Another week closer to Apple’s WWDC, another week of flying rumors about the next version of the iPhone as well as OS X 10.6 (aka, Snow Leopard). First off, one of the most welcome rumors about the iPhone I’ve seen so far in this run-up is that AT&T might be dropping its monthly entry-level iPhone plan by $10–from $69 to $59 (as reported by several sources). Thats a $120 savings per year, and quite welcome in this down economy. Unfortunately, there’s not much to this rumor aside from the fact that the source–Cote Collaborative analyst Michael Cote–believes it will happen. In other iPhone-related rumors, the Boy Genius Report reports that the new iPhone hardware might have a built-in magnetometer for use with a digital compass. But even more interesting is this tidbit from Crave:

One of the interesting things you can do with a digital compass is introduce augmented reality-type applications, as MacRumors suggests. Mobile augmented reality can use a phone’s camera and compass to let a device capture an image of a location, like San Francisco’s Union Square, for example. Information from the compass would allow names of locations to pop up on top of the image.

On the Snow Leopard side of things, AppleInsider reports that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will incorporate support for native WWAN hardware–i.e., 3G cellular connectivity–based on a screenshot of a breakout of networking devices in the system profiler. So, maybe that’s not the juiciest of rumors (as it could just make it easier to use third-party USB dongles and the like rather than built-in 3G chips), but it’s certainly interesting in light of all the buz of an iTablet. Now onto other Apple-y goodness from the week that was…

• Just when I started using Tweetie as my Twitter client for both Mac and iPhone (link opens up iTunes), my old standby Twitterific has come out with version 2.0 software for both Mac and iPhone. I’ll check it out, but I’m leaning toward Tweetie more and more–especially with its threaded conversations to help make sense of replies (hat tip to The Apple Blog).
• The SlingPlayer iPhone app may actually be seeing the light of day as TUAW reports that a search for “Sling Media” in iTunes brings up the name of the company (but nothing beyond that). At least it’s a start.
• I’ve been meaning to finish my Backblaze online backup, but have put it on hold as I decided I needed to first do a bit of clean-up of my MacBook Pro. The Backblaze application is certainly helpful in allowing you to identify folders to exclude on your hard drive, but I noticed that some items that were getting backed up (and thus using precious bandwidth) really didn’t need to be. Cary Bohon over at TUAW has a good suggestion for Mac spring cleaning using OS X’s Smart Folders feature.
• Sascha Segan over at PC Mag writes that the long-rumored Apple iPad (Apple’s tabletized take on a netbook) would certainly outsell the newly released Kindle DX but wouldn’t bother Amazon as much as it would newspaper and magazine publishers.
• The iPhone 3G was bested in sales during the first quarter of 2009 by the BlackBerry Curve 8300 series smartphone–which benefits from multiple models available on all major carriers and, as The Business Insider points out, had the advantage of a two-for-one deal running at Verizon.
• Macworld magazine’s new issue is chock-full of tips and tricks to getting the most out of your iPhone, including 11 ways to sync data (including a way to avoid Apple’s MobileMe’s $99 annual subscription for syncing contacts, calendard and more), ways to utilize the iPhone 3G’s integrated GPS, and some unique uses of the camera.
• While making the rounds at Macworld, I also noticed Rob Griffiths writing about why Firefox is his preferred browser (over Apple’s Safari)–it’s not just the add-ons (which, for me, are indispensable) but also the way it handles URLs (matching keywords that you type, not just auto-completing).
• However, while I don’t use Safari much, it’s still handy for some uses (Flash-heavy sites that are frustrating to dig into with my Firefox Flash-blocker add-on, etc.) and essential for others, including the newly released QuickBooks Online for Mac. Compatible only with Safari 3.1 (not the 4.x beta), it comes in a three flavors (one of them being free) and, as The Apple Blog touts, makes it easy for multi-user accounting tasks. I’m most curious about how easy it will be to share data with my accountant, as the current round-tripping method (from Mac to Win and back to Mac) is cludgey at best. In related financial info, Lifehacker takes a look at the Quicken Online Mobile iPhone app
• Looking for a quick-and-dirty way to share contacts or images between two iPhones? Check out the free Mover iPhone app (which operates over Wi-Fi) over at TUAW, which also posts a demo video that shows just how easy it is.
• Microsoft is doing a pretty good job with its Laptop Hunters ads in kicking up some Mac fanboy dust, but it might want to think twice before it makes Sabretooth angrier–or at least Liev Schrieber, the actor who plays the character in the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie, who says he switched to a Mac due to Word’s continued misspelling of his name (via Macworld).
• And finally… a portrait of Steve Jobs by designer Dylan Roscover using the text from the old Think Different ad campaign as rendered in various Apple-related fonts (via Cult of Mac).

  

–Agen G.N. Schmitz

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