Mariner Software has acquired the apps, MacGourmet, MacGourmet Deluxe (pictured), and MacGourmet Touch from Advenio.
With this acquisition announcement, Mariner is releasing a 4.0 version of MacGourmet and MacGourmet Deluxe for the Mac, and Gourmet iOS, the overhauled iOS app, MacGourmet Touch. The latter works allows the user to create, edit, and scale recipes, as well as import recipes from popular recipe websites.
| Read more »The iPhone 5s has a cool feature in the Camera app that lets you capture slow motion video, and it works really well. What doesn't work so well -- or at least isn't very obvious -- is how to get that slo-mo video off of your iPhone. Read on to learn how.
The iPhone gained two innovative mobile payment systems Thursday as virtual banking service Simple teased their new Bluetooth-enabled cash transfer system 'MoneyDrop' while credential management startup Jumio showed off Passbook-based PORT.
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On October 10, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals their intent to one day reinvent the connector system for both Macs and iDevices. It's a universal desire for consumers to have a simplified connector system for computers or other electronics – and yet technically there are so many electrical standards in place today that it's close to impossible to think that we could have a utopian universal connector system. Yet Apple plugs away believing there's a way to be the first computer company to crack this nightmare of differing connectors; a way to keep the connectors on a Mac or iDevice super simple. Apple began this project back in 2011 and today we're getting more detailed information about how the reinvention of the connector system could one day be a reality.
| Read more »Given all the focus on females in top leadership in tech recently — due to the worthy (and it is most certainly that, no matter how much some misguided people might say it is not) debate over the lack of a woman director on the soon-to-IPOed Twitter board — it’s worth a gander at Fortune magazine’s annual list of 50 powerful women in business.
As usual, it has a big group from tech, and mostly from Silicon Valley — pretty much the same group that was named last year — including IBM CEO Ginni Rometty at No. 1 for the second straight year, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at No. 5, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer at No. 8, and Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman at No. 9. Also on the...
| Read more »Fitbit has launched its second wrist-based activity tracker, following on from the Fitbit Flex. The Fitbit Force, leaked last week in promotional materials, updates the Flex's design by adding an altimeter and a small OLED display that provides more detailed information than the five-dot LED light system used in the original....
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The Brazilian National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) has given Apple the green light to sell the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in the country, reports "ZDNet" (http://tinyurl.com/oahhtym).
The smartphones will be compatible with the 4G technology available in Brazil and work at the frequency adopted locally, which is 2600 MHz. The previous iPhone and iPad sold in Brazil operated in the 700 MHz band.
| Read more »As previously announced by Tim Cook earlier this year, Apple is preparing to open its first retail store in Turkey with a new store currently under construction in Istanbul. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has picked up around 21,000 square feet of space inside the Zorlu shopping center between Burberry and Louis Vuitton stores.
The store is expected to open in early 2014 and would make for the 13th country that Apple currently operates at least one retail store in. Apple now has over 400 retails stores worldwide and previously announced plans to open 30 new stores this year along with relocating 20 stores to bigger properties to accommodate customers.
(...
| Read more »iPhone 4S owners have taken to Apple's support forums by the hundreds with complaints that iOS 7 has caused a new round of problems with the phone's Broadcom Wi-Fi and Bluetooth controller, echoing issues that reared their head during iOS 6's release.
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Fitbit is expanding its wristband fitness tracker lineup with the new Fitbit Force. The Force tracks your activities much like the Fitbit Flex, including steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned, and sleep patterns. Like the Fitbit One, it includes an altimeter for more accurate tracking the number of floors climbed, and uses Bluetooth 4.0 to wirelessly sync to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. It also sports an OLED display for showing more details about your daily activities. The Fitbit Force is prices at US$129.95 and will be available in the next couple weeks.
Apple is reportedly cutting iPhone 5c production in half from 300,000 units to 150,000 units per day, according to claims by C Technology [Google Translate], which leaked a number of photos of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c ahead of their launches last month. As highlighted by Unwired View, gray market pricing for iPhone 5c units has also been falling as availability has remained solid.The official price of iPhone 5c in China is 4448 Yuan ($726). But there is a thriving grey market over there, with iPhones bought in the U.S, Europe and Hong-Kong, illegally smuggled into the country. With real...
| Read more »Top Gear:
If the i3′s range fits your life, here’s what you get. A car, a gadget, a suite of furniture, a greener option, a talking point. And a slower heart-rate.
| Read more »Developers who want to start experimenting with iBeacons don't need to wait for hardware to show up on the market or design their own. Radius Networks has published a quick "how-to" for developers that shows how an inexpensive Raspberry Pi and Bluetooth LE dongle can be set up in a few minutes for experimentation purposes.
The post, courtesy of James Nebeker and David Young, provides detailed step-by-step command-line instructions on setting up the RPi, downloading the necessary libraries, configuring the Bluetooth dongle, and creating the necessary start and stop scripts. And with that, you can start designing the future...
| Read more »Brazil's National Telecommunications Agency -- also known as Anatel -- has granted regulatory approval for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, reports say. The agency states that the iPhones to be sold will be built at Foxconn's Jundiaí factory, near São Paulo. Documents also show that they will run on Brazil's native LTE frequency, 2600MHz; previous iPhones and iPads available in Brazil have only operated in the 700MHz band....
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Launch Center Pro 2 <3
David Barnard’s Contrast (previously App Cubby) shipped a massive update to the quick shortcut app Launch Center Pro for iPhone today.
Launch Center Pro 2 delivers an iOS 7-inspired user interface and a gorgeous new icon as well as several new features including Dropbox backing up and restoring, various themes, action sharing, and more.
People often ask why anyone would need a separate app to do what their home screen does...
| Read more »The fifth-generation iPad in silver and "space gray." SonnyDickson.com
Apple CEO Tim Cook said last year that Apple would be "doubling down on secrecy" with respect to new products, but so far Cook's Apple has proven itself unable to control part leaks from its supply chain. There have been plenty of misdirections and fakes, but we saw so many colorful plastic shells and fingerprint sensor parts in the lead-up to the iPhone 5S and...
| Read more »Just when you start to wonder what IK Multimedia is going to come up with next, they deliver a pedalboard to control your Mac and iOS music apps wirelessly.
| Read more »T-Mobile has announced it will begin offering global data roaming coverage at no extra charge, starting Oct. 20 for new customers, and Oct. 31 for existing customers. The unlimited data coverage will be available in more than 100 countries, with free texting and 20 cents-per-minute calls. According to T-Mobile’s…
| Read more »Brazil's National Telecommunications Agency has completed the approval process that will allow Apple to sell its new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in the country. The approval has come earlier than expected since the new iPhone models have been available in the United States for only three weeks, and Brazil's approval process often takes months.
The Mac Observer Spin:
Apple is aggressively pushing to get the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c into new markets as quickly as it can. Getting approval in Brazil means it'll be able to start sales in the country earlier than it has with previous product launches.
If you weren’t enchanted with AOL before, then this won’t help win you over.
According to 9to5Mac, AOL has informed applicable users that it will be dropping support for accessing email from Apple’s iCloud service from its recently launched Alto webmail client. Alto is a web-based mail client that intelligently sorts and integrates email from services such as iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, and AOL. AOL has informed iCloud users who have logged into Alto that support for iCloud...
| Read more »Dropcam on Thursday announced its new Dropcam Pro camera, adding sharper video, improved audio, greater zoom, a wider viewing angle, and support for both Bluetooth Low Energy and dual-band Wi-Fi to its ever-popopular wireless video monitoring system that works remotely with your iPhone, iPad and Mac.
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What a great idea. When you’re traveling, you can communicate with people using symbols.
| Read more »It’s the job postings that show where Apple’s headed…
Per The Unofficial Apple Weblog and Bloomberg, a new...
| Read more »I’ve started a list of Nike+ Badges and how to earn them using the web sites, apps and Nike personal trackers (Nike+, Nike FuelBand).
Nike+ and Nike FuelBand
NikeFuel is a gamification unit that composites steps and other activities to establish a point system by which you can track your fitness endeavors against those of your friends. Based on these points, you earn badges, displayed on the Nike+ website and within various Nike apps. Badges based on points include the following:
Dropcam has introduced an upgraded version of its Wi-Fi video monitoring camera. The next-generation Dropcam Pro brings a long list of improvements, centering around a new six-element all-glass lens with a 130-degree field of view. Better optics are paired with a larger image sensor that is claimed to provide 2X sharper video during the day and a seven-fold sharpness improvement in low-light conditions or at night....
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Do you have pets or family members you enjoy checking in on remotely? Or a home that makes you nervous when you're not physically in it, worrying about your stuff? When you think about ways to soothe your anxiety and keep an eye on the things you care about, the mountable, networked, USB powered, Wi-Fi connected cameras of Dropcam are there to help.
Today the camera and cloud video company is announcing its revamped, souped-up camera: Dropcam Pro. The improved unit takes the features of the older Dropcam HD (now renamed to just "Dropcam") and improves video, audio (two-way talk), wireless connectivity, night vision -- even adding Bluetooth LE support to position the Pro as a potential hub for the connected home. The iOS Dropcam apps have been revamped too, with direct setup for cameras and a Hollywood-style "zoom and enhance" mode that has to be seen to be believed....
| Read more »The following AppleScript will use Remote Desktop to set a non-default NetBoot image as the startup disk. Make sure to insert your server's IP Address and the image name...
tell application "Remote Desktop"
set theServer to "192.168.1.8"
set theImage to "10.8.5 NetBoot"
set theComputers to the selection
set theTask to make new set network startup disk task with properties {from server:theServer, mount volume:theImage, restarting:true}
execute theTask on theComputers
end tell
Never doubt the power of an incentive program.
Per AppleInsider and TechnoBuffalo, electronics retailer Best Buy appears on the verge of kicking off another trade-in program aimed at getting iPhone 5s and 5c customers through its doors, this time offering a minimum of US$100 toward the purchase of one of Apple’s two new phones in exchange for any working smartphone.
The new trade-in...
| Read more »Image: redorbit.com
Evernote, Adobe, even Apple … just a few of the companies who have found their user data compromised by hackers in recent times. The possibility of a hacker being able to access one of your web accounts is worrying enough – but if you use the same email address and password for almost all the websites you use, the risk becomes huge.
The first thing a hacker does when they get hold of a list of usernames and passwords is to use...
| Read more »Fitbit has premiered the new Force fitness tracking watch as its new flagship product. The biggest differentiator for the Force is the new OLED display, wrapped in Fitbit’s signature water-resistant rubberized bracelet design. Instead of simply depicting steps taken as dots, the new Force can bring you detailed tracking information including steps, distance, calories burned, active minutes, and floors climbed.
Fitbit Force is the first and only in its category to be able to capture and display all of these stats on your wrist, as well as wirelessly and automatically sync them to leading Apple & Android smartphones and your computer, helping you push further to achieve your fitness goals.
The...
| Read more »Turn-by-turn navigation in Apple's Maps app on the iPhone is a great feature, but changing the volume so you can better hear those directions hasn't been exactly an easy process -- at least it wasn't until iOS 7. Now changing the voice volume for Maps navigation is fairly simple. Read on and Michael Johnston will show you how.
Uh-oh.
Consider Tommy Palm and Jeff Smith. Palm, who oversees development at smartphone-game maker King.com, and Smith, who runs music-application maker Smule Inc., have long avoided building apps for devices using Microsoft’s Windows Phone software. Closer ties with Nokia haven’t swayed them. Both say even after the acquisition closes, Microsoft still won’t have enough users to make it worth the time and money.
You could see this coming a mile away, but still, uh-oh.
| Read more »Passwords stink. Password policies vary widely from the many sites you choose or have to use, and satisfying them all is hard, and hard to keep up with. That's why 1Password is an invaluable application ??and the new 1Password 4 qualifies as a worthy update.
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Unlike any other time that I've known, technology companies are now engaged in several races to get new technology to market first and more importantly right. While Apple's Touch ID may not have been the first fingerprint scanner on the market, they definitely got it right and now all of the major smartphone vendors are scrambling to match Apple's success. Other races include indoor location services, advanced haptics, wearable computers, flex displays and the list goes on to include eye tracking and gaze control systems. Sony, Google and Apple are heavily researching this technology and today the US Patent and Trademark Office revealed a new Apple invention covering eye tracking that will apply to all future iDevices, the MacBook and more importantly, for use in your car, in a future gaming console or entertainment system. Controlling a system using advanced eye tracking is tricky and Apple's patent discusses how their system will overcome the number one problem facing eye...
| Read more »Foursquare is always on the hunt for new ways to keep its location-based social networking service interesting, and its just released app update for the iPhone and iPod touch aims to do that by making it easier to see when your friends are nearby. The version 6.4 update also shows the most recent checkins for your friends, lets you quickly see their previous checkins, and more. Foursquare 6.4 is a free download at Apple's iTunes-based App Store, and requires a free Foursquare account.
If you travel internationally, this is a game changer. Global roaming charges are outrageous. My hope is that this pushes other carriers to match T-Mobile.
| Read more »Sources in Apple's supply chain have reportedly indicated that Apple is on track to release a new iPhone with a larger screen next year, according to one analyst.
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Dropcam has been around since 2009, but only truly became a player in the app-enabled home security space early last year with the release of the Dropcam HD Wi-Fi video monitoring system. It separated itself from the normal cast of IP video cameras by offering an insanely easy setup process, beautiful software, and effortless mobile device integration (iOS/...
| Read more »A group of us here at TUAW are huge fans (and customers) of Simple -- it's an online bank that revolves around a debit card linked to a powerful, free iPhone app. On Wednesday, the company announced an upcoming feature for those who are using iPhone 4S and newer devices -- MoneyDrop.
MoneyDrop will make it very easy for Simple customers to send money to each other, instantaneously and with no fees involved. Rather than using email addresses or account names, MoneyDrop uses Bluetooth LE to identify Simple users near you, at which time you can use an AirDrop-like interface to shift money to those people. It's a great way to split lunch bills or buy a used car -- just as long as the other parties are also SImple customers.
Simple currently has only about 65,000 customers, with 100,000 on a wait list and thousands of invitations being sent out every week. Simple...
| Read more »Is that word an Ikea furniture item or a death metal band from Norway?
| Read more »Remember back when iOS 4 got a unified Mail inbox all those years ago? Before that, we poor users had to trudge through our devices—uphill both ways!—to read emails sent to all of our accounts. Well, hold on to your pants, because with iOS 7, you can now enable unified sent, drafts, and trash mailboxes to see those messages all in one place, too, and we're gonna tell you how.
If you are a Nirvana fan, these are a fantastic find.
Here we have three separate Nirvana interviews conducted by Sherry; all together, they add up to nearly an hour. The interviews catch Nirvana at three very different stages of their career. In November of 1990 Nirvana was riding the modest success of Bleach; in the summer of 1991 they were ready to release Nevermind and they knew they had something special on their hands; by 1992 they had already become superstars and were dealing with that. By the time the last interview rolled around, Nirvana had been named Metal Hammer’s “Best New Band,” which was just really amusing. Among other things, they discuss their willingness to pursue an idea that had been floated in 1991 of touring with Guns N’ Roses.
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| Read more »This is pretty cool. Ford is not the first to bring this parking tech to production, but they are definitely the first of the big car makers to do so.
FAPA uses ultrasonic sensors to scan for an open parking space at speeds as high as 19 mph (30 kph). When the car finds a suitable spot it alerts the driver, who can stay in the car or get out and use a remote to finish the parking job. The car then backs itself in to the parking space.
Amazing. The car scans for available parking spaces in real time, as you drive. The car alerts you that it found a space, you get out, and the car parks itself. The future!
| Read more »US Mac sales fell year-on-year as part of the global decline in the PC market as consumers switch to tablets, phablets and smartphones – but the two major market analysts produced wildly differing estimates of the size of that fall.
IDC has a dramatic drop of 11.2 percent, from 2.14M in the third quarter of 2012 to 1.9M in the same quarter this year, while Gartner shows a much more modest decline of 2.3 percent from 2.2M (close to IDC’s number) to 2.1M. The only point on which both agree is this is the first Q3 decline in Mac sales since 2002, a quarter usually assisted by the back-to-school market …
The credibility of the numbers doesn’t improve when you look at overall US sales across manufacturers: down 0.2 percent according to IDC, while...
| Read more »Gartner and IDC released their quarterly PC shipment numbers. No tablet data, no phone data, just personal computers. Lots to chew on. Some highlights from Gartner’s US numbers:
To me, there are two big takeaways from this. First, tablets are cannibalizing PC sales. No big news there. Second, I see any decline in Apple sales as a sign of the aging of Apple’s Mac line. The iMac and MacBook Air refreshes are recent and the Mac Pro and Macbook Pro lines are due, hopefully soon. My instinct here is that we’ll see a nice bounce in the numbers, starting with Q4.
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Apple's traditional autumn iPad announcement event is slated for Oct. 22 this year, and while we don't know exactly where the event will go down, it seems pretty clear to just about any Apple-watching newshound that Apple will announce new iPads with the new 64-bit A7 processor. Some are claiming Apple will slim down the current iPad, retaining the screen size, while others believe Apple will jam a Retina display into the iPad mini.
plasq has introduced Comic Life 3, an update of its photo comic creation software for Mac OS X. The new version introduces a new collection of parametric image filters, an Instant Alpha tool, and a script editor with new SmartScript technology. Comic Life 3 also adds two-up page view and Find and Replace.
The added image editing features in Comic Life 3 make it easy to transform a photograph into comic artwork, according to plasq CEO Robert Grant. Also, new graphic design options have been provided to further enhance the appearance of your comic pages.
| Read more »Carrier Wi-Fi started to gain momentum in 2013 driven by increasing data demands and new Wi-Fi advancements. Cable operators are enthusiastically adopting the technology as an entrance into the wireless market. ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com) forecasts Carrier Wi-Fi access point shipments in 2018 to reach 9.7 million with the Asia-Pacific region accounting for 70% of that number.
| Read more »I love lists, and this is definitely a fun one. I suspect that you will find fault with this list, have a few inventions that you think should be on it, see some that perhaps should not be. That’s just the way with lists though, no?
My biggest complaint is that the first Apple product listed is the iPod in 2001. What? No Macintosh? No Apple II? Both of these were game changers.
That said, I still enjoyed your article, Ellie Zolfagharifard.
| Read more »The popular language translation app iTranslate has been completely reimagined for iOS 7. Just like iOS 7, the app is heavily gesture-based. Because the new version features so many new gestures, a tutorial has been added that walks users through all of the new ways to interact with their translations.
At first glance, iTranslate does not feel as intuitive or as easy to use as the previous version. It takes a while to get acclimated to the changes, and to understand how to properly trigger the gestures, which can be a bit difficult at first. For example, when swiping, you have to swipe...
| Read more »WD has redesigned its popular My Book and My Book for Mac lines of external desktop drives to provide as much as 4TB storage capacity and enhanced data protection. It's great for those who create and/or collect large volumes of data, video, music and photos.
Consider that Macs, by default, ship only with anywhere from 128GB of storage to 1TB. Apple's storage upgrade options are rather pricey, so the My Book is a great way to expand your Mac's capacity.
| Read more »A screenshot revealed by TechnoBuffalo indicates that Best Buy will be running a trade-in promotion where any undamaged, working smartphone will get you a minimum $100 gift card to use toward the purchase of a new iPhone – enough to cover the down payment on an iPhone 5c.
That’s interesting because Best Buy sells Android smartphones off plan for around $50 so even if you don’t want to give up your old iPhone, you could walk into the store, pick up a cheap Virgin...
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Iridient Developer (was RAW Developer) is a powerful image conversion application designed specifically for OS X. Iridient Developer gives advanced photographers total control over every aspect of their digital camera's output, yet still provides easy drag and drop conversion convenience and access to basic adjustments for the casual user. Iridient developer supports RAW files from over 400 digital camera models.
Version 2.3:
New Features:
In 2008, a journalist in Finland wrote a letter to Nokia complaining that its smartphones were difficult to use, prompting a confidential response acknowledging desperate efforts to catch up with Apple's new iPhone. One year later Nokia announced MeeGo, and the following year it made plans to shift to Windows Phone. The company is now being sold off for scrap.
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Printer and accessory maker Brother has debuted a new line of scanners aimed squarely at small-office and home-office (SOHO) users, combining the compact footprint and price point of a portable scanner with more advanced functions normally associated with desktop workgroup devices. The flagship of the line is the ADS-1500w, which offers simplex or duplex color scan speeds of up to 18 pages per minute (ppm), a 20-sheet capacity feeder, Internet connectivity and mobile scanning compatibility....
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Alien Skin Software today announced its upcoming release of Snap Art 4, an artistic natural media application for photographers. Featuring a redesigned UI and improved speed, Snap Art 4 can render hundreds of styles and media, such as oil paint, pencil sketch, et cetera, to mimic the technique of human artists on a photo image. Emulating brush strokes and drawing lines, its masking tool can bring out extra detail in a photo. Snap Art is compatible for integration with many popular photography editing software tools, such as Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, and Apple Aperature, and can also be launc...
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Popular location-based social networking app Foursquare saw an update on Wednesday that brought a number of new features, including the ability to check which friends are nearby a user at a given time.
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Best Buy retail locations are launching another promotion on the iPhone 5c and 5s. A screenshot of an internal Best Buy document shows that the retailer will allow customers to trade in selected -- and completely functional -- smartphones for a minimum of $100 in credit towards purchase of a new device on a two-year contract between October 13 and 19....
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ForkLift is a powerful file manager and ferociously fast FTP client clothed in a clean and versatile UI that offers the combination of absolute simplicity and raw power expected from a well-executed Mac software.
ForkLift will connect to any remote server FTP, SFTP, Amazon S3, WebDAV, the SMB and AFP shares on your local network,- pretty much anything you can plug into or hook up to a Mac. ForkLift also carries a complete toolbox for managing your files, including Folder Synchronization, Batch Renaming, Archive handling, Application deleter, editing files over remote connections and many more. All these power features are packaged into a Finder-like, dual-pane interface that delivers superior workflow while remaining absolutely familiar to use, along with QuickLook, Spotlight search and all.
Features:
Security-minded maintenance release closes an Excel-related vulnerability. (Free update, 113 MB)
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.
| Read more »Adds compatibility for 10.9 Mavericks. ($30 new, free update, 10.8 MB)
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.
| Read more »Now requires 10.6 Snow Leopard and an Intel processor. (Fee update, 19.8 MB)
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.
| Read more »I’ve been thinking about this piece by Ben Thompson, “What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong in His Theory of Low-End Disruption”, since he published it two weeks ago.
The business buyer, famously, does not care about the user
experience. They are not the user, and so items that change how a
product feels or that eliminate small annoyances simply don’t make
it into their rational decision making process.
Again, though, Christensen’s research is tilted towards business
buyers. Critically, this includes the PC. For the most of its
history, the vast majority of PC purchasers have been businesses,
who have bought PCs on speeds, feeds, and ultimately, price. […]
The attribute most valued by consumers, assuming a product is at
least in the general vicinity of a need, is ease-of-use. It’s not
the only one — again, doing a job-that-needs-done is most...
[Update: service restored after five hours] In an unusual national disruption, Canadian cell carrier Rogers -- the country's largest carrier by subscriber base -- has suffered a near-countrywide failure of wireless voice communications, though 3G and LTE data appears to be unaffected. Between Rogers Wireless and its subsidiaries Fido and Chatr, the company controls about 34 percent of Canada's cell phone market. Customers from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Victoria, British Columbia say they have been without service for much of the evening, while some report partial service....
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Several classic Square Enix RPGs have already seen new life thanks to iOS ports, and now the company has confirmed to Kotaku that Final Fantasy VI will indeed get the same treatment. The game will be a modified version of the RPG that originally appeared for the SNES back in 1994. The game will be tweaked for touchscreen devices with a refined battle system and sharper graphics.
Square Enix director and producer Takashi Tokita also shed some light on the future of Square titles on mobile platforms. Now that Final Fantasy I thru VI are taken care of, the next logical step would be to port the beloved PlayStation classic Final Fantasy VII to smartphones and tablets, but Tokita stopped short of making any promises...
| Read more »Electronics retailer Best Buy appears on the verge of kicking off another trade-in program aimed at getting iPhone 5s and 5c customers through its doors, this time offering a minimum of $100 toward the purchase of one of Apple's two new phones in exchange for any working smartphone.
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T-Mobile tonight announced that it is expanding limited-speed home data coverage for most Simple Choice customers to include more than 100 countries, at no extra charge. Starting October 31, Simple Choice individual and business customers automatically get unlimited data and texting in more than 100 Simple Global countries worldwide, and will only pay a global flat rate of 20 cents per minute for voice calls when roaming in the same countries....
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In this week's episode of The Apple Context Machine podcast, Jeff and Bryan talk about what's in store for Apple's rumored October 22nd media event. They also dissect Microsoft's plans to bring Office to the iPad (two years too late) and look at Microsoft's prospects in the tablet industry. Rapid Fire topics include the Nest Protect, Qualcomm's mea culpa about Apple's A7 processor, and the new Samsung Galaxy Round. Good stuff!
Cameo is a new free social video app that aims to compete with the likes of Vine and Instagram. The app sports some powerful features and has enough advantages that people who love to share videos will want to give it a shake.
The app allows you to take as many videos as you want. All the videos are rendered in the cloud at 720P, and a copy is saved to your iPhone so it can be uploaded to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr.
One clever feature is the ability to share videos in real time with friends, so if, for example, you're both in different places at a sporting event, you can share each others clips and build them into your own video creation. Like Vine, clips are limited to 6 seconds, but you can combine those clips into a video that lasts as long as 2...
| Read more »The updated AirPort Extreme and 2 TB Time Capsules announced earlier this year are now available as refurbished units on Apple’s online store. Unfortunately it seems you’ll have to wait a bit longer if you were hoping to get the newer-model 3 TB Time Capsule at a discounted price. While refurb models of the old version are available, the new version with 802.11ac support is nowhere to be found for the time being.
Be sure to follow 9to5Toys to keep up with the best gear and deals on the web: Twitter, RSS Feed, ...
| Read more »The U.S. government shutdown is bad news for furloughed workers, but when it comes to videogames it's apparently a convenient excuse for an impromptu sale! GOG is currently holding what it calls the "Shutdown Promo," and has slashed prices on a bunch of great games. The pack includes a total of seven games, three of which are Mac compatible, and all of which are currently half price.
Among the Mac-flavored content is Theme Hospital, Alpha Centauri, and (comically) the Redneck Rampage collection. If you happen to have a Windows machine (or a fancy Boot Camp installation) you can take advantage of the price cuts on Tropico Reloaded, The Guild: Gold Edition, Capitalism Plus, and Capitalism 2.
If you happen to be one of the unfortunate furloughed government employees, you can email GOG with a photo of you holding your temporary lay-off notice and receive the entire collection for free.
[via...
| Read more »Data from Gartner and IDC's mostly unhappy picture of the overall US desktop and notebook PC market includes unusual bad news for Apple's Mac business. Shipments of Macs are down from last year -- though the two analysis firms disagree over how much. Two potential Apple upsides to the generally-dismal decline in global PC shipments, however, are the iPhone maker's growing international share of PCs, and its (uncounted in these surveys) strong iPad business -- but on Mac shipments in the US, Apple is falling behind its rivals....
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Travel-loving iPhone owners on T-Mobile's network will soon be able to text and access data for free worldwide, as the carrier has announced a new free international data coverage feature set to launch at the end of October.
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As expected, the Korean government expressed disappointment Wednesday with U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision not to veto an import ban on some mobile products of Samsung Electronics. The Trade, Industry and Energy Ministry said in a press release that "It is regrettable that the U.S. government made different decisions related to patent infringement in a situation where Samsung and Apple are globally competing in the mobile telecommunications sector."
| Read more »AOL has reached out to iCloud users of its Alto webmail client to announce it will be dropping support for the Apple service on December 2. Alto is a service that integrates your Yahoo, Gmail, and other email services into one mailbox. iCloud users received the following email from Alto today.
Thanks for using Alto to read and send mail from your @iCloud, @me or @mac account. We've been honored to host those accounts and get great, positive feedback on the experience from users like you. But we're sad to say that Alto will no longer support iCloud accounts as of December 2, 2013.
We sincerely regret the frustration this will cause. You can close your account now by clicking the Plus sign (+) on the left of your Alto inbox, then clicking the iCloud account name and the Close Alto Account button at the bottom of the column that opens. Or you can simply wait and do nothing and you will automatically lose access on...
| Read more »1Password is one of those apps that changed things so dramatically for me that it's hard to imagine how we got by before, which is why I am excited that AgileBits released 1Password 4 for the Mac on Wednesday. 1Password is a password and login keeper that works via browser plugins in the major browsers. Better yet, if you store your database on Apple's iCloud (MAS version only) or DropBox, you can sync your passwords on all of your Macs and iOS devices. It's insanely useful. The new version comes with a new interface and a handy-dandy mini app you can access from your Mac's menu bar. You can also have separate vaults, and it works with Mavericks out of the box, plus a lot more that's new. It's $39.99 for a new license. Upgrades from 1Password 3 are free if you bought it in 2013 (and free, period, through the MAS), otherwise they're $24.99.
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| Read more »From 9to5Toys.com:
Be sure to follow 9to5Toys to keep up with the best gear and deals on the web: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+.
Today’s can’t miss deals:
| Read more »Apple is planning to bring its iPhone trade-in initiative -- officially known as the Reuse and Recycling Program -- to European Apple Stores, a source claims. The company is reportedly already preparing training materials for UK staff, with the intent of launching the program locally in the next few months. A small group of stores in the region have actually started training, but it's expected to take a few weeks for the process to reach every UK shop....
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Just yesterday, word leaked out that Apple will be holding an event on October 22 at which it is expected that the company will debut the latest models of the iPad and iPad mini. The Mac Pro and Mavericks may receive passing notice as well, but the two new tablets will most likely be the focus of the event.
Today on TUAW TV Live, Shawn "Doc Rock" Boyd and I will talk about what features we'd like to see in the next-generation iPads. We'll also have the regular parade of new products and talk about our favorite apps that have arrived during the past week, so it should be a fun hour of discussion, chat and verbal abuse.
To join in to watch the live feed and participate in the chat, just click here. You'll join us on the AOL On Network. If you can't watch the entire show today, come back to this page within 24 hours to see the latest video below. Past shows are also available on the...
| Read more »If you can print a document, you can save it as a PDF and use this feature to quickly annotate or add other enhancements to your print job.
| Read more »Apple is preparing to launch its iPhone Reuse and Recycle trade-in program in the United Kingdom, according to a report that notes the program will debut “in the coming months.” The report suggests that Apple may also debut the program in other European countries after the UK launch. The recycling…
| Read more »It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world.
You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.
No Flash? Click here to listen.
Daily Update for October 9, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 09 Oct 2013 16:45:00 EST. Please see our...
| Read more »International Data Corporation's latest U.S. and Worldwide PC shipment stats were just released. Worldwide PC shipments totaled 81.6 million units in the third quarter of 2013. In year-on-year terms, the market contracted -7.6%, ahead of a projected decline of -9.5% for the current quarter. Although Lenovo inched out over HP, HP held up well in this tough market with a 0.4% growth which is in stark contrast to both Acer and ASUS who dropped more than 34% for the quarter. In the US, the only loser in this quarter was Apple.
| Read more »Adding even more credence to a growing chorus of reports pointing to Apple striking an iPhone deal with China Mobile, Bloomberg today points us to a new Apple job listing seeking an engineer experienced China Mobile's proprietary TD-LTE network. The job listing notes that the position will "support and drive the carrier approval of mobile phones."
The job posting seeks in-depth knowledge and experience with wireless systems including TD-LTE, which is the 4G standard used by China Mobile. Skills with WCDMA and CDMA, the technologies used by China Unicom and China Telecom, respectively, are also sought. "This role will be responsible for the overall management of the technical interface to all carriers in the Greater China region," Apple said in the ad.
China Mobile is the world's largest carrier with upwards of 700 million subscribers. To that...
| Read more »Griffin’s Survivor case for iPad mini offers protection from numerous environmental factors and unlike many other full coverage protective cases, it is easy to use. Users can even recharge their iPad mini without removing the case.
AOL is dropping iCloud support from its Alto webmail client, according to a notice being sent out to users. Alto is a multiplatform service, allowing people to check mail for AOL, Gmail, Yahoo, and custom providers. As of December 2nd, however, Alto users with an @icloud, @me, or @mac address will no longer be able to check associated messages there....
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T-Mobile unveiled a new offering that will provide global data coverage allowing users to access their data plan in over 100 countries at no extra charge (via Engadget). CEO John Legere has been hinting at the announcement on his Twitter account in recent days: “Today is the day! The day we change the way the world uses their phones!”
Today is the day! The day we change the way the world uses their phones! You ready? #unleash—
John Legere (@JohnLegere) October 09, 2013
This new plan will allow Simple Choice customers to get unlimited 2G data and texting in supported Simple Global countries. Voice calls on the plan cost $.20 per minute for in-country calls. There are no extra fees for this service, as it is included in all Simple...
| Read more »If you regularly use your desktop to organize files, then you might benefit from creating a custom image to manage your workflow.
| Read more »Research firms IDC and Gartner are both out today with their latest look at the state of the PC market as of the end of the third quarter of the year. If you were looking for the back-to-school season to reverse the trends seen so far in what’s turning out to be the industry’s worst year ever, think again.
Gartner first: The firm said that the total number of units shipped during the quarter was 80.3 million, amounting to an 8.6 percent decline from the same period last year.
China’s Lenovo solidified its lead against Hewlett-Packard as the world’s top PC vendor with a 17.6 percent share of the market, about a half-point above HP. Dell came in third with 11.1 percent of the market. Acer was fourth and Asus was fifth, and these two saw the worst declines among all the vendors, more than 22 percent each.
HP maintained its lead in the US,...
| Read more »Fotor HDR is a new iPhone app for those of you who like to take high dynamic range (HDR) photos. The US$1.99 app adds some very sophisticated processing options after you take the multiple images required for an HDR image.
The main feature Fotor HDR offers is preset styles. Rather than simply providing filters, the Fotor styles are geared to HDR images, and are similar to what you see in the pro HDR apps you see on the Mac, such as Photomatix and HDR Efex Pro 2 from Nik/Google.
Here's how the app works: you frame your image on screen, with Fotor offering a grid to help you compose and level the camera. There are two picture taking modes -- one mode grabs the images and processes them, while the other mode allows you to continue taking photos rapidly without waiting...
| Read more »Research firms Gartner and IDC today released their preliminary calculations of PC shipments for the third quarter of 2013, finding that worldwide shipments fell by roughly 8% over the year-ago quarter, extending the current sales slide to 18 months. Top worldwide vendors Lenovo, HP, and Dell held up reasonably well, but smaller vendors such Acer and Asus experienced dramatic year-over-year declines in of around 22% according to Gartner and 34% according to IDC."The third quarter is often referred to as the 'back-to-school' quarter for PC sales, and sales this quarter dropped to their lowest volume since 2008," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "Consumers' shift from PCs to tablets for daily content consumption continued to decrease the installed base of PCs both in mature as well as in emerging markets. A greater availability of...
| Read more »Apple’s new product unveilings have an uncanny way of coinciding with other big tech events and disrupting them, and the as of yet unannounced gathering the company will hold later this month will be no different.
Oct. 22, Apple’s chosen date for unveiling its next generation iPads, also happens to be the day on which two of the company’s big rivals plan to debut or launch new hardware of their own. Nokia’s Innovation Reinvented showcase, which is expected to host the debut of a new Windows RT tablet, will occur that Tuesday in Abu Dhabi. Microsoft will begin shipping its new Surface 2 tablet in The United...
| Read more »As part if its on-going promotion of offering free iTunes content via the Apple Store app, Apple is offering the Temple Run: Oz game for free. The game is normally a $0.99 download via the App Store. The promotion runs until November 15, 2013. Apple previously offered free iTunes Festival tracks,...
| Read more »Comcast has cozied up to Twitter and the result is a new streaming video feature called "See It," which will be embedded in select Tweets. Comcast customers using the Xfinity service will be able to access streaming TV content straight from the social network, starting first with NBC content and presumably expanding in the future.
Here's hows its primary function works: Certain Twitter accounts -- such as official accounts of TV shows or networks -- can embed a "See It" button in their tweets. Comcast Xfinity customers can click this button, sign in, and watch the show or sporting event right from their tablet or smartphone. Additionally, customers will be able to set reminders or DVR recording schedules using the See It feature, though these functions weren't fully detailed in...
| Read more »The latest quarterly PC market tracking data from both Gartner and IDC shows that Apple's U.S. Mac shipments shrunk in the third quarter of calendar 2013, as the overall PC market outpaced Mac hardware.
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Ben Bajarin wrote a great piece on the iPhone and its market share in the U.S. There are so many takeaways, you should just read the whole thing.
| Read more »What's more retro Mac than MacPaint? It was the application that drew many of us to the joys of Macintosh in 1984, as there was nothing like it on any other platform. The app, which was was included on the boot disks, let you do bit-mapped painting in a variety of monochrome patterns. You could even copy and paste your artwork into MacWrite, an incredible advance at the time. Well, now you can enjoy the simple pleasures of MacPaint by visiting the Cloudpaint web page and giving your inner artist a workout.
Cloudpaint is the brainchild of Martin Braun, who gives a polite bow in the About Cloudpaint notes to Mac originals Bill Atkinson (creator of the code for the original application) and Susan Kare (those little icons and artwork). Now enough talk; go out and play with Cloudpaint. You'll be pleased to know that it works on your iPad or iPad mini...
| Read more »Yesterday in the MacNN forums, Junior Member "jretzner" was having trouble uninstalling Microsoft Office 2008 and turned to the forums for some advice. Moderator "ibook_steve" noticed that there have been some App updates in iOS 7 that have been getting stuck and wonders why this may be and what they might do to fix it....
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This week at Apple's online store, find savings of up to 33 percent off a selection of refurbished iPod and iPod touch models. The 16GB 7th generation iPod nano with a 2.5-inch multi-touch display, Bluetooth 4.0 and FM radio has seen a $50 discount to $99 and is available in yellow, silver, green, purple, slate, blue, and pink. For $179, after a $40 discount, is the 4th generation refurbished 32GB iPod touch available in black or white....
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Check-in service Foursquare has released an important update of its iOS app, v6.4. In keeping with a recent Android update, the app now supports automatic recommendations. The feature operates in the background, regularly scanning location to provide suggestions for nearby venues like coffeeshops and restaurants. It also coalesces comment keywords to give hints about what people buy at a given place....
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Beacon Audio's latest Bluetooth speaker, The Phoenix 2, launched last week, alongside the promotional offer of free domestic shipping of the product until October 15. The Phoenix 2, measured at 3x3 inches, has prolonged battery life compared to its predecessor, with up to 10 hours of music play. Its built-in microphone allows the device to facilitate use as a speakerphone, and an updated Bluetooth and flash chip set allows for a 40-foot range signal connection from its synced mobile device. Available in black, blue, red and white, the Phoenix 2 is priced $80 and can be purchased online from Be...
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At ExperCom.com right now, save on the 27-inch iMac which was $1,974, but has been reduced to $1,910.72. That's a price cut of $64 off the list price of $1,974, and nearly $230 less than Apple's price for the same configuration. Included is three years of AppleCare. This iMac features a 3.2GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 16GB of RAM, 1TB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M video card, and a display with 2560x1440 resolution. A one year warranty from Apple, Magic Mouse (or wired mouse or Magic Trackpad) and wireless keyboard are included....
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DComplex has announced the second generation of Camera Recorder, an update to its video surveillance software for Mac OS X (10.6 and higher).
IP Camera Recorder allows users to monitor up to 20 IP Cameras simultaneously on a Mac, record video from the cameras, detect motion, control PTZ and more. The new version adds support for hundreds of models of IP cameras, improved Motion Detection and more.
| Read more »In August, Apple launched an iPhone trade-in program for its United States-based retail stores. The promotion is part of Tim Cook’s grand plan to dramatically increase iPhone sales inside of his own stores. Interestingly, the iPhone “Reuse and Recycle” trade-in program has been absent from Apple Stores outside of the United States even though approximately 1/3 of the company’s stores exist outside of the U.S.
That will soon change, according to a reliable source. This person says that Apple has begun preparing training materials for its United Kingdom retail staff on the Apple Store iPhone trade-in-program and that the...
| Read more »Other World Computing has announced that, through its in-house MaxRAM testing lab, its Certified 800MHz PC6400 FB-DIMM Upgrade Kits for 2008 model (MacPro3,1).
OWC now provides up to 64GB -- double the factory maximum installed memory -- with up to a 48% lower cost. The 8GB per DIMM matched kits are fully tested and certified to meet, if not surpass, all Apple memory design and compatibility specifications and come backed by a Lifetime Replacement Warranty and easy-to-follow, For more info go to http://tinyurl.com/3f74xe6 .
| Read more »Recently, The Mac Observer has published iOS 7 accessibility tips. Here's a summary of all those articles published to date plus links to Apple's accessibility pages for iOS (and OS X).
It's never been easier to build an app than it is in the modern era, but thanks to Google it's just gotten a lot easier. Today Google is launching its cloud-based development tool set for iOS, giving developers access to cheap, easy, and free options for connecting to Google's cloud services. Android developers gained access to the tools this past April, but this is their iOS debut.
Google's Mobile Backend Starter for iOS provides a quick and easy backend for your app and gives you access to cloud data storage that can be shared between users, device-to-device push notifications, device notifications of data changes, and the ability to authenticate users via their Google Accounts.
Google has provided a clear and simple walkthrough of how to get started with...
| Read more »Apple is set to reveal its revamped fifth-generation iPad later this month, and ahead of the event, new high-resolution images of the upcoming iPad’s casing and front panel have been released by Australian writer Sonny Dickson, offering a clear view of what can be expected from the redesign.
Though the iPad’s components have been shown off in multiple photos and videos, these high-quality images provide a better look at the slimmer, mini-style iPad 5.
The fifth-generation iPad has been designed to look similar to the iPad mini, adopting smaller...
| Read more »Today the Canadian IP Office published documentation confirming that Apple has finally been granted a Registered Trademark for "iPad." The final approval of the iPad trademark was officially finalized on Friday October 04, 2013 under number TMA862033. Over the last ...
| Read more »Samsung announced Tuesday the Galaxy Round, a 5.7-inch phablet with a curved super AMOLED display. The device is being introduced solely for the Korean market, and solely in "Luxury Brown," with more colors to be introduced "soon."
Tech savvy tea lovers (is there such a thing?) will be happy to know that an iPhone-connected tea kettle is coming soon to kitchen counters. Called the iKettle, of course, the Wi-Fi kettle allows users to turn the kettle on remotely from their iPhone. It's even got an alarm function so when you wake up in the morning the iKettle companion app will ask you if you'd like to run the kettle, which can be done so from the comfort of your bed so when you walk into that cold kitchen your hot cup of tea is ready and waiting.
The iKettle also allows you to set the temperature of the water--ranging from 65 to 100 degrees--so each tea can be heated to its ideal temperature.
The iKettle is available for preorder now from Firebox, with a 1-2 month ship time. It costs US$99.99 and includes free shipping.
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| Read more »AOL has informed applicable users that it will be dropping support for accessing email from Apple’s iCloud service from its recently launched Alto webmail client. Alto is a web-based mail client that intelligently sorts and integrates email from services such as iCloud Gmail, Yahoo, and AOL. AOL has informed iCloud users who have logged into Alto that support for iCloud will be dropped on December 2nd:
Thanks for using Alto to read and send mail from your @iCloud, @me or @mac account. We’ve been honored to host those accounts and get great, positive feedback on the experience from users like you. But we’re sad to say that Alto will no longer support iCloud accounts as of December 2, 2013. We sincerely regret the...
| Read more »In iOS 7, Safari's integrated URL and search field at the top shows only the primary part of the domain for a website. This tip shows you how to see the full URL.
Yahoo! has been on a roll, updating its iOS apps left and right. Earlier it was the Yahoo Mail app. Now it's Flickr. The newest version of Flickr for iPhone, released today, adds a number of new features. The most significant one is Auto Upload (iOS 7 only). This feature allows Flickr users to automatically upload every since picture they take with their iPhone -- in full resolution -- without having to do a thing.
You can opt to enable Auto Upload over Wi-Fi and Cellular or just Wi-Fi, so you can save your valuable mobile bandwidth. Additionally, all auto-uploaded pictures are set to "private" by default so you don't need to worry about people seeing snaps you don't want them to. And don't worry about hogging up your Flickr storage either. With...
| Read more »Qualcomm's PR department has issued a statement retracting a recent jab at Apple's A7 processor, made by chief marketing officer Anand Chandrasekher. In an interview with IDG News last week, Chandrasekher called the A7's 64-bit architecture a "marketing gimmick," arguing that it has little to no benefit for the public at the moment. "Predominantly ...you need it [64-bit] for memory addressability beyond 4GB [the iPhone 5s has 1GB of RAM]. That's it. You don't really need it for performance, and the kinds of applications that 64-bit get used in mostly are large, server-class applications."...
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When working on mail flow issues, one of the first troubleshooting steps with any mail server is to try and telnet into port 25 of the server. Exchange has an error, 530, that says that the smtp connection wasn’t authenticated. If you’re trying to relay through an Exchange server, that’s a good thing, as you wouldn’t want an open relay. However, if you’re trying to relay to an Exchange server, that’s not such a good thing. So let’s look at what this symptom looks like. First we try and telnet into port 25 of the server:
telnet exchange.krypted.com 25
Which shows the following:
220 exchange.krypted.com
Then we say hi:
Helo
And because the laws of robotics tell it to do so, the server says hi back:
250 exchange.krypted.com Hello
Then we try and relay to it:
mail from:krypted@me.com
And we get this error at some point in our smtp communication:
530 5.7.1...
| Read more »Apple is seeking a Carrier Engineering Manager with expertise in China Mobile's homegrown TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE cellular networking technologies for Apple's Beijing office, signaling that the iPhone may finally be close to a debut on the world's largest wireless carrier.
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It's time to save some of that hard-earned cash with our Daily Deals, featuring exclusive TUAW Deals, a handy list from Dealnews and our own hand-picked iOS and OS X selections.
TUAW's Daily Deals
Web Hosting w/ DreamHost [On sale for $19, down from $119]
DreamHost is an award-winning web hosting service that serves over 1.2 million apps, blogs, and websites. DreamHost guarantees 100% server uptime, while providing unlimited Diskspace, Bandwidth, E-Mail Account, and Domain Hosting. Plus, with 24/7 E-mail support, you can get help whenever you need it.
Ever wanted to build a website? Hosting is an essential part! No matter what kind of site, you always need a web hosting service. Now, you can get 1 year of web hosting PLUS 2 free domains for 85% off. That's less than $1.60 per month for...
| Read more »Markzware has released the PDF2DTP for InDesign CC Mac Bundle. InDesign plugin, PDF2DTP, has been enhanced to now work with Adobe InDesign CC (Creative Cloud graphic software).
This data conversion bundle of InDesign plugins for the Mac includes the PDF2DTP for InDesign CC plugin for Adobe Creative Cloud, as well as the PDF2DTP for InDesign CS6 plugin for Adobe Creative Suite. PDF2DTP provides a method to migrate content from PDF into an editable format within Adobe InDesign files (INDD), enabling users to more easily edit PDF.
| Read more »Soundmatters has released its new DASH7 Bluetooth speaker focused on portability. The wireless speaker is available in three colors and measures only 3/4" thick. Featuring two wide-frequency drivers, the DASH7 boasts up to 12 hours of playback thanks to its "BassBattery" that doubles as a passive subwoofer. Also featuring speakerphone functionality, the diminutive device includes a noise canceling microphone to reduce ambient noise during a call. The DASH7 is available immediately for $219, which includes a carrying case that doubles as a kickstand....
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Case-Mate has launched Style Box, a new risk-free trial program for the company’s luxury iPhone 5/5s cases. Style Box gives users an assortment of Case-Mate cases to try for free for seven days; the goal appears to be to get users to purchase more than one iPhone case, possibly…
| Read more »Yesterday was the 16th anniversary of Yahoo! Mail and to celebrate the company has completely redesigned its Yahoo Mail app for iOS. Not only does the app have a new look that fits nicely with iOS 7, it adds some serious new features. First up are Conversations, which allow users to view related messages in a single grouped view (much the way "threads" work in iOS 7's Mail.app). Conversations can be turned on or off in settings for those that don't like to see messages grouped together.
Another new feature is Themes, which allow users to personalize the look of their Mail app with a variety of background images. The app also now gives all users to enhanced mail forwarding and filtering features. But perhaps the most exciting thing of all is now Yahoo! is giving its mail users a whopping 1 TB of storage space. That makes Apple's 5 GB of free iCloud space look downright cheap.
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| Read more »Amazon has announced two new Kindle Fire HDX tablets with quad-core processors and new features aimed at making them more competitive with Apple’s iPads.
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.
| Read more »Apple is looking to hire an engineering manager familiar with China Mobile's TD-SCDMA 3G standard, Bloomberg notes. The person's job will be to "support and drive the carrier approval of mobile phones;" notably, Apple is asking for experience with TD-SCDMA, even though China Mobile has yet to carry the iPhone. The listing backs several reports pointing to an imminent China Mobile iPhone launch....
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Foursquare, which is betting big on a new automatic recommendation service, says the feature will now be available to some iPhone users. Foursquare is rolling out a new version of its iOS software today, but says only a “few thousand” iPhone users will be able to use the new feature immediately; it followed a similar phase-in for Android users beginning in August.
| Read more »Apple has updated its developer guidelines to allow developers to use all colors of the iPhone 5s in product marketing. Previously developers were only officially allowed to use the black iPhone likeness for marking, though many developers ignored this rule and used the white iPhone as well, suggesting Apple rarely enforces this rule.
Now however, developers have Apple's official blessing to use whatever color iPhone 5s body they want in their app promo shots: Space Gray, White and Silver, or Gold. Something tells me Gold is going to be particularly popular. Developers can download the latest product image templates here.
Devs can now use all iPhone 5s colors in marketing originally appeared on...
| Read more »Flickr has launched a new version of its iOS client, adding a new auto upload feature for iOS 7. Users can now allow the app to automatically upload full resolution images from the device's Camera Roll. To protect the user's privacy the images are uploaded as private files, giving users the option to only share the images that they want to. In addition, the update features automatic image straightening in the Flickr editor and a fix for Google sign-in issue. The official Flickr app is a free download in the App Store....
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A rumor errupted back in 2010 when a the reputable Japanese publication Nikkei Business Publications posted photos of an alleged iPod touch and iPad being equipped with Senseg haptics. Another rumor had surfaced even earlier on MacRumors. Coincidentally, shortly after the rumor surfaced, an Apple patent application published by USPTO came to light discussing a wildly intelligent multi-tiered haptics system. Apple's latest haptics related patent filing was published in March of this year discussing haptics using magnetically permeable materials. Even Samsung is aiming to bring advanced haptics to smartphones via a floating screen structure that is able to create spot-screen 3D effects. To date there's no major smartphone or tablet on the market that provides consumers with advanced haptics allowing them to experience unique touch sensations on their device touch displays. But a surprise revelation by Disney Research says that they have a solution in hand. Apple has ...
| Read more »With iOS 7, Apple's touchscreen keyboard has been revised, offering new capabilities and also changing the functionality of some previously available features, like the ".com" button in Safari.
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Embattled mobile hardware makers BlackBerry has announced that it is bringing a new cloud software solution to iOS to enable "trusted and simple" enterprise mobility management on Apple's devices. The new cloud solution (which apparently doesn't have a name yet) aims to tackle the BYOD complexities of the modern office. BYOD stands for "bring your own device" and refers to the wants/needs of the modern worker to work on devices of their choice -- often their own personal devices -- be it Android, iOS, Windows Phone or BlackBerry.
BlackBerry says its upcoming solution will enable companies to "manage apps, get friendly technical support and a whole lot more," including:
Little Snitch gives you control over your private outgoing data.
Track background activityAs soon as your computer connects to the Internet, applications often have permission to send any information wherever they need to. Little Snitch takes note of this activity and allows you to decide for yourself what happens with this data.
Control your networkChoose to allow or deny connections, or define a rule how to handle similar, future connection attempts. Little Snitch runs inconspicuously in the background and it can even detect network-related activity of viruses, trojans, and other malware.
Version 3.3:
Facebook is preparing a series of major updates for its iOS apps, a source claims. The company's core app is slated to get access to Graph Search, a feature which lets people locate others with similar interests. The option should be integrated into the mobile app's search bar....
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LaCie and Porsche Design has announced the Porsche Design USB Key. It's the latest inclusion to Porsche Design's exclusive electronics line.
The LaCie Porsche Design USB Key an ultra-portable device that features up to 32GB of capacity and USB 3.0 speed. It fits into just about any keychain, purse or briefcase.
The LaCie Porsche Design USB Key is available in 16GB and 32GB capacities through the LaCie Online Store and LaCie Resellers starting at US$29.99. It comes with a 2-year limited warranty. Go to www.lacie.com for more info.
| Read more »Qualcomm's Chief Marketing Officer, Anand Chandrasekher, doesn't seem to be overly impressed with the 64-bit A7 processor in Apple's new iPhone 5s and went so far as to call it a marketing gimmick. Now the company is is backtracking and calling those comments inaccurate.
The Mac Observer Spin:
The closed door meeting after Anand Chandrasekher called Apple's A7 processor a marketing gimmick probably went something like this: "Dude. You can't say stuff like that. Do you know what it'll take to fix this?" We're paraphrasing, of course.
Apple is set to revamp the displays for the majority of its product lines within the next year, according to supply chain research done by NPD DisplaySearch (via CNET). The new research corroborates an earlier report that Apple is set to revamp its displays across multiple product lines and offers some speculation on Apple's plans rooted in the supply chain hints.Based on supply chain research, we believe Apple is planning to revamp nearly all of the displays in its products over the next year. This would indicate that Apple, once again, intends to count on display technology for new product innovation. We can speculate about Apple...
| Read more »Alien Skin Software has announced Snap Art 4, the new version of its artistic natural media application for photographers.
Snap Art 4 transforms a photo into a work of art that looks handcrafted. It features a redesigned user interface and improved speed. Snap Art 4 can be used as a plug-in with popular host software (Apple Aperture, Adobe Photoshop, and Lightroom) or as a standalone program.
| Read more »Apple’s newest iPhones will arrive at market in more than 50 countries by Nov. 1. On Oct. 25, the flagship iPhone 5S and its sibling the iPhone 5C will go on sale in 35 new markets including Austria, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Spain, and Taiwan. A week later, on Nov. 1, the devices will begin shipping in an additional 35 countries. Among them: India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. You’ll find a full list of the markets Apple has targeted for the next wave of iPhone releases here.
| Read more »ClearApp has released its agentless network inventory software for Mac OS X: Network Inventory Advisor for Mac. It's designed to bring simplified automated network scanning to the Mac platform without the need of installing agent utilities on the computers you want to build reports for.
Network Inventory Advisor for Mac can be downloaded from ClearApp's website (http://tinyurl.com/nvnauq9) and will soon be available on the Mac App Store. Meanwhile the app is available for free (with 10 nodes cap) with premium licenses for larger networks.
| Read more »Twitter is teaming up with Comcast to integrate a new feature called “See It” that will allow Comcast Xfinity subscribers to watch shows and schedule DVR recordings directly from Twitter. The companies announced the partnership today and announced that the new “See It” feature will begin appearing for users on Twitter in next month.
Today, @Comcast and @NBCUniversal are announcing a partnership with Twitter that lets users tune in to a TV show directly from a Tweet. Comcast will give Xfinity TV customers the ability to do several things such as change the channel, set the DVR and play a show On Demand, directly from an expanded Tweet. Called See It, the feature will debut with NBCUniversal offerings...
| Read more »Flickr added a new automatic upload feature to its to its iOS app on Wednesday, the service's latest effort to woo—and woo back—users in the ultra-competitive online photo-sharing arena.
After the app has been updated, Flickr prompts users to activate the new feature.
The optional feature will upload the 25 most recent pictures on your iPhone; after that all new photos will be automatically added to the service—all photos are uploaded on a private basis and made public only if the user chooses to edit and share a picture. The app can be set to do the uploads over cellular networks, or only when the phone has access to a Wi-Fi connection. (The app prompts users to...
| Read more »The iPhone 5s and 5c handsets, they’re coming to a country near you.
Per The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Apple has announced that the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c will be available in 35 additional countries starting October 25, including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, French West Indies, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion Island, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Thailand.
In addition, the...
| Read more »It’s the leaks that make things interesting.
Per AppleInsider and AllThingsD, the date for Apple’s anticipated iPad media event was leaked on Tuesday, which cited unnamed sources. The same publication has accurately shared word of Apple event dates in the past.
In addition to new iPads, the event in two weeks is also expected to focus on the company’s revamped Mac Pro high-end desktop, and the forthcoming OS X Mavericks...
| Read more »Twitter has been trying to buddy up with the TV industry for the past few years. Now it has its it biggest payoff yet: A far-reaching deal with Comcast that aims to turn the social network into a TV-watching service.
The gist: Later this fall, Twitter users will start to see a “See It” button on messages about some of Comcast-owned NBC Universal’s shows, like “The Voice”. Clicking on those Tweets will open up a Twitter “card” with more information about the shows, and Twitter users who are also Comcast pay TV subscribers will be able to record or watch the show, directly from their computer or mobile device.
Even shorter gist: Twitter, which has been telling the TV business it can deliver eyeballs to their programming, will now have a chance to prove it, by literally connecting its users with TV...
| Read more »Last week Qualcomm's chief marketing officer Anand Chandrasekher caused a bit of a stir when he called Apple's new 64-bit A7 processor a "marketing gimmick" in an interview with IDG news service. Specifically, his words were:
"I know there's a lot of noise because Apple did [64-bit] on their A7. I think they are doing a marketing gimmick. There's zero benefit a consumer gets from that. Predominantly... you need it for memory addressability beyond 4GB [the iPhone 5s only has 1 GB of RAM]. That's it. You don't really need it for performance, and the kinds of applications that 64-bit get used in mostly are large, server-class applications."
Chandrasekher's comments, who previously ran Intel's mobile platforms group, were quite shocking in that not only are they highly debatable, but that Qualcomm has a long history with Apple and supplies the modems...
| Read more »This one’s fairly substantial.
On Tuesday, Adobe released Flash Player 11.9.900.117 for Mac OS X, an 18 megabyte download via MacUpdate. The new version adds the following fixes and changes:
- Mobile Workers (concurrency) – Android: Workers APIs are now supported for Android. This will work only with swf-version 22 (namespace 3.9) or later. The feature is in development and there are a few known issues.
- Support for background execution in Direct render mode – iOS and Android: Presently AIR on iOS and Android does not support background...
| Read more »Apple says the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c (pictured) will be available in Italy, Russia, Spain and more than 25 additional countries on Friday, October 25.
The phones will also be available in more than a dozen countries on Friday, November 1, including India and Mexico. The iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c were announced by Apple on Sept. 10.
| Read more »With Apple apparently set to unveil a new fifth-generation iPad and second-generation iPad mini at a media event in less than two weeks, the company will draw away the eyes of the tech world as Microsoft and Nokia attempt to drum up interest in their own competing devices on the very same day.
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Ergonis Software has announced KeyCue 7.0, an update to the cheat sheet for learning and remembering keyboard shortcuts. The upgrade sports a new look with customizable themes, column headings for shortcut groups, arbitrary textual descriptions for shortcuts, and further great new features.
With KeyCue, whenever the command key is kept pressed for a while, the software displays a table with all keyboard shortcuts available in the currently active application, systemwide hotkeys, as well as key combinations for triggering macros in Keyboard Maestro, QuicKeys and iKeys.
| Read more »You, too, will soon be able to purchase a phone in "space gray." Andrew Cunningham
People living in the US, UK, Canada, China, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore have all been able to buy Apple's new iPhone 5C and 5S since the phones launched on September 20, but the rest of the world has been left waiting. The wait is almost over—Apple has announced its plans to roll the new iPhones out to the rest of the world.
The following countries will be getting the new phones on October 25: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, French West Indies, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion Island, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea,...
| Read more »The Galaxy Round exists because the Galaxy Round exists. Samsung built and launched it so that it would be the first company in the world to build and launch a smartphone with a curved display. That’s it. The curved shape of the phone adds nothing of value to the user experience and once again, Samsung didn’t even attempt to add any useful new functionality to the device. It’s a gimmick.
That pretty much says it all.
| Read more »Apple has announced that the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c will be available in 35 additional countries starting October 25, including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, French West Indies, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion Island, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Thailand.
In addition, iPhone 5s and 5c will debut in the following countries on Friday, November 1: Albania, Armenia, Bahrain, Colombia, El Salvador, Guam, Guatemala, India, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and UAE.
Happy shopping, folks. We look forward to your stories and photos from the Apple Store near...
| Read more »The iPhone 5s and 5c will launch in over 28 more countries on October 25th, Apple has announced. Italy, Russia, and Spain have been identified as the main launch regions that day, but the list also includes countries like Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, and Thailand. On November 1st, still another 12-plus countries will be added, including India, Mexico, and Turkey....
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While a possible deal with China Mobile, one of the world’s largest telecoms, was rumored for quite sometime leading up to launch of the new iPhones, the company said in August that it was still working out “commercial and technical issues” with Apple. Today, Bloomberg points us to an Apple job listing in China that provides some evidence that the company is indeed preparing to launch the iPhone on the carrier’s network:
The manager, who will be based in Beijing, will “support and drive the carrier approval of mobile phones,” Apple said in an ...
| Read more »Sometimes it's the simple things that make operating system updates so nice, like iOS 7's new way of performing system-wide searches. The problem is when the way you get at a feature like that changes and no one tells you where it went. If you're stymied trying to find iOS 7's system-wide search, rest easy. We've got you covered.
Yahoo's Flickr photo hosting service released an update to their popular iOS application Wednesday, featuring automatic uploading to its terabyte-per-user storage, a new straighten tool, and a slightly refined user interface for iOS 7.
...
Apple announced that the iPhone 5c and 5s will be coming to more than 25 countries on Friday, Oct. 25. On that day, the phones will be released in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, French West Indies, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg,…
| Read more »The iPhone 5s can produce graphics on par with many current generation game consoles, but having a retro flashback to the games of yesteryear is often just as enjoyable -- and it doesn't get much more "retro" than the ColecoVision. Rantmedia Games has just launched a Kickstarter campaign in the hopes of resurrecting the classic game console on the App Store, complete with a virtual living room where your system will live alongside a trophy cabinet and maybe even some shag carpeting.
Rantmedia has already done a lot of the legwork in terms of securing the rights to make the app happen, including snagging the rights to both the official ColecoVision brand as well as a sizeable list of the system's most popular titles. The funding campaign has a goal of $250,000, but that's a rather...
| Read more »It’s a time of transition in technology: The iPhones now come in multiple colors. Steve Ballmer is on his way out at Microsoft. And Apple’s CEO is now firing off 140-character updates on Twitter. With all the upheaval, we had better roll out another edition of the Macworld Pundit Showdown to help you make sense of it all.
We’ve assembled another first rate panel to take on the issues of the day. Join Macworld senior editors Christopher Breen and Roman Loyola, TechHive senior editor Susie Ochs, and TechHive assistant editor Armando Rodriguez as they field questions about iPhones, Apple, and other events from a busy few months in the tech world.
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| Read more »The latest iPhones are spreading across the world like an epidemic … of attractive, well-designed consumer electronics. On Wednesday, Apple detailed the next victims of the iPhone plague, laying out the more than 25 countries on which its latest iPhones will soon descend.
Beginning on Friday, October 25, the iPhone 5s and 5c will be available in more than 25 additional countries. Ready? Deep breath! They include: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, French West Indies, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion Island, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Thailand.
Phew.
Then, in case that wasn’t...
| Read more »Google announced today on its Cloud Platform blog that it is rolling out its Google App Engine application called Mobile Backend Starter that first debuted for Android developers back in June. Google says the application helps to simplify the server-side development process for developers adding cloud services through Google Cloud Platform and it does so by providing Mobile Backend and Objective-C client libraries for everything from storing data in the cloud to sending device-to-device push notifications and authenticating Google accounts. In other words, it’s a ready-to-deploy, general purpose cloud backend along with Android and iOS clients with client-side framework classes. This allows devs to implement a number of cloud services into their apps without ever having to worry about coding...
| Read more »Alongside the launch of the 5s and 5c, Apple has adjusted its marketing guidelines for App Store developers in response to the wider color palette of iPhones now on sale. Apple now officially allows developers to include iPhone models other than black in their marketing.
Up to now, developers were only supposed to use black iPhones although it is well known that Apple never really enforced these requirements. As such, many developers have used white iPhones in PR images over the years regardless of the regulations. Now though. developers are free to use gold or white colored devices in their marketing at will.
At the same time, Apple has updated its stock...
| Read more »An excerpt from Nick Bilton’s upcoming book on Twitter was posted in The New York Times today. Fascinating read.
| Read more »KeyCue lets you view available Command key shortcuts.Simply press and hold the Command key to view a list of all available keyboard shortcuts, making it easy to learn and remember those time-saving keystrokes.
Version 7.0:
Today seems to be live-in-the-past day. Heh.
For you young-’uns, MacPaint was a bit-mapped drawing program that shipped with the original Macintosh. A lovely bit of code.
| Read more »It's time to save some of that hard-earned cash with our Daily Deals, featuring exclusive TUAW Deals, a handy list from Dealnews and our own hand-picked iOS and OS X selections.
TUAW's Daily Deals
Revolutionary Touchfire Keyboard For iPad [On sale for $34.99, down from $50]
The Touchfire keyboard has all the functionality of a standard keyboard, but in a paper thin, transparent silicone that fits directly on your screen.
You can still view the entire screen right through the keyboard with the ability to touch and swipe as if nothing was there!
Don't believe it? Check out the video above or Google the reviews. There is no question this keyboard will turn your iPad into a laptop killer!
Save 30% on the Revolutionary Touchfire Keyboard For iPad at...
| Read more »iPhone 5s and 5c will be available on Friday, October 25 in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, French West Indies, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion Island, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Thailand. iPhone 5s and 5c will also be available on Friday, November 1 in Albania, Armenia, Bahrain, Colombia, El Salvador, Guam, Guatemala, India, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and UAE. Both iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c are currently available in the US, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK.
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| Read more »When I was a kid, this was common science fiction fodder. To see this on the horizon is amazing.
In a speech to Virgin Galactic customers on September 27, the company’s founder, Sir Richard Branson, outlined these plans and more for the future of his commercial space fleet. “Using small, purpose-built, two-man spaceships based at space hotels our guests will be able to take breathtaking day trips programmed to fly a couple of hundred feet above of the moon’s surface,” Branson said. “They will be able to take in with their own eyes awe-inspiring views of mountains, craters and vast dry seas below.”
Sign me up!
| Read more »In a press release announcing a new wave of enterprise cloud solutions for the fall, Microsoft has (perhaps inadvertently) let it be known that its Remote Desktop client will be coming to iOS later this month. Microsoft has long made its Remote Desktop client for OS X, but in discussing its new enterprise cloud solutions and Remote clients for the upcoming release of Windows Server 2012 R2, Microsoft wrote this little gem:
The proliferation of cloud applications, data and consumer devices is moving many enterprises to a bring-your-own-device model. The new release of Windows Intune, also available Oct. 18, combines with System Center Configuration Manager to help IT departments give mobile employees security-enhanced access to the applications and data they need on the Windows, iOS and Android devices of their choice. This unified management environment for PCs and...
| Read more »Researchers at MIT wanted to create a robot that could reassemble itself into a variety of shapes. This is the proof of concept, a set of blocks, each of which contains a spinning motor with a break, along with all required electronics. The purpose of the motor is to generate inertia to allow the block to jump from one position to another.
Fascinating.
| Read more »A new speaker from audio producer Sonos has apparently gone on sale without being officially announced by the company. The Sonos Play:1, having been last seen visiting the FCC early last month, has been sighted on retail store Target's shelves, with the Play family speakers shown to be available in black and white enclosures....
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Apple's iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c will launch in 35 more countries on October 25, including Italy, Russia, and Spain. The newest iPhone models launched in the United States, the U.K., Canada, China, and several other countries on September 20, and this will be the company's first expansion since the initial rollout.
The Mac Observer Spin:
Apple is aggressively pushing into new markets with the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c. Come November, that list will include 62 countries, and more will be coming soon. Hopefully Apple has been able to ramp up production, or there will be a lot of people that won't be able to buy their shiny new iPhone 5s.
It's being reported today by the Korean Press that Samsung will officially launch the world's first curved display smartphone called the "Galaxy Round" Tomorrow. Our Patent Bolt blog first uncovered Samsung's design patent back in May of this year.
| Read more »A total of 35 new countries and territories ??including Italy, Russia and Spain ? will gain access to Apple's latest iPhones on Oct. 25, while 16 more will see the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c debut on Nov. 1.
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Apple today announced plans for its next two rounds of launches for the new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, with the devices coming to 35 new countries including Italy, Russia, and Spain on Friday, October 25. Another round will follow on Friday, November 1, bringing the devices to an additional 16 countries.
- October 25: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, French West Indies, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion Island, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Thailand.
- November 1: Albania, Armenia, Bahrain, Colombia, El Salvador, Guam, Guatemala, India, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Saudi...
| Read more »Following the launch of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in the United States on September 20th, Apple has announced that it will begin phase 2 and phase 3 of the new devices rollout in the coming weeks. On Friday, October 25th, Apple will launch the 5s and 5c in 25 new countries, with a dozen more gaining the devices on Friday, November 1st.
October 25th countries:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, French West Indies, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion Island, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Thailand.
November 1st countries:
Albania, Armenia, Bahrain, Colombia, El Salvador, Guam, Guatemala,...
| Read more »The iOS 7 version of Siri has some tricks up its sleeve—including a quick, simple way for it to learn how to pronounce the names of your contacts. So if Siri's been mangling your friend Ercwlff Boudreaux's name since approximately the beginning of time, for example, now's your chance to fix it.
We Brits are famous for the copious amounts of tea we drink (as well as for the fact that we drink it with milk, a habit which puzzles us as much as it does the rest of the world). But who has time to stand around your kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil? A problem neatly solved by the iKettle.
Simply use your iPhone to switch the kettle on from wherever you are in the house, and it will alert you when it’s boiling. Wander through to the kitchen, and you can be drinking tea within seconds. Loose-leaf Earl Grey, naturally.
The app also offers to put the kettle on as soon as your iPhone comes within wifi range when you’re arriving home. All terribly civilised.
Ok, it’s $160/£99, and only available on pre-order for delivery in 1-2 months, but if I didn’t already use a...
| Read more »MacPaint shipped with the Macintosh in 1984 and is the mother of all modern graphics programs. If you miss those days, or never got a chance to experience MacPaint for yourself, developer Martin Braun has adapted it for the Web. Cloudpaint replicates both the features and interface of the original, which was developed by Bill Atkinson and Susan Kare, then later open-sourced in 2010.
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.
| Read more »Now that Apple has released the golden master of Mavericks to developers, the clock is ticking on the official release, and we have an early-bird version of Joe Kissell’s “Take Control of Upgrading to Mavericks” to help you get ready. Read on for introductory pricing on that title and Sharon Zardetto’s forthcoming “Take Control of iBooks.”
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.
| Read more »Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster just released data from their latest semiannual teen survey. Interesting read. Three things jumped out at me. In the three survey periods (Fall ’12, Spring ’13, Fall ’13):
My gut reaction to the tablet numbers is that the tablet share change is due to the ongoing maturation of the tablet market. The iPad mini was not around for the first survey and Android tablet use is still finding its level, at the...
| Read more »Microsoft will be releasing a new version of its Remote Desktop software to Android and iOS in the future, as part of a raft of enterprise cloud computing launches. The app, which allows users to control a PC or virtual desktop remotely, will appear on the mobile operating systems at the same time as updated versions of the software ship for Windows, Windows RT, and OS X....
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The market has only just absorbed the newest offerings from Apple -- the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s -- but already certain elements have started to get excited about the next, big smartphone thing coming out of Cupertino: an iPhone with a larger screen. The speculation was kicked off on Monday by a research note from analyst Peter Misek of Jefferies & Co. He raised his "hold" rating and $450 target for Apple to a "buy" with a target of $600, in part over anticipation of the iPhone 6, which he said he has learned will sport a 4.8-inch screen.
Microsoft will soon make it easier for iOS and OS X device owners to interface remotely with Windows Servers and Windows machines, as the software giant has announced that a new Microsoft Remote Desktop app will see release later this month.
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Syncro Soft, the developer of the Oxygen XML suite of products, has announced the immediate availability of version 15.1 of its Oxygen XML Editor, Oxygen XML Author and Oxygen XML Developer products containing a set of tools supporting all the XML related technologies.
The upgrade supports right-to-left and bidirectional text in the visual editing mode. Content authors are now able to create and edit XML documents in the oXygen Author mode, in languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and others.
| Read more »MPEG2 Works Advanced -- a Mac OS X tool for video formats re-conversion, encoding and manipulation -- has been revved to version 5. The upgrade fixes bugs and offers some new features, according to its developers.
MPEG2 Works Advanced 5 is available at the product web site (www.mpeg2works.com). It costs US$25 and requires Mac OS X 10.5 or higher.
| Read more »From the most excellent Scott Knaster:
Last week I posted about MAC: The Macintosh Calendar 1985 and included a couple of images from the calendar. Lots of folks asked to see more, so today I photographed the entire calendar and posted it. I apologize in advance to anyone depicted in this calendar who would rather not see these images again. It’s all done in the name of history.
Click on the calendar picture to jump to the gallery. You can zoom in once with the magnifying glass, then again with the + sign in the mini picture in the upper left corner.
Such great memories.
| Read more »Maintain has released Cocktail 5.6 (Lion Edition), the latest maintenance update for users running OS X Lion 10.7. This version adds the ability to hide the Spotlight menu bar icon (System - Spotlight).
It also adds the ability to rebuild Mail's Envelope Index database. The Mail application uses the (SQLite) Envelope Index database to index and search messages. By rebuilding this database, issues concerning messages that appear incomplete or are missing can be corrected. This feature may also improve Mail's performance.
| Read more »Photo: engadget.com
Today’s update to the iOS Flickr app offers auto-uploading of full-res photos to your private Flickr gallery. Couple this to the 1TB of free storage available and you effectively have a Photo Stream style service that can store over half a million photos, rather than simply the last 1,000.
Flickr introduced the 1TB capacity back in May (with parent company Yahoo offering the same free storage to email users yesterday). If you sync iPhoto with Flickr, you effectively get all the benefits of Photo Stream but with 500 times the capacity. You do need to be careful with this, however: the sync is two-way, so if you delete photos from Flickr, they will also be...
| Read more »Even though 4G’s share of cellular subscriptions stood at a meager 2.9% at the end of 2Q 2013, it is expected to account for slightly more than 20% of the total data consumed on mobile networks worldwide this year. After surpassing 3G networks in 2016, 4G networks will go on to capture two-thirds of data traffic by 2018, according to market intelligence firm ABI Research (www.abirsearch.com).
| Read more »The recently released Photoshop Elements 12 isn't hard to use. However, if you want to learn all its bells and whistles, you'll want "Photoshop Elements 12: The Missing Manual" from O'Reilly Media. The 648-page book costs US$44.99 for the print version and $35.99 for the ebook version. It provides jargon-free advice and step-by-step instructions (with illustrations). Readers will learn how to:
° Import, organize, edit, crop, and color-correct photos;
° Repair and restore old and damaged photos;
° Dress up your photos with dozens of filters, layer styles, and special effects;
| Read more »Screenshots of upcoming Facebook Graph Search for iPhone update
Facebook is preparing a pair of major updates for its most popular iPhone applications, according to a source familiar with the apps. Facebook is testing an updated version of its main iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch client that integrates the social network’s powerful Graph Search tool. Graph Search is a feature that allows Facebook users to locate fellow users that have similar interests. For example, a Graph Search user can search for all friends who “Like” a certain Facebook page, musician, or movie. The upcoming app update incorporates Graph Search into the Facebook app’s main search bar.
In addition to the aforementioned update to the main Facebook for iOS application, Facebook is preparing a...
| Read more »A number of readers have emailed to tell us that Apple's online store is down. Apple usually takes the store down for maintenance or right before the introduction of a new product. There's no telling for which reason the store is down this time but if it were to be down for a product update it would most likely be for new Haswell MacBook Pros, as the latest spec-bumped Haswell iMacs were announced with little fanfare and just an Apple Store update. Apple's System Status page says the store will be down until 10 AM because it's "being updated."
We'll let you know as soon as it's back up.
Apple's online store is down originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 09 Oct 2013 04:45:00 EST. Please see our...
| Read more »Citing supply chain sources, NPD/DisplaySearch Vice President for the Greater China Market David Hsieh believes that Apple will rely heavily over the next year or so on display technology innovation to help drive growth of some of its most popular products. He predicts both common changes like the expected upgrade to Retina-quality displays in the next iPad mini and off-beat options like the addition of Retina screens in future MacBook Airs, along with a larger 4.7-inch "iPhone 6" in 2014, echoing other analysts....
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Although both the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s leaked out well ahead of their September launch, the arrival of two new high-end iPhones caught people by surprise. Many thought that the polycarbonate iPhone 5c would be a lower-end iPhone simply because it is made from plastic. Yet, few it seems, stopped to consider the impact that the actual specifications of the shipping product would have on its positioning in Appleís iPhone line up. Now that people know the answers to those questions, which iPhone should you buy?...
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