Yesterday, Bloomberg published a story about Apple’s alleged plan to rent television shows through iTunes and, we assume, the Apple TV. The cost would be US$0.99, which is half off the purchase price of $1.99. Bloomberg also mentioned that Apple will hold a press event on September 7th. That’s likely, as Apple has refreshed the iPod line every year in September since its launch. Additionally, the “Buy a Mac, get an iPod touch for free” promo that Apple is currently running for students expires on September 7th. So expect new iPods. The real question, as Engadget points out , is what else will be announced at the event? Is the TV rental option the end of the story or part of a larger service? Also, would the new Apple TV (or ” iTV “) be announced on the 7th as well?

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Bloomberg: Apple press event on Sept. 7

The one thing Apple really excels at is innovation in design, and they know it. So, three years ago they sought to patent both the Slide to Unlock feature of the Lock screen and the letters that pop-up when you’re typing on the iPhone’s keyboard. Today, those patents were finally granted. Titled “Animated graphical user interface for a display screen of portion thereof,” the patent covers both features Apple sought to protect. Most smartphone manufacturers have avoided elements like these, but now Apple can officially ask for license fees from copycats. We love our iPhones, and this patent covers some pretty key design elements, so congratulations, Apple. Check out the two patents here: D621849 D621848 So, what do you think? Is this starting to curb design ingenuity? Let us know in the comments! Via TUAW Follow this article’s author, Ambika Subramony, on Twitter .

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Apple Awarded Patents For Slide to Unlock, Pop Up Keyboard Keys

Are notebook PC makers feeling the pinch from Apple’s line of portable computers? A trio of Taiwan-based notebook manufacturers announced July orders fell by up to 25 percent. Quanta, which had a goal of 10-20 percent growth for the third quarter, announced July notebook shipment fell 25 percent to 3.6 million units compared to June.

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Taiwan Notebook Makers Experience Sales Slump

Remember this case from China that allows you to use a regular SIM to make phone calls and SMS messages from your jailbroken iPod Touch? It’s been reviewed. Not so surprisingly, it works, but it’s buggy. You can’t adjust the call volume, the SMS delivery shorts out occasionally, etc. The Peel 520 was a neat

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Chinese Case Turning iPod Touch Into A Smartphone Works… But It’s No iPhone

Filed under: Apple , iPhone Apple picked up quite a few pending design patents this week — most of them are pretty old, for products that have released but were simply waiting on the official patent. You can see the whole list over on Macsimum News — they’ve got the iPod classic in there, the Apple remote, and quite a few patents for handling various functions of iOS or OS X. One of the more interesting ones is patent number 7,7645,236, which seems to describe a broadband antenna, much like the one currently used around the edge of the iPhone 4 . Obviously, that’s been an object of contention on the new iPhone, but the patent was approved, so Apple owns this design, whatever it is. The wording on the patent is kind of interesting in hindsight — the patent describes a ground and a resonating element that may lie on the same plane, and they may “be separated by a gap that lies in the common plane.” The patent summary then says that, “Electronic components such as the integrated circuits, display, and battery can be mounted in the handheld device so that they do not overlap the gap between the ground element and the resonating element.” Guess Apple didn’t actually consider your fingers to be “electronic components.” It’s kind of incredible to think of all the various innovations Apple is churning out. So many patents get filed and never get used again, but Apple’s laying claim to some pretty big developments here in somewhat sizable numbers. It makes you wonder just what things are like around the engineering offices in Cupertino — there’s a lot of solid innovation going on there these days. Apple wins design patents originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 01 Aug 2010 11:30:00 EST.

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Apple wins design patents

Happy Friday! Here’s this week’s selection by Mac Games and More featuring fun casual games you can play into the weekend. The games include a diamond hungry ant, a femme fatale, sacred keys that will save the world and more. Doulber Gold – Kids and adult-kids-at-heart will love this Boulder Dash inspired Mac game featuring a

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Five Fun Games: A Diamond Digging Ant, Jewel Quests in Ancient Egypt, Fending Off a Femme Fatale and More

Many of the most vocal critics of jailbreaking — a group which includes Apple itself — have been quick in the past to cite the fact that hacking your smartphone is a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and thus illegal. It wasn’t a bad argument, all things considered, but if you’re used to

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Jailbreaking Your iPhone Is Now Legal

A wireless expert with ties to Apple’s senior antenna engineer says the company is in a pickle. It cannot fix the iPhone 4 antenna issue without completely redesigning the hardware. Earl McCune, a leading RF expert — and former colleague of Apple’s Sr. Director of iPhone/iPod engineering, Ruben Caballero (who is in the news today) —

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Apple Can’t Easily Fix iPhone 4 Antenna Issue, Expert Says

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvo2g7RkVSo Things to do over the weekend with your brand new iPhone 4, or Apple’s most fragile and shatterable handset yet? Why not strap it to a few helium balloons and send it off for a little jaunt along the troposphere. They weren’t entirely stupid, though: recovery of the iPhone 4 seems to have been assured

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The iPhone 4 Goes Ballooning

What it is: Auto Verbal Pro (iTunes link) is handy, if not quite full-featured augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) software that gives non-verbal people an inexpensive tool to communicate using an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. Why it’s cool: Other high-end AAC solutions such as Proloquo2go (iTunes link) cost well upwards of $100 while Auto

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Cult Favorite: Auto Verbal Pro Lets Devices Speak For You