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Apple told Ars that those new MacBook Pros that you've been lusting after are even better than you thought. The new machines will also port audio over Mini DisplayPort allowing users to only use a regular HDMI adapter rather than a HDMI-with-sound-from-USB adapters.  They start at $8 at Amazon.

No word yet on if current Macs's Mini DisplayPorts can be updated with firmware...

It is never fun when the lawyers get involved...

Apple's iron-bound determination to keep Adobe Flash out of any iWhatever device is about to blow up in Apple's face. Sources close to Adobe tell me that Adobe will be suing Apple within a few weeks.  It was bad enough when Apple said, in effect, that Adobe Flash wasn't good enough to be allowed on the iPad. But the final straw was when Apple changed its iPhone SDK (software development kit) license so that developers may not submit programs to Apple that use cross-platform compilers.   Officially, Adobe's not talking about such actions, but there's no question that Adobe is ticked off big time at Apple.

The tech landscape is kinda funny right now.  Everyone is suing everyone it seems…except this time Microsoft is largely staying out of it.  What a difference a decade makes.

A TUAW reader posts the following video stating that a new interface found in iPhone OS 4 allows for navigation that would be optimized for automobile use.

Our source says that information bundled into the application shows that Apple intends this new "iPod out" functionality to be used in automobiles using the iPod Accessory Protocol (IAP). Hints as to this use are found in strings within the application itself. These strings include IAPSimpleRemoteCarButtonNotification and IAPSimpleRemoteCarButtonTypeKey.

Also found were frameworks (kCTCallStatusChangeNotification) which would handle call routing. From the interface.

This might also be freaking awesome for the iPad as well.

Today's MacBook Pro update doesn't just have faster processors, the 15 and 17-inch models also get the new NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor with 48 processing cores and up to 512MB of dedicated video memory.   Not only faster, the new GPUs are also up to 30% more efficient.

Perhaps most interestingly however, Apple is touting  automatic graphics switching which move the graphics load from the integrated Intel chip to the discrete NVIDIA when the load warrants.  That is a far cry from having to reboot in previous models.

Remember when Apple was first showing off the iPad to journalists, one of the features they were showing off was 'File Sharing'? You could flip a switch in the Settings and your iPad disk would show up on your Mac/PC's desktop as a drive.  You could copy files from your desktop to iPad this way manually.

This would have been a great feature for carrying around important PDFs and other documents.  You could store important files on your iPad, not just ones that were going to be used in iWork.

The iPad SDKs also had the ability to share files through a disk mount on your computer.  With a little tweaking, you could still see that the setting was in the SDK.

I'm pretty sure Phil Schiller touched on the capability it at the iPad Event and it might have been on Apple's website for a spell.  But when Apple finally released the iPad last week, no File Sharing Settings item and no desktop access to a share on the iPad.

How come no one else is talking about this?  Where is the outrage?  Is the reality distortion that strong?  I don't get it.

We told you last week how ContactPad was told by Apple that they could no longer use the -Pad suffix in their name.  It may sound a little nuts, but Apple's policy is that they own the trademark on "Pad" and Steve Jobs is going to enforce it.  

Chris Ostmo, developer of journalPad and journalPad Bible edition, found out this information the hard way.  After he got a notice from the App Store telling him that he had to change the names of his apps to get updated, he wrote a plea to Steve Jobs asking why Apple had made the change in App Store policy after letting so many people initially use the 'Pad' suffix in their names.  

You guessed it, he got a response from Steve Jobs.  This one said: "It's just common sense not to use another company's trademarks in your app name."

What's interesting is that the ContactPad people were referred to this page.  There is nothing about any 'Pad' trademark there.  Additionally, in the list of names that Apple views as trademarks, only 'MacPad' and 'iPad' are listed.  There is nothing about the generic/broader 'Pad' or the suffix -Pad in either page.

Can a trademark even be issued for such a broad term? (Bad news for Kotex, Always, and Stayfree)  If so, is Apple in the process of applying for the trademark for 'Pad'?

Even if it can trademark a broad term like Pad, is Apple's change of policy fair to developers who've invested time and money into marketing a name that Apple initially accepted but no longer deems appropriate?

In the end, it really doesn't matter, because in Apple's little App Store world, they don't even need to pretend they have a trademark.  They've given themselves every legal right to pull an app for no reason at all. 

Apple.com page spells out that iPhone OS 4.0 won't support original iPhone or iPod touch

One of the bigger stories today was that some guy who didn't read Apple's iPhone 4.0 preview page (or 9to5mac) asked Steve Jobs a week later if Apple would support the original iPhone.  Jobs, as per usual, was short and sweet. 

"Sorry, no". 

Of course, the blogbots all lined up and posted the news as if it were new information. (OK we've posted plenty of the Jobs emails but we like to think some of them reveal new information when we do.)

But why doesn't Apple support the original iPhone (and iPod touch)? 

We know that the differences between the iPhone and the iPhone 3G aren't really significant to to the OS update.  The 3G has a different Bluetooth chip, GPS and obviously 3G.  The processor, storage and memory are the same, with the exception of the 4GB original model.  

So why wouldn't it be able to handle iPhone OS 4?  I'm not saying Apple should support original iPhones as in AppleCare, I just wonder what is preventing the OS from being installed on the original iPhone.

...and the iPod touch, which has an slightly faster processor clocking in gen 2 -- that could be equalized with a firmware update -- is also left out of iPhone OS4.  (From Wikipedia)

The second generation iProducts won't do multi-tasking in OS 4 but it can be updated.  Generation 1 devices won't update.  Why?

Patently Apple today shows that Apple is thinking about putting covers over their products that might give the feeling of actual keyboards and/or gamepads.  This product category isn't an entirely new idea.  4iThumbs has a similar $20 product which is has been on the market for a few months.  While we've tried 4iThumbs and liked the feeling, the idea of carrying cover around seems kind of unwieldy, at least on portable electronics.

Pink is now 'Kin'.  Microsoft's phones are now appearing in Verizon's phone database according to phoneArena.  The line will be called 'Kin'.   From the image, it looks like one model will be the 'Kin One' and the other will be 'Kin Two'.   Microsoft had so far used "Turtle" and "Pure" to denote the Pink project phones.

as in (Fu) 'kin.  "The kids will 'kin love 'em."

Adobe has officially announced CS5 and is now taking pre-orders for the different suites and individual products.  Adobe has also updated each separate application's page: Photoshop CS5, Flash Professional CS5, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Premier Pro CS5 and Dreamweaver CS5.

Here are two demos of new Photoshop features: