MacRumors

Apple retailer ClubMac's 500 GB Time Capsule page is currently displaying an image (shown above) of a 2 TB Time Capsule retail box in its "Product Detail" section. Apple's Time Capsule combination wireless router and network-attached storage drive is currently available only in 500 GB ($299) and 1 TB ($499) models.

The original source of the image used on ClubMac's site is unknown, though promotional product images typically come from the manufacturer (Apple).

The potential of multi-touch technologies generate a lot of attention here at MacRumors. Apple has clearly invested in multi-touch and we expect that they will slowing introduce more advanced versions of the technology over time. One possibility that has been discussed is that of a large multi-touch tablet or keyboard. The larger surfaces could offer unique applications including gesturing interfaces.

iPhone developer Illusion Labs released a video today showing off what their current iPhone games would look like on a large multi-touch table. The technology behind this table is from TouchTech in cooperation with Crowd.

Both TouchGrind [App Store] and Sway [App Store] are available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but the large table interface certainly adds to the experience. In the demo, the games are running on a MacBook Pro and input from the touch table sent via a standard network cable. Both games were modified slightly to accommodate the larger screen but are essentially the same as the iPhone versions.

While Apple's not expected to introduce a full multi-touch table, even a smaller tablet or multi-touch netbook could introduce a number of exciting new applications.

Apple has released a new version update for iTunes today that brings the application up to version 8.1.1.

iTunes 8.1.1 adds support for renting HD movies and provides a number of bug fixes, including addressing issues with VoiceOver and syncing with iPhone or iPod touch.

iTunes 8.1 was released in early March and added a number of new features.

The update should be available in your Mac OS X Software Update.

Over the weekend, hints of several additional features for the next-generation iPhone were revealed. Among them was the discovery that text strings in the iPhone OS 3.0 software reference a new Broadcom wireless chip, BCM4329, which supports 802.11n wireless connectivity. In digging through the specs for the chip, 9 to 5 Mac has discovered that it also supports both reception and transmission of FM radio signals.

But they neglected to mention that it also adds the ability to receive and send (the previous model could only receive) information through FM radio signals which theoretically could be used to broadcast sound into car stereos..without external adapters. It could also be used to pick up FM radio music, news and sports broadcasts on their iPhones and even, in August, on iPods. Currently the FM reciever is only used to pick up communications from the Nike+ peripheral.

The finding, however, doesn't mean that Apple will necessarily enable these features in the new iPhone. Apple has certainly been known not to enable all features their hardware is capable of, and FM reception/transmission is one that have shown no interest in supporting in the past.

A few times a year, MacRumors partners with MacHeist to promote their Mac application bundle deal. Their latest bundle delivers at least 12 Mac applications for $39 (a $981 value if all purchased separately) including:

- iSale ($39.95) - time-saving tools to sell your stuff on eBay
- Picturesque ($34.95) - touch up your photos with an easy to use interface
- SousChef ($30) - cooking assistant with over 12,000 recipes, ingredient substitutions, and more...
- World of Goo ($20) - award winning and imaginative physics-based puzzle game
- PhoneView ($19.95) - access your iPhone's Notes, SMS logs, call history and more.
- LittleSnapper ($39) - capture, edit, organize and share images on your computer
- Acorn ($49.95) - photo editor "for the rest of us" with GPU acceleration
- Kinemac ($299) - generate professional real time 3D animations
- WireTap Studio ($69) - record, organize, edit and share sound from any application on your Mac
- BoinxTV ($199) - "TV studio in a box" for recording podcasts, seminars, other events
- Cro-Mag Rally ($19.95) - Mac version of the popular prehistoric kart racer from Pangea
- Times ($30) - read your RSS feeds in a visual newspaper format.

Now unlocked:

- The Hit List ($49.95) - simple/powerful task manager
- Espresso ($80) - web editor to code, preview and publish sites

This $39 bundle sale ends on Tuesday night (April 7th) and the final two "locked" applications are projected to be unlocked before that time. Unlocked applications become available to all purchasers of the bundle no matter when you purchased it. Update: All applications unlocked, so all 14 apps available for the $39.

MacRumors is a promotional partner with MacHeist. Bundle sales through these links benefit MacRumors financially, and provide a way for readers to directly support this site.

Since the iPhone 3.0 beta release, developers have been digging through the firmware looking for evidence of future iPhones and capabilities. An early finding revealed that a number of unknown iPhone model numbers already appear in the beta firmware. Over the weekend, a few new findings have added two new features to the next generation iPhone.

Driver support for new Broadcom Wi-Fi chips suggest that the next iPhone will add support for 802.11n. The iPhone and iPod touch currently only support the slower 802.11b/g networks. Supporting only 802.11n devices on a wireless network can significantly improve performance. With existing iPhone hardware, this mixed environment was unavoidable.

Meanwhile, an inadvertent Publish Video screenshot from the first iPhone 3.0 beta suggests that Apple is incorporating video recording and uploads directly from your iPhone. Some new user interface elements in the 3.0 beta suggest that you will also be able to edit these videos before uploading. If Apple does indeed provide video recording and publishing, it certainly makes sense to offer some limited editing/clipping ability.

The iPhone 3.0 firmware will not be released to the public until this Summer, and Apple is rumored to be releasing their next generation iPhone in that timeframe.

Microsoft has released a second commercial in their new "Laptop Hunters" ad campaign targeting Mac prices. In the new commercial, "Giampaolo" is given a budget of $1500 with which to find to a laptop with his desired features of portability, battery life, and power. After browsing several PC's, Giampaolo takes a look at Apple's notebook offerings, but ultimately decides against them.

This is so sexy, but Macs to me are about aesthetics more than they are the computing power. I don't want to pay for the brand. I want to pay for the computer.

Giampaolo eventually settles on an HP HDX 16t, closing the commercial with the comment "I'm a PC because I'm really picky."

In the first commercial in the campaign, "Lauren" purchased a $699 17" HP laptop, noting that Apple does not offer a laptop of that size within her price limit of $1000.

The release of an official Skype application for the iPhone appears to have been controversial for both mobile carriers and consumers. The Voice-Over-IP software allows iPhone users to make phone calls over Wi-Fi to other Skype users or even to regular landline phones. Obviously, such functionality could compete with mobile carrier's own voice services.

As a concession, Apple has prevented the use of such applications over cellular data networks (EDGE or 3G) and only officially allows it to run on Wi-Fi. (Strangely, several readers have noticed that the Skype application presently does work over 3G when running beta iPhone 3.0 firmware, but that may simply be an oversight on the part of Apple.)

T-Mobile in Germany, however, threatened that it may take action to prevent its customers from using Skype on the iPhone. On the flip side, an open-Internet advocacy group is asking the FCC to see if AT&T and Apple are violating federal rules by restricting Skype to just Wi-Fi.

Free Press and other consumer advocates want the FCC to affirm that so-called net neutrality protections also cover wireless networks. That would prevent AT&T or other operators from blocking services like Skype on their mobile networks.

Skype has proven to be massively popular on the iPhone and iPod Touch reaching over one million downloads in the first two days of availability.

In a brief report, DigiTimes claims that Apple has placed orders with OmniVision Technologies for both 3.2 and 5-megapixel image sensors. The 3.2-megapixel sensor is reportedly destined for the next-generation iPhone, while the 5-megapixel sensor is claimed to be for a separate product launching later this year.

OmniVision has received 3.2-megapixel CMOS image sensor (CIS) orders for Apple's next-generation iPhone, according to market sources. The company is also said to have secured 5-megapixel CIS orders for another Apple product expected to be launched later in the year.

Both the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G utilize a 2-megapixel camera, and speculation regarding a higher resolution camera in the next-generation iPhone has been popular for some time now. Evidence of a "Publish Video" screen in the iPhone OS 3.0 beta and supporting claims of a video camera in the next-generation iPhone suggest that Apple is targeting significant improvements to the iPhone's imaging capabilities.

PC World reports that an error on Apple's Hong Kong online store reveals that an announcement of new Xserve models featuring Intel "Nehalem" processors should be occurring in the near future. The error involves a broken image on the main Xserve ordering page with a filename of "promo-ribbon-nehalem.jpg" and an alt attribute reading "Pre-order the new Xserve with Intel Xeon (Nehalem)."

A notice on Apple's Hong Kong online store is offering to take preorders of the Xserve based on Intel's latest Xeon server chips. However, preorders cannot be placed as the link hasn't been activated yet, and customization capabilities for the old Xserve products have been disabled.

Rumors of an Xserve refresh have been gathering steam in recent days, with changes in Apple's estimated shipping times and text strings in the OS X 10.5.7 beta pointing to an imminent update to Apple's rackmountable server computers.

In the minds of many, the unreleased Palm Pre may be the biggest potential threat to Apple's growing iPhone marketshare. Announced at CES, the Palm Pre is an entirely new platform developed by Palm to replace their long-running Palm OS.

The Palm Pre will be the first multi-touch mobile phone to be released following the iPhone. This fact has generated a number of veiled legal threats between the companies.

Palm was demonstrating the Palm Pre at CTIA Mobile this week. Computerworld provided some early impressions:

the webOS is layered to allow users to keep several applications open at once and to let them flip seamlessly between them. The Pre's main button at the bottom center of the device acts as an all-purpose "zoom out" button that shrinks applications in use and gives users the ability to browse through other apps. Although this sounds like it could be confusing, Palm has designed its operating system to make flipping through apps a breeze. Basically, users can flip through their open apps by moving their fingers from left to right -- or vice-versa -- along the phone's touch screen, just like flipping the pages of a book.

A promo video from Palm is also available showing the operating system in action.

Meanwhile, Pre Central has an actual hands on video showing the operating system in real usage.

The Palm Pre uses the ARM Cortex A8 (not multicore) CPU and PowerVR SGX GPU, which are a step beyond the technology Apple currently has in the 3G iPhone. Apple has been rumored to be working on a major hardware refresh for the iPhone that is due this summer.

TechCrunch reports on comments made by Stephen Elop, President of Microsoft's Business Division, at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco that suggest that Microsoft is still exploring ways to bring its Office suite of applications to the iPhone.

I'm here at the Web 2.0 Expo keynote, where Stephen Elop, President of Microsoft Business Division, hinted that we may be seeing Microsoft Office make its way to the iPhone some time soon. After his interviewer Tim OReilly caught him on the comment, Elop backtracked a bit, stating "not yet, keep watching". But it's clear that an iPhone version of Office is on his mind.

Fortune reported a year ago that Microsoft's Mac Business Unit was exploring its options for iPhone applications, and it appears that something may still be in the works.

Apple seeded developers with the latest build (10A314) of Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) today. The latest beta version of Snow Leopard is said to be more stable than previous builds. Specifically, QuickTime X is said to have made significant strides since the previous version.

Apple, however, has not yet deployed the "Marble" user interface changes that have been rumored for Snow Leopard.

An exact release date for Snow Leopard has not been established , though recent rumors have suggested it could be as late as September. Apple will likely make further announcements and demos of Snow Leopard at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

HardMac posted a collection of rumors they've received. They don't seem particularly confident about the information but do provide some believable tidbits:

- Snow Leopard will not be ready before September. Significant amounts of work left on QuickTime X, Open CL, and Grand Central
- New Xserve in June alongside a Mac Pro bump to 3.2GHz with Quadro FX 5800
- Notebooks to move to Nehalem in November
- Final Cut Studio 3, DVD Studio Pro, Shake, Logic updates.

The Mac Pro 3.2GHz speed boost is conceivable as Intel did officially release the Nehalem Xeon processors that run up to 3.2GHz. Apple currently only offers Mac Pros that run up to 2.93GHz.

AppleInsider follows up on yesterday's report regarding an update to Apple's Xserve offering with additional evidence for the new model. According to the report, a user has discovered text strings in the latest Mac OS X 10.5.7 beta identifying an unreleased "Xserve3,1" model, as well as references to Marvell's Yukon 2 Ethernet controller chips suitable only for Apple's Xserve line but not found in the current model.

In particular, AppleInsider reader Adam has discovered references to an "Xserve 3,1" inside the AppleTyMCEDriver extension file currently seeding to Mac OS X developers as part of Mac OS X 10.5.7.

The current incarnation of the Xserve, introduced in January of 2008, has long identified itself as "Xserve 2,", meaning "Xserve 3,1" stands as an machine ID indentifier [sic] for an unreleased family of Xserves -- almost certainly the upcoming Nehalem models.