Jawbone, the company behind the Jawbone Up fitness tracking wristband and companion app, today is announcing some big news including a new API to allow other apps to access its fitness tracking data and the acquisition of competitor BodyMedia. The new API  dubbed the “Up Platform” will see the company create its own app ecosystem of sorts, allowing other developers to access Jawbone UP data and integrate their apps to “complement your UP experience.”

To go along with the new API, Jawbone has already updated its UP iOS app with a new side menu that allows users to share their data with integrated apps and the ability to “to...

Oh original iPhone, we'll miss you.

Roughly six years after its public launch, the original iPhone is about to become obsolete—at least in Apple's eyes. Apple reportedly sent out internal documentation to its support partners, which was then passed on to 9to5Mac, detailing which of its products would no longer be considered current or recent devices as of June 11, 2013. The list doesn't just include the original iPhone, though: it also includes a number of older iMacs, MacBook Pros, Xserves, and PowerBooks.

According to the document, products that are considered obsolete—or perhaps for a more tasteful term, "vintage"—cannot be repaired or receive replacement parts unless they're in the state of California, "as required by statute." Californians can continue...

“Cookiewaits” mashes up Cookie Monster videos with Tom Waits songs, and the results are amazing.

The Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock, first announced in January of 2012, is now available for purchase for $299, more than a year after the Mac accessory was unveiled.   ...

Back in February, Belkin finally started accepting preorders for its much anticipated Thunderbolt Express Dock that was originally supposed to ship last September. Reports earlier this month noted that further delays meant the device would miss its new Q1 2013 launch date, but today Belkin has finally made things official announcing availability of the Thunderbolt Express Dock and posting the video above to its YouTube channel.

Belkin does have some competition now that it has waited to launch, including the ...

Noel Alonso has a post outlining one way you could easily delete a machine out of Active Directory using ldapsearch and ldapdelete.

This script could easily be modified and changed to do various other things, such as passing the hostname in as an argument or doing a different action upon the machine.  Check it out over on his blog.

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.

...

Recording phone calls has always been a gray area of the law. That's because there are both state and federal wiretapping laws that govern the practice. Federal law allows a conversation to be recorded if one party consents to it. Some states use that rule, too, but others require the consent of everyone on the call. Nevertheless, those uncertainties haven't deterred people from recording phone calls or kept Radio Shack from making analog devices to enable those recordings.

About a year ago, Tor Books, highly-regarded publisher of science fiction and fantasy, announced that they were dropping digital-rights-management protection on all of their ebooks. Now, Julie Crisp of Tor UK has revealed what that decision has meant in terms of ebook piracy: “As it is, we’ve seen no discernible increase in piracy on any of our titles, despite them being DRM-free for nearly a year.” (This, of course, is no surprise to us at Take Control: we have been publishing DRM-free for ten years, with much the same results.) Equally heartening to Tor is how much support their authors have for the no-DRM policy.

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...

If you're a road warrior who packs lots of tech equipment and accessories, check out Booq's Boa courier messenger bag, which is both spacious and durable.

read more

According to a new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight, the total value of the global real-time mobile location-based advertising and marketing (LBA) market will grow from US$526 million in 2012 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 65% to $6.5 billion in 2017.

This will then correspond to 32.8% of all mobile advertising and marketing. This means that location-based advertising and marketing will represent around 5% of digital advertising, or more than 1% of the total global ad spend for all media.

read more

Microsoft – which bought Skype back in 2011 – is starting to rollout the ability to make Skype audio and video calls from within an email thread on outlook.com …

//

With the preview version of Skype for Outlook.com you can enjoy Skype video and audio calls right from your inbox — less typing, more talking! … Just click on the Skype audio or video call buttons in your IM conversation. To start a call while reading an email from a friend on Outlook.com, move your mouse over the friend’s picture and click on the Skype audio or video call buttons that appear above his or her contact details.

The Skype blog refers to the service as a ‘preview version’, suggesting that it may be the first step towards more extensive integration. The feature is...

While it's rare to see design patents get fast tracked as these have today, it's a trend that should continue being that we're in an era of quick design turnovers.   ...

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday granted Apple a patent for a dynamic communications system that automatically selects the best method of contacting another person, be it through voice, text or email, based on a given situation.  ...

Daylite helps businesses organize themselves with tools such as shared calendars, contacts, tasks, projects, notes, and more. Enable easy collaboration with features such as task and project delegation between users, and never let things fall through the cracks. Create smart lists to find meaningful data fast -- including delegated but uncompleted work. Work anywhere -- in a networked office, from home or on the road.

Read the Daylite 4 review at GigaOm

Version 4.2.1:

• Daylite Mail Assistant 4.2.1 will be compatible with OS X 10.8.4
• New version of database engine for Daylite Server
• Addressed a performance issue when loading a calendar sourcelist
• Updated the version of Postgres included with Daylite to include a security fix made by the Postgres working group
• Fixed an issue preventing Daylite...

In a post to Twitter late Monday, user @evleaks, who has been reliable in leaking pictures and specifications of various cellular products in the past, said Boost Mobile will start carrying Apple's iPhone in the third quarter of 2013.   ...

The original iPhone will soon be considered obsolete in Apple Retail Stores according to an internal Apple document shared by 9to5Mac. Products considered 'obsolete' are ineligible for service parts and documentation at retail stores and cannot be repaired at mail-in AppleCare Repair Centers.

Apple typically makes products 'obsolete' or 'vintage' five years after they are discontinued, though there are some exceptions where required by law. The original iPhone went on sale in June 2007 and was discontinued in July 2008 when the iPhone 3G was released.

Other Apple products that will be considered 'vintage' as of June 11, 2013 include the mid-2007 models of the iMac, the late 2006 model Xserve, and the original Mac Pro. 9to5Mac has the...

Consumer Reports on Monday released the results of its annual reader survey that asked respondents to rate the nation's best PC tech support, and Apple topped the chart yet again, this time managing to beat its own score from last year.  ...

Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock

At 8:05am on the morning of December 1, 2010, an FBI search warrant team swarmed up to a Silicon Valley home on an unusual misson: find the "sextortionist" who had been blackmailing pro poker players over the Internet. One agent pounded on the door and shouted out, "FBI!" Movement was heard inside, but no one opened the door. The agent knocked again, but the door stayed shut, so out came the battering ram. Wham—the door gave and FBI agents flooded inside, guns drawn in the dim light.

At the top of the staircase before them stood their target, Keith Hudson. "Show your hands!" demanded one agent. "FBI!" Hudson did not immediately comply; instead, he stepped back from the stairs and said he had to get his daughter. The agents commanded him to stop. Hudson did so, backing down the steps. He was handcuffed when he reached the bottom.

Outside and down the street, the force behind the search warrant was sitting in her car, waiting for...

According to internal Apple documentation, the original iPhone, which first debuted in 2007, will soon enter “obsolete” status, with a few exceptions. The official switch will happen on June 11, 2013, when the iPhone, along with several other Macs and Xserve models will officially be classified as vintage and obsolete products by Apple. Thanks, G! 

//

Apple’s support site defines vintage products as:

 …those that were discontinued more than five and less than seven years ago. Apple has discontinued hardware service for vintage products with the following exception:

-Products purchased in the state of California, United States, as required by statute.

-Owners of vintage Macintosh products may obtain service and parts from Apple service...

This will be a rather quick review, not just because silicone iPhone 5 cases are quite commonplace, but because there are mainly just good things to say about these new cases from Ballistic Case. They're all members of the Ballistic Case Aspira series for the iPhone 5 (US$34.99), and three readers will have a chance to win one.

Design

The Aspira cases are lightweight, skinny, and colorful. Ballistic has come up with seven cases in the series that will attract the attention of just about everyone.

There's a white case with imperial blue accents, a white case with a pink flower pattern, an eye-jarring mint green case with strawberry pink accents, a much more soothing raspberry case with gray accents, a black case with a charcoal gray hexagon pattern and accents, a black case with lime green accents and a black case with gray accents.

All of the cases are...

For the second consecutive study, Apple ranks highest among manufacturers of tablets in overall owner satisfaction. Apple achieves a score of 836 and performs well in four factors: performance; ease of operation; styling and design; and features.

Apple’s rating was a 5, which is the highest JD Power gives. Amazon, Samsung and Asus all received a 3, which JD Power classifies as “About average.” Acer got a 2 — that’s classified as “The rest.”

∞ Read this on The Loop

Apple will take its developer show worldwide, the iPad still satisfies, and Tim Cook puts up his Dukes. The remainders for Monday, April 29, 2013 are going coast to coast.

Thank you for your unprecedented interest in WWDC. (Apple)

Didn’t snag a ticket to the hottest Worldwide Developer Conference in town? Don’t worry too much: Apple’s also planning to take its show on the road with Tech Talks this fall. Unfortunately, you will have to supply your own beer bash and special musical guests.

2013 U.S. Tablet Satisfaction Study—Volume 1 (J.D. Power and Associates)

...

Consumer Reports talking about Apple:

The company scored far higher than the other big companies for the elements that make for successful online and phone support: ease of contacting staff, clarity of advice, technical knowledge, patience, and time for follow-up.

And here is what they said about Windows-based companies:

Clearly, there’s room for improvement in tech support: 24 to 40 percent of respondents who sought phone or online help from makers of Windows-based computers said the staff’s patience, knowledge, or clarity was fair at best.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Microsoft was late to the mobile phone game and has struggled to snatch market share away from their competitors at Apple and Android. They face a big problem: every smartphone has their own selling points, but they've mostly got the same basic features. So how do you set yourself apart?

Apparently the answer is pointing out how obnoxious your competitors' fans are.

In their new spot Microsoft shows a brawl breaking out at a wedding reception as the wedding party, segregated into sides by their choice of iPhone or Samsung Galaxy, fights over who gets to obnoxiously take cell phone video of the service. The captain of Team iPhone snidely asks a Galaxy user if he'd "mind moving his enormous phone," sparking a sea of shouts and put downs. Finally someone acts reasonable, and throws the first punch.

As the carnage unfolds the only two people who keep their cool are a...

Popular RSS aggregation and reading app Reeder received an update on Monday, offering users the ability use it as a standalone reader, while building in support for third-party syncing service Feedbin.  ...

Apple was one of the first -- if not the first -- major computer manufacturers to provide then-fledgling USB support at the expense of legacy ports on its iMac line some 15 ago. Since then, the Mac maker hasn't always been the fastest at adding new USB protocols to machines, generally lagging six months or more behind, depending on the product line. The Mac Pro is languishing these days, awaiting a revamp -- but still has no USB 3.0 ports, despite an incremental update last summer boosting the speed of the computer somewhat. Highpoint Technologies has had strong support for the Macintosh and O... ...

Osito is a free iPhone app that tries to do what Google Now has done for Android phones (and now the iPhone), which is provide a time- and location-aware app that supports your daily schedule with weather, traffic, travel news and more. [The previously launched Tempo calendar is another approach to solving the same problem. -Ed.]

Osito finds information about your location, and what is on your calendar, in your emails and your daily routine. For example, if it finds a meeting in your calendar, Osito will check traffic and give you relevant advice on when to leave. Of course, the address of your meeting needs to be in the calendar for Osito to figure that out. Weather...

Microsoft has released a new ad for the Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone smartphone, an ad that mocks fans of both Apple and Samsung devices. The commercial poses each party as guests at a wedding and draws upon memes that will be familiar to the echo chamber, causing Bryan Chaffin to wonder who the target is.

If views in the OS X Finder shift around, you may be able to control this by a quick settings change.

Ben Thompson imagines an alternate 2013 in which Android did not exist:

Google today announced via their blog that they are filing a
complaint with the Justice Department and EU regarding Apple’s
recent rejection of Google Now for iOS. […]

The iPhone, which was launched in 2007, is on 70% of the world’s
smartphones, and 35% of all phones worldwide. Microsoft is in a
distant second place, with less than 10% of the smartphone market.

I’ve been greatly enjoying Thompson’s writing at Stratechery; it’s easily one of my favorite new sites of the year, and you could do worse than devote the next hour or two to reading the whole thing back to last month, when he began. Among several standouts, I recommend “Two Bears” (dissecting the two bear arguments against Apple’s...

iOS 7 is codenamed "Innsbruck," and will use a "very, very flat" design, sources for 9to5Mac claim. The OS is reportedly jettisoning any signs of gloss or skeuomorphism, making it flat on a level nearing the look of the Metro interface used in Windows Phone and Windows 8. Apple has sometimes been criticized for using unnecessary real-world analogies in the look of iOS and OS X, for instance by making its Calendar apps resemble leather daybooks....  ...

Doug van Spronsen writing about Ron Johnson and JCPenney:

I am not suggesting that great design isn’t effective, quite the contrary. But if the root cause of the issue is deeper, it might be better to start the strategy process a few layers back.

Great article and I agree. Selling iPhones, iPods and iPads is fairly easy because they are great products — the business side of things was working. Couple that with well-designed retail stores and you’ve got a winner.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Sources claim the look of Apple’s upcoming iOS 7 will be simpler than past incarnations, according to a new report from 9to5Mac. “Multiple people who have either seen or have been briefed on the upcoming iOS 7” claim the new operating system will be attractive to new users, but…

If you’re looking to keep that computer running smoothly, Apple is the one to turn to, says Consumer Reports. On Monday, the consumer advocacy publication announced that the company from Cupertino had once again topped a reader survey of the best computer tech support, even going so far as to beat its own scores from the previous year.

To the surprise of nobody who’s actually paid attention to the PC market in the last several years, Apple beat out competitors Lenovo, Asus, Dell, Toshiba, Hewlett Packard/Compaq, and Acer/Gateway/eMachines by a healthy margin, scoring an 86 out of 100, which the publication describes as “very satisfied.” The next closest brand was Lenovo, which scored only a 63, or “fairly well satisfied.”

According to Consumer Reports’s data, Apple also solved a best-in-category 82 percent of readers’ problems; the nearest...

Comparing the Samsung Galaxy S4 to the S3 and Apple’s iPhone®5, the iPhone 5 was the clear winner.

Quality usually wins.

∞ Read this on The Loop

The TEC Foundation for Excellence in Audio has formally entered into an agreement to become part of the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), strengthening the important work of both non-profits and the NAMM Show. All TEC activities, including the Technical Excellence & Creativity Awards, will join other marquee activities, events and efforts within the NAMM Foundation portfolio including the Museum of Making Music, research projects, the SupportMusic Coalition and global public service campaigns.

This is great news for NAMM, but more importantly the pro audio community.

∞ Read this on The Loop

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 April 29, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:45:00 EST. Please see our...

More cool CSS3 magic.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Russell Holly for Geek.com:

If you head to the Storage section of the Settings on a new Galaxy S4, you’ll find that only 8.82GB is available to the user. That’s the total space available to you, so applications that were pre-loaded by your carrier and anything you sync over during account creation will pull from that amount. The rest of that 16GB you can’t even see as the user — Android tells you that the phone only has 8.82GB total, entirely cutting out the space used by the system itself.

Terrible.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Doctors prefer apples - both the edible and the electronic variety, says a report in The Motley Fool. Apple technology is revolutionizing the medical industry through physicians, who fell in love with their iPads and iPhones. Doctors are using these devices in their daily practice and are driving innovation in the field.

A 2012 survey of health-care professionals by Vitera Healthcare that was cited by The Motley Fool found that 60 percent of respondents have an iPhone and 45 percent have an iPad. They are using these devices to help them diagnose diseases like skin cancer, prescribe medicine and track patient health. In some instances, the...

Apple is taking steps towards offering its first-ever bond sale, Reuters reports. A source tells the newswire agency that the company is making investor calls to Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank today, and has filed paperwork for a debt offering with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The sale will go towards funding the company's plan to return $100 billion in cash to shareholders by 2015....   ...

I agree with Gruber on this. No matter what Apple does, someone will find a problem with it.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Square has issued a major update of the iOS and Android versions of Register, the app for the company's retail checkout system. Version 3.0 focuses on improvements for restaurants: customers can add custom tips, and the payment pad now supports multiple custom amounts, which can each have individual notes attached. On the iPad, customizable kitchen tickets can include a name or number, and orders can be modified at the counter....  ...

Mountain Lion Cache Cleaner is an award-winning general purpose tool for OS X. MLCC makes system maintenance simple with an easy point-and-click interface to many OS X functions. Novice and expert users alike will appreciate the powerful toolset MLCC provides. Mountain Lion Cache Cleaner is one of the world's leading maintenance tools, with millions of downloads around the globe.

Maintenance

Mountain Lion Cache Cleaner is a one-stop solution for all of your OS X maintenance needs. Intel or PPC, Tiger or Mountain Lion, MLCC has the tools to keep your system running at its best. MLCC Documents and the MLCC Engine maintain system health by providing full automation of common maintenance chores, including virus scanning of Internet downloads. The MLCC Engine can even repair permissions automatically after software installations. With the MLCC Engine, powerful system maintenance and antivirus can be completely transparent or as close as...

Ahead of last week's earnings release, Apple announced that it would more than double its capital return program from $45 billion to $100 billion, with a 15 percent increase in dividend payments and a massive stock buyback initiative.

To facilitate the expanded capital return program, which will amount to a share repurchase of $60 billion, Apple must take on debt, a process that the company initiated today. According to Reuters, Apple has begun investor calls, led by both Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, and it has filed the necessary...

All Things D directs us to a new survey conducted by the Yankee Group which offers a compelling look into current smartphone ownership trends in the US and what the smartphone landscape may look like down the line.

Over the past 12 months, the Yankee Group surveyed 16,000 consumers and asked them about their smartphones and their plans for smartphone purchases in the future.

Not surprisingly, the study found that the smartphone landscape is currently dominated by the iPhone and a slew of Android devices. What's more, there doesn't seem to be any indication that's going to change anytime in the near future, despite the best efforts of Microsoft and RIM.

One of the more interesting aspects of the study centered on smartphone loyalty, and in that regard the iPhone has Android beat.

Whereas 91 percent of surveyed iPhone owners plan to purchase...

Samsung outdid itself with its Indian launch of the Galaxy S4. It’s even cheesier than the US launch was.

∞ Read this on The Loop

When designing its new Galaxy S4 flagship smartphone, Samsung said it considered the question, “How can we change people’s lives for the better?” The answer: By designing a handset that was also a “meaningful life companion.” But evidently that required certain trade-offs, because while the device has been generally well-received, it has taken a fair bit of flak for its physical design. AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg said the Galaxy S4′s “plastic body felt a bit insubstantial,” and The Verge complained about its “unpleasant, cheap design.” Now, consumer electronics warranty provider SquareTrade says that according to its breakability...

MaxUpgrades has announced the SSD SATA Module with heat sink for the iMac 2012 models. It's available in an US$99.95 single SSD drive kit and a $119.95 dual SSD drive kit.

read more

Nest Labs is pushing out a v3.5 update to owners of the Nest Learning Thermostat at 9PM Eastern today. The firmware upgrade includes two new modes, beginning with Cool to Dry, which turns on air conditioning to reduce humidity. A Sunblock setting should meanwhile prevent the thermostat from turning on unnecessarily when direct sunlight is hitting the Nest's sensor....  ...

For a long time I’ve been saying that the #1 challenge with regard to using iOS is content distribution. Others have mirrored that by saying that the device is a content aggregator, etc. The challenge is keeping everyone on the same page, with the same content and distributing administration of all of that to those who need it.

Well, our friends at JAMF software are, as usual, right in the middle of resolving the more challenging issues of the day with regard to iOS and OS X. In this case they’ve released a new tool called Casper Focus that enables rudimentary administrative tasks by teachers.

Now, I don’t want anyone to take the word rudimentary to be a bad thing. You see, accessing and remotely controlling devices can be a big challenge. The learning curve can be steep. By only giving delegated administrators a few options that learning...

When we think of old communications technology, many of us picture 10Base-2 coax connectors or maybe 2400 baud modems. But what about wax-covered cardboard discs? The Smithsonian discovered and digitized such a disc containing the voice of Alexander Graham Bell saying, "Hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell." Now you can hear what the inventor of the telephone sounded like in 15 April 1885.

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.

It’s no secret that Amazon has very big ambitions when it comes to digital media. But the company doesn’t ever say much about them, save for the occasional Jeff Bezos product roll out.

But here’s the guy to ask: Bill Carr, who heads up Amazon’s digital music and digital video groups, which now include Amazon Studios, the unit that is going to make original movies and TV shows for the e-commerce giant.

Carr doesn’t talk much, but last week I got the chance to sit down with him at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters. Amazon is as tight-lipped as Apple when it comes to new product discussions — or lots of other stuff you and I would like hear about — so I didn’t even bother asking him about Amazon’s new TV box (Still: count on it)....

Nokia and the Windows Phone team appear to be launching a new “Make the switch” campaign for the Nokia Lumia 920 that pits iPhone 5 up against Samsung’s new flagship Galaxy S4. The latest ad, above, ends with the tag line “Don’t Fight. Switch” and kicks off with iPhone and Galaxy S4 users arguing with one another before breaking out in a full on brawl at a wedding. The entire spot from the Windows Phone team is amusing and only lightly promotes the Nokia Lumia 320 towards the end. No features or benefits, but hey its Engadget reader’s choice award winner.

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The International Financing Review is reporting today that Apple is set to begin investor calls today led by Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, a source familiar with the situation told IFR, and filed SEC paperwork for a debt offering.   ...

Ladies and gentlemen, O’Grady’s PowerPage is looking for a few good game reviewers to cover titles on the Mac OS X and iOS platform. Simply put, we’re looking to continuously review titles on Apple’s notebooks as well as the company’s iOS devices and are looking for a few talented reviewers to take on assignments. So, if you’re in the habit of firing up your favorite game on your MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro or iOS device, you’re halfway there.

The good news: It’s (relative) fame, you will be perceived as having increased sex appeal, you’ll receive the accolades of those around you and free review copies galore. Plus, if you’re an aspiring writer, it’s a spiffy chance to build your clippings and portfolio and cover the stuff you love.

The bad news: At this time, we’re unable to offer compensation for the...

MacUpdate Desktop is one of Peter’s indispensable apps. Find out why.

The operating system's design won't change all that much, according to a report, but it will come with some important enhancements, like tabbed browsing in Finder.

Originally posted at News - Apple

As tablet players are turning their focuses from the 10-inch segment to 7-inch for the second half of 2013, sources from the upstream supply chain believe the competition between Apple iPad mini and 7-inch Android tablets will become fiercer than before.  ...

CleanMyMac 2 is an ingeniously simple and powerful system maintenance solution to get extra space and keep your Mac clean and well-organized.

Besides cleaning your hard drive of outdated cache files, system logs, language files and other unneeded data, CleanMyMac 2 also reduces the size of iPhoto libraries, helps find and delete large files and folders which haven’t been used for an extended period of time, correctly uninstalls applications, and so much more — reclaiming your Mac’s valuable hard drive space and keeping it running at peak efficiency.

CleanMyMac 2 is the simplest, safest, and most effective way to clean your Mac. Try it today for free.

∞ Read this on...

Google has added Google Now to iOS in the form of an updated Search app. Now is the company's predictive results technology, until today available only to Android users. The feature pushes "cards" to a person based on their location and other personal information tracked by Google, such as local weather and traffic, flight statuses, and important news stories....  ...

A new update to the Google Search app for iOS features Google Now, Google’s personal assistant. Google Now offers weather and traffic conditions at the start of the day, as well as updates on favorite sports teams and breaking news. Google Now uses more than 25 different “cards,” including…

The feature rumors about OS X 10.9 have begun.

Per 9to5Mac, the upcoming operating system, which is internally codenamed “Cabernet,” will focus on various “power-user” enhancements and take core features from iOS, according to sources. Unlike operating system updates such as OS X Leopard and OS X Lion, OS X 10.9 will likely not be an overhauled approach to how the operating system feels and functions.

The new operating system is purported to...

I was asked over the weekend to jailbreak a friend's iPhone so they could use the camera flash for alerts. There was a time when hacking your iPhone was the only way to use the camera flash for visual alerts, but times have changed. Now that's just another system setting.

If there’s one new-ish rule of the universe, it’s that Apple chooses when it gets to hold its dog and pony shows.

And the next one might be during the Worldwide Developers Conference this June.

Per AppleInsider, noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities believes Apple will showcase updated MacBook Pro models at its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference in June, with the most notable upgrade being the move to Intel’s next-generation Haswell family of processors.

Kuo, who has a reliable track record in predicting Apple’s product plans, said in a research note that while the...

The next major upgrade of OS X, v10.9, will concentrate on "power-user" features while bringing in more concepts from iOS, say sources for 9to5Mac. In the former category, several improvements to Finder are expected, such as tagging and tabbed browsing. Fullscreen apps should finally remain open on secondary monitors, and Safari is expected to get a new version with a new backend, improving performance and efficiency....  ...

App-based messaging has overtaken SMS messaging for the first time, according to new figures released by research company Informa (via BBC News).

Informa said almost 19 billion messages were sent per day on chat apps in 2012, compared with 17.6 billion SMS texts … It has projected that nearly 50 billion messages will be sent per day using these apps by 2014, compared with just over 21 billion traditional SMSs. However, it said that despite the growing gap between the two, SMS will continue to remain a key player in the sector.

Chat apps like WhatsApp may be dominating on smartphones, but around half the global market still uses featurephones, and of...

The goal isn’t to avoid mistakes, though, but to learn how to recover from them.

There’s some truth right there.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Apple has won a court ruling that it doesn’t infringe patent claims brought by intellectual property licensing firm Golden Bridge Technology, reports "Bloomberg" (http://tinyurl.com/bltvnws). The company sued Apple in 2010 over patents for boosting connections in mobile networks.

U.S. District Judge Sue Robinson in Wilmington, Delaware, also canceled a jury trial that was scheduled to begin today over two patents for 3-G network communications held by Long Branch, New Jersey-based Golden Bridge. Golden Bridge sued Apple in 2010 over patents for boosting connections in mobile networks.

read more

Image: http://advertising.apple.com

Apple’s early decision to address privacy concerns about the collection of personalised data gives it a head-start in the new mobile ad race, argues marketeer Gregory Kennedy in a Gigacom blog.

Some background is probably useful here. Every iOS device sold has a unique ID code known as the UDID (Unique Device IDentifier). Many app developers used this 40-character code to identify you for various purposes, some of them perfectly legitimate, such as storing push notification settings and logging usage statistics …

//

Where UDID got more controversial was when the data was shared with advertisers. If an advertiser knows that you...

It's no secret that the iPhone is a hot commodity amongst thieves; so much so that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg went so far as to attribute the rise in New York City's 2012 crime rate to the increase in iPhone-related thefts.

Underlying the prevalence of iPhone thefts is an extremely lucrative resale market. Per Gerry Smith at the Huffington Post:

Police say stolen phones bought [in San Francisco] are often resold overseas -- in part to avoid a domestic blacklist being established by American wireless carriers -- eventually fetching as much as $1,000 at markets scattered from Hong Kong to Rio de Janeiro. The total value of lost or stolen phones in the U.S. is about $30 billion a year, according to the mobile-security firm Lookout.

While many...

A patent lawsuit brought by Golden Bridge Technology against Apple has failed in court, with a U.S. District Judge deciding that Apple isn't infringing on Golden Bridge's intellectual property.   ...

Lifeware Solutions has announced Deluxe Moon Pro 1.0, a lunar cycle application for Mac OS X (10.6 or higher). It costs US$0.99 and is available at the Mac App Store in the Education category (http://tinyurl.com/cezw5cz).

Featuring an animated interface, Deluxe Moon Pro provides comprehensive information on the Moon, moon phase times via animated interface and multiple interactive tools to explore the Moon. The app includes specific gardening advice based on the current moon phase, precise times of the moon phases, animated Zodiac circles, moon horoscope, calendar and more.

Digital calendaring helps you get better organized, but it isn’t perfect – Jason Snell looks at how it can be improved.

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OS X 10.9, which is internally codenamed “Cabernet,” will focus on various “power-user” enhancements and take core features from iOS, according to our sources. Unlike operating system updates such as OS X Leopard and OS X Lion, OS X 10.9 will likely not be an overhauled approach to how the operating system feels and functions.

The new operating system includes major enhancements to the Finder application such as tags and tabbed browsing modes. Those additions are notable as many pro-users have relied on third-party solutions and hacks to enable these features. Additionally, the new operating system will include a new Safari web browser with a redesigned backend for improved page loading, speed, and efficiency…

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Third-party TotalFinder tool

The ability...

Zhengzhou Foxconn is currently producing Apple's iPhone 5 and is preparing to manufacture Apple's new products. It was at this plant where 2 employees plunged to their deaths late last week.   ...

The 2013 J.D. Power U.S. Tablet Satisfaction survey results are out, and Apple took the top spot with it's popular iPad. Apple's tablet also scored a five out of five circle rating, and this marks the second year in a row the iPad was ranked as the best tablet.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Apple's iPad is the top selling tablet, and also happens to have topped the J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey. That sounds like a call for Apple's competitors to step up their game.

Developers Objective Development just announced a nice update to its extremely popular network and application monitoring tool known as ‘Little Snitch’. For those of you unfamiliar, Little Snitch allows users to set up rules that control network access for specific apps and services, allowing you to control when and how apps on your machine talk to the internet. A previous update brought profiles to the app, offering users the ability to switch between different sets of rules for different workflows. Today’s update to version 3.1 enhances that feature by offering Automatic Profile Switching:

With the new Automatic Profile Switching these profiles now can be activated automatically when the computer starts using a specific network connection (e.g. the office, home or some public network) – thereby adapting your network security to the current environment…The first time you connect to a network, Little Snitch presents you the new...

Kyle Crawford has an interesting post that covers reloading LaunchAgents while a user is logged in without requiring them to take action (Log out/in, reboot, etc).

While somewhat hacky, it is a novel way to ensure that a given LaunchAgent is reloaded without burdening the End User to take action.

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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Apple's Contacts app includes a lot of great shortcuts for initiating different forms of communication. Just click an email address, phone number, or URL field label to display a list of available options. You can send an email, show a phone number in large type, or start a FaceTime call, for example. Curiously, one shortcut that's absent from most of these popups is one for copying the email address, phone number, URL, etc. to the clipboard. Mailing addresses are one exception, as they provide an option to copy a mailing label. But, other fields don't include this option. Sure, you could just select a phone number, email address, URL, etc., and press Command+C to copy it. But, what fun is that? It sure would be nice if there were just more handy copy to clipboard shortcuts instead. With the help of AppleScript, you can add your own. Here's how...

Writing the Script

The following steps demonstrate how to add a Copy to Clipboard...

Winter Wolves has released Bionic Heart 2 for the Mac. It's a "deep and dark, sci-fi visual" novel/game told from four points of view.

Here's how Bionic Heart 2 is described: "Take control of Luke, Tom, Tanya and Tina. Each character has their own personality, complete with quirky traits that could potentially whip the story straight into a plot twist. Bionic Heart 2 is the only visual novel featuring a scene with TWO talking brains! The game also features beautiful manga artwork, a full original soundtrack, and meaningful choices that will have repercussions on the whole universe."

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"The Total Economic Impact of The FileMaker Platform" (http://tinyurl.com/cvnsbpd) is the topic of a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of FileMaker, Inc. (www.filemaker.com)

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The iPad was rated by consumers as the best tablet for the second time running in the JD Power customer satisfaction survey, with no competitor tablet rated above About average. Back in March, the iPhone was rated best phone for the 9th consecutive time, a fact Apple includes prominently on its Why iPhone webpage.

Tablet owners were asked to give an overall satisfaction rating, as well as rank their tablet on five specific factors, each given a weighting from most to least important …

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• performance
• ease of operation
• styling & design
• features
• ...

Apple’s iPad tablet has once again claimed top honors in J.D. Power and Associates U.S. Tablet Satisfaction Study, besting rival tablets from Amazon, Samsung and others. But its victory was hardly a rout.

Conducted during February, J.D. Power and Associates’ survey asked 1,857 tablet owners to rate their devices on performance, ease of operation, design, features and cost. Respondents rated the iPad highest, giving it a score of 836 points out of a possible 1,000. That was enough for the device to nab the research house’s top tablet rank for the second consecutive time, though not by much of a lead. With a score of 829 out of 1,000, Amazon’s Kindle Fire came close to tying it. Samsung came reasonably close as well with a score of 822, though that came in lower than the industry...

An allegedly authentic sales sheet from a Japanese telecom purports to confirm that Apple's next iPhone will be called the 5S, and will begin preorders on June 20 with a formal launch sometime in July. The new phone is said from the document to also include iOS 7 and include a 13-megapixel rear camera. The timing appears to contradict statements by Apple CEO Tim Cook that new products would not be seen until at least the fall, but his carefully-chosen words leave room for some interpretation....  ...

Notable software releases this week include PDFpen and PDFpenPro 6.0.2, CloudPull 2.4.1, DEVONagent Lite, Express, and Pro 3.5, and Typinator 5.5.

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.

Along with his recent research note addressing Apple's notebook launch plans, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has also published a note examining Apple's iPad prospects.

In particular, Kuo looks to the iPad mini as the future of the company's iPad portfolio, but with Apple's efforts to bring a Retina display to the device said to be pushing a launch back to the fourth quarter of this year, he suggests that Apple may be looking at a lower-priced iPad mini.Prior to iPad mini 2 launch, Apple might roll out a more affordable iPad mini to compete with Android products. To cut costs, Apple might push for lower component prices, use a more advanced process to produce the A5 processor, simplify metal casing production, remove the rear camera, cut storage to 8GB and find more component suppliers to lower costs. We think this cheaper iPad mini retail for...

It's a big 1-0 for everyone's "favorite" music manager, which has evolved far beyond its humble Rip, Mix, Burn origins to become the digital hub for a new generation of digital devices. Happy birthday, iTunes, and here's hoping that you make it out of your adolescence wiser and more mature.

Also this week: The results of Apple's most recently concluded fiscal quarter are in the books, and while the company continued to make money hand over fist there are some troublesome signs for analysts: eroding margins and the possibility of the high-end smartphone market (where the iPhone owns the roost) starting to squeeze.

Apple's response, in part, is to return more cash to its shareholders (via dividends) and repurchase outstanding shares. Apple's even...

Talk about magical and revolutionary: the manual and unpredictable task of hailing a taxi is being completely overturned by mobile devices. In many American cities, app vendors like Uber are disrupting the livery and taxi business by providing quick and predictable service at the tap of a button.

The roster of cities with e-hailing service is missing a major entry, however; the Big Apple. With the largest US fleet of yellow taxis plus some arcane service regulations, New York's market is a huge prize for the app vendor that establishes early dominance. Several rounds of testing and potential...

PDFpen allows users to easily edit PDF's.

Add text, images and signatures. Fill out PDF forms. Merge or split PDF documents. Reorder and delete pages. Even correct text and edit graphics!

Features:

• Replace text in original PDF with editable text blocks
• Move, resize, copy and delete images in original PDF
• Overlay text and images onto PDF (for example, sign purchase orders by applying signature image)
• Perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on scanned documents
• Insert and remove pages; re-order pages in a PDF by drag & drop
• Copy and paste rich text; retain fonts and formatting when copying from PDFs
• Select and copy text across multiple columns
• Fill out and save PDF forms
• Add (and print) notes and comments
• Markup documents with highlighting, underscoring and strike-through
• Save frequently-used images, signatures, objects and text...

DesktopLyrics is an application that displays the lyrics of the song currently playing in "iTunes" right on your desktop. The lyrics for the song have to be set in iTunes; DesktopLyrics does nothing to fetch them if they aren't available in iTunes. If you don't want to type-in all your lyrics manually you can use an application like "Harmonic", "GimmieSomeTune" or "Get Lyrical" .

Note: As of version 2.0.0, DesktopLyrics is no longer free and costs $3.99. A 'Lite', unsupported version of the app is available here.

Version 2.2.0:

• Add option to control whether to display lyrics on all spaces or just on a single one
• Add "Presentation Mode" to show lyrics while hiding the Desktop
• Usability improvement for hiding the text related to empty lyrics
• Added ability to display the song composer and genre in the song info
• Added...

Last month I posted Geekbench 2 scores for the Samsung Galaxy S 4 with the Qualcomm 600 processor. Scores for the Samsung Galaxy S 4 with the Exynos 5 Octa processor were unavailable at the time:

We have no idea how the Samsung Galaxy S 4 with the new Exynos 5 Octa SoC will perform, but given how the different Samsung Galaxy S 3s performed I imagine the Geekbench score will be similar.

Now that Geekbench 2 scores for the Samsung Galaxy S 4 with the Exynos 5 Octa processor have started to appear in the Geekbench Browser, it turns out "similar" means "15% faster":

Some new points to...

If you’re an Apple stockholder, there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is the stock is once again an attractive investment — especially after plunging from September’s $705 peak all the way down to $417. The bad news is that many of its most loyal fans might be holding it for the wrong reasons.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Notness is a modern, fast and easy to use Multiple Sclerosis diary App for iPhone and iPod Touch. Noteness is tailored to the requirements of a MS-Diary and goes without unnecessary gimmicks.

The app was written by Martin Hartl, a 21-year-old from Germany, who suffers from MS.

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An anonymous reader writes "On April 28, 2003, Apple launched the iTunes Music Store. In their original press release, they called it 'revolutionary,' in typical PR fashion. As the service reaches its 10th anniversary, it seems they were actually correct. From The Verge: 'At launch, it was Mac-only and offered a relatively tiny catalog: 200,000 songs (it currently has 26 million). But it did have the support of the major record labels of the day: Universal, EMI, Warner, Sony, and BMG. The partnerships were key to helping Apple take control of music distribution — without the songs, the iPod was a nicely designed but empty box. ... Jobs certainly had his challenges. Vidich said he's the one who suggested that iTunes charge 99 cents per track and he remembers Jobs nearly hugged him. At the time, Sony Music execs wanted to charge more than $3 a track, according to Vidich. No doubt a $3 song price would have tied an anchor around iTunes' neck, stifling growth. 99 cents, on the other...

Apple's iPad is the best tablet on the market in terms of consumer satisfaction, according to J.D. Power and Associates' new 2013 U.S. Tablet Satisfaction Study. The survey looked at the opinions of 1,857 tablet owners who've had their devices for less than a year, and Apple's bestselling tablets came out on top for the second time in a row. Apple devices hold the top spots in J.D. Power rankings for both tablets and smartphones....  ...

Gotta love The Macalope.

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