Along with earnings that hit US$43.6 billion, Apple reported on Tuesday that it is more than doubling its investment in returning capital to investors. The company is adding $55 billion to its shareholder returns, bringing the total up to $100 billion, and includes a 15 percent increase in the quarterly dividend.

As some investors feared, Apple on Tuesday reported numbers that were worse than its performance a year ago for the second quarter—though the company still saw record sales for its March quarter.

The company posted $43.6 billion in revenue for the quarter, with net profit of $9.5 billion. That puts earnings at $10.09 per diluted share, down from $12.30 a year ago. In the same quarter last year, Apple reported $39.2 billion in revenue and profit of $11.6 billion.

While Wall Street is sure to take a dim view of Apple’s quarterly performance, it’s worth noting the company had a large bar to clear to surpass the second quarter of 2012. In that year-ago quarter, Apple saw profit nearly double to record levels for the March quarter on the strength of the strength of the third-generation iPad’s debut. In the just-completed quarter, Apple didn’t introduce...

Wall Street seems pleased with Apple’s announcements: beats on Q2 2013 earnings and a massive expansion of its cash return program for shareholders.

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Alongside today's earnings release, Apple also announced a major increase in its capital return program, boosting the previous $55 billion program to $100 program. Alongside a modest 15% increase in dividend payments, Apple is making a significant increase in its stock buyback initiative, taking advantage of the company's depressed stock price to reduce the amount of stock available on the market.The Company expects to utilize a total of $100 billion of cash under the expanded program by the end of calendar 2015. This represents a $55 billion increase to the program announced last year and translates to an average rate of $30 billion per year from the time of the first dividend payment in August 2012 through December 2015.

As part...

Apple reported sales US$43.6 billion and earnings per share of $10.09 for the March quarter on Tuesday. The results were ahead of Wall Street's consensus expectations of $42.49 billion in revenue and EPS of $10.07, that's ahead of last year's revenues of $39.2 billion, but as expected, the company's earnings of $9.5 billion were lower than 2012's $11.6 billion. The story was updated with additional details.

Apple has posted the results of its fiscal second quarter, which ended in March. The company reaped $43.6 billion in revenue, up 11 percent year-over-year. Net income was $9.5 billion, or $10.09 per share. That's down, however, from Q2 2012, when Apple posted net income of $11.6 billion with $12.30 in EPS. During the latest quarter, Apple recorded sales of 37.4 million iPhones, 19.5 million iPads, and approximately 4 million Macs. Gross margin was 37.5 percent, at the low end of earlier guidance....  ...

Just under a week after the last build, Apple has seeded developers with build 12E36 of the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4 release. Apple, again, asks developers to focus on WiFi performance, Graphics, and Safari. Thanks, D!

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Apple on Tuesday announced what the company characterized as a "significant increase" to its capital return program, with plans to utilize $100 billion in cash by the end of calendar 2015.  ...

Apple today announced financial results for the first calendar quarter of 2013 and second fiscal quarter of 2013. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $43.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $9.5 billion, or $10.09 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $39.2 billion and net quarterly profit of $11.6 billion, or $12.30 per diluted share in the year-ago quarter.

Gross margin for the quarter was 37.5 percent compared to 47.4 percent in the year-ago quarter, with international sales accounted for 66 percent of revenue. Apple also declared a new dividend payment of $3.05 per share, payable on May 16 to shareholders as of the close of trading on May 13. The company currently holds $145 billion in cash and marketable securities.

...

The rise of tablets, the drop in PC sales, and the shift in profit in the smartphone market means a changing set companies to watch.

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.

As planned, Apple has announced its Q2 2013 earnings results.

Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2013 second quarter ended March 30, 2013. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $43.6 billion and quarterly net profit of $9.5 billion, or $10.09 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $39.2 billion and net profit of $11.6 billion, or $12.30 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 37.5 percent compared to 47.4 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 66 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

The Company sold 37.4 million iPhones in the quarter, compared to 35.1 million in the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 19.5 million iPads during the quarter, compared to 11.8 million in the year-ago...

Just off the wires, Apple is more than doubling its capital returns citing its inability to stop making more money than it can spend to “operate the business, invest in our future, and maintain flexibility to take advantage of strategic opportunities.”

As part of this program, Apple’s board has increased its share repurchase authorization to $60 billion from the $10 billion level announced last year. This is the largest single share repurchase authorization in history and is expected to be executed by the end of calendar 2015. Apple also expects to utilize about $1 billion annually to net-share-settle vesting restricted stock units.

More details in the press release that follows:

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CUPERTINO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Apple® today announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a significant...

Apple announced record sales for its March quarter on Tuesday, thanks to strong demand for the iPhone and iPad. But the company’s quarterly profits fell from the year-ago quarter.

Apple’s revenue rose 11 percent to $43.6 billion for the quarter ended March 30. Income fell to $9.5 billion from $11.6 billion last year.

You can get a complete overview of Apple’s quarterly performance or follow the company’s quarterly briefing with analysts below.

Apple 2Q 2013 Financial Report

Click here to read: Apple 2Q 2013 Financial Report

A new Cut the Rope game has hit the App Store from ZeptoLab UK Limited. Cut the Rope: Time Travel ($1) features two monsters to feed in each level as the physics-based puzzler returns in different new settings, including the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, a pirate ship, ancient Egypt,…

Google has purchased natural language processing engine Wavii for more than $30 million, according to TechCrunch.

Read the full story on 9to5Google.

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Anybody who has been watching Apple's share prices since September 2012 would think that the company is in the midst of a huge crisis. Shares of AAPL have dropped from a high of over US$700 a share to around $400 now, and the financial press is sure that the company is doomed. Abdel Ibrahim, co-founder of The Tech Block and a technical analysis trader for about ten years, points out that based on a look at historical data, large upswings in AAPL share price followed by swift downturns are actually quite normal for the company.

Ibrahim based his analysis on what is called Fibonacci retracements, a method of technical analysis that uses "the idea that markets will retrace a predictable portion of a move, after which they will continue to move in the original direction." In other words, the share price will rise significantly, then fall back to a lower level before...

Google has bought aggregation and summarization startup Wavii for more than $30 million, winning a bidding war with Apple over the firm. TechCrunch is reporting that Apple wanted to integrate the company with its Siri division.
Both Apple and Google were competing for the Seattle-based startup, and Google eventually won. Apple wanted the company, which developed its own aggregation technology and natural summarizaton algorithms, for its Siri division. The 25-person-strong team including founder Adrian Aoun will be moving down from Seattle to join Google’s Knowledge Graph division.With more than $135 billion in cash, the $30 million price tag would not have been a significant outlay for Apple, but it appears the company did not value Wavii enough to outbid Google. Wavii had raised $2 million in venture funding.

Wavii's iOS app automatically...

Learn more about iTunes settings for iAd Producer 4 when developing iTunes LP and iTunes Extras widget project types.  

iAd Producer makes it easy for you to design and assemble rich interactive content without any programming.

This week, eCost.com has reduced the price on the refurbished LaCie 1TB Little Big Disk external hard drive with Thunderbolt from $450 down to $170, a savings of $280. That's about $180 less than buying this hard drive brand new anywhere else. This hard drive features 1TB of storage space in a compact, lightweight form factor with Thunderbolt connectivity that can be used to play, edit and acquire multiple uncompressed A/V streams directly from the drive regardless of the resolution of the content. A limited warranty is included from LaCie.... ...

We'll find out how Apple's financial fortunes are faring a bit later this afternoon, but for now there's a report out of The NPD Group showing that Apple now dominates home digital video the way it does the digital music market.

The numbers are staggering: Apple's iTunes Store had a 67 percent share of electronic sell-through (EST) for television shows in 2012. How big is that? The nearest competitor was Xbox Video with a 14 percent share of EST.

The stats were also in favor of Apple for feature-length movie downloads, with the company pulling in a 65 percent share of EST. Xbox Video and Amazon Instant video weren't...

Hewlett-Packard has just posted a video of its new touch-screen, graphing calculator to be released in the fall of 2013.  Early information for the HP Prime includes a BASIC programming language and ability to run various solver apps. It has 32 MB of RAM, 256 MB of Flash memory, a 3.5-inch color touch-screen with 320 x 240 resolution, and will be about 10 mm thick.  It looks to be derived from the previous family of HP-39g and HP-50g graphing calculator technology, but the new model has a beautiful brushed metal look and what seems to be a cleaner keyboard design. No pricing or specific release date has been announced. It's really great to see HP continuing its tradition of quality RPN hand-held calculators for engineering and science.

...

Some helpful tips (in the form of keyboard combinations) on getting wizardly fast with navigating around Windows 8:

• Windows key: Brings up the Start menu. On a touch screen keyboard you can then swipe through the charms in the Start menu.
• Windows-x: Brings up a menu with many of the systems administration tools you’ll need in Windows 8, including Disk Management, a command prompt, device manager, etc.
• Windows-r: Brings up a Run dialog
• Windows-c: Bring up the sidebar that allows you to search, access devices or tap/click on Settings to bring up a Shut-Down menu.
• Windows-l: Lock the screen
• Windows-k: Bring up Devices
• Windows-h: Bring up Sharing
• Windows-f: Bring up Files in the Start Menu search
• Windows-i: Bring up Settings (Control panel, personalization, desktop, Power menu, network selection for Wi-Fi, etc)
• Windows-Q: Brings up the apps screen so you can select a program to open
• ...

Philip Elmer-DeWitt posted a story about Samsung paying people to talk shit about Apple, then this happened.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Regardless of whether or not you think paying taxes for online purchases is right, it's time to get ready to pony up a little extra money when you buy from Internet stores. Cash strapped states are pushing for Internet sales tax, and it looks like the Federal government is ready to make that happen.

Quicken Essentials is your personal finance management solution.

• View your accounts all in one place. Our completely reimagined interface makes it easier than ever to see where you can save more and spend less.
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  Quicken Essentials for Mac personal finance software makes understanding your money a snap. Our interface has been completely reimagined, resulting in an intuitive, elegant application designed by-and for-Mac users.
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  Our easy to...

Nike continues to improve the now one-year-old Nike+ Fuelband by adding new features to its iOS app. The latest version ups your motivation by letting you compare your level of fitness with your friends. The new Nike+ Friends feature has a custom leader board that pulls in information from your Fuelband-wearing friends. Another new feature in version 1.5 lets you add a photo to your fitness highlights so you can show people where you were and who you were with when reached those milestones.

The Nike Fuelband app for iOS is available for free and requires a Nike+ Fuelband. The Fuelband is available from Nike or the...

Philip Elmer-Dewitt has assembled his quarterly list of analyst predictions ahead of Apple's earnings report this afternoon. The list includes estimates from 67 analysts: 26 "independent" and 41 "institutional" who work for large investment houses or research organizations.

This is one of the most important earnings calls of Apple CEO Tim Cook's tenure as CEO. Apple's stock price is down significantly from its highs of last year, and investors are concerned about Apple's growth prospects across both existing and new product lines.

Typically, the amateur analysts expect significantly higher revenue and earnings than the professionals, but Elmer-Dewitt notes the gap is less than...

Just as is the case with digital music downloads, iTunes' early-mover advantage in video downloads has secured it a massive lead over its competitors in the sector, according to new findings.   ...

With all of the Samsung vs. Apple conflict in the courts, one could be forgiven for losing track of the fact that Apple has a lingering patent dispute with Google's Motorola Mobility subsidiary as well. Bloomberg is reporting that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) recently upheld a previous court's judgement which held that a Motorola patent asserted against Apple was invalid.

The patent in question is U.S. Patent No. 6,246,862 and encompasses functionality whereby a mobile device ignores unintended touches when in close proximity to a user's face. This is the capability that allows touchscreen phones to avoid "cheekdialing" during a call.

The pertinent patent claim reads:

1. A portable communication device comprising:

a processing section to control operation of...

Similar to the Apple Store’s Genius Bar, AT&T now allows customers to schedule in-store appointments online for hands-on help in its retail locations.

Here’s how it works:

Visit www.att.com/storeappointment and choose the store nearest to you, or click “Make appointment” when you’re looking up store location information. One of our store or call center representatives can also help you schedule an appointment.

Choose from the available dates and times listed.

Enter your name, contact information and reason for your visit.

Once scheduled, simply head into the local AT&T store at the scheduled time.

The usual system...

The Camera Clip from Trygger slips over the camera opening in an iPhone 5 and provides a polarizing filter to eliminate glare and unwanted reflections in your photos.

Joe’s a great guy. I just downloaded the album.

∞ Read this on The Loop

We live in a world positively soaked in data nowadays. Fortunately, the capacity to store that data has gotten bigger in volume, smaller in physical size, and cheaper per gigabyte as time progresses. Gone are the days where you'd have to lug a Zip disk around (remember those?) or stick your iPod into disk mode. At worst you're carrying a USB drive with you -- though really, you should be relying on the cloud for by now. The issue is figuring out just what you're going to be keeping up there....  ...

Following a removal from the App Store last September, AppShopper has returned with a new social-based app discovery tool. Dubbed AppShopper Social, the all new app contains the core Wish List functionality from the original software, but introduces new social discovery features. The app's main view consists of a Friend Stream that provides users with a stream of items that friends have added to their personal Wish List of My Apps lists. Other features such as Push Notifications for updates and price changes and app searching have also returned with AppShopper Social, while the What's New and... ...

A new single released today.

∞ Read this on The Loop

From 9to5Toys.com:

After it started offering a selection of refurbished 5th generation iPod touch through the Apple online store earlier this month, Apple today began selling the refurbished 16GB, 7th generation iPod nano in various colors for $129. That’s $20 or 13% off retail, but we’ve seen these refurbished units go for as low as $119 on 9to5Toys.

Apple today also began selling the refurbished iPad 2 and iPad 3 at even lower prices than before with the 16GB iPad 2 with WiFi + 3G now starting at $349 (roughly $180 off retail). Apple has...

Apple has won rights to two more US patents, says AppleInsider. The first covers a "digital handshake" between mobile devices, using an image to generate an authentication key. One device takes a photo of the other, capturing either a dynamic key from an app or information permanently embedded within a device's housing or bezel. Filters, flash, or infrared might be needed to register key data, or even a specialized chip integrated into the camera....  ...

This afternoon, Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer will host Apple's Q2 2013 earnings call to discuss the company's financial fortunes for the quarter ending March 31, 2012. As always, TUAW is hosting a liveblog of the event, during which we'll be providing commentary on the actual results, questions from the financial community, and how the results are likely to affect Apple's share price.

The call is scheduled at 5 PM ET today and our liveblog will begin at 4:50 PM ET. If you're an IRC user, we'll have a chat room set up on server irc.freenode.net, chat room #tuaw so you can converse with the TUAW team and others. You can listen to a live audio stream of the event here.

Join us for...

Apple today began offering refurbished models of the seventh-generation iPod nano in its online store, more than six months after the redesigned device was released. The addition comes roughly a week after Apple began offering refurbished fifth-generation iPod touch models.

The refurbished seventh-generation iPod nano models come with 16 GB of storage and are priced at $129, a $20 discount from the standard price. All seven standard colors of the iPod nano are currently available, although the special (PRODUCT) RED version is unavailable in the refurbished store.

Apple's refurbished units come equipped with the same one-year warranty that...

Infinite Loop Apps has released Document Templates for Pages on Mac OS X. It features a collection of 60 document templates for commercial and personal use.

The app provides options for creating content ranging from flyers and business cards to greetings and invoices. Also, the designs range from modern to retro.

Designs are sorted into 10 categories: Brochures, Business Cards, Calendars , Cards & Invitations, Envelopes, Flyers, Forms, Letters, Newsletters and Reports. Specific documents like Newsletters, Reports or Brochures have different layouts.

read more

WD is shipping what it says is the world's first ultra-slim 2.5-inch, 5 mm hard drives and solid state hybrid drives (SSHD), which are designed for integration into the slimmest devices and space-constrained computing environments.

With 500GB of storage capacity and models with high performance-enabling solid state hybrid drive technology, this slim product line helps to address the tradeoffs system designers often make between capacity, physical size and performance, says Matt Rutledge, vice president of WD's client computing business unit.

read more

Logitech has introduced the FabricSkin Keyboard Folio for iPad ($150), a folio with a thin, fabric, Bluetooth keyboard that resembles the Microsoft Surface keyboard. The folio case also includes a view stand for the iPad, and a magnetic clasp to keep the case closed. Keys are full-sized and feature…

Akitio has released a new 256GB, one-bay, bus-powered Thunderbolt storage solution. It's a follow-up to the company’s 120GB SSD solution, which was previously launched in 2012.

Akitio has upgraded the 120GB SSD to meet the demand of consumers by rising up to the challenge and offering an upgraded 256 GB SSD version of the Neutrino Thunderbolt, says Richard Wright, director of Global Distribution, Akitio. In addition, the 256 GB version is the fastest one bay bus powered external storage device on the market today with 464 MB/s data transfer speeds, he adds.

read more

Organizations across the world are starting to see the need for platforms that help them shorten presentations in dynamic and direct ways. While PowerPoint still has a 95% share of the presentation software market1, forward-thinking companies, like Apple, Amazon and Facebook, have already taken steps to retire their hour-long sales presentations and decks full of tech-speak and industry-speak in favor of new presentation styles, according to Sheffield Marketing Partners.

read more

Belkin has announced its next-generation NetCam HD Wi-Fi Camera that provides users with instantaneous access via a smartphone or tablet to pets, children and other family members at home in 720p high-definition (HD) video resolution and digital audio.

read more

At 4.30pm Eastern, Apple will report its Q2 results (and we’ll be covering it live). It’s the day when the last three months of analyst predictions and forecasts come home to roost.

Apple’s newly-realistic guidance revenue is $41b to $43b, with margins of 37.5 – 38.5 percent. These numbers would suggest earnings per share of just over $10 …

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Yahoo Finance has averages for over 40 analysts, and is predicting revenue of $42.59b, towards the upper end of Apple’s guidance, and earnings per share of $10.07:

Piper Jaffray analyst  Gene Munster has put together a comparison table of what he thinks the ‘buy side’ (the mutual funds, pension funds and insurance companies who buy stock in large volume) expects compare to ‘the Street’ (the investment bankers and analysts).

...

Apple's online services are again suffering outages, their official system status page indicates. Between 7:20 and 9:32AM Eastern, some people may have been unable to access the iTunes Store or make purchases there. Still ongoing however are problems preventing people from creating Apple IDs or signing into Game Center, as well as authentication errors when trying to use iCloud. The latter may also prevent people from setting up a new iCloud account....  ...

It’s not a whopping amount of justice, but it’s still justice.

Or at least a settlement.

Per 9to5Mac, iPhone 4 owners who participated in a class action lawsuit against Apple over antenna attenuation complaints are finally starting to receive settlement checks.

More than a year ago, Apple reached a settlement with attorneys for the class action complaint, agreeing to pay US$53 million to make the problem go away after supposedly “misrepresenting and concealing material information in the marketing, advertising, sale, and servicing of its iPhone 4 — particularly as it relates to the...

Building on from its 7mm release last year, Western Digital has started shipping its first hard drives and solid state hybrid drives (SSHD) that measure 5mm (0.2-inches) thick. The new WD Blue and WD Black 2.5-inch drives are made to allow for even thinner notebook and ultrabook designs, while still providing a sizable amount of storage for the end user....  ...

iPhone 4's "antennagate" was sparked by users holding the device like so.

Chris Foresman / Ars Technica

iPhone 4 owners who filed claims over the so-called "antennagate" have begun receiving their settlement checks. Posts about the checks began popping up on Twitter in addition to sites like 9to5Mac, where several readers confirmed they had received their $15 payouts.

The iPhone 4 was released in July of 2010 and was immediately met with controversy over its "work of genius" antenna design. Unlike previous in iPhones, Apple had designed the iPhone 4 so the stainless steel bezel on the outside of the phone would act as antennas for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular. But a weak spot was discovered by users who...

The US$15 "AntennaGate" settlement checks have started arriving for qualifying iPhone 4 users, as noted by "TUAW" (http://tinyurl.com/dyrsbwv).

The checks are a settlement for those who filed a claim in a class action lawsuit against Apple for "misrepresenting and concealing material information in the marketing, advertising, sale, and servicing of its iPhone 4–particularly as it relates to the quality of the mobile phone antenna and reception and related software."

read more

I really enjoyed this piece by Abdel Ibrahim looking at the history of Apple’s stock movement.

∞ Read this on The Loop

NPD today released a new report highlighting the U.S. online digital video market for 2012, finding that Apple continues to dominate both purchases and rentals.

In looking at purchased content, Apple holds a commanding 67% of the TV show market and 65% of the movie market, with its closest competitors Xbox Video and Amazon each holding roughly 10% of the market.

While the competition is tighter in the rental market, Apple still holds a solid lead with 45% of the market for digital movie rentals, with Amazon taking second place at 18%.

“Apple has successfully leveraged its first-mover advantage and of iTunes, iOS and the popularity of iPhone and iPad to dominate the digital sale and rental markets for movies and music,” said Russ Crupnick, senior vice president of industry analysis at NPD. “While worthy competitors have come...

QuickBooks Pro 2013 helps you manage your business easily and efficiently. Organize your finances all in one place, track money going in and out of your business, and spot areas where you can save.

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• Create invoices, pay bills, and manage expenses
• Gain insight into your business with over 100 reports
• New tool lets you easily track mileage
• New multi-user options offer simultaneous access to QuickBooks data

Version 14.0.7 R8:

• Accounts Receivable: Fixed an issue that prevented a user from applying existing credits to an invoice after installing R7.
• Includes: Receive payments

OS X 10.7.3 or later

Download Now

As first reported by AppleInsider, Apple has begun restricting the use of special characters in app descriptions in the App Store. For now, the special characters Apple is restricting are the checkmark, the explosion, the "no symbol," and the speech bubble. One can only hope that Apple will eventually add emoji faces to that list, some app descriptions have a decidedly unappealing "MySpace" feel.

The new iconography rules came into place on April 19th. While Apple did not specify a reason for the changes, it's easy to speculate the company wants a more uniform appearance in its App Store listings, instead of letting some developers using checkmarks as bullet points while others use, you know, real bullet points.

Apple begins...

Users of Apple's online services may be experiencing yet another outage today, with the company's system status page showing issues with both iCloud account sign-in and the iTunes Store over the past several hours. Apple's status page does not reveal the percentage of users experiencing issues, noting only that "some" users are affected, but we have received a number of reports about the services being down.

Outages of Apple's services have been relatively common occurrences, with occasional iMessage outages being among the most noticeable for users.

Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• $15...

iPhone 4 owners who filed claims in a class-action lawsuit against Apple over the device's antenna have begun receiving $15 settlement checks in the mail.  ...

Discovery Communications updated two of its iOS apps today with a brand new second screen experience dubbed “Plus”. Available for the Discovery Channel HD app and...

via aereo.com

Aereo, which streams over-the-air television to Internet-connected devices, announced today that it will launch next in Boston on May 15. The company implements some clever techniques to enable remote television streaming, which has upset the industry and kept the company in and out of court. We’re pleased to see Aereo moving forward.

More Than 4.5...

Typinator turbo-charges your typing productivity.

Type a little. Typinator does the rest.

We've all faced projects that require repetitive typing tasks. With Typinator, you can store commonly used text and images in quick keywords and abbreviations. From email templates to code snippets to website URLs, there's no easier way to recreate repetitive text at a moment's notice.

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• Uncomplicated configuration. Quickly and easily create abbreviations and assign replacement text and pictures.
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The US$15 'AntennaGate' settlement checks have started arriving for qualifying iPhone 4 users. The checks are a settlement for those who filed a claim in a class action lawsuit against Apple for "misrepresenting and concealing material information in the marketing, advertising, sale, and servicing of its iPhone 4-particularly as it relates to the quality of the mobile phone antenna and reception and related software."

One reader told us, "My $15 Apple iPhone4 AntennaGate settlement check came today. It has been so long I forgot what it was for and had to look it up." The reason for the delay, however, was because though AntennaGate happened with the release of the iPhone 4 in 2010, the lawsuit was not settled until February 2012. Claimants have until July 16 to cash their checks. If you did not file a claim previously, you can no longer do so.

...

Update, 9:34 AM: Apple has now updated its System Status page to confirm the outages we reported earlier this morning. Apple reports some users experienced issues with account & sign in for iCloud as well as purchases for iTunes:

Over the last couple of months Apple’s iCloud servers have been experiencing major outages approximately every couple of weeks and today a growing number of users are once again complaining of issues accessing various iCloud services.

9to5Mac readers in several countries have reached out to Apple support who confirmed the outages, although Apple is yet to update its System Status page to reflect the downtime. Apple is typically at least a few hours behind in reporting outages.

As highlighted...

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 54 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we briefly cover two of Apple's granted patents. The first relates to Virtual Input Tools and the second covers a cool idea called a "virtual expander" for the iPad which has yet to come to market. ...

When Google announced it was killing its Reader app July 1, it not only annoyed hordes of users, it pulled the rug out from under app developers who built their livelihoods on the web software. One of those app makers is Silvio Rizzi, maker of Reeder. a free RSS program for iPhone, iPad and Mac. Like all the developers that plugged into Reader, Rizzi is facing extinction. However, he's not quite ready to go into that good night yet. "One thing that's clear: Development of Reeder will continue after July 1st," Rizzi wrote on his blog.

If you deal with EPUB (electronic publication documents), you should check out EPUB Viewer for Mac OS X (US$29) from Enolsoft. EPUBL is a a free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). Files have the extension .epub.

read more

Employers continue to be concerned about the risk and liability posed by employee use of mobile devices while driving on the job. Seven in 10 companies have adopted written policies designed to curb employee distracted driving, but only 32% are confident that current enforcement methods are effective at achieving compliance.

These are among the new findings from Aegis Mobility’s third-annual survey of 547 fleet safety and risk management professionals. Key findings include:

read more

Apple has won the last of six patent infringement claims filed by Motorola, after the US International Trade Commission agreed with Apple that the patent was invalid for ‘lack of novelty’, aka being too obvious.

When you lift your iPhone to your face to make or receive a call, the touchscreen is disabled to prevent accidental input. Motorola claimed to have patented this approach, Apple argued that it was an obvious thing to do and the USITC has agreed with them. The other claims by Motorola, dismissed previously, related to wifi, 3G and UMTS.

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The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 54 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. In our first granted patent report of the day we cover Apple's wild invention relating to the creation a comic book from video game play and two design patent wins.  ...

Apple on Tuesday was granted patent rights to a novel data transfer invention that allows one device to use its built-in camera to take a picture of a second device, and extract a digital handshake key from the image to setup a secure connection.  ...

Apple is opening a new store in Melbourne, Australia this weekend at the Highpoint Shopping Centre. The new store, the second in Melbourne, will open at 10 AM local time on Saturday, April 27. The company is also, say sources, close to opening a store in Adelaide in South Australia, the first for that city and the state. Job listings for the Adelaide store gave away its presence, along with a signature black curtain covering part of the frontage of Rundle Place. Apple has opened seven other stores in Australia in just the past two years....  ...

The US Senate voted to move the online sales tax bill forward. The bill, known as the "Marketplace Fairness Act," will mandate collection of sales tax for purchases even across state lines by companies having annual online sales of more than $1 million per year. The bill was passed by a 74-20 margin, greatly exceeding the 60 votes is needed for cloture....  ...

On the heels of its earning announcements in which it saw a significant jump in users, Netflix has updated its iOS app (free) to version 4.0 with various improvements in episode selection, audio and subtitle selection and various bug fixes. The iPad gets a new episode chooser to make finding specific episodes of a TV show easier, while both the iPhone and iPad versions gain a redesigned audio and subtitle options selector. Alongside the update, Netflix announced it would begin offering a $12 per month "family plan," with up to four simultaneous streams.... ...

Timebar ($2.99) has got to be one of the wackier utilities I've come across but it's one that may deserve to find a loyal audience.

It works like this: You pull down the menu, set a stop time and an optional audio alert. Click "Start" and boom, the menu bar at the top of your screen transforms into a progress bar. A blue line moves from right to left, providing a visual indicator of the time remaining.

Now, honestly, this app may not be for everyone. I found the moving bar at the top of my screen gave me a migraine (not a joke migraine, an actual migraine migraine), but I doubt this kind of motion sensitivity will affect most users. If you, like me, have carefully disabled every animation detail on your desktop (no bouncing icons, thank you, no window zooms), the app may not be right for you.

I thought it offered a cute idea and implementation. I particularly liked its "snooze"...

If your Bluetooth devices are not maintaining proper connections, then poor signal strength may be to blame.

Macworld is reporting that Apple added a welcome tweak to large media purchases initiated either via the mobile iTunes Store or iTunes 11. Users attempting to download large media files such as movies or music box sets are presented a prompt enabling them to commence the download immediately or save it for a time when they presumably have better bandwidth.

When purchasing any of the above items using iTunes 11 on a Mac or Windows PC, or an iOS device running iOS 6 or later, you're now presented with Later and Download (or Download All) buttons. Tap Later and the purchased items will be added to your iTunes account and accessible to stream or download in the future via Apple's iTunes in the Cloud feature.

The option to 'download later' is exclusively applicable to TV seasons, Season Passes, movie bundles, music box sets, individual...

No one could see the Xsan volume. Logged into Xsan Admin, the volume was unmounted for everyone. Mounted the volume and Xsan Admin said it mounted for everyone. No errors in the logs. In a nice place mentally, I stepped away from my desk. The phone rings, no one has access to the volume. Crap, what now? Log in, shows mounted. Log into a client, well, isn’t there. The other volumes are on the desktop. Go to /Volumes and it doesn’t appear there. Go to /Volumes/VOLUMENAME and viola, it’s there. But in the sidebar it’s hidden?!?!?!

There aren’t any options in the volume.cfg file in /Library/Preferences/Xsan that deal with this issue… Turns out that just like any other file, you can actually set an Xsan volume to invisible. I hadn’t ever tried so didn’t realize it was actually possible.

To fix, run:

SetFile -a v /Volumes/VOLUMENAME

Doing an xattr doesn’t actually nuke this issue.

xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo /Volumes/VOLUMENAME

For giggles, I...

There’s a product out there called SANFusion that can allow Media Composer to read disk images on Xsan as though each were a separate workspace in AvidFS. This allows environments to leverage existing pools of storage sitting on Xsan as though they were sitting on an Isis or a Terablock. Check it out at SANFusion:

SAN Fusion is an easy and cost-effective solution that allows you to use Avid Media Composer with your existing Xsan infrastructure.

By using an existing Xsan volume as a backing-store for SAN Fusion’s virtualized workspaces, editors can experience authentic Unity-style bin sharing and locking from within Media Composer 5.5.3 or later. Unlike other solutions that purport to make Avid work with Xsan, SAN Fusion is a client-side application with no additional server or minimum number of seats to buy.

SAN Fusion clients mount and unmount workspaces on demand through our intuitive GUI to provide Media...

New submitter Rideak writes with this excerpt from CNet about an ITC ruling against Motorola in their case against Apple for violating a few of their proximity sensor patents: "The U.S. International Trade Commission today ended Motorola's case against Apple, which accused the iPhone and Mac maker of patent infringement. In a ruling (PDF), the ITC said that Apple was not violating Motorola's U.S. patent covering proximity sensors, which the commission called 'obvious.' It was the last of six patents Motorola aimed at Apple as part of an October 2010 complaint."

...

Pelican is well-known by professionals in photography, the military, and government for their incredibly strong carrying cases. Now they've brought their expertise to the iPhone 5 with the new Pelican ProGear Vault Series case (Model CE1180, US$79.95), which appears to be one of the first iPhone cases that could survive being run over by a locomotive.

Design

All kidding aside, the ProGear Vault Series case is really the first iPhone case that's truly worthy of carrying the Pelican Case name. The case is made of an "engineering grade polymer outer shell with elastomeric liner," which is marketing-speak for "hard, almost-bulletproof case with a soft insert."

Four flush-fit hex-head screws hold an aircraft aluminum faceplate in place. There's also a screen guard with a scratch-resistant coating that fits under that faceplate. To install and remove the protective shell, a small...

Popular Twitter app Twitterrific received a healthy update on Monday, adding push notification alerts with app badges, Favstar tracker support and performance enhancements.   ...

Volkswagen gets ready to premiere its FahrvergiPhonenügen, the problems with MobileMe finally get laid at the feet of the man responsible, and Apple extends a helping hand in China. The remainders for Monday, April 22, 2013 are working overtime—fighting crime, fighting crime.

World premiere – the new iBeetle Auto Shanghai (Volkswagen Media Services)

For all of you who hoped that Apple would some day make a car, Volkswagen is apparently getting ready to release the new iBeetle, the first Volkswagen that includes an iPhone dock. I’m telling you, people, this is the automotive innovation of 2009.

You are not Steve Jobs (Medium)

...

“Pro Tools 11 represents a quantum leap in creative power,” said Chris Gahagan, senior vice president of Products and Services at Avid. “The newly designed architecture turbo-charges production with more plug-in processing, the ability to run more virtual instruments—and a host of new features—letting users create ambitiously, without holding anything back.”

∞ Read this on The Loop

John Lennon's Lennon Educational Tour Bus is a non-profit state-of-the-art mobile audio and HD video recording studio. For the last sixteen years the Bus has provided youth with tours of the studio as well as free songwriting and multimedia production classes. The bus has three on-board engineers who teach students writing, performing, recording, and producing their own original songs, as well as producing and shooting broadcast quality music videos, in a single day.

Thanks to sponsorships from Apple and other leading companies in the tech and production world, participants are able to work with professional quality gear and computers in their educational pursuits.

The tour has its own official iPhone app featuring news, tour dates, and videos and pictures from the bus.

You can find some of the videos produced on the bus on its Y...

The US International Trade Commission (USITC) has tossed Motorola Mobile's final patent claim against Apple from its 2010 complaint. Google and Motorola Mobile were attempting to obtain a sales embargo on any iPhones using the technology. The patent asserted was a "sensor controlled user interface for portable communication device" which gives mobile devices the ability to "lock out" screen touches when the phone is up to a user's ear while taking a phone call....  ...

Google is on a legal losing streak. On Friday a German court denied Google's Motorola an injunction against Microsoft over a push notification patent that is most likely invalid. Today the United States International Trade Commission threw out the last patent-in-suit (PDF) remaining in the investigation of Motorola's October 2010 complaint against Apple. U.S. Patent No. 6,246,862 on a "sensor controlled user interface for portable communication device" was found invalid. ...

Security firm Lookout has detailed a clever new bit of Android Malware lurking in the Google Play store. The good news: unless you’re downloading questionable Russian clone apps, you’re probably not affected. The bad news: that hasn’t kept it from being downloaded a few million times.

Nice going Google.

∞ Read this on The Loop

The U.S. International Trade Commission on Monday ended a two-and-a-half year patent suit leveraged by Motorola against Apple, throwing out the the case as the last of six patents-in-suit was found to be invalid.   ...

Priceline.com is one of the most well-known flight and hotel booking sites out there, and the company recently shared some information with TUAW about how its mobile device-based users tend to set up travel. The company identified three trends for the people booking flights from mobile devices like iPhones and iPads, presumably through the company's iOS app.

First, those who booked air travel on mobile devices tended to be younger than the average purchaser of a flight ticket on a desktop. The average age for a mobile booker was around 32, about six years younger than desktop users. That still seems old to me, but it makes sense that the people booking flights tend to be older, as they're most likely to have the money for traveling this way.

Mobile air bookers also tend to book things closer in advance, says Priceline, and about half of those booking...

As Apple's Austin, Tex., campus project moves closer to completion, new pictures of the expansion reveal work is continuing steadily, with a new parking garage going up and exterior glass being installed in one of the buildings.  ...

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Meyer must really be cracking the whip lately, as the company has been on a roll when it comes to updating its apps or coming out with completely new apps like Yahoo! Weather. Today's news is that the company has updated its namesake iOS news app (free) to version 3.0, adding an exhaustive list of new features.

According to a post on the company's blog allegedly written by Meyer, the new Yahoo! mobile app uses "Summly's natural-language algorithms and machine learning to deliver quick story summaries." Yahoo! acquired Summly less than a month ago, so it's fascinating to see that the app was updated with the new capabilities so quickly.

Users of the app can now choose to focus on their favorite type of news, continually tweaking the...

On Saturday morning, Apple opened up its new Southdale Center store in Edina, Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis. A long lineup is reported to have formed outside the shop, which is replacing a smaller outlet Apple ran in the Edina mall. During the past couple of years the company has been upgrading a number of stores that are overcrowded or don't match its current preferred aesthetics....  ...

Google Earth gives you a wealth of imagery and geographic information. Explore destinations like Maui and Paris, or browse content from Wikipedia, National Geographic, and more.

Google Earth combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain, and 3D buildings to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips.

• Fly to your house. Just type in an address, press Search, and you'll zoom right in.
• Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions.
• Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings.
• Save and share your searches and favorites.

Version 7.1.1.1580:

New features:

• Ability to create rich, annotated images from print and save
• Redesigned print flow
• Viewshed/Line of Sight analysis tool from a placemark
• Support for LEAP Motion device
• ...

A good look at the smartphone market by Benedict Evans.

∞ Read this on The Loop

While Apple emerged victorious in its patent suit against Samsung last Summer, the two tech behemoths have another trial looming concerning Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone along with a slew of other Samsung devices. Consequently, 2014 will see both Apple and Samsung take center stage yet again in an entirely new patent suit, held in the same jurisdiction with the same judge.

The 2014 patent trial is currently in the discovery phase of litigation, and Florian Mueller recently stumbled upon a rather interesting motion filed by Apple entitled, "Google's Search Methodology Was Clearly Flawed."

The gist of the memo is that Apple has asked Google for certain documentation in connection with the aforementioned litigation, and that Google's search methodology in carrying out Apple's requests has been wanting.

In large and complex litigation suits like the one...

Apple has quietly added a "Later" option for iTunes downloads, reports say. The feature appears in both iTunes 11 and iOS 6, and lets people buy larger files without immediately downloading them. Items then show up in the Purchased section of a person's iTunes account, where they can then be downloaded when a reliable Internet connection is available....  ...