“Hump Day” is here again, with Apple celebrating the life of Steve Jobs in a private ceremony held earlier today on the company’s Cupertino campus (and simulcast to Apple retail stores worldwide). The Apple co-founder continues to be memorialized ahead of his official biography which hits stores on Monday (more on that in a moment), but here’s what else is happening around the internet for this Wednesday, October 19, 2011.
Google senior vice president Andy Rubin took to The Official Google Blog today to announce Android 4.0, better known by its code name “Ice Cream Sandwich” to many. The announcement came this morning (or rather, late Tuesday night for most of us) in Hong Kong at an event co-hosted by Samsung, who will be releasing the new Galaxy Nexus in November, the first device to feature the latest mobile OS. Ice Cream Sandwich promises to unify smartphones and tablets alike, sporting new features such as Face Unlock, HD display and the elimination of all hardware buttons. The announcement comes on the third anniversary of the first Android phone (T-Mobile’s G1), which launched in October, 2008 and has since spawned more than 550,000 Android device activations per day.
Developer Readdle has really stepped up their game in recent months, and today the company unveiled version 3.0 of their $4.99 ReaddleDocs for iPad, the tablet version of their flagship PDF viewer and file manager. Calling it a “major update” with “over 300 fixes and improvements,” the iPad edition now sports a stylish new interface, improved speed, the ability to sync FTP/SFTP services with a device and much more. As always, the update is free for current customers.
Never doubt Steve Jobs’ commitment to Apple -- case in point, a PCMag.com story today that quotes Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, who was in a meeting with Tim Cook the day the iPhone 4S was announced in Cupertino. Apparently, Cook excused himself, claiming “My boss is calling me” in reference to “their next product.” Unfortunately, Jobs passed away the very next day, but it’s widely believed the co-founder was intimately involved in next year’s iPhone 5 as well.
MacRumors is reporting that Apple has flipped half of the switch on iTunes Match, which the company has promised in late October. iOS 5 users are now seeing an option to turn the feature on from Settings > Music, although doing so throws up an error: “You are not currently subscribed to iTunes Match. Use iTunes on your computer to subscribe.” Problem is, the only folks with the required iTunes 10.5.1 to do so are developers -- at least for now. iTunes Match will cost $24.99 per year when it launches.
According to CNNMoney’s Apple 2.0 blog, the official Twitter account of CBS television staple 60 Minutes announced that Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson will appear on this Sunday’s show in an interview with Steve Kroft. Of course, the timing is fortuitous, with the hardcover and digital versions of the highly anticipated book arriving on store shelves Monday, October 24. We’re definitely excited for Amazon to deliver our Kindle copy… have you preordered yours yet?
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bazaarsoft
October 19, 2011 at 6:30pm
You seriously ordered it from Amazon instead of the iBook Store? The Steve Jobs bio???
jrbookwalter
October 20, 2011 at 10:05am
Well, to be fair I preordered months ago, well before it was available from the iBookstore. But I'm also a tightwad, which is why I locked in the $14.99 preorder price to save a couple bucks. ;-)
