Apple did it to us again, issuing both an iOS 5.0.1 beta and a new iTunes 10.5.1 beta 2 with iTunes Match after the daily recap went live on Wednesday -- and seriously bumming out everyone who’s been waiting for that “late October” launch of the $24.99 per year service. Meanwhile, all eyes are on Amazon as they prepare to ship the Kindle Fire in two weeks. Here’s what’s making headlines across the internet for this Thursday, November 3, 2011.
If you’re having battery drain issues with your device after installing iOS 5 or purchasing a new iPhone 4S, turns out you’re not alone. Now, Apple has issued a statement on the subject to AllThingsD, claiming “a small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices.” So what can be done? “We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks,” Apple explains. Turns out if you’re a developer, the fix is already in -- as in, a new iOS 5.0.1 update available for download which also brings multitasking gestures to the original iPad and squashes Documents in the Cloud bugs. The rest of you will just have to wait until the release is official, okay?
Amazon is really stepping up their game with only two weeks left to go before their Android-based Kindle Fire is released, today announcing the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, an Amazon Prime only service that allows hardware Kindle owners to borrow thousands of books absolutely free. Amazon Prime, you will recall, is the company’s $79 per year service that brings free two-day shipping on most items and other niceties such as thousands of free streaming Instant Video titles -- and now free books are also part of the package. Unfortunately, the Lending Library won’t be extending its goodwill to Kindle software-only owners (including iOS or Android devices) -- you’ll need to pick up a piece of actual Kindle hardware to indulge. Rats...
Apple still hasn’t broken its silence on why iTunes Match didn’t launch on their target “late October” timeline, but Wednesday night the company squashed any hope that it would be coming soon by throwing out another iTunes 10.5.1 Beta 2 for developers, which at least allows those scrappy ruffians to keep using iTunes Match while the rest of us sit and wait… and wait… and wait. Doesn’t exact instill a lot of confidence that the $24.99 per year service will be worth the dough when it does finally launch, but we’d rather have it late and bug-free than now and riddled with the little buggers. The new beta also flips the switch on the second-generation Apple TV, making iTunes Match available there as well. Bet that makes you even more impatient, right?
According to a report from Domain Name Wire, Apple is aggressively going after a number of pornographic websites whose domain names include the use of the word “iPhone” in them. The company has officially filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Forum over seven such web domains, all of which cater to mobile-formatted adult content. If you’re a fan of such websites, we suggest you have your fun while you can… they may not be around much longer.
While many analysts have predicted gloom and doom for Apple when Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire hits the street in two weeks, Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes claims that Apple executives instead welcome the device with open arms. According to a report from Business Insider, Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer both believe the Kindle Fire will further fragment Google’s Android, which could instead “drive more consumers to the stable Apple platform.” While the $199 price is enticing, the Kindle Fire skips the Google experience (and therefore, the Google Marketplace) in favor of its own ecosystem and Amazon Appstore. Whether or not that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen, but Amazon is certainly beefing up their Kindle-based arsenal in the days prior to shipping, with a load of new Instant Video content and the new Lending Library outlined above, both of which are free to Amazon Prime subscribers.
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