As a marked contrast to yesterday’s post, Apple has shown the world how style and elegance is achieved through calculated effortlessness. This week the company opened a new store in Paris which is, I think, one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. Even if it were devoid of the engineering delights contained therein, this architectural delight would satisfy the soul equally. Exquisite elegance and pictorial perfection past the break.

It would be difficult to deny that Apple has been at the pinnacle of elegant and quality design in popular consumer electronics for quite some time now. Departing from its usually glass and chrome formula, Apple has chosen instead to portray its class and intelligentsia through traditional Parisian architecture.

What was once a bank now plays home to part Apple’s growing financial empire.

Cast thine eyes on sublimity and await the weepy regalement.

Some really interesting videos of when Steve Jobs took stage this week at D8 to answer questions from the Wall Street Journal and from the floor. Speaking about Flash Steve explains that when they took the decision to not include Flash on the iPhone OS when launching the iPhone, they spoke with Adobe, expressed their concerns about its speed and power consumption and asked Adobe to come back to them when they had a better product, they never did. He then goes on to say that whilst some users were disappointed nobody made too much of a fuss with the iPhone. When the iPad launched, Adobe were publicly outspoken about the exclusion of Flash from the iPad, regardless of the fact that they had not improved their mobile platform. In response, Steve published “Thoughts on Flash”. Here he mentions that Apple just got sick of Adobe trash talking their products even though they had failed to bring anything new to the table. The second video, after the break, aptly demonstrates just how passionate Jobs is about their products and is a real glimpse into why Apple takes some of the restrictive steps it does.

Oh and by the way, since launch, Apple has sold an iPad every 3 seconds!

via AllThingsD

According to Superiphone.cz, who are claiming that they have managed to get their hands on parts for the next-gen iPhone, the newest model will sport a dramatic increase in screen resolution. Microscopes in hand, the sire counted the screen’s RGB elements to figure out the resolution.

In case you were wondering, 960 x 640 is quadruple the number of pixels found on the current iPhone which sports a comparably measly 480 x 320 resolution. This increases the the new iPhone pixel density to 320 dpi. How d’ya like them Apple(s) Droid (265) and Nexus One (252)?

via Superiphone.cz

Just in case you still had doubts as to the origin of the device purported to be Apple’s next generation iPhone, as if you needed any more confirmation, Apple today officially requested its return by GIZMODO. After contacting the site informally at first, GIZMODO took the initiative to ask for a official request as proof of the device’s origin and authenticity. Read on for the full letter.

via GIZMODO

Whilst at first, many believed this to be a well designed fake, having been dissected and the story of its discovery fully unveiled it is clear that this is the real deal. The intricacies of the final design may differ slightly, but the improvements to this new iPhone, its internal components and new, iPad-esque design certainly offer a fantastic insight into what the new iPhone will offer. Read on for more pictures and a full list of imporvements.

All information and media courtesy of Gizmodo. For a full breakdown of why this iPhone is the real deal, check out Gizmodo’s excellent article.

New to the iPhone party

• Front-facing video chat camera
• Improved regular back-camera (the lens is noticeably larger than the iPhone 3GS)
• Camera flash
• Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM (like the iPad)
• Improved display. Possibly 960×640—it certainly looks like it, with the “Connect to iTunes” screen displaying much higher resolution than on a 3GS.
• What looks to be a secondary mic for noise cancellation, at the top, next to the headphone jack
• Split buttons for volume and possibly one for use as a physical camera shutter button
• Power, mute, and volume buttons are all metallic

Changes to the current design

• The back is entirely flat, possibly made of glass  or shiny plastic in order for the cell signal to poke through.
• An aluminum border going completely around the outside
• Slightly smaller screen than the 3GS (but seemingly higher resolution)
• Everything is more squared off
• 3 grams heavier
• 16% Larger battery
• Internals components are shrunken, miniaturized and reduced to make room for the larger battery

Photos:

Videos: See the excellent Gizmodo article.

The video shows a set of two plasma TVs set up behind a pair of windows, connected to a Mac Pro. The Mac is running Winscape’s software which controls the view seen from the windows by tracking the individual’s movement around the room using a simple IR sensor (in this case a Wii-mote). As the person moves around the room the view out of the ‘windows’ changes perspective accordingly.

So what do you need to set this up yourself? At least one HDTV, a Mac Pro and if you have an iPhone you can use the cheap app to control the scene you are seeing. Whilst most of us have a decent HDTV, Mac Pros are far less common, and far, far more expensive. It would be amazing to wake up each morning to the view of your choice.

via TUAW

If you have a hankering for seeing some multitasking in action on the iPhone, or maybe the implementation of folders, enhanced email, iBooks or any of the other features announced yesterday during Apple’s iPhone 4.0 keynote, well now you can. This may be more agony than anything else, considering that, unless you’re a developer, its not for you until this summer. Watch the entire presentation here.

Today’s the big day for iPhone fans in what has been an uncharacteristically vocal week from Cupertino. Obviously Apple’s media event to unveil their roadmap for iPhone 4.0 is invitation only however the GU team will be here with its very best copy-and-paste skills to bring you all the news as it happens.

Multitasking, exposé, redesigned home screen? Who knows. Its unlikely we’ll here any new hardware announcements today but we can only hope.

GU tip: Look out for the introduction of iAds and join us here at 5.30pm.

As if every Apple fanboy wasn’t already having the week of their life, Apple just went and unleashed this gem unto the world to literally turn the internet upside down with hysteria. Apple has announced an iPhone OS 4 event onApril 8th at 10AM PT for a “sneak peek of the next generation of iPhone OS software.” So clear your calendar (as if you could possibly have anything more important to do) and check back here on Thursday for another GU Liveblog of the even as it unfolds. I’m going to lie down.

Opera Mini has been a long time in the making, almost two years in fact. We all knew this day would come and it is with some trepidation that we now await its prognosis. Apple doesn’t allow Apps on the App Store which replicate the functions of existing native applications, that includes Safari, which is a shame since the video herein suggests Opera Mini is super fast in comparison.

There are alternative browsers on the App Store but these are all forced to use Safari’s underlying code, in fact they are essentially re-themed versions of Safari some with additional features. In February Opera Software officially announced that it had made a version of Opera Mini for the iPhone and offered a sneak preview of the App at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona at which stage the App wasn’t commercially available or even complete.

Today the preview video below was released demonstrating Opera Mini’s very impressive features, namely tab management and incredible speed. Its best to let the video do the talking but it is suffice to say that it blows the native Safari App out of the water. Opera Mini uses server-side rendering to significantly compress data before it reaches the iPhone resulting in lightening quick loading times and less data usage. The video even goes as far as to demonstrate a head-to-head between Opera Mini and Safari.

Opera Software made quite a big deal of the fact that they would eventually be submitted the App for App Store approval in a ruse to gain both momentum in advertising and as a call-out to Apple over the fact that they have made a point so far of categorically rejected submissions of Apps similar in nature. Of course Apple refuted this claim.

Well, today saw judgment day. Opera Mini has officially been submitted to the App Store for approval and the Opera Mini site now shows a rather funny count-up of guess how long it will take for Apple to approve the submission. The person who guesses closest wins a brand new iPhone. Seeing as how Apple has recently greatly revamped is approval process resulting in the approval of Apps in as little as a couple of hours as of late as opposed to the 3 months of old, it will be interesting to see how long Opera await a response. If guessing ‘never’ were an option I’d have submitted my guess already.

In all seriousness, I am praying this App makes it through the approval process as it looks brilliant and if performs as well as this video would suggest, browsing is set to become a whole lot less stressful. Make sure to check out the video below to see Opera Mini in action.