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Apple's biggest manufacturing partner is making preparations to turn this into a reality.

During a press conference in Shanghai this week, Foxconn president Terry Gou finally confirmed that the company is making preparations to begin production of the upcoming Apple HDTV. Production is yet to begin, so you may not see the set before Christmas. But Apple certainly plans to bring Steve Jobs’s set to market.

Rumors concerning an Apple HDTV first began shortly after Walter Isaacson published Jobs’s biography, in which it was revealed that Jobs had “finally cracked” the perfect TV set before he passed away.

Since then, the device has been the subject of speculation on a frequent basis, but there has never been any substantial evidence to suggest it would ever make it to market. Until yesterday, when Foxconn chief Terry Gou revealed to reporters that his factories are “making preparations” for the set.

One of those preparations was Foxconn’s recent investment in Sharp, which will reportedly supply the LCD displays for the device.

Gou said Foxconn is making preparations for iTV, Apple Inc’s rumored upcoming high-definition television, although development or manufacturing has yet to begin.

iTV reportedly features an aluminum construction, Siri, and FaceTime video calling

Foxconn’s recent 50-50 joint venture factory with Sharp in Japan is one of the preparations made for the new device, Gou added.

That statement seems to confirm that Apple plans to make the set a reality in the near future, but the fact that it is yet to enter production suggests we’ll be waiting for some time yet. While most reports have claimed that the TV will launch before year’s end, one analyst recently stated that there is no sign of its appearance before 2014.

A source for Cult of Mac recently revealed that the Apple TV will look much like the company’s existing Thunderbolt Displays, only significantly larger. It is also expected to feature Siri integration, and a front-facing camera for making FaceTime calls.

Source: ChinaDaily

Via: MacRumors

Siri, how could you?

When you build a robot or an artificially intelligent machine, there’s always going to be a fear that one day it will turn against you. That’s what Siri has done to Apple today, labeling one of the iPhone’s biggest rivals, the Nokia Lumia 900, the “best smartphone ever.”

If you’ve got an iPhone 4S, pull it out of your pocket now, call up Siri, and ask her, “What is the best smartphone ever?”

Rather than the humorous response you get to questions like, “What is the best smartphone?”, Siri will, surprisingly, tell you all about the Nokia Lumia 900, the Finnish firm’s flagship Windows Phone handset.

Of course, when you ask Siri a question, she’ll often find your answer from Wolfram Alpha, which is clearly what’s happening here; she’s just searching the service for the best smartphone based on “customer review average.” But even so, it must be a little embarrassing for Apple when its intelligent assistant pulls up a competitor when you ask her what the best smartphone ever is.

If you want our advice, don’t listen to everything Siri tells you.

Source: The Next Web

iTranslate Voice is voice translation on the iPhone executed perfectly.

One of my favorite jailbreak tweaks for the iPhone 4S (before I updated to iOS 5.1 and lost my jailbreak) was called Lingual, which enabled Siri to connect to Microsoft’s Bing Translate API and immediately translate words or phrases into a number of different languages.

Thanks to iTranslate Voice, you can now get the same functionality and more for any iPhone from the App Store. This excellent $0.99 app listens to you speak, then quickly translates your sentences into one of 31 languages. It’s super quick and incredibly accurate.

I’ve been playing around with iTranslate Voice for most of the morning, translating simple words and phrases and putting it to the test. And honestly, I could not be more impressed with this app.

For less than a dollar, it will translate phrases into one of 31 languages and dialects. Simply tap the microphone, tell iTranslate what you’d like to translate, and let it perform its magic. If you’re in public and you’d rather not be seen talking to your iPhone, you can also enter words and phrases manually.

The process is extremely fast, with almost no wait time whatsoever. And once you have your translation, you can share it via email, text message, or tweet.

iTranslate Voice doesn’t just do translation, either: You can also look up definitions and meanings to words and phrases using only your voice.

The following 31 languages and dialects are supported by iTranslate: English (US), English (UK), English (Australia), Spanish (Spain), Spanish (United States), Spanish (Mexico), French (France), French (Canada), German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin (China), Mandarin (Taiwan), Cantonese, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Polish, Russian, Arabic, Bahasa (Indonesia), Basque, Catalan, Greek, Hindi, Slovak, Thai, Turkish.

iTranslate Voice is on sale for $0.99 for a limited time only, so be sure to grab it while it’s cheap. If you’re learning a foreign language or visiting a foreign country, this app will be hugely worthwhile.

Continuing a long string of recent exclusives that quote un-named sources, CultofMac today claims that someone who saw the Apple HDTV says it looks like a bigger Cinema Display with an iSight camera and Siri, according to the post.

We are filing this one somewhere between the infamous Steve Jobs eating rice pudding post and….

Related articles

• Analyst: Apple could use ‘iTV’ moniker for HDTV, partner with carriers for programming (9to5mac.com)

We have a source who claims to have seen a prototype Apple high-definition television set in action, indicating that Apple is readying the long-awaited device for market.

According to our source, who has asked to remain strictly anonymous, the Apple HDTV looks like Apple’s current lineup of LED-backlit Cinema Displays but is “much bigger.” It has a built-in iSight camera for making free FaceTime video conference calls. And it has Siri, the iPhone 4S’s voice-activated virtual assistant.

Apple has been rumored to be working on a proper television set for some time, but so far the company’s presence in the living room has been modest, maxing out with the current Apple TV — a small set-top box that is hooked to owners’ existing televisions. Apple describes the current Apple TV as a “hobby,” acknowledging that the device’s features are limited and that it is not a serious attempt by the company to enter the television market.

Such an attempt could revolutionize the living room and disrupt the businesses of the television industry, much like what happened when Apple released the original iPhone back in 2007. TV — and especially cable — is widely seen as ripe for some Apple-like disruption. Rumors that Apple was planning a full frontal assault on the living room reached a fever pitch last year, when Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs revealed that Jobs claimed he had “cracked” TV.

Our source claims to have seen a working prototype of the exact device Steve Jobs was talking about when he said he had “cracked TV.”

According to our source, the Apple TV looks a lot like Apple’s current lineup of Cinema Display monitors.

“It resembled an Apple monitor, only much larger,” our source said.

The Apple HDTV makes FaceTime calls using the built-in iSight camera. The camera is sophisticated, with facial recognition and the ability to zoom into the user’s face and follow them as they walk around the room. This allows users to make video calls from the couch across the room, rather than having to stand smack in front of the TV.

In addition, calls are initiated by Siri, the iPhone 4S’s virtual assistant. “[Apple] used Siri to make a FaceTime call,” the source said.

Unfortunately, we don’t know any more about other Siri integration, or the TV’s interface in general. We also don’t know the specs, pricing or release schedule.

Our source is well-placed and has provided us with great tips in the past. However, not all of them have panned out, ostensibly due to the fact that our source tends to see products in the prototype or early development stage and Apple doesn’t always ultimately choose to release them. We hope this is one of our source’s tips about an upcoming Apple product that actually sees market.

The mockup above is a concept made by designer Dan Draper. Explaining his methodology, Dan says, “Obviously it’s very visually similar to the Thunderbolt or Cinema display, but trying to put myself in the shoes of Jony Ive I’ve made the stand shorter, wider to make the user more trusting that it can support the weight, and (see the side view) less angled. I figured users don’t care about the distance from a wall required by a monitor stand, but for a thin, expensive TV they likely want it to sit as close to the wall as possible, so the stand in the mockup allows for that, which I think the Apple industrial design group will do for the real thing.”

UPDATE: For comment, we reached out to TV analyst Paul Gagnon, Director of North American TV Research for NPD DisplaySearch. Gagnon said he didn’t have any hard information, but expects Apple to introduce a line of TVs this year. He noted that Apple’s Chinese supplier, Foxconn, has invested $1.6 billion in Sharp’s TV unit, which can efficiently make large size panels up to 60-inches. Speculating, Gagnon Apple’s TVs will likely be pretty conventional in terms of hardware. They will not be anything exotic like OLED or 4K resolution. There will likely be two to four models ranging from 40-inches to 60-inches. They will be standard 1920 x 1080p resolution and cost between $1,000 to $2,000 or slightly higher. When might they ship? “Our best guess is 2013,” Gagnon said.

Samsung announced the Galaxy S III today at the Unpacked event in London. Apple’s biggest competitor in the smartphone space, and the only other manufacture making any significant profit, showed off the upgraded 4.8-inch 720P SuperAMOLED display device that now weighs 133 grams among other minor spec improvements.

A few of the features shown off were S-Voice, which is like Siri (on-stage presenter asked for the news and got the weather), Scan and Match for Music (iTunes Match), and Airplay-like “AllShare Cast” for streaming content to your HDTV through the AppleTV-like AllShare Cast Dongle.  Samsung also named its iPod nano-like music player ”Pebble,” which bears a resemblance to the iOS Kickstarter watch that goes by the same name.

One cool new thing is a face recognition photo app. It lets you instantly send pictures to your friends that it recognizes in your pictures. The S III also has a pop-up player, which is sort of an app version of picture-in-picture that allows you to watch a movie while you switch around to other applications.

Initial reviews seem a little luke-warm on the device. Most call it an incremental update from the S II with new features that also brought some new flaws.

Oh, and Phil Schiller will not like this news: Flipboard for Android is debuting on the S III.

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• Live from Samsung’s Galaxy S III event (Gallery) (9to5google.com)
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On the left is Siri, on the right is the S Voice Copycat

This morning Samsung announced their newest high-end Android phone, the Samsung Galaxy S III. With a release date of May 29th, the new phone comes with a lot of crazy new features, like Smart Stay, that uses facial recognition to determine if you’re looking at it, and if not, it’ll turn the screen off. But topping the list of awesome new features is the “innovative” voice recognition feature. It’s innovative because you can say things like, “Hi Mr. Galaxy phone, what’s the weather gonna be like today?” and S Voice will pop-up a screen that looks exactly like Apple’s Siri feature does on the iPhone 4S.

Keep it up Samsung.

Source: Sebastiaan de With

Via: Rene Ritchie

Can you read me "Siri For Dummies," Siri?

Siri is already about as simple as it gets, but that hasn’t stopped freelance journalist and TV host Marc Saltzman from creating Siri For Dummies. The 192-page book “shows you all the cool things Siri can do for you, so you can get the most from your iPhone’s voice-activated personal assistant.”

What could be cooler than asking your iPhone 4S questions and having it reply? This handy little book shows you all the cool things Siri can do for you, so you can get the most from your iPhone’s voice-activated personal assistant. Let Siri read you your messages, locate facts, direct you to the nearest sushi bar, and so much more!

• Shows you how to use Siri to keep your calendar, remind you of appointments, and check your messages
• Explains using Siri to get directions, play your favorite music, make phone calls, search the web, and even provide the weather report
• Offers helpful tips on how to use your voice to write an e-mail, create a text, add a note, and more with Siri and the iPad’s new Voice Dictation feature
• Explores some fun things to ask Siri and reveals some surprise Siri secrets
• Includes coverage of Siri for iPhone 4S and Voice Dictation for the new iPad

Chances are that if you’re reading Cult of Mac you probably don’t need to buy Siri For Dummies. All of the info looks pretty basic, and Siri is already about as simple as it gets. However, for the less informed iPhone users, this book could be a lifesaver.

Saltzman’s explanation of Siri is thorough, and he walks you through pretty much everything. If your elderly parent or completely tech-illiteratre friend just got an iPhone 4S, Siri For Dummies is something to consider. You can read a book excerpt in PDF form by clicking this link.

Siri For Dummies is available in Apple’s iBookstore for $6. You can also get it on Amazon Kindle for the same price. Paperback copies are available for various prices at book sellers like Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million.

“You can converge a toaster and refrigerator, but these things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user”- Tim Cook on Windows 8 and touch-friendly PCs at Q2 earnings.

Disregarding Cook’s statement for a second, here is an iMac touch concept sent by 9to5Mac reader and 3D animation student Joakim Ulseth. The mockup shows how he thought a redesigned iMac could incorporate a touchscreen and iOS-like features. The overall concept is based on an Apple patent published in 2010 that detailed an iMac with adjustable “Flex base.” This is what Ulseth imagined would be inside the next-gen device:

Apple iMac Touch with Flex Base running both OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion and iOS5– ”Power at your fingertips”

Specs:

Retina-Display: The 27-inch iMac Touch features 4096-by-2304 HD resolution. The resulting pixel density — 174 pixels per inch — makes text and graphics look smooth and continuous at any size.
Siri: The intelligent assistant that helps you get things done.
Ivy Bridge: Intels new Ivy Bridge i5 and i7 processors.
Thunderbolt: Two Thunderbolt ports for high speed data transfer.

And, before you unleash the hate:

RT @marcedwards: Jobs, 2004: “No video on iPods.” 2005: iPod Video released. — Tim Cook, 2012: “Converging a toaster and a refrigerator ...

—
  (@chronic) April 25, 2012

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Go4Computers has the 16GB iPhone 4S in black or white for $619 with free United States shipping— and tax in Florida only. They also ship internationally. That’s $30 off of Apple’s no contract price.

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