It has been confirmed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs that the iPhone 3G has a kill switch that can remotely remove software from devices. In his own defense, Jobs told the Wall Street Journal that they need this ability in case they inadvertently allow a malicious program into the App Store.

Noted Jobs:

“Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull…”

From all reports so far, it looks like Apple hasn’t used the ‘kill’ switch as of yet. That being said, they have removed a number of applications from the App Store in recent weeks… Most notably, the $999 ‘I Am Rich‘ app. BoxOffice (renamed Now Playing) and NetShare have also been removed by my count.

Lets hope that Apple has all their ducks in a row when it comes to allowing apps into the App Store. I can hear it now… ‘Yep, your app is good.. wait… no… hold on… darn, it’s too late to remove it… where’s that kill switch!???’

Any bets on the kill switch? Will it be used before the new year? If nothing else I’d say this news will come as some motivation for a developer to come up with a malicious program to sneak it’s way into the App Store… (cough) Microsoft (cough).. KIDDING.

[via Yahoo! News]

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: iPhone Kill Switch, Steve Jobs

That’s no joke. Reports have indicated that in the first month of the App Store’s existence, it has done over $30 million in sales. In that timeframe more than 60 million apps have been downloaded. That’s a heck of a lot of business.

If you do the quick math, that’s over $1 million per day thanks to the App Store… and you can bet the numbers will continue to rise. More apps will be included, developers are working hard on all sorts of apps… So I’d expect sales numbers to continually rise… especially with the iPhone 3G becoming more and more prominent in the marketplace.

Steve Jobs’ comments on this in the Wall Street Journal:

“This thing’s going to crest a half a billion, soon… Who knows, maybe it will be a $1 billion marketplace at some point in time. I’ve never seen anything like this in my career for software.”

I haven’t either. This is an exciting time for developers for sure. They should get their hand in the cookie jar now!

[via Yahoo! News]

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: App Store, Steve Jobs

Tired of your boring iPhone dock? Or do you simply need one since your 3G didn’t come with one? An artist over at miisculptures.com has created a hilarious Steve Jobs Bobblehead dock that works with the original iPhone and iPhone 3G. For more info and pictures, click here.

While there are no purchase details on his site, if you head on over to custombobble.com, you might be able to get him to make you one (at least I think this is his site)… For a price. Judging by comparison with some other custom jobs he’s done, you’re probably looking at well over $200 at the very least.

[via Gizmodo]

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: Custom Bobbles, miisculptures, Personalized iPhone 3G Charger, Personalized iPhone Charger, Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs Bobblehead

If you haven’t heard already, Steve Jobs recently crafted an internal email all about the botched MobileMe launch. It is very interesting indeed. You can tell that a CEO wrote the letter, as he puts it in a way that is constructive and positive.

Yet, I couldn’t help wondering to myself ‘Hmmmm… I wonder if this thing was actually MEANT to go public!?’ I mean, how hard could that be? And what better way for Jobs’ to indirectly apologize to the mac computing public at-large, without the embarrassment of issuing a public apology.

If you haven’t read the full email yet, I’ve included it below for your reading pleasure.

Team,

The launch of MobileMe was not our finest hour.  There are several things we could have done better:

– MobileMe was simply not up to Apple’s standards – it clearly needed more time and testing.

– Rather than launch MobileMe as a monolithic service, we could have launched over-the-air syncing with iPhone to begin with, followed by the web applications one by one – Mail first, followed 30 days later (if things went well with Mail) by Calendar, then 30 days later by Contacts.

– It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store.  We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.

We are taking many steps to learn from this experience so that we can grow MobileMe into a service that our customers will love.  One step that I can share with you today is that the MobileMe team will now report to Eddy Cue, who will lead all of our internet services – iTunes, the App Store and, starting today, MobileMe.  Eddy’s new title will be Vice President, Internet Services and he will now report directly to me.

The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services.  And learn we will.  The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year.

Steve

[via arstechnica]

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: Apology, MobileMe, Steve Jobs

Since the launch of the iPhone 3G Apple has been flooded with angry complaints and emails regarding the ‘Mobile Me’ services, its reliability and speed.

Apple responded over the weekend with a new status blog which is to be updated by David G, an Apple employee under the direct orders of Steve Jobs himself. Yes folks, he may be ill but he is still flaunting is wrath of power over the Apple kingdom. David G will be reporting to us weekly, sharing updates and info on all that is ‘Mobile Me’.

His latest post read:

As you know, restoring full email access to the remaining 1% of MobileMe users is our first priority. We turned on web access to their current email yesterday and the feedback has been cautiously positive. Since then, we’ve restored full email history (minus the approximately 10% of mail received between July 18 and July 22 which may have been lost) and the ability to access email from a Mac, PC and iPhone, to over 40% of these users, and expect the remainder to be restored in the next few days.

A note of clarification to these 1% of MobileMe users — all of the email you received between July 18 and July 22 was placed on our new server on July 23 and was stamped with that date as a result. If you need the actual date for particular messages you can take advantage of the ability to view long headers in MobileMe Mail (via Preferences) to peer into the log and find the actual mailing time and date.

We’ll report again on our progress in another post early this week.

Its good to see Apple’s keeping us in the loop. Thanks David G!!

written by Councillor Ben \\ tags: Apple, david g, iPhone 3G, mobile me, status, Steve Jobs

Rumors have been floating around for some time regarding Steve Jobs’ health. One has had to admit, in the last few public appearances at WWDC and even MacWorld back in January, his ‘Steveness’ was looking mighty ‘gaunt’. That said, a recent report in the New York Times puts that to bed.

According to John Markoff of the NYT:

“Rumors of Steven P. Jobs’s ill health have been greatly exaggerated. That is what Mr. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, has been telling a number of his associates, even as concerns about his health have weighed on the company’s stock price. The latest flurry of talk was set off on Monday when, in a conference call after the release of Apple’s earnings, a company executive responded to a question about Mr. Jobs’s condition by saying that it was ‘a private matter. But in recent weeks, Mr. Jobs has reassured several people that he is doing well and that four years after a successful operation to treat a rare form of pancreatic cancer, he is cancer free…

People who are close to Mr. Jobs say that he had a surgical procedure this year to address a problem that was contributing to a loss of weight. These people declined to be identified because Mr. Jobs had not authorized them to speak about his health…

Mr. Jobs has told several associates, as well as some members of Apple’s board, that he is dealing with nutritional problems in the wake of his cancer surgery. Medical descriptions of the surgery state that in some cases it leads to weight loss and low energy…

The company has said that it has formulated a succession strategy in case Mr. Jobs left the company, but that it was confidential.”

I hate to speculate and comment on private matters such as one’s health, but seeing as this is GOOD news, I had to ’share the love’. I sincerely hope Steve is indeed doing well, and is in great health.

[via MacDailyNews]

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs' Health, Steven P. Jobs

The new motion picture ‘WALL-E’ is out in theaters today, and I’ve read a few reports that ‘WALL-E’ is a mac. When he boots up, there’s the ever familiar Mac ‘dong’… or is it ‘ding’… or is it more of a ‘hummm’…. You know what I mean. So hard to put into words

Also, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive is said to have consulted on the design of WALL-E’s love interest in the movie ‘EVE’… and WALL-E himself is said to carry around a clunky first gen iPod.

One shouldn’t be surprised if there are many design cues reminiscent of Mac design. Steve Jobs owns 7% of Disney stock, and sits on their board of directors (Disney owns Pixar). Naturally I’m sure he has some pull.

At any rate, thought this was a bit interesting. If any of you out there go check out the movie be sure to leave comments here on what you saw. Can you confirm or deny that WALL-E is a mac!?

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: Apple Design, Disney, Jonathan Ive, Pixar, Steve Jobs, WALL-E

We’ve all heard the failing health rumors surrounding Steve Jobs… and who knows for sure what is true or not… But one thing is for sure, it has got a lot of people in the mac blogosphere speculating about who would be the successor to Mr. Jobs’ post should something very unfortunate happen in his health.

The folks over at arstechnica put together the graphic below detailing Apple execs and other higher-ups that are most likely to succeed his ‘Steveness’. Take a look:

One would have to assume the favorite at the moment would be Timothy D. Cook who ran the company for a bit back in 2004 (during Jobs’ original health scare). Cook is a young 47, and is responsible for Apple’s worldwide sales and operations, in other words… the COO of the company.

My personal pick would be Jonathan Ive. The guy is a genius and acts as Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple… And lets face it… One of the major things that sets Apple apart from the competition is its clean design… and much of it is due to the work of Ive.

Another thing I like about him is he isn’t a stiff in a suit (and no I’m not suggesting that the other execs ARE). I don’t think Apple wants their figurehead to be a numbers, CFO, supply chain management kinda guy. I mean, c’mon, look at Jobs over the past years. Black shirt, jeans and sneakers… But I digress…

If Mr. Ive can provide the passion and ‘Rah! Rah!’ attitude that Jobs’ has exuded for many years, he could be an excellent choice.

What do you think?

[via arstechnica]

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: Apple CEO, Apple Executives, Jonathan Ive, Steve Jobs

If you watched the Keynote Address, for WWDC 2008, you may have noticed something a little different about the Apple founder. Jobs appeared to look as though he lost quite a bit of weight since his keynote at Macworld 2007.  Big news sites such as Drudge Report and The Wall Street Journal reported the story which gained the notice of Apple.

A spokesperson for the company, based in Cupertino, California, noted that Jobs had been affected by a ‘common bug’ which caused his big loss in weight.  If you remember, Jobs suffered from a very rare form of pancreatic cancer, which he had removed in a successful surgery.  You may also remember that Apple didn’t disclose this information about Jobs’ health issues until after the surgery was deemed as effective.

I feel that without Jobs Apple will become a company that would focus more on making money and less on providing the world with innovative products.  All of our thoughts and prayers go out to Jobs and we hope that he is doing well!

written by Councillor Wes \\ tags: Steve Jobs

We’re almost there. The WWDC is due to kick off on Monday with Steve Jobs’ keynote address… and we can finally put all of the rumors and speculating to bed. What do you think 100% for sure absolutely positive YES is going to be announced at the keynote? (I realize that last sentence didn’t make much sense).

There are three things that I’m keeping my fingers crossed about… Am sincerely hoping they all get announced at the keynote…The chances are slim, but heck, wouldn’t it be nice?

Obviously first and foremost will be the 3G iPhone announcement. That is almost a certainty. Will be great to see what the new iPhone has packed into it, what options it has, and more…

Next on my list would be the iPhone App Store. That has to be coming soon. Would make sense to launch this to coincide with the new iPhone.

Last on my list would be the launch of the iPhone internationally. Will there be announcements of the iPhone going green in Canada, Italy, Greece, and Australia to name a few? Rumors were that Apple was coordinating a massive international launch of the iPhone all around or on the same date. That would be great, and I can speak for other Canadians when I say ‘About GD Time!’

Of course, there have been so many more rumors including new iPhones coming in multiple colors, video conferencing via iChat on the iPhone, a slimmer and lighter iPhone, and a whole lot more… I’m sure you’ve read or heard all of the rumors by now.

So much to speculate on, I’m just happy this will be coming to an end next week. I’m hoping that the keynote delivers more than we are expecting… But we’ll have to wait and see.

What do you think? What is the WWDC Keynote going to deliver? …and will it be a bang or a bust!?

Discuss this in the Forums >

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: 3G iPhone, iPhone App Store, Steve Jobs, WWDC 08