TamsIJungle

Steve Jobs has just spoken up on rumors about his recent weight loss - the full statement is below:

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

With Christmas being quite a few days behind us, the promotion has got but one more day to run. Today, Apple gives out yet another single:

On the 11th day of Christmas iTunes gave to me…
John Legend - “If You’re Out There”
This free download is available for 24 hours on January 5, 2009.

American soul singer, songwriter, pianist, and nicest man in music, John Legend is one of US music’s biggest stars. Alongside high profile collaborations with Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill and Alicia Keys, John has won five Grammy Awards as a solo artist. His third studio album “Evolver” has been a smash hit across the world, and for today only, you can download the powerful ballad “If You’re Out There” on iTunes completely free!

If you like what you hear, why not find out more?

According to OFB.biz, the folks at AT&T’s have just turned against a (big) part of their (not so vocal) customers in a move of unprecedented aggressiveness.

The reason behind this is due to the perceived lack of 3G coverage on some areas - AT&T has started to move 2G devices to the “weaker” 1900MhZ band, while reserving the 850MhZ band to 3G only boxen. Customers with a non-3G capable phone (like most BlackBerries, Palm OS Treos or the iPhone 2G) will experience severely degraded signal strength in these areas: which means that phone calls will be dropped in areas where quality of service was not an issue before.

Some AT&T technicians have offered a truly outrageous solution: a 200$ credit which would neither offset the higher cost for 3G plans, nor cover equipment replacements:

When I contacted AT&T’s technical support seeking a solution to the problem, the company did offer a $200 one-time credit, a helpful offer, but not nearly enough to offset replacing my family’s two perfectly functional iPhones and additional Nokia handset (equipment totaling about $1,000 in value over the last two years), nor did the company offer to offset the additional fees attached to the new phones (a cumulative total of $30/month). The standard upgrade offered was pursuant to a new two-year contract on all three lines. Over the course of the next two years, AT&T’s offer would cost an additional $920 plus tax to restore the level of service previously available.

As of now, lawyers have not decided on whether this constitutes a “breach of contract”, which would allow customers to terminate their contract immediately and without penalties (another popular example was the recent CDMA SMS price hike). As the risk for the individual is low (and the class of users is huge), I dare to predict that this will change in the near future…

From my personal point of view, this move is outrageous: it targets less vocal customers (people still using a 2G phone are less likely to be in tech communities according to AT&T’s thinking IMHO), and fuxates the service provided to the majority of users to benefit a small minority.

The Tamoggemon Content team would be thankful for your feedback - if you have any issues, send us an email and we see what we can do for you!

Image: (c) abc texte / Dr. Doris Maria Kohrs - all rights reserved!

It’s time for a hoax alert - the image below comes from nowehereelse.fr and is a hoax:

While the device pictured does exist, its case was not produced by Apple but rather by an ominous Hong-Kong based manufacturer who offers these aftermarket cases on ebay in a variety of colors including pink:

P.S. I am not sure what this tells us about the pink iPhone 3G spotted recently - after all, this critter had a black SIM tray…

Day ten gives us another traditional music file:

On the 10th day of Christmas iTunes gave to me…
Elbow - “Grounds For Divorce (Live)”
This free download is available for 24 hours on January 4, 2009.

Elbow are one of the best bands the UK has ever produced. Criminally underrated for their first three albums, the band grabbed the recognition they deserve — and won 2008’s Mercury Music Prize — with fourth album “The Seldom Seen Kid”. They also played one of our favourite gigs of the year in London’s Apple Store, and a recording of that exclusive show is available on iTunes. For today only, you can download their Apple store live version of hit single “Grounds For Divorce” absolutely free! If you like what you hear, why not find out more?

P.S. Sorry for the delay - was traveling all day!

It’s this part of the month once again - BrightHand has just released its mind share stats for December 08. As usual, the data is below…the figures in brackets indicate last month’s placement:

1. Samsung Omnia i900 (2)
2. RIM BlackBerry Storm 9530 (New)
3. RIM BlackBerry Curve 8300 (4)
4. iPod touch (6)
5. RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8100 (8)
6. Nokia E71 (7)
7. iphone 3G (returning)
8. T-Mobile G1 (1)
9. HTC Touch Diamond (3)
10. LG Incite (New)

When breaking this down on a per-platform level, the platforms appear rather balanced. RIM and touchscreened Windows Mobile devices claim three places each, with Apple following suite with 2 (which means that all their devices are in the top ten). Nokia’s S60 platform manages to stay in with one device, as does Android - Palm OS and WM Standard devices have been decimated for now…

The pictures below come from an ebay auction offering what is promised to be a pink iPhone 3G:

According to the seller, the device is described as following:

PINK IPHONE 3G 8GB

You are bidding on what i think is the only pink Iphone on the market.

This is not a case or cover it is the actual body of the Iphone.

Iphone comes boxed with all accessories and has latest 2.2 firmware installed.

The phone is locked to O2 but could easily be unblocked if required.

This is the ultimate pink accessory for anyone, this phone is guaranteed to turn heads wherever you go and as far as i am aware is unavailable anywhere else.

P.S. Bidding has ended by now…

Day number 9 sees us all getting a traditional music file from an artist who always was big in the music bundling business (Sagem MyX5, anyone?):

Dido - “Don’t Believe In Love”
This free download is available for 24 hours on January 3, 2009.

Dido is one of the UK music’s biggest ever female exports. Her new album is a dark mix of introspective and emotional songwriting – and the lead single “Don’t Believe in Love” is a standout track. For today only, you can download it absolutely free – right here on iTunes! If you like what you hear, why not find out more? (Oh, and her birthday was on Christmas Day. Many happy returns Dido!)

The iPhone dev team has finally managed to unlock SIM-locked iPhone 3G’s via a method called yellowsn0w.

Cutting a long story short, their method consists of a little daemon program which is fired up whenever the device boots. It then exploits a weakness in the baseband software (aka the GSM driver), which allows the usage of random SIM cards.

The boys used a firmware weakness in the very latest version of the baseband software - this means that everybody who is on firmware version 2.2 can unlock his device (or can update to v2.2 safely).

Further information can be had at the link above!

Image: Wikimedia Commons / NASA

Hudson Soft has just released its physics puzzle Crayon Deluxe onto the iTunes App Store. The product which originally was developed by Kloonigames for jailbroken v1.xx devices has been updated and licensed to the subdivision of Konami, who sells it on the iTunes App store.

In case anyone of you is new to the fray: Crayon Physics allows you to “draw” objects on the screen. These then move around the screen, and can interact with other rigid bodies as to achieve goals (video showing the somewhat weird but addicting gameplay is below):

The program costs 5$…