This week’s roundup of iOS apps includes immersion in the world of DC Comics, help with your cooking, and a great new way to track your package deliveries.

Textual is a popular, lightweight IRC client for the Mac from Codeaux. Now three-years-old, the app was recently updated to version 3.0. To celebrate these milestones, the developers have dropped the price of Textual to US$3.

The latest version of Textual has a long changelog that includes new commands for encrypted chat and support for new scripts like moto that'll give you easy access to commonly used emoticons. There's also new messaging feature that'll playback up to 100 messages after each restart. You can read the full of list of changes on Codeaux's website.

You can download Textual from the Mac App Store. The $3 sale starts today and ends April 28.

Textual celebrates three...

Apple has backtracked on a prior decision to change the way VPN On Demand connects in iOS. An updated support article notes that “Apple no longer plans to change the behavior of the VPN On Demand feature of iOS 6.1 for devices that have already been shipped. The ‘Always’…

Fujifilm has shipped a new compact camera in its FinePix range. The FinePix JZ700 has a 14-megapixel CMOS sensor instead of a CCD sensor used in previous FinePix JZ models, said to help with low-light situations, paired with an 8x optical zoom lens that has a 35mm-equivalent focal length of 24mm wide-angle to 192mm telephoto....  ...

Apple has been steadily beefing up its in-app purchasing policy to prevent children and adults from inadvertently buying items from within an app. As spotted by App Advice, Apple recently added a new disclaimer about in-app purchases to its App Store on the iPad.

The new "Learn More About In-App Purchases" page explains what in-app purchases are and how they work. Apple also gives tips on how to limit in-app purchases using parental controls.

You can find this page in the featured section of the iPad App Store, directly below the "What's Hot" section. There you will see a "Learn More About In-App Purchases" card. Tapping on it...

Apple has partially reversed course on its decision to change the way iOS 6 handles VPN connections, a modified Apple support document reveals. "Apple no longer plans to change the behavior of the VPN On Demand feature of iOS 6.1 for devices that have already been shipped. The 'Always' option will continue to work as it currently does on these devices," the company says....  ...

Bidding is still open for a coffee break with Apple CEO Tim Cook, but it will cost interested parties at least a half-million dollars to get into the running [updated]  ...

"MacRumors" (http://tinyurl.com/ba8bg) says that Apple is offering some developers a second chance at tickets to the 2013 Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, which is slated for June. The tickets sold out in under an hour after they went on sale Thursday.

However, developers who tried to purchase tickets got error messages stating that their purchase requests were unable to be processed. Red Sweater Software founder Daniel Jalkut told "MacRumors" that Apple contacted some registered members of its developer program to offer them a second chance to purchase a WWDC ticket.

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Seriously, one stunning revelation after another.

With a flurry of activity today, bidding on the charity auction for a coffee meeting with Tim Cook at Apple's headquarters has passed $500,000, nearly doubling the previous record for a CharityBuzz "experience" auction set last year when a bidder paid $255,000 to spend a day with Bill Clinton.

The bid list seems to be a combination of serious bidders and those likely simply seeking visibility for their names or brands and relying on the fact that there are 18 days left to bid to hope that they won't actually win the auction. CharityBuzz notes in its FAQ that all bids are legally binding and can not be retracted.Can I...

Due to a loss in a patent lawsuit that awarded patent holder VirnetX $368.2 million, we reported earlier this month that Apple would be changing the behaviour of its VPN on Demand features for devices running iOS 6.1 and up. The changes would mean a downgrade in functionality for users effectively forcing them to start the VPN client before they run an app, or before they open mobile Safari to access an intranet site.

Now, in a recently updated knowledge base article (via MacRumors), Apple appears to be backtracking on that decision informing customers it “no longer plans to change the behavior of the VPN On Demand feature of iOS 6.1 for devices that have already been...

As noted by AppAdvice, Apple yesterday added a new "Learn More About In-App Purchases" feature to the iPad version of the App Store, marking yet another step in the company's efforts to make users aware that some free and paid apps may offer the ability to purchase additional content from within the apps.

The document includes four sections, addressing what In-App Purchases are, types of In-App Purchases, how they work, and how Parental Controls in iOS can be used to turn the feature off entirely.On devices running iOS 4.3 or later, you must enter your password to make an In-App Purchase. Once you enter your password to make that purchase, additional In-App Purchases can be made without reentering your password for 15 minutes. To change your settings to require a password entry with every purchase, open Settings, tap General, then tap Restrictions, and...

CommandQ is a Mac utility that stops you from accidentally quitting apps when using the keyboard shortcut "⌘" (or command) and "Q".

Unfortunately, we are all susceptible to moments of human error. This means, with the ⌘ + Q shortcut, we sometimes quit apps we don't mean to. Perhaps when we're meaning to hit ⌘ and W or ⌘ and the TAB key. I know I've done it too many times to count!

Thankfully, there's an app for that! CommandQ is a Mac utility app that stops apps from quitting unless you press and hold down the ⌘ + Q shortcut for a short period of time. This gives you a moment to catchup with your mistake and let go before the app quits. It's a straightforward concept, but has the potential to save you a lot of frustration and stress.

CommandQ lets you customize the period of time it takes for ⌘ + Q to take effect, from half a second to two seconds. You can...

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 76.3 million units in the first quarter of 2013 (1Q13), down -13.9% compared to the same quarter in 2012 and worse than the forecast decline of -7.7%, according to the "International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker."

The extent of the year-on-year contraction marked the worst quarter since IDC began tracking the PC market quarterly in 1994. The results also marked the fourth consecutive quarter of year-on-year shipment declines.

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Earlier this month, we reported that Apple had announced upcoming changes to the behavior of VPN On Demand for devices running iOS 6.1 or later. The changes, which were planned to be deployed in a software update later this month, were necessitated by a $368 million judgment against Apple in a patent lawsuit brought by VirnetX.

Virtual private networking (VPN), which is most commonly used by corporate users to access company networks, allows a user to securely connect to a private network via public networks as if his or her device were directly on the private network.

Apple's changes to the feature were to see the removal of the "Always" configuration option for VPN On Demand, with the behavior defaulting back to...

We reported earlier this week over on our sister site 9to5Google that the extremely popular Swype keyboard was now available for Android users on Google Play. Unfortunately its arrival came after the implementation of the similar Gesture Typing feature that Google introduced in Jelly Bean. While we know Swype owner Nuance has a pretty tight relationship with Apple through its voice recognition technology being used in Siri (although Siri’s co-founder told us Apple could “likely replace Nuance without too much trouble”), a Swype exec has now confirmed the company has had talks with Apple over its revolutionary keyboard tech.

iFans points us to a ...

I am not a fan of the Apple EarPods that come with the iPhone 5, so when id America sent a pair of their new Metropolitan In-Ear Headphones (US$29.95) I was eager to give them a try.

My main complaint with the EarPods is that they refuse to stay in my ears, preferring instead to pop out at inopportune times during important phone calls. Then again, I've never been fond of in-ear headphones either, since they're usually quite uncomfortable. But my frustration with the EarPods was enough to make me give the Metropolitans a try.

Design and Functionality

The headphones come with four sets of tips -- one made out of memory foam, the other three made of a rubber material. I tried the memory foam tips first, basically treating them like the pair of memory foam earplugs I own -- squishing them down, inserting them into my ear canal, and then letting them expand to fit.

The memory foam...

DisplayMate has run an in depth analysis on the new Super AMOLED 5-inch 1080p display in the Samsung Galaxy S4 giving its seal of approval. According to the site, the quality of AMOLED displays is starting to ìchallenge the best performance of the best LCDs.î Compared to the display in the superseded Galaxy S III, the new Galaxy S4 display is said to be better calibrated and brighter....  ...

hackingbear writes "The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled in favor of a group of Chinese authors, and Apple will have to pay them in excess of 730,000 yuan (US$118,000) for infringement. Apple had not gotten permission before selling their books on the Apple App Store, it noted. These cases were the second batch of lawsuits filed against Apple by the Writers' Right Protection Union, which includes prominent members like prolific blogger and novelist Han Han who have become a pop culture star through his creative and cynical writings criticizing the (Chinese) government."

...

Driven by its profitable smartphone division, Samsung saw its net profit grow 42 percent year over year in the just-concluded March quarter, the company reported on Friday.   ...

With tickets to WWDC 2013 selling out in mere minutes, Apple has reportedly been reaching out to select developers who couldn't secure tickets in time and offering them another chance to purchase tickets to Apple's annual developer conference.

Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software sent out a tweet on Thursday afternoon noting:

Adding a bit more detail to the story, Eric Dolecki explained on his blog how Apple contacted him:

I pick up and a nice guy tells me he's from Apple Developer Support and that they noticed that I tried to purchase a ticket today and that the transaction didn't go through. I told him that was true. I thought the next thing out of his mouth would be an apology or something - just to be...

Mementum from AllGoritm (www.allgoritm.com) is a stylish voice reminder that lets you record vocal memos, then sort your recordings by categories. With it you can also write additional text notes.

Voice reminders -- or any other sounds -- can be recorded via your Mac's mic as a new Mementum reminder. Just click the Record button.

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Apple’s share of the global mobile phone market grew by just 6.6 percent in the past year, from 35.1m to 37.4m units, according to new data from the IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker. This is the first time its growth has been in single digits since 2009.

Apple’s worldwide market share is now 8.9%, behind Samsung at 27.5 percent and Nokia at 14.8 percent. Apple is the market leader in the USA, with a 35 percent market share, but worldwide competes with both low-cost smartphones and featurephones. Apple is rumored to be working on its own low-...

New data from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) shows that smartphones and tablets are expanding their role in video second-screen experiences, with 22% of U.S. broadband consumers checking or updating their social network on a smartphone or tablet while watching TV.

The research group reports instances of mobile activities while watching TV increases significantly among Millennials, where consumers 18-34 are 70% more likely than other age groups to look up TV listings via a mobile device.

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Quark says Quark XML Author now supports the Japanese language with a fully-localized and integrated user interface.

Quark XML Author is the add-in to Microsoft Word that enables the creation of structured XML content through the familiar Word interface. With Quark XML Author all content creators, not just technical experts, can create valid XML-based content components.

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If you're old enough to remember the Polaroid SX-70, celebrating its 41st birthday this week, you may remember how it felt to instantly, miraculously see the images you captured with one of Polaroid's cameras appear right before your eyes. Now that we all have superpowered cameras in our pockets, we may not be as tuned in to how photography, especially instant or digital photography, changes the way we see the world around us.

Apple's still tuned in, though. That sense of wonder in photography is fully on display in the newest ad for the iPhone, which highlights the remarkable claim that every day "more photos are taken with the iPhone than any other camera."

That stat may be based on the longstanding #1...

Marshall has released its latest branded headphones dubbed the Monitor. The headphones are the first from Marshall that utilize an over-ear design, but is also relatively compact and features a collapsible design. Designed with studio listening in mind, the Monitor also incorporates an F.T.F insert that can be removed to allow a user to tailor their listening experience....  ...

In September 2012 we reported that "Apple has reduced purchases of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels for tablet computers from Samsung Display amid the deepening patent disputes." Market experts had stated that the move is aimed at minimizing its reliance on Samsung parts. Today, news of Samsung's earnings ...  ...

The first calendar quarter of the year has seen a sea change in the cellphone industry: for the first time worldwide, smartphones made up the majority of phones sold. While the definition of "smartphone" varies -- particularly at lower price points -- the general definition is a device that can run an operating system giving it computer-like abilities beyond what a "feature phone" is capable of. According to industry analyst IDC, a total of 419 million smartphones were sold in the first three months of the year, 51.6 percent of which were smartphones.... ...

Last year, AT&T rolled out a test phase of its new Digital Life home automation and security suite. Starting today, the company will be rolling out the final product in 15 markets. The system is launching in Atlanta, Austin, Texas, Boulder, Colo., Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Riverside, Calif., San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis and select areas of the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area. The company says that it hopes to reach 50 markets by the end of this year.

The home automation system includes many facets, though security seems to be the aspect that AT&T is promoting the most.

The foundation of AT&T Digital Life is complete home security with 24/7 professional...

If you obsess over your website traffic and bemoan the fact that Google doesn't have a decent iOS Analytics client, then you should take a moment to check out Quicklytics. Quicklytics pulls your Google Analytics data and gives you a detailed look at your realtime website traffic in just a few taps.

The iPad version of the app has an attractive, split-pane layout that places the most commonly checked statistics at the top of the screen in portrait view or on the left in landscape. This section includes a graph and six smaller panes that show metrics like pageviews, visits, goals value and more. Tapping on the pane changes the graph, which now shows the data for the metric you just selected. Tap and hold on one of these panes, and you can change the metric. It's an intuitive layout that...

Google Earth Plug-in and its JavaScript API let you embed Google Earth, a true 3D digital globe, into your Web pages. Using the API you can draw markers and lines, drape images over the terrain, add 3D models, or load KML files, allowing you to build sophisticated 3D map applications. If you have an existing Maps API site, you can 3D-enable your page with as little as one line of code.

How do I start?

1. Check out some Google Earth Plug-in examples and visit the demo gallery.
2. Sign up for a Google Maps API key.
3. Read the Google Earth API Developer's Guide.
4. Read the...

Apple started running a new iPhone ad this evening entitled "Camera". The ad is a departure from recent iPhone advertising, focusing on people actually using the phone, rather than just the phone itself.

In a series of colorful shots, the iPhone is used to take photos and videos on a hike, a run, at the beach, on a walk, and more. The spot shows users editing their photos and using the iPhone's panorama feature, as well as its LED flash.
Every day, more photos are taken with the iPhone than any other camera.The ad finishes with the above quote, likely referring to statistics from Flickr that show the iPhone as the most popular camera on the service. Three of the top four most popular cameras on Flickr are iPhones and Apple has put a lot of effort into...

Various tweets and blog posts from developers who tried -- and failed -- to snap up Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) tickets in the scant two minutes they were available from Apple this morning indicate that the company is contacting some of those turned away to offer some tickets to the event. The "second chance" calls are unlikely to be made to all developers, and so the company has already announced that videos of all the sessions will be made available to registered developers as the conference progresses.... ...

Previously only available to Chromebook users, Google announced today on its Chrome blog that Mac and Windows users will now have the ability to open Microsoft Office files directly within Chrome. The functionality works for users running the latest Chrome Beta and requires installation of the Chrome Office Viewer (Beta) extension.

In addition to saving you time, the Chrome Office Viewer also protects you from malware delivered via Office files. Just like with web pages and PDFs, we’ve added a specialized sandbox to impede attackers who use compromised Office files...

Samsung Electronics today announced quarterly revenues of 52.87 trillion won ($47.6 billion) for the first quarter ended March 31 -- a six percent decrease from the previous quarter. Consolidated operating profit for the quarter reached 8.78 trillion won ($7.9 billion), representing a one percent decline quarter-over-quarter. Samsung estimates revenues hit 52 trillion won ($46.8 billion) with operating profit of 8.7 trillion won ($7.8 billion)....  ...

Residents of Germany's capital city, Berlin, will have their very own Apple Store to visit starting next Friday. On May 3, 2013, the Apple Store Kurfürstendamm Berlin will open at 5 PM local time. If past is prelude, early arrivals at the opening can expect clapping and cheering employees, a countdown, and free t-shirts.

The store is scheduled to have regular open hours of 10 AM to 8 PM Monday through Saturday, closed on Sundays. During the opening weekend the store has special hours -- on Friday, May 3, it will be open from 5 PM to 10 PM local time, on May 4 it will be open from 10 AM until 10 PM, and on Sunday, May 5 the store will be open from 1 PM until 6 PM.

The store is located in a renovated historic building on the Kurfürstendamm, not far from the Zoologischer Garten Berlin, the U2 oder S-Bahn "Zoo Station" or the U1 Uhlandstrasse station. The facility is the 11th Apple Store in Germany.

...

Betaworks, the company that rescued the faltering Digg, has now acquired Instapaper, says a report in TechCrunch. The news originated from an email sent by Betaworks founder and CEO John Borthwick and was confirmed by Instapaper founder Marco Arment. Arment writes on his blog,

I'm happy to announce that I've sold a majority stake in Instapaper to Betaworks. We've structured the deal with Instapaper's health and longevity as the top priority, with incentives to keep it going well into the future. I will continue advising the project indefinitely, while Betaworks will take over its operations, expand its staff, and develop it further.

Borthwick says that Instapaper is a "perfect fit" with Digg and the company's upcoming Digg Reader. He also confirms that Betaworks plans to expand the...

I remain a big fan of Slayin, a little game that got released on the App Store a while ago, that compresses a full fantasy-style RPG into a fascinating little endless game. I think the game's mechanics (where you simply move back and forth across the screen, holding your weapon out in front of you, as you kill monsters and collect money and XP) are my favorite part about it, but the soundtrack's good as well. And now, composer Matt Creamer has released the Slayin soundtrack for download over on Bandcamp, where it's now available for you to listen to and download directly.

The in-game theme is a particularly excellent piece of 8-bit music, but almost everything there is good, and there are even some unreleased tracks for real Slayin fans to check out. The price is name-your-own, so technically you could grab it for free...

As she did in the first Apple vs. Samsung patent trial, Judge Lucy Koh is again requiring the companies to narrow their claims and limit the scope of their arguments against each other as both firms prepare for a second patent trial on different patent infringement arguments than those in the first trial, which Apple won handily but is currently on appeal. The order, which was issued late on Wednesday, comes ahead of some possible summary judgement rulings that could leave either Apple or Samsung with fewer patents to argue over.... ...

News broke Thursday morning that it took all of two minutes to sell out tickets for Apple's World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC). Many were left out in the cold by the insanely fast sellout, but Appsterdam announced on Thursday AltWWDC, a free alternative to the real thing that will be held just down the street from the Moscone Center.

Circadia is a great game that I wrote about a little over a year ago -- it's put together by a developer named Kurt Bieg, and until now, it's basically just been sitting on the App Store waiting to be found. But Bieg has just put out a nice solid update for the game, and that gives me another chance to recommend it to you.

The game is simple and ingenious -- it's musical, but the music of it is what you make yourself rather than the pop songs that you'll find in Rock Band or other music titles. Beig says in the latest App Store update that the game has reached 100,000 downloads, and that's a great number for a little title like this. He's updated the title to make it work with the iPhone 5, and there's also a new "infinity mode," featuring randomly generated levels that you can play anytime you like. There are...

It was announced on Thursday that Popular web page saving and syncing app Instapaper has been acquired by Betaworks, the same firm that purchased Digg in 2012.   ...

Marco Arment announced on Thursday that he has sold Instapaper to Betaworks. In a blog post, Mr. Arment said that Instapaper had grown to a point where it needed more resources—more people—to continue to grow.

Stevie is truly one of the greatest ever.

Cloud storage has proven to be extremely useful; however, web-based services can get to be a bit pricey if more capacity is needed. The new Kanex meDrive Filer Server provides a cost-effective way to set up a local cloud storage system in a home or office. MacNN has teamed up with Kanex to give away one of these handy little devices to our readers....   ...

The Galaxy S 4's display is a sizable step forward for PenTile AMOLED, according to DisplayMate's Raymond Soneira.

Florence Ion

We've already given you our subjective impressions of Samsung's Galaxy S 4 and its 1080p AMOLED display, but for those of you who hunger for quantitative data, Dr. Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate has given the phone an in-depth shakedown. Soneira compares the screen's brightness, contrast, color gamut, and power consumption to both the Galaxy S III (which also uses an AMOLED display) and the IPS panel in the iPhone 5. What he found was that Samsung's AMOLED technology is still fighting against some of its inherent weaknesses, but it has made great strides forward even since the Galaxy S III was released last year.

To recap: both the S III and S 4 use PenTile AMOLED screens, which use a slightly different pixel arrangement than traditional LCD screens. A pixel...

Gaming fans on Apple devices got two new options for fun on Thursday, with XCOM landing on the Mac platform and Lego Batman coming to iOS.   ...

StatsBar for the Mac (on sale for US$3.99 for the month of April) lets you get a quick overview of your Mac's vital statistics via a handy, unobtrusive window. It's quicker than opening Activity Monitor for at-a-glance look at what's up. I've been using it for a few days and am glad its on my Mac. Here's my look at StatsBar.

Looks

StatsBar lives in your Mac's menu bar. The tiny little icon (I think it's supposed to be two gears but it looks like to daisies to me) is clicked to bring up the main screen, which is mostly grey and easy to read.

The main screen itself is divided into five sections: CPU, Memory, Disk Usage, Network and Power. I've got no complaints in the looks department.

Use

There are a couple of neat things here. First, there are three display options. You can opt to have the main screen...

If you like games on your iPhone and iPad, this is your lucky day. It's literally your lucky day because Pangea Software has made every game it offers free for just one day. The company said that it was a thank you to customers.

Addresses change in Google’s handling of URLs in presentations, returning the capability of backing them up. ($9.99 new, free update, 12 MB)

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Apple announced the Apple Music Store—that's the iTunes Store today—on April 28th, 2003. That means on Sunday, April 28th, 2013, the iTunes Store will be 10 years old, and Apple is marking the event with a timeline appropriately called "A Decade of iTunes."

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson has ordered T-Mobile to alter its new "Uncarrier" advertising strategy, calling its contract free claims "deceptive."

Alongside the launch of the iPhone 5 earlier this month, T-Mobile rolled out new rate plans, which are designed to separate device costs from service costs. To purchase a device like the iPhone 5, T-Mobile customers make a small downpayment and pay off the rest of the cost over a two-year period, while also paying for a separate service plan.

According to Ferguson, T-Mobile has failed to clearly state that while there is no annual contract for T-Mobile subscribers, customers who cease using T-...

Mike Doughty, a singer/songwriter (formerly of Soul Coughing) and now an indie artist, was asked by Yahoo! Music to write a song celebrating ten years of iTunes.

Not content to put yet another spin on the standard birthday song, this became an ode to drunken iTunes purchases (I believe "drunken iTunes binge" is a cousin of the "eBay blackout").

It's a catchy number, and will certainly be stuck in your head after watching the video. Mike also gets bonus points for using Cassingle[TM] as though it is still an actual word. It's a self-shot video, mostly likely from a built-in iSight camera (I am guessing -- at the end of...

… in under two minutes. Last year it took two hours. In 2008, it took about two months. If that trend continues, the 2014 event may well sell out hours before tickets actually go on sale.

Pangea Software announced today that for 24 hours its entire library of its iOS games are completely free on the iOS App Store starting the afternoon of April 24 until the morning of April 25. The free games include:  Monkey Bongo, Billy Frontier, Jive Turkey Shoot, Cro-Mag Rally, Warheads, Enigmo, Enigmo 2, Enigmo Deluxe, Nucleus, Air Wings, Air Wings Intergalactic, Nanosaur 2, Bugdom 2, Otto Matic, Quarters!!, and Antimatter. These games normally sell between $1 and $4.... ...

Pangea Software announced today that for 24 hours its entire library of its iOS games are completely free on the iOS App Store, starting the afternoon of April 25 until the morning of April 26. The free games include: Monkey Bongo, Billy Frontier, Jive Turkey Shoot, Cro-Mag Rally, Warheads, Enigmo, Enigmo 2, Enigmo Deluxe, Nucleus, Air Wings, new release Air Wings Intergalactic, Nanosaur 2, Bugdom 2, Otto Matic, Quarters!!, and Antimatter. These games normally sell between $1 and $4.... ...

As reported by China Daily, a Beijing court has ordered Apple to pay three Chinese authors US$118,000 in damages for selling their books without prior consent through apps available on its App Store.

The lawsuit was filed against Apple by the Writers' Right Protection Union (also known as the Writers' Rights Alliance), an organization that protects the copyrights of authors whose works are published online.

According to China Daily, Judge Feng Gang, who was presiding over the case, said Apple "has the duty of checking whether books uploaded by third parties are in line with current laws."

The ruling follows a long line of complaints and lawsuits against...

Experiment: text your parents “got 2 grams for $40″ then right after “Sorry ignore that txt. Not for you” Then tweet pic of their response.

Holy shit, I giggled my ass off.

∞ Read this on The Loop

If you missed out on tickets to Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC)—and since they sold out in three minutes, it’s quite likely you did—you may be soothed by news of a second Apple-centric conference in San Francisco going on at the same time. Appsterdam on Thursday announced AltWWDC, a free conference it will open just a block away from the Moscone Center where WWDC is held.

Described as “a free and open alternative to Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference,” the five-day AltWWDC event will include talks, food, and co-working space. Confirmed speakers include former Apple engineer Mike Lee, NetNewsWire creator Brent Simmons, TUAW’s Victor Agreda, Jr., and developer and occasional Macworld contributor Brett Terpstra. The event is scheduled to run from June 10 through June 14, just like...

Microsoft has commenced selling debt in the US and European markets. According to the Wall Street Journal, the initial offering is a minimum of $500 million. The move is the software developer's fifth offering since 2009, and the company should be able to get the lowest yields of the year for a five-year corporate debt offering....  ...

Apple's iPad offerings continue to dominate the tablet segment, but tablets running Windows 8 have had a small impact, accounting for one in fourteen tablets shipped in the first quarter of 2013.  ...

Twitter has released a rare update for Twitter for Mac, the company's client app for OS X. The company added support for Apple's Retina Display MacBook Pros, made some changes to Tweet Composer, updated the app's icons, added support for 14 new languages.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Twitter for Mac was greeted with great fanfare, but the company has been slow to update it. We're pleased to see any improvements in the software, and hope this update in some way signals a renewed interest in its Mac-app presence.

LinkedIn has released its next expansion with the new iPhone app LinkedIn Contacts. The app collects your contacts from your phonebook and services like Gmail, Yahoo, and Evernote. It then uses that information to create a sort of personal assistant which organizes your interactions with business partners across your services.

When you look up a contact you're shown your "Relationship"; email exchanges, personal messages from LinkedIn, calendar appointments, and other interactions. You can filter your contacts based on parameters like companies, job titles, or locations to optimize your results. Going to a business meeting to Oklahoma? Search through your contacts by location and see if there's an old friend to catch up with.

The To Do section of the app...

Shares of the flash memory technology company Fusion-io are up by nearly 20 percent today on a boatload of good news.

As of 3:05 pm ET today, Fusion shares were trading at $19.89, up $3.26 (or 19.6 percent) from a $16.63 closing price Wednesday. For one thing, the company reported quarterly results yesterday, and gave forward guidance for the current quarter that was better than anyone expected.

Another thing? There’s a new Facebook data center going up in Iowa. And as everyone who follows Fusion-io knows, Facebook and Apple are its marquee customers. A new data center means that a lot of new Fusion-io products are...

During Apple's financial conference on Tuesday afternoon, Apple's CEO Tim Cook stated that Apple had new categories of products in the pipeline for the end of the year and throughout 2014. It was three years ago to date that Apple first hinted at a gaming console and controller. Well today, one of Apple's published patent filings revealed new pivoting buttons that may be coming to future iDevices, with two specific examples designed for a gaming controller in mind. The first is noted in our cover graphic above and the second is presented in our report. The designs ...

WWDC sold out in just minutes this year. As iOS developer Josh Avant put it, "Next year, tickets are going to sell out before they even go on sale."

Many developers were greeted by server errors, failed purchases, and the "Sorry, tickets are sold out" banner.

Others like Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software were able to place an order. In the end Jalkut decided to cancel his ticket, stating, he was "[v]ery conflicted, but it ended up feeling too exclusive for me."

In a move that was seen as a boost to fairness, developers were given a day's warning about sale time. This enabled people around the globe to set their alarms and schedule their visit to Apple's developer site.

Unfortunately,...

Twitter (was Tweetie) is a Twitter client with a variety of features.

Important Note: As of January 2011, AteBit's Tweetie application has been acquired and renamed by Twitter. Version 1.2.8 of the original Tweetie application is available above as an alternate download.

Features:

• Conversations: Double click on a tweet to view not only that tweet, but the entire conversation history leading up to that tweet. Never lose track of a conversation again.
• Easy Compose: Independent compose windows stay out of your way until you need them. Have as many open at a time as you'd like while you compose your thoughts. Everything has a keyboard shortcut, (Command-Enter will send a tweet).
• Easy Search Trends: See what's hot on Twitter right now, then search for the most recent tweets on those popular topics with a single click.
• Easy Threaded DM's: Have a real private conversation over Twitter...

In a sign that perhaps, on occasion, pigs do fly, Twitter has announced an update to its official OS X client, Twitter for Mac, bringing it to version 2.2.

The new release comes with a number of new features, including a slightly tweaked user interface, support for Macs with Retina displays, and the ability for users to upload and share photos along with their tweets. The app now also supports fourteen new languages, including Italian, French, German, Dutch, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and more.

The good news doesn’t stop there, though: It seems that this is more than just a one-time event. Twitter developer Ben Sandofsky has announced—in a tweet, of course—that he will now be working on the company’s OS X client full-time,...

What if you could just swipe sideways to switch between apps on your iPad?  Well, you can!  John Martellaro shows you how to perform this most innocent of finger gestures.

Yet another malware variant is being sent to Uyghur activists via e-mail spam; however, for updated systems the threat is nonexistent.

WWDC tickets went on sale today, and the event sold out within minutes. This year, Apple developers were prepared to buy their tickets as the company pre-announced the ticket sales one day in advance. In previous years, the conference was announced and tickets went on sale at the same time.

If you didn't get a ticket this year, Apple is streaming the video from the sessions during the event. You won't get the full experience of being at the conference, but you will get a lot of the important parts. WWDC 2013 will be held from June 10 to 14 in San Francisco.

WWDC 2013 now sold out originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 25 Apr 2013...

The PSU MacAdmins Conference tweeted that the schedule is now available.  You can check out the schedule here.  This year is full of great sessions and has something for everyone.  Both Sam Keeley and I have sessions at the conference, which we look forward to seeing you at!

About Nate Walck

Nate is a Macintosh Systems Engineer at Tamman Technologies, Inc in Philadelphia, PA. He is the managing editor for afp548.com and one of the founding members of the ##osx-server IRC channel on freenode.net. He loves being involved in the Mac Admin community and using Open Source projects whenever possible, especially Munki and The Luggage.

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AltWWDC is an alternative conference for Apple developers and designers, held alongside Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, California. This free 5-day event takes place June 10-14, 2013 and includes talks, lunch, and co-working space, available first-come, first-serve every day. Confirmed speakers are Mike Lee, Victor Agreda, Jr., Brett Terpstra, Brent Simmons, Saul Mora, and Steve “Scotty” Scott.

You have to love developers and the things they do for the community.

∞ Read this on The Loop

6Wunderkinder today introduced a new Pro option in its popular to do app, Wunderlist. The new Wunderlist Pro moves the task manager towards small business use by adding features that focus on team collaboration.

Wunderlist Pro now lets users share their workloads by assigning tasks to colleagues and friends. Both parties will be able to update the task and track it as it moves towards completion. Users can also break down a task into subtasks and add as many subtasks as they need, now that subtasks are unlimited.

Wunderlist is available for free from the iOS App Store and the Mac App Store. Customers can upgrade to the Pro version via an in-app purchase. Wunderlist Pro...

After years without an update, Twitter has updated its official Mac app with Retina display support and much more:

Today we’re announcing a few improvements to Twitter for Mac:

• Photos: It’s easier than ever to share photos. Simply click the camera icon in the lower-left corner of the Tweet compose box, and choose a photo to share. If you prefer, you can still drag and drop photos from the desktop.
• Retina display support: Now Twitter is even more vibrant and detailed on the highest resolution Mac notebooks. With this update, Tweets will be clearer and sharper, creating a more vivid...

Tickets for Apple's 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference went on sale at 10AM pacific time, and within two minutes were completely sold out. That's the fastest the event has sold out, beating last year's two hour selling frenzy.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Wow, that was fast. At this rate, WWDC 2014 will sell out before Apple even has tickets available for sale. And if you need proof developers are still very interested in the OS X and iOS platforms, they managed to pack plenty of evidence into a two minute window.

I refreshed the page and they were already sold out. It couldn’t have any more than two or three minutes.

∞ Read this on The Loop

That was quick…

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In line with yesterday's announcement, Apple has just begun ticket sales for its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which will take place June 10-14 at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco. Tickets are priced at $1599.Get an in-depth look at what’s next in iOS and OS X, and learn how to take your apps to the next level. With over 100 sessions, extensive hands–on labs, and engaging events, you’ll connect with Apple engineers and fellow developers for an incredible week of inspiration.Tickets are expected to sell out quickly, as seen last year when they disappeared in under two hours even without advance warning of the on-sale time....

Apple recently filed two patents that feature portable devices communicating with vehicles through Bluetooth. The first patent, titled “Method for locating a vehicle,” would let iOS device users locating their vehicle using wireless connections. More specifically, this system would let a device like an iPhone communicate with a system…

Circus Ponies NoteBook is an ideal solution for users who are sick and tired of spending their time trying to stay organized.

From simple tasks to massive projects, Circus Ponies NoteBook handles it all, so you can stop spending hours doing what should take just minutes.

Here are four ways NoteBook will save you time every day:

Keep Everything Organized in One Place:

• With NoteBook, you create electronic notebooks to hold your information, perhaps one per class, task, or project. A notebook is a familiar and natural way to keep things organized, and saves time just like a paper notebook saves time over notes and documents piled on your desk or stuffed in a drawer.

Clip Things You Find and Deal With Them Later:

• Whether research on the Web or to-dos in e-mail, just select and clip it to a page in your Notebooks. Clipping happens in the background so you aren't thrown into...

I saw Bill Gurley say that you can only make money by being right about something that most people think is wrong. His logic was that you can’t make money by being wrong. And you can’t make money by being right about something everyone else knows. So you have to be right about something that most people think is wrong.

Sounds a lot like what Apple does.

∞ Read this on The Loop

GarageSale is a slick, full-featured client application for the eBay online auction system. With GarageSale Mac OS X users can edit, track and manage all their auctions with one single application - easily and fast.

Use GarageSale's intuitive and reliable interface to create eBay auctions conveniently. Stop waiting for eBay to lead you through endless Web pages step-by-step.

No more hassle: Create and manage your auctions with ease

GarageSale is fast, easy to use and comes with everything you need to create, list and manage your auctions. GarageSale also integrates perfectly with iPhoto, offers WYSIWYG text editing, free image hosting and comes with over 130 free auction designs. GarageSale supports many eBay Sites, eBay Motors, Digital Delivery, PayPal, Twitter and eBay Stores. Have a look at the Features...

Apple has included one or more versions of python with OS X since Jaguar (10.2). Their latest version, Mountain Lion (10.8), includes python versions 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7. This presence of python on a clean install of OS X makes it a compelling language choice for automation and information gathering scripts – especially when combined with pyObjC and Scripting Bridge. In fact, various portions of OS X rely on the included python environments to function correctly. Attempts to remove python from OS X or re-link /usr/bin/python to an alternate python installation could result in unexpected effects.

If you plan on using python with OS X, you should also know that different versions of OS X include different selections of python version. Snow Leopard (10.6), for instance, only offers python 2.5 and 2.6. Knowing which version of python you’re running in can have a major effect on how you write your scripts. Certain language features and module functions are not available in earlier...

It's a big day for football fans who are gearing up for the 2013 NFL draft. The first round picks start tonight, Thursday, April 25, at 8:00 pm ET, followed by the second and third round on Friday and Saturday, respectively. Use one or all of these iOS apps below to bone up on the draft picks as well as follow the NFL draft live for the next few days.

Draftpedia [iPhone; Free]

Draftpedia offers comprehensive draft information for the NFL and NBA that extends back to 1970 for the NFL and 1969 for the NBA. It's a wealth of sports draft information right at your fingertips.

2013 Draft HQ - Pro Football [iOS Universal; US$2.99]

2013 Draft HQ - Pro Football is your one-stop shop for information about the draft. Follow news on the top players and...

In celebration of its 23rd anniversary, Mariner software is currently offering a 50 percent discount on all...   ...

One day, your iPhone WILL talk to and control your car.

Per the United States Patent and Trademark Office (1, 2...

Over the past several months, a number of rumors have suggested that Apple will be looking to update its notebook lineup at or soon after its Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off on June 10. In particular, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a relatively strong track record, laid out a roadmap in January predicting that the MacBook Air could see an update by late in the second quarter with Apple's MacBook Pro moving to an all-Retina lineup early in the third quarter.

Reports on whether there will be any design changes as part of a rumored June notebook update have varied, with a...

Apple has been fined 730,000 yuan (about $118,000) in China for copyright infringement. News of the fine came from China Daily News (hat tip to ZDNet), which reported the No. 2 Intermediate People's Court in Beijing ruled against Apple after it determined the works of three authors were sold through the iBookstore without their permission.

This is the second set of cases brought by the Writers' Rights Protection Union against Apple. According to Judge Feng Gang, Apple has a duty to check whether the books by third parties have all the necessary permissions in order to be sold on the iBookstore, in accordance with local laws. It appears as if the books were in fact uploaded by someone else who didn't have permission to publish them, and Apple is the one paying the price.

"The...

A new report (www.soluto.com/reports) from Soluto a Web service company, quantifiably concluded that the "MacBook Pro is the best Windows PC on the market," beating out traditional PCs.

The report based its findings on a number of criteria including application crashes, blue-screens-of-death, long boot times, etc.  According to the report, "if you’ve ever looked for an excuse to buy a MacBook -- now you have it."
 

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AKVIS has announced a new frame pack for AKVIS ArtSuite: the Spring Pack with 50 hand painted designs. These frames are designed to "make you feel nature's great awakening, warm rays of the sun, exciting scent of the spring, and love in the air, and hear songs of birds."

ArtSuite lets you frame your photos, make personalized greeting cards and posters, decorate your family album. The program contains templates and texture samples.

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Apple has been ordered to pay three Chinese writers a total exceeding $118,000 for infringing their copyrights. The writers, including a popular author Mai Jia, discovered that their books were being sold in the App Store without their permission. While Judge Feng Gang said Apple has a duty to determine…

Don’t knock a useful update.

On Thursday, Dropbox released version 2.0.8 of its cloud-based storage client for Mac OS X. The new version, a 29.1 megabyte download (via MacUpdate), which adds the following fixes and changes:
- Fixed a bug where quitting Dropbox doesn’t dismiss the tray popup.

- Fixed a bug where Dropbox would steal focus on startup.

- Recently changed files now appear earlier when starting Dropbox.

- User-interface polish.

Dropbox 2.0.8 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to install and run.

If you’ve tried the new beta...

FileMaker Pro is powerful, easy-to-use database software that helps you and your team get any task done faster. Millions of people in business, government, and education use FileMaker Pro to effortlessly manage all their information on Windows, Mac, and the web.

In addition to the more than 30 built-in Starter Solutions that help you manage your important tasks, FileMaker Pro also has more easy-to-use tools to enable you to:

Create custom databases
Create custom databases for your own unique needs. To get started just drag and drop Microsoft Excel data into FileMaker Pro.

Produce reports
Get step-by-step reporting tools to help you manage and automate your tasks. Easily create and email reports in Excel or PDF.

Publish data to the web
Securely publish your databases to the Web in a few clicks. Create surveys, registration sites, customer feedback forms, and more.

A Beijing court has ordered Apple to compensate three Chinese writers for selling their works via its app store without getting their permission, reports "ZDNet" (http://tinyurl.com/avpg77f), translating an article from the "China Daily" newspaper.

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I have an Android phone and wanted to automatically save photos that I take in iPhoto, similar to the Photo Stream feature that iPhones have. Dropbox has a feature that automatically uploads photos that you take into a folder called "Camera Uploads,” which is synced across all of my devices, so was a perfect candidate for creating a cross-platform Photo Stream.



First, I needed to import the existing "Camera Uploads" photos into iPhoto, as the folder action only triggers when a new file appears in the folder. Once this has been done, the folder action can be created.



Open Automator and create a new Folder Action. Select the folder "Camera Uploads" (in the Dropbox folder).



Next, drag "Import files into iPhoto" from the list of actions to the main window. Select the album to import into, and choose whether to delete the photos after import or not (I chose not to).



Save and give the...

Patently Apple spotted two car-related Apple patent applications, one allowing an iPhone to act as a smart-key, the other helping you locate your car when parked in a large car-park.

The smart-key idea uses a Bluetooth connection from the phone to unlock the car, which could be done either manually or via a proximity rule, unlocking your car as you approach it …

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But it goes much further than this, offering similar functionality to Ford’s MyKey parental control system - allowing access to...