E-Book Systems has announced FlipViewer Xpress Creator 1.0 (http://www.flipviewer.com/en/index_en), a wizard-based software solution for Mac OS X. It's being offered an an introductory price of US$750. You can request a trial version at www.flipviewer.com/contact .

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From 9to5Toys.com:

Ahead of the official May 3rd...

Apple will finally open its first Berlin Apple Store on May 3 at 5 PM local time, according to the company's website. The timing of the Kurfürstendamm launch is unusual, as Apple normally prefers to host openings on Saturday mornings. Between May 3 and 5, the store will also be operating at unusual hours: on the 3rd and 4th it will be open until 10 PM, and on the 5th it will operate between 1 PM and 6 PM. The store's normal hours have it closing at 8 PM Monday through Saturday, and staying shut completely on Sundays....  ...

Limited availability of Samsung's new flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone has led to delayed launches at Sprint and T-Mobile, the third- and fourth-largest carriers in the U.S.   ...

It's been years coming, but Delicious Monster has finally released Delicious Library 3. The Mac app catalogs your DVDs, CDs, books and video games, and the new version expands that to include pretty much all of your stuff -- meaning you probably don't own enough to overfill the app. It still tracks who you lend to, plus it now offers up recommendations on what you might like to add to your collections, and includes charts showing the value of everything you've amassed. Along with using your Mac's camera to read barcodes, there's now a companion iPhone app that scans and stores items, then transfers the data to Delicious Library via Wi-Fi. Delicious Library 3 is priced at US$24.99 and is available at Apple's Mac App Store. Delicious Scanner for the iPhone and iPad is a free download through the App Store.

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Office 2011 is a common application to get baked into an InstaDMG image (or any other pre-compiled, modular style image).  There are a few quirks to installing Office 2011 in this way as it was made to be installed on a live system.  Noel Alonso put a script together that fixes some of these issues on the Office 2011 SP3 Installer.  These changes help it install correctly and also fix some bugs with the installer itself.  You can take a look at the script over on Noel’s 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...

Delicious Library allows you to import, browse, and share all your books, movies, music and video games with Delicious Library.

Run your very own library from your home or office using our impossibly simple interface. Delicious Library's digital shelves act as a visual card-catalog of your books, movies, music and video games.

A scan of a barcode is all Delicious Library needs to add an item to your digital shelves, downloading tons of info from the Internet like the author, release date, current value, description, and even a high-resolution picture of the cover. Import your entire library using our exclusive full-speed iSight video barcode scanner, our Flic Wireless Laser Bar Code Scanner, or (the slow way) entering the titles by hand. Once you have all of your items in your Mac, you can browse though your digital shelves, check stuff out to friends using Apple's built-in Address Book and calendar, and find new items to read, watch, and play using...

Perforce Software (www.perforce.com) has released five tips for software teams to consider this spring when managing their development environments. The suggestions are guidelines for maintaining well-organized codebases and improving development processes.

"Springtime is when software projects begin to pick up steam, but longer days don't have to equal longer delivery cycles," says Randy DeFauw, senior product manager at Perforce. "With a well-maintained and well-managed codebase, companies can have peace of mind while ramping up to launch various projects."

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Equinux has updated Mail Designer for Mac OS X (10.5.8 and higher) to version 1.3. The upgrade sports an interface to send and distribute mail designs and newsletters with Campaign Monitor.

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On April 25, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a new automotive access and control system that will primarily be found in future iPhones. Last June we posted a report that revealed Apple's in-vehicle initiative with nine major auto companies to integrate Siri into popular vehicles regarding "Hands Free Navigation." Today we learn that Apple's work may be going far beyond just integrating Siri and that's major news. Apple's patent filing reveals that future iPhones will be able to open your car door, start your engine, shut off your engine for specific time frames ... ...

Stellar Data Recovery has revved Stellar Phoenix JPEG Repair, an app for repairing damaged JPEG/JPG image files, to version 2.0. The new version sports a faster scanning and recovery engine.

A free version of the software can be downloaded from www.stellarinfo.com/ .A full version of Phoenix JPEG Repair is available for US$39.

Hopper is a Mac app for deconstructing binaries for analysis and debugging. If you're not a developer it's probably not for you, but it's a cool tool nonetheless, built from scratch by a developer who built it himself. Once again a developer needed something, didn't like what was out there, and built what he needed then used Apple's storefront to sell it in case others needed the same thing. In fact, in this case there were only some Windows tools, clumsily ported to Mac in some cases so Vincent built Hopper to his standards.

Origin Stories: Hopper originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 25 Apr 2013 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | ...

New figures compiled by Strategy Analytics shows that Windows 8 OEM's shipped a combined total of 3 million Windows tablets in calendar Q1 for 2013. The tablet market reached an all-time high of 40.6 million branded tablet shipments for the quarter, a 117 percent increase from the 18.7 million sold for the same period in 2012. Apple retained a dominant 48 percent share of the branded market with 19.5 million tablets sold, singlehandedly shipping more than the total number of branded tablets that shipped globally in Q1 2012.... ...

An Apple patent application published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday suggests the company may be looking to build out its mapping service, as the filing describes a printing function not currently supported by the iOS-only feature.  ...

The most reliable Windows laptop is… the mid-2012 13: MacBook Pro running Boot Camp, according to a report by PC management firm Soluto. Over the course of a three-month study, the MacBook Pro bested models from Acer, Dell, and others thanks to its superior construction and lack of the commonly preinstalled Windows “crapware” (to quote the report). It is the second most expensive machine in the top 10, cheaper only than the 15" MacBook Pro with Retina display that ranked 6th in reliability.

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 announced its second fiscal quarter earnings this week, so Jeff and Bryan dive in to sort out what mattered, what hints at future plans were shared, and what impact waiting until fall to release new products may have. They did their best to stay on topic, but you should bring along your sci-fi hat, too.

With almost 1300 votes from iLounge readers, our latest recent poll—“How should iOS 7 look?”—has now ended. Following rumours about the work being done by Jony Ive on polishing iOS 7, we asked readers to let us know what they should think the next major iOS release should look like.…

Amazon is reportedly working on its own TV settop box for streaming videos under its Instant Video -branded service. Citing three unnamed sources, Bloomberg said the product is being built in Amazon's Lab126 division in Cupertino, CA, under the direction of several settop and video engineering veterans.

The Mac Observer Spin:
The question in our mind is why the networks and studios that have met Apple's desires in this same space with such resistance have so freely licensed streaming rights to Amazon.

Forget warp drive, Mr. Fission and flying cars. For a real glimpse of tomorrow's technology today, it's hard to imagine anything cooler than charging your iPhone with a tablespoon of water. Contributing Editor Chuck La Tournous looks at the PowerTrekk -- a hydrogen fuel cell that's barely indistiguishable from magic.

Apple hinted during its second quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday that it may not have any big product announcements coming until this fall, and that has Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley expecting the company's June quarter to be fairly weak. While he sees a strong fall in store for the company, he's lowering his 12-month target price for Apple's stock from US$600 down to $560.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Just because Tim Cook was firm on his fall product announcement comment, that doesn't mean there won't be any big news this spring and summer. With WWDC scheduled for June, there's a chance that we'll get some kind of announcement in about six weeks.

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The details about WWDC have been posted.  It will be from June 10-14, registration opens on April 25th (Tomorrow!) at 10am PDT, 1pm EST.  Check it out here.

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.

Mail |...

Apple will be hosting its annual Worldwide Developers Conference June 10 through June 14, but you'll have to wait just a little bit longer to get your tickets. Developers planning on attending the annual event get order their tickets online starting at 10AM pacific time on Thursday, April 25, and they'll probably go fast.

Apple released Apple Store 2.6 for the iPhone and iPod touch on Tuesday, adding the ability to receive notifications when iPhone owners are eligible for upgrades. The APple Store app lets users purchase products, set up in-store appointments, and more.

During Apple's Q2 2013 earnings report, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that despite a slight decline in Mac sales, the company is still very committed to innovation and investment in the Macintosh. There is no change in the Mac strategy.

As Apple’s second-quarter 2013 financial results conference call began, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced first half revenue of more than $98 billion, and net income of more than $22 billion, including sales of 85 million iPhones and iPads. He acknowledged Apple’s growth rate has slowed from a high level. Cook…

Apple has reported its financial results for its fiscal 2013 second quarter, ending March 30. The company announced it sold 37.4 million iPhones, compared to 35.1 million in the same quarter last year, but down from 47.8 million iPhones last quarter. Apple sold 19.5 million iPads, as opposed to…

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.

Shares of Apple Inc. rose on Tuesday as investors awaited the company's quarterly earnings report. Apple will release its March quarter results at 5:00 PM EDT (2:00 PM PDT), and Wall Street pushed $AAPL higher to end the day at US$406.13, up $7.46 (+1.87 percent), on strong volume of 17.8 million shares trading hands.

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

Learn more about changes to importing image assets in iAd Producer 4.0. 

Apple is now selling refurbished seventh-generation iPod nanos in its online store for $129. All colors are now available, except for red. Refurbished fifth-generation iPod touch models also recently went on sale in the online store. [via 9to5Mac]

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.

U.S. iPhone 4 owners who participated in Apple’s class action settlement for “antennagate” issues are now receiving their $15 checks in the mail. The class action settlement, announced in March 2012, offered iPhone 4 owners a $15 cash payment or free bumper case. At this point, the deadline for…

The U.S. International Trade Commission gave Motorola Mobility a tough pill to swallow on Monday when it invalidated the company's proximity sensor patent. The ruling killed the last remaining patent in Motorola's 2010 infringement lawsuit against Apple, and shot down Google's hopes of eventually winning an iPhone import ban.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Google and Motorola have to overcome two major points to overturn the ITC's ruling, which won't be an easy task. So far, Google's decision to purchase Motorola Mobility for its patent portfolio isn't working out so well in court.

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TMO cofounder Bryan Chaffin spent an hour with Gene Steinberg on the Tech Night Owl this weekend, and the show is available now. The two chatted about Apple, Eric Schmidt's comments on mini-drones, and Samsung getting caught red-handed paying for anonymous bashing of a competitor in Taiwan. Sounds like fun, right?!

There will be much ado about Apple earnings report on April 23. In order to better understand Apple's results, John Martellaro analyzes Apple's new approach to reporting its revenue guidance for the future quarter.  The analysis involves computer models and, gotta love it, Ferraris.

If you print your contacts in list view from the Contacts app, the list may print in a random order. Contacts may print without attached photos after checking the option to print with an attached photo.

One of the rising topics of discussion that continually returns to every single Mac Admin conference, gathering, and website is the deployment of iPads.  iPads have become ubiquitous, for users, schools, and businesses now, and suddenly lots of system admins, technology coordinators, directors, and supervisors are being tasked with adopting iPads into their businesses, and many of them are scrambling to figure out the best strategies for mass dissemination of Apple’s latest flagship product.  The nitty-gritty details and best practices of deploying iPads has been discussed often, and we won’t see many changes to it until the release of iOS 7, when we all scramble to determine what changes Apple made.  Rather than write yet another post on iPad deployment strategies, I thought I’d give another 500 foot overview of the actual process of getting large numbers of devices into the hands of users. Schools of the Sacred Heart San Francisco has about ~1,000 students, and roughly ~250...

The idea of anonymously sharing photos pretty much always makes the jump to "creepy" really fast, but that's not the case with Rando. This cool little iPhone app lets you take a photo that gets shared with someone else -- you don't know who is getting your pic, and they don't know who it came from. For every photo you share, you get one in return. So far, it's turned out to be a great way to share random little snapshots of life in a friendly way. I've seen math homework from Austria, cats from San Francisco, and bars in Spain. It really is cool, so let's all try to keep this one from getting all creepy. Rando is free and available at Apple's iTunes-based App Store.

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Apple will host its second quarter earnings report on Tuesday, April 23, and analysts aren't optimistic about what the company will announce. Analysts are expecting the iPhone and iPad maker to report its first drop in profit since 2003 with an 18 percent decrease in net income, and an 8 percent revenue increase, yet no matter what Apple announces it's a safe bet someone will be disappointed.

TweetDeck, the go-to choice for power Twitter users managing multiple accounts, will officially shut down on May 7. Twitter said it is killing the iPhone, Android, and AIR versions of the app on the 7th, and "killing" includes dropping support and development, as well as stopping the apps from functioning at all.

The Mac Observer Spin:
The bottom line: Twitter wants subscribers to use its Web interface, and nothing else. The company has been systematically shutting out developers and even kills off its own platform-native client apps. It doesn't feel like a matter of if all third-party Twitter clients are gone, but a matter of when.

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Virtualization is an extremely useful tool to have at your disposal.  If you have ever wanted to transfer a physical machine’s OS X install to a virtual machine, you know that VMWare does not make a tool for doing so.  They provide one for Linux and Windows, but not for OS X.  Alan Gordon has a post on Krypted.com that explains how to convert a physical OS X install into a Virtual Machine.  Check it out!

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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AMD has hired Raja Koduri away from Apple some four years after Apple hired the graphics engineering executive away from AMD. This is the second GPU wonk that AMD has reclaimed from Apple, with Jim Keller having returned to the processor firm in August of 2012.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Mr. Koduri's departure will likely be felt at Apple, which has placed a great emphasis on graphics performance in its mobile devices.

This week's news events remind us that there is a conflict between the need for organizations to attract people's attention and the work necessary to be authoritative. In the technology world, especially with Apple, that work means understanding and explaining how opposing forces interact.
 

Volkswagen is set to unveil iBeetle — a special edition Beetle with iPhone integration — at next week’s 2013 Shanghai Auto Show. The car itself will feature color schemes and options similar to the iPhone interface. Inside, a dashboard-mounted dock holds the iPhone, and a new app will connect the…

Learn how to disable the Java web plug-in in Safari.

Learn about the download options you have when you purchase a TV season, Season Pass, movie bundle, music box set, or an individual movie or TV episode using iTunes 11 or iOS 6 or later.

Verizon announced during its first fiscal quarter earnings report on Thursday that it activated 4 million iPhones, which comes in above Wells Fargo analyst Maynard Um's 3.5 million unit target. The cell service provider's activations were down compared to last quarter, but are up year over year. Still, Apple's quarterly iPhone numbers may come in below expectations, leaving investors unhappy.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Verizon's iPhone sales were lower quater-over-quarter, but up year-over-year. With just the one data point to work with so far, it's hard to accurately estimate Apple's quarterly sales numbers, but that won't stop analysts and investors from trying. Be ready for doom-and-gloom reports if Apple doesn't beat analyst expectations next week.

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It's the 200th episode of the Apple Context Machine, and while Jeff and Bryan really tried to put together just another episode, they kept getting interrupted by tech industry luminaries sharing their thoughts on what's in store for Apple. The list of anniversary episode guests included Dave Hamilton, Bob LeVitus, Ricky Spero, Gene Steinberg, and Peter Cohen. Warning: This is a long one.

Apple and book recommendation site Goodreads discussed integrating Goodreads’ service into the iBookstore, but a possible partnership was halted by Amazon’s recent purchase of Goodreads. A new report claims Apple and Goodreads were talking about integration “over the past year.” Goodreads proposed that its ratings appear within iTunes, in a…

The microphone on the Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic (Early 2012) may not work properly when you use it on a Mac.

One year ago, Read It Later became Pocket (free), the popular app from Idea Shower which saves content for offline reading. Now updated to version 4.5, the app introduces new sharing features, including Send to Friend, which lets you quickly share content with friends and family. An inbox will…

Verizon released its first fiscal quarter earnings report for 2013 on Thursday, giving us our first hint into what to expect from iPhone sales figures during Apple's earnings report next week. 55 percent of the 7.2 million new smartphone activations for the quarter were iPhones, and about half of those belonged to the iPhone 5.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Verizon's iPhone activations may be down compared to the previous quarter, but they're still climbing overall. They also still make up more than half of all smartphone activations for the carrier, which has to be a figure that stings Android smartphone makers.

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The alleged rear shell for Apple’s rumored budget iPhone may have been leaked in a photo posted on Tactus. The photo shows a uniform white case likely made from polycarbonate. From the photo, it appears the screen size could be 4”, like the iPhone 5.

Twitter is launching its own music service on Thursday with ties to iTunes, Spotify, and Rdio, and includes a native iPhone app. #music is like a music discovery tool that lets users preview songs via iTunes, and Spotify and Rdio users can use their accounts to listen to full tracks.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Maybe Apple should've tried doing something like #music instead of Ping.

Shares of Apple Inc. dropped more than 5.5 percent on Wednesday, with guidance from Cirrus Logic helping to weigh down the stock. The company, which supplies audio chips for Apple's iPhone, said that it had to take an inventory charge during the March quarter. Investors and analysts alike have taken to mean that Apple's iPhone sales will disappoint.

Digital camera RAW formats retain more image information than JPEGs and can produce better results when used with imaging applications such as Aperture and iPhoto.

You like using Handbrake but loathe the UI when you have a folder of videos to convert? Now you're in luck. HandBrakeBatch, built to use Handbrake in the background and do exactly that, has been around since June of 2011 (near as we can tell), but was most recently updated just this past February (of 2013, that is), and worked very well in our tests. It requires that you have Handbrake installed, and will use any presets you have in Handbrake, including those you've custom-defined. Next time you need to batch convert a folder full of movies (and they don't really all need to be in the same folder, either), fire up HandBrakeBatch and let it get to work.

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The satire of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, "iSteve," from Funny Or Die is online and ready for viewing - assuming you don't mind sitting in front of your computer for 79 minutes. No, this isn't the Ashton Kutcher biopic that's been delayed. This movie stars Justin Long and Jorge Garcia, and is clearly a parody of Mr. Jobs's life. The few minutes we watched were pretty good and we're looking forward to blocking out some time to watch the rest. The downside is that you have to watch the movie at the Funny Or Die website; no download option is available, so be sure you have your comfy chair in front of your computer.

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Terry Myerson, the head of Microsoft's Windows Phone group, isn't overly impressed with Apple's iOS, and even suggested it's boring. Mr. Myerson shared his thoughts on Apple's popular operating system for the iPhone and iPad during D: Dive Into Mobile on Wednesday in New York, and he did a great job of setting himself up for attacks from the Apple and Android camps.

Time Warner announced on Tuesday that it was bringing live mobile TV to Apple iPhones and iPads. The company said that it would make up to 11 channels available on Apple's mobile devices available outside the home, including news, entertainment, and sports networks. Bloomberg reported that the new feature would be available through the TWC TV app (a free download on the App Store) for Time Warner Cable subscribers starting at 10:00 AM on Wednesday, April 17th.

Apple released iPhoto 9.4.3 Tuesday afternoon with improved support for iCloud's Photo Stream feature. iPhoto is Apple's image management and editing app and is part of the company's iLife suite of creativity apps.

This document describes the security content of Java for OS X 2013-003 and Mac OS X v10.6 Update 15.

Java for OS X 2013-003 delivers improved security, reliability, and compatibility for Java SE 6. Java for OS X 2013-003 supersedes all previous versions of Java for OS X.

Learn about which printer and scanner models are supported, and what third-party vendor software is available for download using Software Update.

Java for Mac OS X v10.6 Update 15 delivers improved security, reliability, and compatibility for Java SE 6. This update enables website-by-website control of the Java plug-in within Safari 5.1.9 or later, and supersedes all previous versions of Java for Mac OS X v10.6.

It is with great pleasure that I announce this week's returning sponsor, Crashplan. We all know we're supposed to back up, and we even have some easy ways to do that locally now thanks to Apple building Time Machine into the OS. And that's good, but what happens if your Time Machine disk gets corrupted or, worse, what happens if it's stolen or damaged at the same time as your main Mac? CrashPlan can help.

For years the best option for Mac-using TiVo owners to get content off of our TiVos and to our iDevices was iTiVo. But iTiVo, built largely in AppleScript Studio, has always had a buggy user interface, and with Mountain Lion it originally required some Terminal fu to get it to work at all. Building on the work done for iTiVo (and even reading your preferences from iTiVo), cTiVo picks up and takes the whole project into Objective C, making it a faster, cleaner app than its predecessor. And as with iTiVo, cTiVo is 100% freely available and open source.

A small number of third-generation Apple TVs have known Wi-Fi issues, and Apple has started a replacement program for these affected units. Apple has determined replacements can be offered free of charge for up to two years after the device’s purchase date. …

Facebook is talking to Apple about a new version of its mobile Home software for iPhone, according to a new report. Facebook’s Home software debuted for Android this month, and Facebook is now discussing expansion with the likes of Apple and Microsoft. Though the idea of Facebook Home appearing on…

Apple is now selling refurbished fifth-generation iPod touch models in its online store. The store is offering 32GB models for $250 each, and 64GB models for $350 — a $50 discount off the new models. All colors except for red are now available. [via 9to5Mac]

While researching an editorial relating to privacy I found a great essay from former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée titled, "Online Privacy: Nothing to Fear." He talks about privacy both from the government and from corporate powers, and encourages us to support groups that look out for our privacy like the ACLU. And don't forget to vote for candidates who support privacy (when you can find them). It's a good read.

The netbook never became the killer product the PC market hoped for, and thanks to the iPad, the only killing in that market now is happening to the netbook. In fact, a new study says the netbook market will be completely dead by 2015, and it's all Apple's fault.

Jeff Gamet, The Mac Observer's Managing Editor, joined the team at The Mac Show to talk about what may be in store for future iMacs, as well as Intel's upcoming changes to the Thunderbolt standard.

New e-periodicals blur the line between apps and magazines. In this week's Free on iTunes Vern Seward take a look at "app-zines" from one company, MERI Media .

Some notable executives who have worked for Apple fail when they leave and go to work for another company.  Why does this happen?  It's the paradox of power for Apple VPs. John Martellaro explains what he learned for himself at Apple.

Apple has been hit with yet another lawsuit, this time from a company named Wyncomm, for allegedly infringing on a Wi-Fi patent that until recently belonged to AT&T. The patent describes a system where data is transmitted over a Wi-Fi network while voice communication is happening on the same device -- or carrying on a phone conversation while surfing the Web.

The Mac Observer Spin:
You have to wonder if products like the iPhone would cost less if Apple and other companies didn't have to spend so much money on infringement lawsuits from patent holding companies.

When you use iCloud to store documents from apps like Keynote, Pages and Numbers, they get saved to your Mac's hard drive as well. Getting at those documents through the Finder, however, is something of a chore. Luckily a resourceful coder has come to the rescue with a handy little utility that makes it easy to get at the local versions of your iCloud files.

Twitter is planning on launching its new standalone music application this weekend, possibly as early as today, according to reports. A new site, music.twitter.com, asks users for permission to allow an app called Trending Music Web, though at this point authorization of the app only sends users back to…

Field trips to the planetarium were always one of our favorite school activities, so of course we have an affinity for apps that help us see what's in the night sky. Stellarium is one of those apps for the Mac that lets us do just that with amazing detail -- so much, in fact, that it's being used with actual planetarium projectors. The app includes over 600,000 stars, and additional catalogs are available with over 210 million stars. It also details our solar system's planets, moons and other satellites, constellations for several cultures, eclipse and supernova simulation, telescope control, supports fisheye and spheric mirror projection for planetarium domes, and more. Despite Stellarium's powerful feature set, it's a free app, which means you don't have any more excuses for putting off that home planetarium project.

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BiteMyApple.co announced on Thursday the release of the Tiltpod, a Kickstarter funded project. Tiltpod is a stand for your iPhone that's small enough to keep on your keychain. Think insta-stand for taking photographs pretty much anywhere. It rotates, pivots, and tilts, all through a magnetic ball. It holds your iPhone through a quick-connect release, too.  Pretty cool, eh? It's $14.99 for the iPhone 4 and 4S. $29.99 gets one designed for the iPhone 5, including a case.

John Kirk took a look at Android numbers from IDC and a new approach to measuring Android activations by Google.  Neither data set was found to be satisfactory, and Mr. Kirk's opinion is that Google’s New Android Math Doesn’t Add Up. He also called for firms like IDC to stop counting all Android sales as "Android" sales, and instead to count only those sales that contribute to the platform as a whole, and to divide out Android variants in China, Kindle Fire sales, and perhaps even Android devices running Facebook Home. It's a very good read.

U.S. District Judge Robert Scola said in an order that neither Apple nor Google’s Motorola Mobility unit have any interest in resolving their ongoing patent litigation, instead using the lawsuits as business strategy. “The parties have no interest in efficiently and expeditiously resolving this dispute; they instead are using this…

Apple has found a way to boost sales of the iPhone in India, a market where Apple's smartphone has languished with minimal success. The Times of India reported that Apple initiated a smartphone buyback promotion for the iPhone 4, and that sales of the entry level model have tripled. Bryan Chaffin pokes his nose in the development.

Google Inc.‘s Chrome (free) app has updated to version 26.0.1410.50. Google’s browser for iOS now allows users to access fullscreen browsing for iPhone and iPod touch — the toolbar can be scrolled off the screen to view a full page of content on the devices. Printing has also been…

A job listing on Apple’s website specifically mentions flexible displays, indicating the company has at least some interest in the technology. The listing, for a Sr. Optical Engineer, notes in its summary that “Apple Inc. is looking for a Display Specialist to lead the investigation on emerging display technologies…

When using the ellipsis button (...) in Workgroup Manager to browse and add computers to a computer group, all computers on the local network may not appear in the list.