Heck of a week, huh? And things are only just getting started. Early iPhone 4S units have begun slipping out overseas, the iPad is dominating in the Web surfing arena, and one of the great writers of our time remembers Steve Jobs. The remainders for Tuesday, October 11, 2011 are so tired they could eat a lion. With milk.
‘Square’ gives small US businesses an edge (AFP)
Payment processor Square, which lets merchants accept credit card payments via a dongle that plugs into their smartphone or tablet, now handles $2 billion in transactions every year. Unfortunately, $1 billion of that was a single payment to this guy.
iPhone 4S delivered early in Germany, packaging & Siri shown off (AppleInsider)
Looks like an iPhone 4S has surfaced in Germany. Marvel at the shiny box! Revel in the German interface for Siri. (Or, if you prefer, you can listen to its soothing tones in a British accent.) Ooh and awe at the sleek new exter…actually, it really just looks like an iPhone 4.
Smartphones and Tablets Drive Nearly 7 Percent of Total U.S. Digital Traffic (comScore)
But the more important data point is that in August 2011, the iPad was apparently responsible for 97.2 percent of all tablet traffic in the U.S. The remaining 2.8 percent? Etch-a-Sketches.
iPhone 4S Preliminary Benchmarks: ~800MHz A5, Slightly Slower GPU than iPad 2, Still Very Fast (AnandTech)
According to preliminary benchmarks, the iPhone 4S is one speedy little fella, even though it’s still outpaced by its larger brother, the iPad 2. However, my preliminary scientific tests have confirmed unequivocally that both move at exactly the same speed when you drop them in a vacuum.
‘Hi. It’s Steve.’ (The Daily Beast)
Aaron Sorkin, creator of phenomenal TV shows like Sports Night and The West Wing—and, more recently, writer of hit movies like Moneyball and The Social Network—talks about his relationship with Steve Jobs, which mainly consists of a series of phone calls over the last decade, culminating in the former CEO’s attempt to get him to write a Pixar movie. No doubt, it would have involved Woody and Buzz spending a lot of time speaking rapid-fire dialog while walking down corridors.
Product News:
You Gotta See This! 2.1 – Boinx has updated its photo recording app to version 2.1, adding support for Twitter’s photo service for uploading images, Facebook’s latest login technology, and iOS 5’s Twitter integration. It also includes a handful of bug fixes. $2.
iBooks 1.3.2 – Version 1.3.2 of Apple’s ebook reader and store adds stability and performance improvements. Free.