Photo: The Verge

HP appears to be taking its If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em design philosophy to something of an extreme with the new HP Envy notebook. A gallery posted by The Verge shows just how closely HP has copied Apple’s MacBook Air designs in almost every respect, from the wedge profile through the chicklet keyboard, trackpad and colors …

Take away the logo, and at first glance, you could easily mistake the HP clone for the original.

The heading used here by HP even appears to be a shameless admission of the approach:

The irony of HP CEO Meg Whitman’s commentary on this made me laugh aloud:

Last year, Hewlett-Packard decided to unify the design of every thin and light laptop it sold, applying the same basic curves across every keyboard, touchpad, hinge, lid, and frame. This year, it’s not just thin-and-light laptops getting the treatment: according to company representatives, CEO Meg Whitman has now mandated a unified design language across HP’s entire portfolio of consumer machines. “She took a look at our portfolio and said, ”I don’t know what’s HP.’”

She does now know what’s HP, apparently. When she said last year that “Apple taught us that design really matters,” she seemingly meant this rather literally …

HP does have form for this. The company last year released the Spectre One desktop. Remind you of anything?

Photo: Engadget

Even the trackpad and mouse were cloned.

HP is not alone in this, of course, as our own Jordan Kahn saw at the IFA in Berlin last year, but it does seem rather more blatant than most. HP’s approach may even go back further, to the HP Touchsmart back in 2011:

Which we felt looked kinda familiar …

Perhaps HP thought it was just the next logical step after simply stamping its own logo on the back of an iPod:

Photo: Wikipedia

(That one was legitimate: a deal with Apple dating back to 2004 to sell HP-labelled iPods through its distribution networks.)

Disneyland and Santa Monica Pier

If you like to check out locations before you visit them, or wander down memory lane afterwards, you’ll be able to do so in quite a few new areas of California, as Apple Insider notes significantly expanded flyover coverage in the State.

The new support includes San Bernardino, Riverside, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario and Moreno Valley, among others. With the additions, Maps offers nearly unbroken Flyover coverage of cities from San Bernardino to the Pacific Ocean …

<
google_ad_client = "ca-pub-2445248216782983";

google_ad_slot = "9457457136";

// ]]>

As with the previous expansion of the flyover feature in Paris and surrounding areas of France, the update was a silent one, so it’s possible that other areas have been added too – please let us know if you spot any. The flyover feature is supported only in iOS6.

Apple has been working hard on developing its Maps product after widespread disappointment in the accuracy of the launch version.

.@instagram can you please let us know why so many people randomly had their accounts disabled tonight due to "terms of service violations"?

—
Tara (@FabulousButEvil) May 24, 2013

UPDATE: Some users are reporting that their accounts have been restored following the deletion earlier this evening. We’re still waiting on an official response from Instagram.

It seems many Instagram were caught off-guard today when the free photo-sharing app suddenly deleted a significant number of accounts, citing “terms of service violations” as the reason despite many affected users having no such content on their profiles.

Some users reported that their accounts had been deleted for not posting from the built-in camera in the app, which seems like to be an unlikely reason. It seems that the deletions, while reportedly widespread, are somewhat inconsistent. My own account which has been dormant for over a year remains intact, while others who post frequently report having lost access.

Scores of tweets have been posted over the past few hours about the deletions, but Instagram has not made any official statement on the issue.

INSTAGRAM DELETED MY ACCOUNT!

—
Mike (@mike_bell32) May 24, 2013

My Instagram got randomly deleted huh…?? Not cool..

—
Paul Zimmer (@epPaulZimmer) May 24, 2013

My @instagram got deleted as well!!
What is up? with Instagram! I got a message that said "log-in"?😦then
I kicked me out just 10 min ago👀?

—
Jaymes Duke Ballard (@JayDukeBallard) May 24, 2013

My friend's Instagram account got deleted. #imscared #dontdeletemyig

—
Mikaela (@trulahmikaela) May 24, 2013

We’ve reached out to Instagram for comment and will update this post with any additional information.

Apple has just posted a new iPhone 5 ad to their YouTube channel, detailing many of the ways people use their iPhone to listen to music. The ad is reminiscent of the “Photos Every Day” ad that debuted a few weeks ago.

Like the previous photo-centric commercial, this ad is mostly void of a voiceover, simply showing a wide variety of iPhone users, and how they enjoy their music. Both of these ads take a different direction than previous iPhone commercials, highlighting not apps, but rather features of the device.

The minute long spot ends with the line “Everyday, more people enjoy their music on the iPhone than any other phone.”

.

AT&T started this month charging an administrative fee of $ .61/month/user for its mobile customers in addition to its current fees. While the fee may be small, as the Verge notes it adds ‘up to hundreds of millions of dollars’ over 24 month contracts and millions of customers. What gives?  An AT&T spokesperson told us:

Consistent with similar fees charged by other carriers, the monthly fee of 61 cents per line will help cover certain expenses, such as interconnection and cell site rents and maintenance

The fee applies to consumer mobility lines as well as IRU lines –  the kind of business lines where the employee pays the bill directly.

AT&T isn’t alone in this endeavor. Verizon charges admin fees of $ 0.91 and Sprint charges $ 1.99.  (Plus more for regulatory fees.)  T-Mobile’s combined regulatory programs fee is $ 1.61.  On this basis, AT&T’s is still the lowest of all carriers.  It still sucks though. “expenses, such as interconnection and cell site rents and maintenance” seems like it should be part of the current fees and that fee is easier to raise because it isn’t part of the publicized rate plan.

Update: TheTechBlock notes that you may be able to cancel your plan because of this fee. A nice way to slip out of your subsidized plan?

You can’t help but laugh at Stewart’s ribbing of the senators’ questioning, but it is pretty clear Apple is pushing for simplicity and is only jumping through the loopholes because they are there. Tim Cook appears very genuine in his hopes for a more simple, fair tax code.

In other news, Apple is doubling its lobbying spending.

The company spent about $ 2 million on lobbying last year, up from $ 180,000 in 1999, records show. This year it is on pace to nearly double last year’s figure.

Apple’s lobbying expenditures still pale in comparison with those of Microsoft Corp., which spent $ 8.1 million in 2012, and Google, which spent $ 16.5 million, records show.

Daily Show Flash code below for when the YouTube video gets taken down. Via Fortune

Evernote, the highly popular cross-platform information management app, has at last added what the company described as one of its most-requested features: reminders …

Reminders can be added to notes on Mac, iOS and web versions of the app by clicking/tapping the clock icon, and then appear in the Notification Center. Macstories has a very nice detailed review of the new feature.

Evernote is available on the App Store and Mac App Store now.

Evernote fans can check out the video below for a full rundown:

Microsoft’s latest television commercial for Windows 8 tablets uses a Siri voice-over to mock the iPad’s pricing and capabilities. The ad appears to frame Windows 8 tablets as more capable for productivity and more valuable for the price (via The Verge). Microsoft’s ad is in similar style to Apple’s late 2012 advertisement to introduce the iPad mini. Apple’s ad below:

‘iWatch’ Concept (many more here)

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has provided seemingly accurate information about previous Apple hardware releases (timing non-withstanding), claims that Apple’s much-rumored wearable wrist device will not arrive until late 2014. The analyst pinpoints production to begin sometime in the second half of the year:

Apple may not have adequate resources to develop an iWatch version of iOS because it may require big changes to iPhone and iPad iOS this year. In addition, wearable device components aren’t mature. For these reasons, we think mass production of the iWatch is more likely to begin in 2H14, not 2H13 as the market speculates.

This timeline is notable because previous reports about the rumored device have claimed a release date sometime in late 2013. Bloomberg, a typically accurate source for technology news, previously reported that Apple is eyeing a release by the end of this year.

Kuo also explains why he feels that Apple is developing a wrist-device, not glasses:

iWatch Concept by Anders Kjellberg

In today’s report, Kuo also claims that the device will feature a display based on the iPod nano’s touch screen.

iWatch panel to be 1.5-2.0 inches, and likely to be made by Japanese or Korean supplier. We think a 1.5-2.0 inch panel suits watch applications best. The reason for choosing Japanese or Korean suppliers is that they enjoy closer cooperation with Apple, hence are more likely to become suppliers for Apple’s new products.

iWatch may use iPod nano’s GF2 touch technology and AP. Currently, the iPod nano uses the same GF2 touch technology as used by the iPad mini. Since the size and computing ability requirements of the iWatch are similar to those of the iPod nano, we think iWatch will use iPod nano’s GF2 touch technology and AP.

Apple recently patented a slap-wrist-band design for a wearable accessory. Earlier this year, we rounded up all of the publicly available tidbits about the upcoming Apple device.

Kuo also believes that iOS device integration and biometrics will be key selling points:

Apple has several patents for curved glass display and manufacturing technologies that could be useful for such a product. We have also highlighted Apple’s current competition in the market and the skill-sets and interests of Apple’s leadership that could help play into the development of an iWatch.

As for Apple’s comments on such a product, Apple CEO Tim Cook has an interest in wearable devices, but admitted at the 2012 D10 conference that the “book hasn’t been written yet” in regards to wearable devices changing the “behavior” of people. Apple board member Bill Campbell discussed wearable computer devices earlier this year. Cook previously said that Apple would launch major new products this fall and “throughout” 2014.

Twitter for Mac is continuously receiving updates and today it received a highly requested feature: Notification Center integration. Users can configure the setting in the preference window within the app.

OS X already offered Twitter integration, but notifications deferred to the web rather than its native client. It was less than a month ago when the app received its first update in countless months, and today’s update demonstrates Twitter’s dedication to its continued development.

Twitter 2.2.1 is now available in the Mac App Store:

What’s New in Version 2.2.1
Notification Center integration: receive notifications when someone mentions you or when you receive a Direct Message. You can configure this from the app’s Preferences window.

This update also includes the following changes:
* Fix for Growl notifications not working in Lion and Mountain Lion
* Fix for bug that prevented un-favoriting tweets
* Fix for missing account switcher in composer
* Fix for error message when posting a tweet with a pasted image
* Fix for enlarged avatar when dragging a tweet into an email
* Fixes for crashes and various other bugs