

Verizon (VZ), Sprint (S) and AT&T (T) all have started selling gadgets that act as mini-cell towers, broadcasting wireless phone service just like a real cell tower does, though over a much smaller area: a single house.

I’ve been testing one of these devices, AT&T’s $150 MicroCell, in two very different homes—my own house in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and my son’s basement apartment in New York City. I chose AT&T for my tests because its network typically attracts the loudest complaints about bad coverage and dropped calls.

My verdict is that the AT&T MicroCell can, indeed, dramatically improve cellular reception and reliability, but it’s not a silver bullet. I found it works best in truly dire coverage locations, with little or no service, like my son’s apartment.

It is less useful in places like my house where the carrier’s outside towers provide some reception, even if you find that outside reception unreliable. I also ran into limitations on where you can place the MicroCell and how much of a home it can cover.

An AT&T spokesman insisted that the MicroCell is meant only for “a very small subset of customers with no or very poor coverage,” even though its Web site, at http://bit.ly/njH2s, includes videos touting the product for use in game rooms and home offices in any house. AT&T says it plans to tone down the Web pitch.

These devices, technically called femtocells, work like small versions of a cell tower. You plug them into your home broadband network, through which they acquire a signal from the carrier’s network. Then, they wirelessly redistribute that signal inside the home. Your cellphone treats this signal as if it came from a real outside tower, and latches onto it. But the signal supposedly is stronger and better, because it’s much closer and more focused.

While some people will welcome these devices as a godsend, others will resent the idea that they have to spend anything extra to get cellphone service they are already paying for.

Plus, when you make calls while your phone is connected to the MicroCell, you are still using up the minutes in your AT&T plan, just as you would on a regular outside tower, unless you buy an optional extra-cost MicroCell service plan. The company defends this by noting that you are still using its network, even though you are connected to it differently.

However, at least two of the carriers—AT&T and Sprint—are quietly giving away these devices to selected customers with terrible coverage whose patronage they presumably wish to keep. It is unclear to me how to qualify for these free devices, which appear to be handed out on a case-by-case basis.

The MicroCell, built for AT&T by Cisco (CSCO), is an 8.5-inch tall white, plastic gadget with an upside-down V-shaped base. As noted, it costs a one-time charge of $150, though AT&T will knock off $100 if you buy an optional $20-a-month plan that gives you unlimited voice minutes while using the MicroCell. It is only sold at AT&T stores.

3G-Capable

AT&T’s device is 3G-capable, meaning it can also be used for data services at decent speeds, though the company recommends you rely on Wi-Fi for data. Verizon’s rival device, which isn’t 3G-capable, is called the Network Extender and sells for $149 after a $100 rebate, with no monthly fee. Verizon is working on a 3G model. Sprint’s version is called Airave. It costs $100, but requires a monthly plan ranging from $5 to $20. It also lacks 3G capability, though Sprint has just announced a 3G model that isn’t yet being offered for sale.

In both of my MicroCell test homes, the setup, which takes about an hour, went fine. You have to specify on a Web site which phone numbers can work with the MicroCell. Up to 10 phones can be listed, though the MicroCell can only handle four calls at any one time.

Range of 40 Feet

AT&T says the MicroCell has a range of 40 feet in any one direction, and can cover up to a 5,000-square-foot house. At my house, which is considerably smaller than that, it worked fine with both an iPhone and a BlackBerry, as long as I was in the same room as the little transmitter. In those spots, calls were made and received fine, and hardly ever dropped.

But it didn’t magically give me great coverage everywhere. First and foremost, because I do have fair AT&T coverage in most of my house, my two phones kept switching between the MicroCell and the outside AT&T tower when I wasn’t close to the device. When this happened, once in the midst of a conversation, the call cut off. Also, I could only plug in the MicroCell in the two locations where I had an Ethernet jack, neither of which happens to be in the two places in my house with the worst coverage. So, in those bad spots, the MicroCell signal was weak, and the outside tower kept taking over, even though it barely covers those two places.

AT&T says you can get around this problem by using a powerline adapter to create an Ethernet jack where you’d like one. These adapters route your Internet network through your electrical wires. But, in any case, the MicroCell mustn’t be located within a foot of your Wi-Fi base station and AT&T suggests it be within 3 feet of a window—further limitations on location.

In the Basement

At my son’s basement dwelling, where he barely got an AT&T signal on two generations of iPhones, things went much better, but only after some fiddling. His only standard Ethernet jack happens to be upstairs (it’s a two-level apartment). When the MicroCell was plugged in there, the signal was very weak in his basement abode directly below, constantly battling with the almost useless outside AT&T signal.

The problem was temporarily solved with a long, snaking Ethernet cable running down the stairs, but he viewed that an untenable solution. He finally plugged the Microcell into a basement jack on an Apple (AAPL) Airport Express gadget, which he uses as a Wi-Fi signal booster. While AT&T doesn’t officially support this approach, it worked, and the MicroCell has been a dramatic improvement for him.

Overall, I can only firmly recommend the MircoCell for situations where coverage is virtually nil, you are willing to spend an extra $150, and you can locate it in a way that works. If you just want to improve a spotty signal, or a few weak areas in your house, you might be disappointed.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

TUAWhacksugar: Move past FieldTest with Signal originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 03 Aug 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAWNew iPad case will offer hard shell, built-in keyboard originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAWBrabus's iBusiness is a Mercedes-Benz S600 tricked out Apple style originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAWNetflix app hits the iPhone and iPod touch originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAWiCade-like "Freekade" iPad arcade cabinet up for auction originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

According to El Reg, Google is building an iPhone version of its Google Goggles product.

"We're working on an iPhone version, and hope to have it out by the end of the year," David Petrou, a Google staff engineer working on the Goggles project, told his keynote audience at Monday's Hot Chips conference at Stanford University in California.

A web app for Goggles, Petrou said, isn't current;y an option, even with HTML5's enhanced media-capture abilities. "There is a new part of HTML5," he said, "that allows you to acquire an image from a camera. And that's really nice and really useful, but we don't think it's sufficient for something like Goggles that needs very fine control over the camera.

While it doesn't seem immediately useful, I'm looking forward to playing with this on my iPhone.

Pocket Now takes us through a neat browser comparison between the iPhone 4 and a Windows Phone 7 device (Nexus One too! Meh). Keep in mind the Windows 7 experience you will see below is still in beta form but both of the other platforms should improve during the time it takes Microsoft to ship their product. As you will see in the video, each have their strong points, but I'm still digging that perfect intertial scrolling on the iPhone.   Oh and the Microsoft won't do HTML5 (or Flash).

When I was in SF for WWDC in June, I made the trek up to the TWiT Cottage in Petaluma to film an episode of MacBreak Weekly entitled “Harry Potter”. I always find the cottage such a cool place, so I thought I’d make a brief behind-the-scenes tour to share with you.

Special appearances by Leo Laporte, Andy Ihnatko, a camera shy Don McAllister, Alex Lindsay, Sarah Lane, Tom Merrit, super-edit Tony.

Thanks to Andy Inhatko for jumping in as camera man. :)

Listen to the story of Aye Moah. She grew up in one of the poorest countries on earth. She shouldn’t have many opportunities. Yet here she was, talking with me at a Silicon Valley party after the Always On conference. The route she took? She went to MIT. How did she get in? Was one of the top-scoring students in Burma. One of the top 10, in fact. Then she scored a perfect 800 on the SAT. That’s a cool story alone.

But now keep listening. She is one of the top talented people in the world. The kind that help start companies that hire thousands of people.

Yet she can’t work here in the United States.

Let me get this right. One of the smartest people in an entire country gets an invite to come to the United States to study. Does so. Gets a great education from one of the top universities in the world. And we can’t employ her because of our screwed up immigration laws.

Shame on America.

Even if she were to get a work visa, it probably would be from a bigger company that would treat her poorly (I keep hearing stories of how immigrants are treated like crap and can’t leave, otherwise their work visa will be yanked). These laws are unjust and not American. Worse yet they are anti innovation because it’s these smart, highly educated, people who will start the next companies. It isn’t lost on me that eBay was started by an Iranian.

But, standing next to her was Ronald Mannak. He is an entrepreneur who lost everything he owned. In Holland if your company fails and you’ve taken venture capital you are personally liable for the losses. So, Ronald owes the Dutch government $200,000 and lost everything, even his fridge, he told us.

Here in Silicon Valley it’s different. We let you fail, multiple times, and you aren’t personally liable to the venture capitalists.

So, here, in one video, you have a demonstration of how American policy is both brilliant and idiotic at the same time.

It’s amazing how anti immigrant we’ve become. Stupidly so, too.

This is why I support the Startup Visa project and urge you to support it too.

Everytime I fly I look at who is sitting next to me and wonder “I wonder what he/she does?”

Last week on the way to Boulder a guy was sitting next to me and he had a Dell laptop with Windows 7 loaded, and was doing Outlook email. I thought to myself “I bet he works for Microsoft.”

Turns out he was. It was Eric Waldman, who does licensing for Bing Maps.

We talked for the next couple of hours about the industry, and what he sees as the good things and problems. Talked about how Navteq and other companies control a lot of the data that you see in Mapquest, Google Maps, and on Bing and how Microsoft works with those companies to build unique data (Navteq’s cameras, for instance, are actually built by Microsoft and Microsoft shares a license for some of that data with Navteq).

He told me a story of how Microsoft was doing something that had never been done before: they are flying planes over nearly every inch of the United States in the next 18 months. Already 10% done. The previous “all USA” flight image gathering exercise took 10 years, he told me. There’s immense pressure on mapping teams, he told me, to always keep its data up to date.

He also made sure to point out that Microsoft’s on-car cameras are sharper than the ones Google is using and that Bing Maps includes at least four different imaging types: on road photos, 45-degree low-altitude aerial photos, high altitude plane photos, and satellite photos.

You can see that all when you visit a map of the Golden Gate Bridge, for instance. Compare to Google Maps of the same area and you’ll see that Microsoft is way ahead in imagery.

I still like the usability of Google’s Maps better, and Google doesn’t force me to download some plugin to see all of its imagery like Microsoft does, but that’s a little nit of mine. After installing Silverlight I see that Microsoft Maps has glorious imagery that makes Google’s imagery look lame (varies from location-to-location).

Anyway, all that high res imagery takes a lot of storage space. In the parking lot they built a sizeable data center that holds five petabytes of storage and a ton of machines in a small shipping container that basically is the kind of thing you see on the back of an 18-wheel truck. I was lucky enough to get a peek inside and a look at that, which I’m sharing here. The photo above is a picture inside the truck. Ever been surrounded by five petabytes of storage? It’s loud. Inside that truck they process all the imagery that comes in from cars and planes around the world.

In a separate audio interview after viewing the truck, you hear some of the details of what the Bing Mapping team does in Boulder, CO.

An early version of Microsoft’s aerial camera, that they call “the ultra cam” is sitting in the lobby:

Industry insiders know that Apple is working on its own maps. What will they look like? What kind of imagery data is Apple capturing? I’m hearing rumors that Apple will release its mapping technology by the end of the year, we’ll see if that happens, but Microsoft told me that the investment they’ve made in making Bing Maps runs into many hundreds of millions of dollars. As one of the team members said in the audio interview there aren’t many companies that can do that.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this small look into Microsoft’s Bing Mapping team’s lair. Which maps do you like best?

Patently Apple does what they do and today found some patents related to a touch based iMac-type computer.  These patents cover the sensors in the hinge that would change settings based on the orientation of the iMac Touch.  For instance, if the thing is upright, it would accept input based on keyboard/trackpad but if laid flat, it would accept touch input.  Now, when can we haz?  10.7!

Google announced on their mobile blog that the Google Mobile app for iOS will be receiving an update today which enables Google Calendar and Gmail push notifications. The push notifications will work for the Gmail.com domain as well your own custom domain setups. As Fortune points out, this is a big deal for Google-app users as up until now only Yahoo and MobileMe were able to push email to iOS. 

The push notification system will work like any other app so you will get to choose what kind of notifications you would like to receive, whether it be an icon badge or one of those obtrusive popups we all love. The app will reportedly also gain real-time search results for stocks, flight info, weather and currency conversions. The free update will be universal for all iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) and hopefully iPhone 4 retina support will join this release. 

Update: The update is now available on iTunes. Retina support is a go!

TUAWMoleskine case hides your iPhone, prison-style originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.