Apple won’t hold an event in February, developers might want to drop marketing images of white iPhones, and Cupertino picks up a Redmond refugee. The remainders for Thursday, February 4, 2012 are within your grasp.
Apple will not hold an event in February (The Loop)
Reports of a “strange” February Apple event were circulating around the Web, but The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple put the kibosh on the rumors, saying “Apple will not hold an event in February, unusual or otherwise.” Well, I guess the Beard didn’t see its shadow.
Apple Tells Developers To Stop Using White iPhone Images (PandoDaily)
So says Michael Arrington, so take it with a grain of salt. According to the former TechCrunch editor, Apple is reserving white iPhones for its own marketing images, and would rather that developers show their apps running on the black model, although Arrington also admits that some well-known apps, like Flipboard and Path, have images using white iPhones. Quick, somebody call the white-iPhone conspiracy theorists out of retirement and tell them they have one last job.
Challenge to schools: Embracing digital textbooks (Associated Press)
In the wake of Apple’s digital textbook announcement, the Obama administration is throwing down the gauntlet with school and publishing companies to bring the technology to K-12 students. While they’re at it, maybe the schools could also finally bring technology to bear on the problem of those awful P.E. classes.
Tim Cook boasts about Apple’s charitable contributions during internal all-hands meeting (The Verge)
During an Apple all-hands meeting last month, Tim Cook reputedly dished numbers on Apple’s charitable giving, saying that the company had donated a total of $50 million to Stanford’s hospitals, as well as raised more than $50 million for the Product Red initiative. That still pales next Microsoft, which last year made its biggest charitable contribution to the world by discontinuing the Zune.
Apple hires Xbox Live veteran for App Store marketing (9to5 Mac)
Speaking of Microsoft, Apple has apparently snapped up Robin Burrowes, Redmond’s chief of Xbox Live in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, to head up App Store marketing in Europe. First order of business: Make sure that all apps are translated into European.
How Apple’s ’1984′ Ad Was Almost Canceled (Mental Floss)
We’re all familiar with Apple’s famous 1984 ad, but it almost didn’t air because Apple’s board of directors hated the ad. In order to sell them on it, Steve Jobs ran into the room and threw a chair through the conference room’s window. Well. We think that’s why he did.
Product News:
Photo Transformer 1.0 – A new photo utility from Prosoft Engineering helps find photos on your Mac for processing. Photo Transformer does not require your photos to be managed by a library or database. Images can be categorized and resized. The program supports Aperture and iPhoto. $10.
Flint 1.1 – Version 1.1 of Giant Comet’s client for 37signals’s Campfire service brings tab completion for username, Emoji support, the ability to use multiple 37signals accounts, the ability to change the room topic, an option for disabling Campfire sounds, improved handling of network connections and server errors, a number of bug fixes, and more. $10.
Book Palette 1.0 – Jumsoft is offering a set of templates that can be used with iBooks Author. The ten templates range in style and include designs suitable for business, education, and creativity. The templates can be customized for your needs. $3.
Trover 1.2.7 – This social network emphasizes discovery using photography, and the latest version of their iPhone app has new features to make it easier to sort through Trover content. The new Lists feature lets uses create a collection of things to do at a certain location. The new @Name Tags feature allows user to tag friends so they can be invited into a discussion. Free.