When Apple announced the iPhone 5 this past Fall, marketing executives from Samsung were keeping tabs on the unveiling in real time, this according to a January profile of Samsung in Fortune magazine.

They huddled around tables mounted with laptops and TV screens, carefully tracking each new feature and monitoring the gush of online comments on the new device via blogs and social media sites. As the data flowed in, writers from the company's advertising agency, who were also camped out in the restaurant turned war room, scrambled to craft a response.

The end result was a series of ads mocking many of the iPhone's new features while simultaneously mocking the cliched archetype of the Apple fanboy/hipster.

With the recent release of the Galaxy S4, Samsung has once again taken it upon itself to poke fun at the iPhone 5's "limitations" by pointing out the bevy of cool features that come...

Sunday is drawing to a close, and that means it's time for discussing the week that was with Kelly and a few of the usual suspects.

This week we'll be joined by Dr Robert Carter, host of the Tech Doctor Podcast, and discussing accessibility. This week brought a few new features released as part of a Kindle update so we'll be talking about those updates as well as a few lesser-known iOS features kept behind that Accessibility option.

Since it's really all about you, the community, do see if you can join us, won't you? To participate live, you can use the browser-only Talkshoe client, the embedded...

Join your two favorite geeks for this festival of questions, answers, tips and tricks! And the best part is... it happens every week! You don't need to wait a year for this party to get started each time! This week your geeks answer questions about network switches, securely storing data in the cloud, managing Apple's new two-step authentication and much, much more. Download today (it's free!) and enjoy.

Samsung doesn't like the trend that's putting Apple's iPhone back on top last quarter and so their marketing attack dogs thought it was time for another Galaxy vs. iPhone ad. The trouble with their ad is that it could be shooting themselves in the foot. Making executives look stupid for the sake of gaining jobless grads is a dumb idea. But hey, this is Samsung who thought that the ditsy housewife stereotype was their target market last quarter. The only ditsy ones here appear to be Samsung's own marketing team.  ...

I’ve been using the $99 LandingZone 2.0 LITE 13″ Secure Docking Station for the past couple weeks to dock my MacBook Air when I use it at my desk. Until now, when I got to my desk, I would manually plug in MagSafe power, USB hub and sometimes audio jacks – which isn’t a huge pain, but it did add time time and clutter to my workflow.

LandingZone, which started as a Kickstarter project but is now in full production, has a complete solution...

The latest data from comScore indicates the iPhone's share of the U.S. smartphone is growing and is now inching ever so close to 40%.

For the period covering the first three months of 2013, comScore's data shows that the iPhone's share of the U.S. smartphone market checked in at 39%, representing a mild gain from the period ending December 2012 when the iPhone accounted for 36.3% of the U.S. smartphone market.

Coming in second was Samsung with 21.7% of the market.

Of course, when the metrics turn to overall platform share, Apple takes a backseat to Android which accounted for 52% of the U.S. smartphone market during Q1 2013. Overall though, Apple's platform share went up by 2.7 percentage points while Google's Android lost 1.4 percentage points.

As evidenced by the chart above, Apple and Android together own 91% of...

9to5Toys has some pretty impressive daily deals today including:

• AOC 22″ 1080P LED DVI/VGA Monitor $100 shipped
• 3M Streaming Projector powered by Roku, projects up to 120″ $170 Shipped ($130 Savings)
• Seagate Backup Plus 4 TB USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive $140 Shipped ($50 Savings)
• The Sims Medieval (Mac / PC download) $8 (Save $12)
• Barnes & Noble NOOK HD/HD+,...

This week we discovered that Mozilla is working on high-end gaming for the Firefox browser. Our report provides you with a few photos and a link to a game-demo to try out on your Mac, and hopefully your 27" iMac in full screen. And while high-end gaming is a positive experience, there's also a downside when it comes to the digital revolution, especially for the iPhone and other smartphones. Our report presents you with one tale about the dark side of download madness that one psychotherapist frames as being the equivalent to cocaine addiction.

Sandro Cuccia continues his exploration of free apps preinstalled by Apple. This time it's the newest version of the previously maligned Notes app. Now, Notes comes to Mountain Lion. Its key feature: iCloud integration for syncing to iOS devices. Guess what…it works. Notes is sure to be a bonus enhancement to everyone's workflow.

Memory can make a computer run slow, cause kernel panics and in general drain productivity. Bad memory can compound these issues by increasing the frequency of these issues. As such, testing memory every now and then will help to make your life better.

Memtest is a great little tool for troubleshooting memory problems across a variety of platforms. The tool can be installed pretty easily on clients using this little package that was posted awhile ago, but is still functional. Once you’ve installed the package installer, you can run memtest and have it check memory. To do so, just run memtest all and it will test all of your memory:

memtest all

You can also be a bit more specific about how you’re testing memory. You can define the amount of memory to test as well as the number of iterations to test through. The following command shows the first position being the amount of memory and the second...

Mojang has announced that the Pocket Edition of its extremely popular sandbox game Minecraft has also reached 10 million downloads, a feat made even more impressive by the fact that the app is being sold for a premium price of $6.99. The original PC version of Minecraft hit 10 million sales back on April 4, but the Pocket Edition was released later, which means it's hit this milestone total much faster.

The Pocket Edition started out as a slimmer version of Minecraft meant solely for mobile devices, but with a constant flow of updates, it's improved to the point where it almost matches the PC version feature for feature. And Mojang isn't done with it either. Producer Daniel Kaplan says the backend is being updated, to make future iterations even easier to deliver.

That's a huge success story, not just on iOS, but even...

Some things you’ll never use. We missed these.

//

Boy, Business Insider's Jay Yarow doesn't mince his words; he really doesn't like Google Glass and goes out of his way to slap it around. In short, Yarow points out that Google Glass has terrible battery life, it's disorienting, it doesn't work in a brightly lit environments, you can't tweak any settings, the voice controls are buggy, it doesn't fold like normal glasses so storing it is awkward and the list goes on and on.  ...

The first Apple Store in Germany's capital of Berlin opened on Friday local time, as thousands of fans queued up to be one of the first get inside the company's latest flagship retail location.   ...

The JukeStyle is a delightful 2-in-1 stylus for iOS device that gives you a pen/stylus combo for just US$10. Its precise, capacitive tip is great for doodling in DrawCast or Draw Something, though it still requires a little zooming in for more detailed illustrations. My Angry Birds scores have improved greatly now that my massive hands don't obscure the screen while I'm aiming.

Typing on the onscreen keyboard with a stylus still feels unintuitive when you're working with an iPhone, but I've found editing documents and using the stylus to identify and select areas of text is a joy. The iPhone isn't big enough to necessitate the use of a stylus for every day use, but the JukeStyle's precise response on the screen makes me wish I had an iPad.

Concerns...

Are you a man? Then you'll want to take a look as the apps Vern Seward has lined up in this week's Free on iTunes. iPedia Wiki, Uncrate, and WhatKnot.

So you're looking for a new career as a fashion photographer. To kickstart your job, look no further than today's iMore post by Rene Ritchie where he asked Mobile Nations' David Lundblad to take high fashion photos of model Amanda Del Duca in Manhattan's Bryant Park with an iPhone. Videographer Martin Reisch captured video of the modeling session, and the result is a one-of-a-kind blog post that provides some tips on how to use an iPhone to take amazing fashion images.

As Ritchie notes, "nothing beats a DSLR for final photos, but increasingly the iPhone is the new polaroid for everything else on set." Lundblad uses Camera+ (currently on sale for US$0.99) instead of the standard Camera app to take advantage of the extra control over exposure and focus that it provides.

Ritchie is...

I've been crowing about how great Firaxis' Haunted Hollow is since GDC earlier this year, so odds are that you've probably already seen me telling you once (or more) to go pick it up. But in case the message hasn't gotten through yet: Go pick it up. Firaxis' latest game is just an excellent, well-produced strategy game, something that's casual enough for even kids to pick up and play, and complex enough that strategy nuts like myself will find plenty of depth to play with.

Haunted Hollow is a turn-based strategy game, where you build up a haunted house as you play, summon monsters from the various rooms in the house, and then send those monsters down into a town to scare houses and fight other monsters. There's an excellent tutorial for the game that will teach you the basics, but just...

In a recently released commercial, Samsung once agains sets its sights on Apple's flagship iPhone, pointing out the "inadequecies" of the iOS device while at the same time touting new Galaxy features like Air View.  ...

Germany turned out in force for the opening of the first Apple Store in Berlin on Friday. RuptlyTV posted a video of the opening and the huge crowds, while ifoAppleStore.com tweeted that employees handed out 4,500 shirts commemorating the event. It looks like it was a fun day and we wish we could have been there.  [Via Fortune]

The latest edition of iLounge Weekly, our weekly newsletter covering all things iLounge, will be arriving in subscribers’ inboxes early next week. iLounge Weekly is a summary of the week’s best news, reviews, and feature articles we’ve published, and it also features giveaways and accessory discount offers from various companies.…

Apple's iPhone took U.S. subscriber share from Android in the March quarter, according to new data from comScore. iPhone users accounted for 39 percent of smartphone subscribers during the period, up from 36.4 percent in the December quarter. Google's Android remained the top platform during the same period, but saw its share decline to 52 percent from 53.4 percent in the December quarter.

Considering that most of today's computer and mobile device parts are made in China, it comes as no surprise that Apple is quick to file design patents for their computer parts in Hong Kong and Mainland China. Today we learn that China's Hong Kong IP Office has granted Apple ten design patents covering components such as the Retina iPad display, the MacBook Pro's cooling fan and much more.

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.

No Flash? Click here to listen.

Subscribe via RSS

Daily Update for May 3, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 03 May 2013 15:45:00 EST. Please see our...

It's time to save some of that hard-earned cash with our Daily Deals, featuring a handy list from Dealnews and our own hand-picked selections that include some sweet deals on iOS and OS X software (all prices are USD).

Deals from Dealnews

• StackSocial: [Mac Software] The Mac Productivity Bundle 4.0 for Mac downloads for $50
• Other World Computing: [Computer Accessories] OWC 2012 Featured Move 'em Out: RAM, accessories, HDDs, more
• Best Buy Mobile Solutions: [iPad Accessories] Verso Prologue Antique Cover for iPad for $6 + free shipping
• ...

Industry giants Verizon and AT&T are both looking at moving more aggressively into pay-as-you-go phone offerings. Carrier software developer ItsOn will be launching a consumer facing portal later this month, likely under the Verizon umbrella. Additionally, AT&T is readying its "All In One"-branded plan, likely supplementing -- rather than replacing -- the GoPhone network already in place....  ...

iPhone owners with early access to Google Glass will soon also be able to use the glasses' navigation and text messaging features, a Google worker tells TechCrunch. Getting either function currently requires the official Android companion app. In the near future, though, Glass will be able to access them regardless of the device it's tethered to. Exact timing hasn't been mentioned....  ...

Watch (or listen) to the latest TidBITS staff roundtable, where we talk about Apple’s stock price, why the company seems to care so much about it, why the mainstream media loves covering stock movements, and what could replace it as an regularly reported box score.

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

comScore today released the results of its monthly rolling survey of U.S. mobile phone users for the January-March period, showing that Apple's smartphone market share rose 2.7 points from December to March, from 36.3% of total U.S. smartphone platform and hardware sales to 39%, marking a record high share for the company.

Samsung was the hardware manufacturer with the second largest share of the market at 21.7% in March, up from 21% in December. HTC, Motorola, and LG again experienced slight drops in market share, with HTC suffering the heaviest loss going from 10.2% to 9%.

Google's Android continues to be ranked as the top smartphone platform with 52% of smartphone platform share, though it experienced a drop from 53.4% in December, which was absorbed by Apple.

Apple's share increased 2.7 points to 39%, while...

Yesterday in the MacNN forums, Moderator "P" started a discussion about Intel's new graphics processors, focusing on the specs of the various models as well as the newly-announced naming scheme. Also yesterday, Professional Poster "shifuimam" was looking for a way to speed up a recently-purchased 20-inch (first-generation) iMac G5....  ...

This week at Apple's online store, take advantage of a vast array of refurbished MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models. The 11.6-inch MacBook Air with a 1.7GHz Intel dual-core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of flash storage has been reduced by $190 to $909. A $240 price break is offered on the 13.3-inch MacBook Air with a 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and 256GB of flash storage, now $1,159....   ...

Harry Marks’ “My Valiant Return to Reading” is hilarious. Clearly making fun of some people that quit the Internet.

∞ Read this on The Loop

ItsOn, a company building software for carriers that provides users with dynamic pricing plans on mobile devices, last year announced plans to partner with one of the big U.S. carriers for its launch early this year. We’ve since learned that the carrier is likely Verizon, and that ItsOn will be launching as a consumer facing MVNO later this month (Verizon and Vodafone who both share ownership of Verizon Wireless are both investors).

There’s no word on exactly what the announcement will consist of or what the ItsOn service will include, but based on the company’s software we expect to see flexible pricing plans that, of course, run on Verizon’s robust LTE network. Despite executives expressing doubts about the service running on iOS devices in previous interviews, we also believe that an iOS version of the service is indeed coming, but at launch the service will...

Like it or hate it, Google Glass has recently been discussed on a lot of tech blogs. Tim Stevens at our sister site Engadget has been trying out his Glass around the house and on hot motorcycles, and a lot of other tech bloggers shelled out $1,500 to get the developer version of the device. One big negative for Apple fans has been that at the existing time, only Android users get support for navigation and SMS text messaging. Now, Frederic Lardinois at our other sister site TechCrunch has news that iOS support may be coming soon.

Lardinois was at the Google New York office yesterday picking up his own Glass and was told that turn-by-turn directions and SMS will soon be possible "independent of the device the user has paired it to."...

While many pundits insist that Apple must make a larger screen iPhone to keep pace with the offerings from Android licensees, Google's own stats indicate that all big phones, tablets and phablets put together are a tiny 10 percent fraction of active users.  ...

A suspicious iframe link has been detected in an App Store program. Here's why you shouldn't worry.

You would almost think people were excited.

∞ Read this on The Loop

T-Mobile has offered its TV service through an Android app since 2010, but today the carrier has finally...

As the old aphorism goes, "better late than never." In this case, that's true for U.S. Cellular, which today announced as part of its quarterly earnings report that it will begin carrying Apple products later this year.

That may make U.S. Cellular the last major US carrier to offer the iPhone to its customers. The big four -- AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile -- all carry iPhones, and smaller carriers TracFone and Leap Wireless/Cricket also offer the iPhone to customers. MetroPCS just completed a merger with T-Mobile, with T-Mobile CEO John Legere saying that the iPhone is "not imminent" on the MetroPCS network.

U.S. Cellular, which boasts 5.7 million subscribers, didn't provide any specifics about what models would be introduced, but noted that "by further strengthening our device portfolio, we'll give consumers another great reason to switch to U.S...

U.S. (uscellular.com) says it will begin carrying Apple products -- namely the iPhone -- later this year. The wireless carrier made the announcement as part of its quarterly earnings update.

read more

When smaller U.S. carriers started selling the iPhone a couple years back, one carrier was a noticeable holdout.

U.S. Cellular maintained at the time that the numbers just didn’t add up. On Friday, though, the company announced that it plans to start selling Apple products later this year.

“We have a number of strategies in progress to increase loyalty and attract more customers, including our announcement today that we will begin offering Apple products later this year,” the company said in a statement accompanying its first-quarter earnings. “By further strengthening our device portfolio, we’ll give consumers another great reason to switch to U.S. Cellular, and enable our existing customers to choose from an even wider variety of iconic smartphones, and enjoy the outstanding U.S. Cellular customer experiences they deserve.”

We checked in to see what has changed...

There are a lot of communication tools that help you stay connected with family and friends. One that recently caught my eye is DabKick, which stood out because it lets you share and communicate in a variety of ways. It's a real-time photo viewer, video sharing tool, walkie-talkie, instant messenger, music jukebox and more.

DabKick is useful for people who want to share their life with loved ones who are far away from them. It's not a static service like Facebook, which allows you to post photos and add captions. It lets you connect to others in real-time and share photos, YouTube videos and more.

DabKick is geared primarily to share photos and videos. You launch the DabKick app on your iPhone, load up the media you want your friend to see and then select the person with whom you want to share. The person to which you are connected will see your photos or videos as you swipe through them on your iOS device.

A...

U.S. Cellular, the Chicago-based carrier serving around 5.8 million customers in 126 markets, will likely start offering the iPhone later this year, possibly in addition to other iOS devices. Per 9to5Mac, the carrier announced today in its first quarter results that it will soon begin carrying Apple products, but didn’t provide any further information regarding when or what specific products it might launch:

“We have a number of strategies in progress to increase loyalty and...

Like Facebook and Angry Birds? How about putting the two together, which is exactly what Rovio did with its new Angry Birds Friends for iOS. The game lets you team up with your friends to fling birds and blow up pigs, just like in other games in the Angry Birds franchise. You can challenge your friends to games, participate in tournaments with new levels every week, and if you're playing Angry Birds online, your games will stay in sync. Angry Birds Friends is free and available for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch at Apple's App Store.

Hearst Magazines has hit its goal of one million digital subscribers on devices like Apple's iPad, as well as competing tablets such as the Amazon Kindle Fire.  ...

US Cellular will start carrying Apple products sometime later this year, the company revealed today during a quarterly earnings report. It hasn't identified which hardware it will be offering, or any special subscription plans. Devices will presumably include the iPhone and/or cellular-equipped iPad models. The carrier could, in theory, be in a position to help launch the so-called iPhone 5S this fall, as well as a fifth-generation iPad, second-generation iPad mini, and possibly even an Apple smartwatch, if it comes with any cellular functions.... ...

Geri Reid brings up a good question. Skeuomorphic design took the world on quite a ride, but it seems to be out now. While I don’t agree with her that Microsoft “struck a winning blow with the flat interface of Windows 8,” there is no doubt a change is coming.

I would like to see Apple update their interfaces, but not eschew Skeuomorphic elements altogether.

Remember Apple’s previous keynotes. The crowd didn’t roar and applaud for the flat design elements, they cheered when the Passbook app shredded a card with a realistic shredder that popped up on the screen.

Apple needs to refine that design, not replace it.

∞ Read this on The Loop

This might come in handy.

Lat Thursday, Apple released iOS 6.1.4, a 107 megabyte download offering the following fixes for its iPhone 5 handsets:

- Updated audio profile for speakerphone.

iOS 6.1.3 is available via iTunes or Over-The-Air updating and requires an iPhone 3GS, 4, 4S, 5, iPad 2, third or fourth-gen iPad, iPod Touch 4th Gen or iPad Mini to install and run.

If you’ve tried the update and have any feedback to offer, let us know in the comments.

If you love to listen to podcasts on your iPhone or iPad, you’re probably familiar with Vemedio’s Instacast, a $5 app that lets you consume your favorite shows through an elegant and well-thought-out user interface.

Despite all its great features, Instacast was an iOS-only affair—until now. The folks behind it have now released a public beta of Instacast for OS X, and we’ve taken the Mac version for a spin to see how it holds up.

Podcasts a-go-go

Like its mobile cousin, Instacast for Mac revolves around a simple and intuitive user interface that emphasizes your content, organized according to your tastes.

Instacast is all about the content. The interface features Mail’s familiar three-pane configuration, with...

U.S. Cellular has reversed its stance that it wouldn't carry Apple's iPhone, and has said that it will be on board later this year. The carrier had previously called Apple's terms unacceptable, choosing to pass on offering the popular combination smartphone and iPod to its subscribers.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Good news for T-Mobile. Now the company can say it wasn't the last to get the iPhone.

Attention to all U.S. iPhone owners: HTC wants your business. If you switch and buy their new HTC One smartphone by Sunday May fifth, HTC will reimburse you ...

I've just moved from a country where I had unlimited (really) data on my iPhone contract to one where data plans are metered and expensive. So this recent article by David Chartier, on the Finer Things in Tech web site, comes at the right time. It points out the simple setting in iOS to turn off automatic loading of images in Mail. As with Mail on OS X, you can load images later, but you won't need to load them for every message, saving download time and bandwidth.



To change this setting, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts & Calendars, and toggle Load Remote Images to OFF. If you get an email with images, and want to see them, just tap on Load All Images in the message.



This setting would make more sense if it only affected image downloads when using cellular data. But it's an all-or-nothing choice, so even when you...

Apple's $17 billion bond sale -- meant to help finance a $55 billion stock buyback, part of a plan to return $100 billion to shareholders by 2015 -- is saving the company about $9.2 billion in taxes, according to an estimate from Moody's Investment Services. Had Apple decided to use repatriated foreign cash, it would have paid a 35 percent tax rate, and hence owed the US about $9.2 billion....  ...

Shawn Blanc takes a look at Backblaze’s new iPhone app for managing the off-site backup of your desktop computer.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Last fall, Twitter bought We Are Hunted, a “music discovery” startup that made a popular app for Spotify.

Apparently Spotify is paying attention: It just bought Tunigo, another music discovery startup with a popular Spotify app.

Spotify isn’t announcing terms for the deal, but says that all of the Swedish company’s 20-or-so employees will come to work at Spotify’s offices in Stockholm and New York.

The Tunigo Spotify app will keep running (there’s also an iPhone app), but presumably Spotify’s new hires will be put to work on Spotify’s main service, which has 24 million users and 6 million paying subscribers. The company had reportedly raised $3 million.

The We Are Hunted and Tunigo...

This article was posted last November, but there are some great lessons to be learned for anyone that is building a product or company.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Eclipse is one of the most popular board games around right now -- it's a vast, involving epic "4X" game, where those four Xs stand for eXploration, eXpansion, eXploitation (as in mining crops and resources from various planets), and eXtermination (as in finishing off your alien opponents). It was recently announced that Big Daddy's Creations would be adapting the game for iPad, and the iOS version has now arrived on the App Store, available for $6.99.

As a board game, I think Eclipse is terrific -- it's very well balanced, and all of the various things you can do offer plenty of different strategies to play with. There are three resources (money, science, and material) that you can use to exert your influence on various areas of a galaxy, research new technologies for starships or your empire, or build up those ships and...

On Thursday the Pentagon cleared BlackBerry and Samsung mobile devices for use on Defense Department networks, reports "Reuters" (http://tinyurl.com/csxzmrk). Apple mobile devices using iOS 6 are expected to receive clearance sometime this month.

"This is a significant step towards establishing a multi-vendor environment that supports a variety of state-of-the-art devices and operating systems," Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.

read more

U.S. Cellular, the Chicago-based carrier serving around 5.8 million customers in 126 markets, will likely start offering the iPhone later this year, possibly in addition to other iOS devices. The carrier announced today in its first quarter results that it will soon begin carrying Apple products, but didn’t provide any further information regarding when or what specific products it might launch:

“We have a number of strategies in progress to increase loyalty and attract more customers, including our announcement today that we will begin offering Apple products later this year. By further strengthening our device portfolio, we’ll give consumers another great reason to switch to U.S. Cellular, and enable our existing customers to choose from an even wider variety of iconic smartphones, and enjoy the outstanding U.S. Cellular customer experiences they deserve. Our...

JP Morgan has put together an interesting case for Apple launching its new plastic iPhone as a mid-market device rather than a low-cost one, suggesting that Apple may price the phone at around $350-400.

The case, which AllThingsD describe as “pretty compelling,” is based on Apple’s approach with both iPod Nano and iPad Mini …

//

The Nano was launched at $199, just $100 below the main iPod model of the time and significantly above low-cost competitor offerings. The iPad Mini, too, launched at $329 when it had been expected to be pitched against products like the Kindle Fire at $199.

JP Morgan’s Gokul Hariharan and Mark Moskowitz put together the above...

Apple has been pushing for a permanent injunction blocking the sale of certain Samsung Android-based smartphones and tablets in the United States over patent infringement claims, but Samsung thinks that's a bad idea. The electronics maker told a Federal Appeals Court that granting Apple a permanent injunction would only serve to confuse and intimidate the buying public.

XBMC is an award winning media center for Mac OS X. The ultimate High Definition hub for all your media, XBMC is easy to use, looks slick, and has a large helpful community.

Version 12.2:

• Fixed infinite loop on addon dependencies, resolves crashing problem that arrose immediately post 12.1 launch
• Numerous UPnP fixes
• Memory leak fixed when XBMC is minimized
• Various Raspberry Pi playback fixes and software codec support
• Fixed OSX audio mixing
• Fixed some audio-related crashes in Linux builds
• AirPlay fixes
• Bluray folder resume-bookmarks now work
• Ability to scan for new content on file folders has been reimplemented
• Language updates from Transifex

• OS X 10.6 or later
• Or Apple TV

Download Now

The year’s most specific update from Apple does nothing but provide an updated audio profile for the iPhone 5’s speakerphone.

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

According to a new DigiTimes report this morning, new rumors have surfaced that Apple is on tap to test market a new low-cost iPhone later this year. The report states that "Apple plans to launch an inexpensive model targeting emerging markets with initial quarterly shipments of only 2.5-3.0 million units to test market response." Although this rumor sounds interesting, it doesn't sound like it's a move that Apple would ever make.

TUAW readers who watched this week's TUAW TV Live got a sneak peek at the nifty device in this review -- Bodelin's ProScope Micro Mobile (US$149), a tool for turning an iPhone (4/4S/5), iPad mini, or 2nd- through 4th-generation iPad into a professional-quality microscope.

That's right -- if you need to take close-up images or video of evidence, circuit boards, stamps, coins, you-name-it, then the ProScope Micro Mobile is the best choice for you.

Design

The Bodelin ProScope Micro Mobile (PMM) is a small and lightweight (2.1 ounces) unit that needs an iOS device as a viewing tool. As such, purchasing one includes a sleeve for your iPhone, iPad, or iPad mini that the device clips onto. The sleeve holds the PMM in place over the rear-facing camera lens on your iOS device.

Gallery:...

Component maker Laird announced on Friday that revenue from its "largest customer" fell 17 percent in the first quarter, and that declining revenue is expected to continue until the second half of the year, leaving market watchers to suspect the customer in question is Apple.  ...

Apple quietly added a new built-to-order option for the iMac that lets users choose either a 256 GB or 512 GB solid state flash drive instead of a traditional hard drive. Previously, iMac buyers could choose from hard drive or Fusion Drive solid state/hard drive hybrid options.

Cocktail is a general purpose utility for OS X that lets you clean, repair and optimize your Mac. It is a powerful digital toolset that helps hundreds of thousands of Mac users around the world get the most out of their computers every day.

The application serves up a perfect mix of maintenance tools and tweaks, all accessible through a clean and easy to use interface. Cocktail's features are arranged into five categories that helps you manage various aspects of your computer. It also comes with an automatic Pilot-mode that allows you to simply press a button and relax, knowing that Cocktail will take care of the rest.

Cocktail (Lion Edition) for OS X 10.7, Cocktail (Snow Leopard Edition) for OS X 10.6 and Cocktail (Leopard Edition) for OS X 10.5 are available for download from our website.

Version 6.4:

• Added ability to change standby delay (Disks - Sleep)*
  *Specifies the delay (in minutes) before writing the hibernation...

Sums done by Moody’s Investment Services (via Bloomberg) confirm reports that Apple’s approach of borrowing the $100b needed to fund its stock buy-back and dividend plans will result in massive tax savings, estimated at $9.2B …

//

Based on current rates, Apple will pay interest of about $308 million a year on the $17 billion bond offering, said Gerald Granovsky, a senior vice president at Moody’s.

“From a pure corporate-finance theory perspective, this was a no-brainer,” Granovsky said. If the funds had come...

If you're like me, you're awaiting the day when you can cut the cable or satellite cord entirely. I haven't quite reached that day yet. However, a product like Winegard's Boost digital TV antenna amplifier brings that day a little closer.

Arguably the most advanced digital dual-band TV antenna booster around Boost delivers a crystal clear TV signal to your HDTV -- and can be used with EyeTV devices on a Mac -- so you can watch more broadcast TV channels in high definition than with an antenna alone. It has a 50-mile range.
 

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This summer, a number of new domain names will likely start appearing on the Web. Generic names such as .apple, .home, .app, .vegas or .music could join such stalwarts as .com, .net and .org.

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This summer, a number of new domain names will likely start appearing on the Web. Generic names such as .apple, .home, .app, .vegas or .music could join such stalwarts as .com, .net and .org.

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Martin Hajek

What if Apple’s long-rumored low-end iPhone isn’t targeted at the smartphone market’s lower reaches? What if it’s targeted at the middle?

What if it isn’t low-end at all, but simply mainstream? Not a $150 phone or even a $200 one, but a $350 one? A “mid-end” iPhone?

That’s the theory put forth by Gokul Hariharan and Mark Moskowitz over at J.P. Morgan, and it’s a pretty compelling one, with strong historical precedents.

With a starting price tag of $329, Apple’s iPad mini was initially dismissed as too pricey to attract budget-conscious consumers drawn to Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which, at $249 and $199, respectively, were significantly cheaper. But the device proved wildly popular, and has since established a new...

One of the nicest things about hanging out with coders is the exposure to their pet personal projects. Brian James Turner has been working on a new take on lock screens.

Hosted at github, Turner's project transforms the lockscreen from a series of memorized numbers or letters into a logical sequence of choices.

Each challenge screen is randomly generated. Instead of a number grid or password entry field, you see a set of geometric objects.

You enter your password by following rules. "For example, my passcode might be small, green, triangle," he explained. If you tap a small object, followed by a green one, and then a triangle, the system lets you in.

It's a novel take on thing, and there's never "one" right answer. Even if...

[Updated with video of grand opening] Europe's latest "showcase" Apple Store, the Kurfürstendamm outlet in Berlin that is set to open on Friday at 5pm local time, looks to take its place as one of the most beautiful on the continent -- comparing favorably to premiere stores in Paris and London among others. The large facility, with some 48,000 square feet, has room for luxuries like an expanded theater space and classically-appointed conference room, while still retaining a sleek and modern main sales floor at the ground level following extensive renovations to the century-old building.... ...

I've run into this issue a number of times while producing comedy shows: I want to play intro music for a comedian, but I don't have a staff available to sit there and punch buttons on my iPad. Enter Tango Remote, a handy tool which allows you to remotely control your playlists from iOS to iOS device.

Now I can use my iPhone to not only queue up songs, but change the volume on the fly. It's not only very responsive and robust, it's designed well and easy to use. Tango Remote has saved my bacon a few times, and every time I use it I wonder, "why doesn't Apple build this functionality in?"

In this episode of Origin Stories, we learn about how Tango Remote came to be.

Origin Stories: Tango Remote allows you to control music using iOS devices only originally appeared...

I saw the upcoming iOS game Icycle: On Thin Ice back at GDC, and I think it was the best game (out of maybe fifty or more) that I saw that week. Reece Millidge is an animator and game developer based in Britain, and I first came across his work while playing the Flash version of an abstract putting game he made called Wonderputt. Millidge has a wild sense of design and pacing, and both of those skills make Icycle: On Thin Ice one of my most anticipated iOS games of the year in 2013. Just recently, Millidge kindly responded to a few questions from TUAW, talking both about his history on iOS so far, and what to expect in his upcoming release.

Wonderputt arrived on the App Store last year, and Millidge says it was quite successful. He'd "heard from publishers that mini golf games on mobile were not popular like they were on the browser. So...

Federico Viticci has a list of the top apps from the past few years. I found the “interesting facts about the new charts” section to be great.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Google has issued a written denial of claims that its new-to-iOS "Google Now" feature, which relies heavily on Location Services, is causing unusual battery drains for iPhone users. The company recently added the feature -- which attempts to predict what the user will ask based on location, direction and other factors and presents some useful information without user input -- to its Google search app already available for iOS devices. In the statement, Google says both that reports of battery drain are "incorrect" but then asks for users to contact them if they are having a battery problem.... ...

Blockbuster's been going through a bit of a reinvention over the last few years. It's retail stores are closing in staggering numbers as the company refocuses on becoming a streaming rental service with Blockbuster on Demand. Today that quest becomes a little easier with the service's debut on iOS devices, via a free app.

The Blockbuster on Demand service allows you to stream from a library of thousands of HD movies, including new releases. While the app is free the service requires you to pay by the film and lacks an a la carte option like those found on Hulu or Netflix. When the service's mobile app launched for Android it lacked HD video support for mobile devices, but that shortcoming has been fixed in the iOS version. You can find...

Apple traditionally releases big new apps all together on Thursday, and this week there's an exceptionally good slate of releases arriving, including some games we've been waiting on for a while.

• As expected, Angry Birds Friends has arrived, and it's a social take on the popular Angry Birds series. You can get it for free.
• Eclipse is a spectacular (if a little complicated) take on the award-winning board game, available for $6.99. We'll have more on this one as a Daily iPad App later today.
• Firaxis' Haunted Hollow is now officially out, and it's just plain great. Free-to-play, deep but accessible strategy from one of the best game developers around. This one is a must-download.
• ...

The Big Nerd Ranch has conducted iPhone development courses all the way back to the very beginning, when the App Store first launched in 2008. Doing so had its challenges.

At that time, Apple had imposed a nondisclosure agreement on all developers, with little indication if and when it would ever be lifted.

Under the terms of this agreement, developers could not discuss details of the OS and the SDK -- a limitation that challenged any business based on development training.

BNR CEO Aaron Hillegass devised an insane, brilliant, and counter-intuitive solution. Leveraging a little known clause in the agreement, he conceived a way to make an end-run around the letter of the law while still holding classes.

He hired his students.

Each student signed an agreement promising to deliver one (1) line of code to Hillegass upon completion of a week of on-site consultation. In return, he paid each...

A new video profiles Essa Academy, a once struggling school in one of the most disadvantaged areas of England. New principal Showkat Badat has reinvented the school as a hub of technology-assisted learning, and helped incorporate an ecosystem of Apple products, including iPad, Mac, and iTunes U, into the classrooms. The students’ excitement about the technology and direct access to information is reflected in dramatically improved test scores. Since adopting the technology, Essa went from a 28 percent pass rate to 100 percent. “I don’t see technology as an add-on, a nice option to have,” says Badat. “It’s what enables learning and creates an environment that sparks creativity.”

Apple has begun the countdown to 50 billion downloads from the company's mobile App Store, and the company is offering a US$10,000 Apple Store gift card to the person who downloads that stunning milestone app.

Earlier this week, we posted on the addition of Apple CEO Tim Cook as our opening night speaker at the 11th D: All Things Digital conference.

Now, we are thrilled to announce that Elon Musk will take to the stage on our second night. For those who have not been paying a lot of attention, Musk is the founder of both electric car maker Tesla Motors and also SpaceX, a private space exploration pioneer.

The South African-born entrepreneur is someone well known for shooting for the moon in his huge ambitions, and also does not mind getting into it to defend his efforts (his epic PR brawl with the New York Times over the cold-weather performance of the new Tesla Model S electric car was riveting...

TMO veteran Jim Tanous has launched a new site called TekRevue, a broad tech news and tip site. Jim will be looking at OS X, Windows, mobile platforms of all sorts, games, gadgets, and hardware, with reviews and tips, too.

Drafts is a fast, lightweight note-taking app for iPhone (US$2.99) and iPad ($3.99) with so much more to offer than simple lists. Drafts is handy. You can use it to quickly jot down a list or something you'd like to recall later, which is great. But the app's real power is in the myriad of ways you can act on that text.

For example, you can send a list to a project manager like OmniFocus or a storage service like Evernote. Share a note with Facebook, Twitter or ADN. Create a calendar event, a reminder or even write in Markdown. Beyond that you can really geek out with automation and complex iOS workflows.

Many hardcore productivity and automation nerds have demonstrated...

A German auctioneer will put a working Apple I computer on the block later this month, and expects the handmade computer to fetch between or between $261,000 and $392,000 at Thursday’s exchange rate.

The record price for an Apple I was $640,000, paid last year in an auction also run by Breker of Cologne, Germany.

On May 25, Breker will try to sell a different Apple I, one of only six in working condition, the auctioneer said.

Apple I specs

The Apple I, a circuit board hand built by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, was made in 1976, and sold at the time for $666.66. About 200 units were produced, but by an estimate last year by British auction house Sotheby’s, only 50 survive.

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The race to 50 billion is on.

Just about a week after Apple announced that the App Store had crossed 45 billion downloads, Apple has decided it's high time to launch an official countdown towards the 50 billionth downloaded app.

The lucky winner will receive a $10,000 gift card redeemable on the App Store. Apple has run similar app download countdowns in the past, but this year it has decided to share the wealth a bit more. In addition to the aforementioned grand prize winner, Apple will be doling out $500 App Store gift cards to customers who download the next 50 apps once the 50 billion mark has been reached.

The current tally is about 49.2 billion downloads. Just 800 million more to go!

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With users of Google Now for iOS — found within the Google Search app — complaining about excessive battery drain, a recently published post on Lifehacker suggested turning off location reporting in settings for a fix. However, Google responded to the Lifehacker report, claiming that reports about excessive…

The cellphone industry -- including both carriers and phone makers -- is turning a blind eye toward the problem of smartphone theft, to its own benefit, a New York Times piece claims. The paper, for instance, quotes District of Columbia Police Chief Cathy Lanier as saying that "the carriers are not innocent in this whole game. They are making profit off [smartphone theft]." In 2012, the DC area witnessed a record 1,829 phones being stolen....  ...

Millions of people have had their lives profoundly affected by Apple and its products. However, few people understand the nature of that vision, and how it can incite both ringing joy and deep disappointment, other than the Apple Investor.

In a written response to a recent outcry over Google Now's alleged battery-draining location tracking feature, the search giant claims reports of the abnormal behavior are incorrect as it uses low-power positioning assets that don't rely on power-hungry GPS.  ...