Hasta La Gadget!

Hot on the heels of re-tooling its data plans Verizon is now confirming that the iPhone will indeed be eligible for the company’s $30 unlimited data plan. COO Lowell McAdam told The Wall Street Journal “I’m not going to shoot myself in the foot,” thus confirming what we already knew and showing his keen sense for both business and self-preservation. No comment on whether discontinuing the company’s $15, 150MB monthly data plan will result in penetration wounds to any other appendages, but time will tell on that one.

Update: As spotted by SlashGear, WSJ has posted an update indicating that the unlimited plan is a decidedly limited time thing, with tiered pricing to come in the “not too distant future.” Intrigue!

Update 2: And Macworld’s confirmed that Verizon’s iPhone WiFi data tethering pricing will be the same as all their other phones: $20 a month on top of your regular data plan, with a separate 2GB cap and $20-per-gig overage charges.

[Thanks, Mike]

Verizon confirms iPhone will get $30 unlimited data plan, we try to act surprised (update: WiFi tethering prices) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 10:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Apple sicced its legal dogs on battery and accessory maker HyperMac, did it lay down to die? Did it hell. The company, which makes giant external battery packs for Mac and iDevices, just got cleverer.

Apple’s legal ire was caused by HyperMac’s use of MagSafe connectors on its products, a device for which Apple owns a patent. But HyperMac wasn’t even making its own adapters: it was harvesting them from actual Apple power-bricks.

Now, after a rather convoluted solution involving airline adapters and the like, HyperMac is back, with the HyperJuice Magic Box, described as a “MagSafe modification kit”. This kit lets you safely chop the cable off your own MagSafe power adapter and use it with HyperMac’s batteries.

The $50 HyperJuice Magic Box comes in two parts. You chop your Apple cable (the thin part, not the part that runs to the wall) and insert one quickly fraying section into each box. These boxes both have their own cord on the other side.

Now you can either plug one into the other and carry on as before. Or you can take the box that hooks to the computer and plug that into a HyperJuice battery. Or you can charge the battery with your Apple charger.

HyperMac says that the snip-n-fix only takes two minutes, and it looks as easy as wiring an electrical plug. The solution isn’t as clean as the previous one, which did without the two extra boxes, but for travelers it’s probably worth the trouble. Available now.

HyperJuice Magic Box – MagSafe Modification Kit [HyperMac]

See Also:

• HyperMac Crams 16-Hour Battery into iPad Stand
• Accessory Maker Pulls the Plug on MacBook-Charging Battery …
• Battery Pack Boosts iPad Life to 99-Hours

Yesterday I hiked eight miles with my 11-inch MacBook Air in my bag. Didn’t even notice it was there. These MacBook Air owners sound sycophantic, but discount this praise at your own peril—especially if you’re a laptop manufacturer. More »

The next iPad and iPhone will contain a Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip that will let you use them to make purchases, according to Bloomberg. This technology is widespread in other countries – Japan, for example – but has never taken off in the US. Putting a chip into the iPhone 5 could provide the critical mass that is needed for wireless payments to go mainstream.

It’s a nice theory, and it may well be true, but Bloomberg’s sources are not inside Apple itself. Instead, the story comes from consultants, and is pure speculation.

NFC lets you pay by touching or waving your phone near a payment terminal. You have likely used very similar RFID technology when using public transport – the Oyster Card in London is a good example. In fact, NFC is compatible with the RFID tech used in these cards, so you could use your phone to get on the bus and metro, too.

NFC in the next iPhone makes sense, despite the complete lack of evidence. Last year Apple added a front-facing camera and a gyroscope to the iPhone 4. The next iPhone needs some new gimmick to make people buy it, so why not con tactless payments? For many people, losing their iPhone is already more painful that losing their wallet, so why not toss all those eggs into one tiny, beautifully-engineered basket?

Apple Plans Service That Lets IPhone Users Pay for Purchases With Handsets [Bloomberg]

Photo: Chris Mear / Flickr

See Also:

• NFC
• Pay for Coffee Nationwide With Your iPhone, Blackberry
• Visa Case Turns iPhone into Credit Card
• BMW Squeezes Wallet into Car Keys
• McDonald's Tries Out New RFID-enabled Pay-By-Phone Coupons …

You’ll no doubt be aware of our (well justified) distrust for anything that passes a tech analyst’s lips, but this time’s a little different. Richard Doherty of Envisioneering Group cites “engineers who are working on hardware” for Apple’s latest project in asserting what that project actually is: NFC capabilities are apparently being built into the next generation of iPhone and iPad devices. Contactless payments via NFC have been steadily building up in hype and adoption recently — at least in the western hemisphere, the stuff is commonplace in Japan — and Doherty predicts Apple will make its move into the field with some new hardware and an accompanying “revamp” of iTunes. The idea would be to allow the use of iTunes gift card balances and the credit card info Apple already has from you to make swiping payments at compatible retail outlets. Apple is said to be planning enticements, like loyalty credits and points, to get you using its service in the place of the competition, and there are already a couple of software patent applications from the company detailing other potential uses for the technology. All of which could mean absolutely nothing, of course, but this seems like an awful lot of smoke for there not to be a fire under it.

iPhone 5 and iPad 2 will come with NFC built in, suggests well-connected analyst originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 02:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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