After reading a couple of breathless announcements of the App Store’s 50 billionth download and Pixelmator 2.2’s 500,000 downloads, Adam Engst attempts to bring some context to these big numbers.

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.

A vast selection of refurbished 15.4-inch MacBook Pro models are available at Apple's Online Store. The 15.4-inch MBP with a 2.3GHz Intel quad-core i7 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive has been reduced to $1,489, a savings of $310. A $420 price cut is offered on the 15.4-inch Retina MBP with 2.3GHz quad-core i7 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 750GB hard drive, now $1,679....   ...

Currently JR.com has the Mac Pro for the reduced price of $3,599.99, that's $199.01 off the list price of $3,799 and the lowest price we have seen on this Mac model, brand new, anywhere. Free shipping is included and sales tax applies for residents of New York and California. The Mac Pro features a 2.4GHz 12-Core Xeon processor, 12GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. A one year warranty on parts and labor is included from Apple....  ...

Learn about printing to an AirPort Extreme / Express Base Station or Time Capsule from Microsoft Windows XP.

Good news.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Game developer Gameloft is giving iOS users a treat starting this weekend, as two of its titles ? Gangstar Rio and N.O.V.A 3 ? are both free for a limited time.   ...

The U.S. Air Force has opened up about how the iPad will help it realize over US$50 million in savings over the next ten years, as 18,000 iPads replace flight manuals.

In an interview with The Street, U.S. Air Force Major Brian Moritz described the huge drop in costs. "We're saving about 90 pounds of paper per aircraft and limiting the need for each crew member to carry a 30 to 40 pound paper pile [of flight manuals]. It adds up to quite a lot of weight in paper."

The Street notes that specific weight savings varies across aircraft. For instance, the iPads eliminate 250 pounds from a four-person C-17, and up to 490 pounds in a C-5 with a crew of 10.

In a related story from the civilian world, American Airlines recently described how its...

F-Secure

Stealthy Mac OS X spyware that was digitally signed with a valid Apple Developer ID has been detected on the laptop of an Angolan activist attending a human rights conference, researchers said.

The backdoor, which is programmed to take screenshots and send them to remote servers under the control of the attackers, was spread using a spear phishing e-mail according to privacy activist Jacob Appelbaum. Spear phishing is a term for highly targeted e-mails that address the receiver by name and usually appear to come from someone the receiver knows. The e-mails typically discuss topics the two people have talked about before. According to AV provider F-Secure the malware was discovered during a workshop showing freedom of speech activists how to secure their devices against government monitoring.

The malware was signed...

...

It's time to save some of that hard-earned cash with our Daily Deals, featuring a handy list from Dealnews and our own hand-picked selections that include some sweet deals on iOS and OS X software (all prices are USD).

Deals from Dealnews

• StackSocial: [Mac Software] MacX Video Converter Pro for Mac for free
• MacMall: [Apple Computers] MacMall Mac Blowout Sale: Up to $1,099 off Macs, iPads, and more
• Other World Computing: [Computer Accessories] OWC 2012 Featured Move 'em Out Sale: RAM, accessories, HDDs, more
• ...

If you’ve never heard of Animoca, it’s probably because — like nearly every company in the mobile games industry — the Hong Kong-based studio has never had a huge hit on the scale of Temple Run or Candy Crush Saga.

And Animoca couldn’t be happier about that.

Co-founder Yat Siu calls them “fast food apps.” The 150-person company, a conglomerate of 12 smaller studios, has developed and published more than 350 apps, he said, currently at the rate of about four every week. Its goal is to one day crank out a new app every day as it expands its reach further into Asia and beyond.

Siu, who is also the CEO of Animoca’s parent company, Outblaze Ventures, said as much in a recent interview with AllThingsD. But he also had a lot more to say about the advantages of working outside of Silicon Valley, the maturation of Google’s Android ecosystem and why quantity is sometimes better than quality.

...

Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and Justin Timberlake are just a few of the artists over the past year to offer full-length, high quality streams of their newest albums on iTunes in the days before release. The latest to follow in the trend is award winning electronic music duo Daft Punk with a full length stream of the group’s 74-minute “Random Access Memories” album hitting iTunes earlier this week. While it’s often suggested the streams help to fight piracy of the albums before their release, we’ve...

In a new post at his Steamclock Software blog, Nigel Brooke writes how Apple has added new Objective-C to Javascript bridging to WebKit:

"This new API supports straightforward embedding of the JavaScriptCore interpreter into native Objective-C projects, including reading and writing variables and object members with appropriate type coercion, calling methods on JavaScript objects, and directly binding Objective-C objects into JavaScript."

The API performs its bridging using Objective-C protocols, enabling you to bind JavaScript calls to Objective-C implementations. If you'd like to give the tech a test, Brooke has posted a working sample project at github.

Hat tip iOS Dev Weekly

...

There’s barely enough left to give back to the shareholders.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Last week, we noted that Apple was still struggling to convince the major music labels to sign on to its planned streaming service, informally dubbed "iRadio", with Sony and Warner reportedly holding out even after market leader Universal had agreed to Apple's revised terms.

In a new article highlighting how Google was able to announce its own music service ahead of Apple, The Verge notes that Apple's desire to provide a hybrid listener experience has meant more work at the negotiating table.For starters, Google chose to offer a standard subscription music service very similar to those built by Spotify and Rdio, and that meant the terms...

Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a lengthy interview with Politico which was published yesterday, shedding some light on what he plans to say in his upcoming congressional appearance on Apple's tax practices. There's a hidden gem at the end of the piece however:

And Cook is also promoting a $100 million investment in domestic manufacturing, where the company will begin producing a new version of a current Mac product later this year.

"We’re going very deep in this project," Cook said, noting that not only will the final product be manufactured in the US, but so will many of its components. Arizona, Texas, Illinois, Florida and Kentucky are among the states he mentioned as having parts and assembly located.

Apple has made noise for some time now about moving...

Apple CEO Tim Cook.

lemagit

Unlike his predecessor, Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn't appear reluctant to face down a Senate subcommittee. He's due to appear in Washington DC next week to testify at a Senate hearing on offshore profit shifting and he plans to directly address the concerns Congress is raising:

The Subcommittee will continue its examination of the structures and methods employed by multinational corporations to shift profits offshore and how such activities are affected by the Internal Revenue Code and related regulations. Witnesses will include representatives from the Department of the Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, representatives of a multinational corporation, and tax experts.

The roles of "...

Allston rocks.

The Fair Labor Association has released a report acknowledging that Foxconn and Apple are making progress on improving work conditions, but the companies are still exceeding working-hour laws. Apple and Foxconn have agreed to comply with Chinese working-hour law by July — under the law, workers may work 40…

Following a report from earlier this month indicating that the U.S. Department of Defense was preparing to approve Apple devices running iOS 6 for use on military networks, Bloomberg now reports that the department has officially issued the authorization, opening the door for greater use of Apple's products.The Defense Department said in a statement today that it has approved the use of Cupertino, California-based Apple’s products running a version of the iOS 6 mobile platform.

The decision eventually may spur a three-way fight for a market long dominated by Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry. The Pentagon on May 2 approved Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung’s devices, as well as BlackBerry 10 smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets....

Science fiction TV shows and movies have given us some iconic space craft over the years, and Sci-Fi Airshow brings many of those together in virtual... well... airshow. The site includes shots of Space: 1999's Eagle transporter, the Jupiter 2 from Lost in Space, Battlestar Galactica Vipers, and more. Instead of just shots from the shows, however, Sci-Fi Airshow displays the craft as if they really exist and even has images of crowds checking them out. The images are great, and the pics include some fun historical information, too.

With any luck, the next-gen iPad mini’s screen will be awesome.

But AU Optronics may not be part of it.

Per DigiTimes, AU Optronics, which has reportedly “faced issues” in producing iPad mini display panels, are cited as “not expected” to remain a major iPad mini panel supplier. However, the company is said to have submitted panels for use in the next iPad mini for certification by Apple.

The company must await Apple’s approval, the report indicated, but LG Display and Sharp have already been selected as panel suppliers. The report did not give any indication as to whether the next iPad mini will have a high-resolution Retina...

The U.S. Department of Defense announced on Friday that it has officially approved Apple devices running iOS 6 or later to access its secure government networks.   ...

Zakk Wylde, Lee Ritenour, JJ Grey & Mofro, and Rock Candy Funk Party (RCFP)–featuring Tal Bergman, Joe Bonamassa, Ron DeJesus, and Mike Merritt–will take The Iridium stage to celebrate Les Paul’s 98th birthday with more than a week of shows June 3-12.

I was at the first celebration at the Iridium in New York after Les died sitting at a table with Zakk Wylde and Steven Van Zandt. Jeff Beck played that night — it was absolutely amazing.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Update: Apple provided the following comment to AllThingsD on the approval:

“With iPhone and iPad being tested or deployed in almost every Fortune 500 company, Apple continues to scale across enterprise with nearly 30,000 companies globally developing and distributing iOS apps for corporate use by their employees,” Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told AllThingsD. “The FIPS 140-2 certification and STIG approval demonstrate our ongoing commitment to deliver a secure platform to our enterprise and government customers around the world who deploy iOS devices on their networks.”

Following reports earlier this month that the Defense Department was in the process of approving iOS 6 for...

You’ve gotta admit…a UPS app for the iPad sounds attractive.

Per 9to5Mac, UPS announced on Thursday that the company is finally rolling out its native UPS for iPad app that brings the ability to track and schedule deliveries as well as access to features of UPS My Choice® and enhanced mapping features.

The app offers the...

Apple, which holds US$102 billion in cash and investments outside the U.S., will suggest changes to corporate tax laws to encourage companies to bring more cash into the country, reports "Bloomberg" (http://tinyurl.com/an63hjh).

read more

NASA has a series of excellent educational iOS apps that appeal to adults and kids alike. Most have a strong scientific bent, but if you lean more towards art than science, NASA has an iPad app for you, too. Mixing a little bit of earth and planetary science with a keen eye for art, NASA has created its Earth As Art app, an iPad title that shows off the unseen beauty of our planet.

NASA's Earth As Art app picks the best images of Earth from the Terra, Landsat 5, Landsat 7, EO-1, and Aqua satellites. It also adds in some choice photos from the USGS Landsat image gallery. The satellites used to take these photos can measure light outside the visible range. The resulting images show you the earth as you have never seen it before.

The images are presented in gallery format, allowing you to see...

If you’re using a mid-2012 MacBook Air, you’re going to want to snag this.

Per 9to5Mac, Apple on Thursday released its MacBook Air Flash Storage Firmware Update 1.0, a 1.69 megabyte download that helps to address problems with the device recovering from a crash. Apple release notes said the update addresses “a storage firmware issue that, in rare...

It’s not the biggest update in the world, but it might make a difference.

Late Thursday, Apple released version 11.0.3 of its iTunes multimedia/jukebox application. The new version, a 197.3 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:
- New MiniPlayer. MiniPlayer now includes a beautiful new view that showcases your album artwork. In addition, a progress bar is now built right into MiniPlayer.

- Improved Songs View. You can now enjoy your album artwork while in Songs view.

- Multi-Disc Albums. Albums with multiple discs now appear as a single album.

iTunes 11.0.3 requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later to install and run...

Paddle has announced Paddle for Developers. It's a simple framework allowing Mac software developers to create trial and demo versions of their Mac applications.

The Paddle framework, in its basic installation, allows users to offer a trial/demo version and take payments in-app. The framework can purportedly be added to an existing Mac application in as little as five minutes.

read more

Aurich Lawson / Warner Bros. Entertainment

The Mac on your desk or on the cafe table next to you has a chip with secret functions that can be unlocked only by inputting a spell from the Harry Potter series. The SMC, or system management controller, is a chip used to regulate a Mac's current and voltage, manage its light sensor, and temporarily store FileVault keys. Turns out that the SMC contains undocumented code that is invoked by entering the word "SpecialisRevelio," the same magic words used to reveal hidden charms, hexes, or properties used by wizards in the Harry Potter series written by author J. K. Rowling.

That fun fact was presented Wednesday at the NoSuchCon security conference by veteran reverse engineer Alex Ionescu. While most details are far too technical for this article, the gist of the research is that the SMC is a chip that...

Previously unknown Mac OS X spyware, signed with a valid Apple Developer ID, has turned up on the laptop of an activist from Angola at a human rights conference in Norway.

Security researcher and privacy activist Jacob Appelbaum found the spyware on the activist’s Mac at the Oslo Freedom Forum earlier this week.

The activist’s computer was compromised as a result of a spear phishing attack, Appelbaum said Thursday on Twitter. The researcher claims that he has copies of the attack emails and two different malware samples.

Security researchers from Finnish antivirus firm F-Secure analyzed one of the malware samples and concluded that it is a previously unknown Mac backdoor program which appears to be signed with a valid Apple Developer ID.

To...

In a culture where high profile employees at tech firms often jump ship for new, exciting, and different opportunities, Paul Otellini is something of an exception. Yesterday, Otellini officially stepped down from his role as Intel CEO, a company he exclusively and faithfully worked at for nearly 40 years.

With Otellini stepping down to make room for newly minted CEO Brian Krzahnich, The Atlantic yesterday published an extremely interesting and in-depth feature on Otellini's history at Intel.

In a particularly candid moment, Otellini during an interview expresses regret for not having the foresight to get Intel's chips into the original iPhone. In an industry filled with such stories, Otellini's "what could have been?!" tale...

Three key display suppliers are allegedly preparing for production of Apple's next iPad later this year, with LG Display and Sharp said to already have been selected, while AU Optronics is hoping to get into the mix.  ...

In November we reported that AU Optronics was having problems ramping up to mass production of the 7.9 inch display panels used in Apple's iPad mini. The company was only producing about halve of their production target. Today we learn that AU Optronics is once again unable to keep up with Apple's orders.

Smile (www.smilesoftware.com) has announced PDFpen 6.0.3, the latest version of its all-purpose PDF editing tool. The upgrade adds support for the Polish language OCR, and includes numerous fixes.

The changes in PDFpen 6.0.3 have also been made in PDFpenPro 6.0.3, the pro version that can also convert websites into PDFs, create fillable PDF forms, automatically create form fields in non-interactive PDF forms, construct document table of contents, and set document permission settings that restrict saving, printing, and copying.

read more

Eltima Software (http://mac.eltima.com) has updated PhotoBulk, a bulk image editor for Mac OS X (10.7 and higher), to version 1.5. The new version allows for faster changing of the watermark position int he preview window and the ability to choose the most precise position for your watermark per-pixel.

read more

Thursby Software Systems has released a free update of its PKard for Mac software, including support for CAC dual persona Mac users.
 
With an ever-increasing number of citizens working as contractors within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the government needed a way to represent both roles on one common identification card. Instead of the standard DoD identification smart card (called a CAC or Common Access Card by the U.S. government), the DoD developed a card that could represent the individual in both roles. Thus, a CAC card supporting a "dual persona" was developed.

read more

The HTC One may be the ultimate iPhone switch-inducing Android device yet, even if the Samsung Galaxy S4 juggernaut remains unstoppable for the time being. There are a few of key aspects of the HTC's Android flagship device for 2013 that makes it the most likely to interest Apple iPhone 4, 4S and 5 users itching for a change of scenery, but who can't wait as long as September when Jony Ive's design-influenced version of iOS could be released. Many iPhone users also love the beautiful industrial designs that Jony Ive has cooked up for the iPhone over the past few years. For many, however, even... ...

The US branch of Virgin Mobile is now offering a 15 percent discount on the iPhone 4 and 4S. The promotion is applicable only to web orders, and will last only for a limited time, or until supplies run out. Virgin hasn't said when the sale is scheduled to end....   ...

The US Federal Trade Commission has started sending out two letters to app developers, preparing them for changes to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act taking effect July 1st, according to an announcement. The letters warn developers that restrictions on the collection of personal data from kids under 13 have been expanded, and now cover things like audio or video bearing a child's likeness. Previously, rules only covered the gathering of names, addresses, and phone numbers....  ...

Earlier this week we reported that Apple CEO Tim Cook is slated to testify at an upcoming Senate hearing focusing on the offshore tax practices of American corporations. As it stands now, Apple currently has over $100 billion holed up overseas that it's hesitant to repatriate due to less than ideal U.S. income tax rates.

What's more, Apple employs a number of accounting mechanisms to both delay and lessen its tax liability.

With his congressional debut just a few days away, Tim Cook sat down for a rare interview with the Washington Post where he explained his plan to suggest a number of proposals which, if enacted, would encourage companies like Apple to bring back billions of dollars to the States....

Slate:

…as a scientist, I can’t help but notice that every now and again, just sometimes, maybe, Trek ventures into some pretty dicey science territory. Let me be clear: I have no problem with faster-than-light travel, time travel, teleporters, the Universal Translator, or anything like that. Every genre has a conceit, a gimme, and in scifi that means advanced tech that we can’t necessarily explain today. That’s fine, and as long as it’s internally consistent in the story I’m happy.

My beef is usually when the plot relies on some error in science, or when the tech is used inconsistently.

In honor of the release of the latest Star Trek movie today, this should get the Trekkies all wound

∞ Read this on The Loop

According to a new report from IDC, the smartphone market continues to be dominated by Android and Apple's iOS. Together, the two mobile operating systems accounted for a whopping 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013.

Impressively, Apple during the quarter gone by shipped 37.4 million iPhones, a 6% increase from the same quarter a year ago. Shipments of Android-based smartphones, however, increased by 79.5%. Consequently, Apple's share of smartphone shipments last quarter slipped from 23% down to 17.3%.

IDC's report notes:

Apple iOS marked its largest ever first quarter volume on the strength of its iPhone shipment volumes, yet the operating system posted a year-over-year decline in market share and lower year-over-year shipment growth than the overall market. Although demand remains strong worldwide, the iOS experience has remained largely the same since the...

Mr. Cook goes to Washington, an Apple Store grows in San Francisco, and Mac spyware turns up in Norway. The remainders for Thursday, May 16, 2013, are going global.

Apple on offense over $100B offshore stash (Politico)

Yes, that’s right: Politico. Tim Cook’s giving interviews to political sites in advance of his testimony in front of the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The topic? Offshore holdings by Apple and other companies. In his Politico interview, Cook categorically denied funneling domestic products overseas, and said that the company paid all of the taxes it owed. Furthermore, Cook apparently plans to make some suggestions about overhauling the tax code, which will finally let those salivating tech writers drag out the “Apple tax” headlines again.

Mosiaque is a very original puzzle game that I haven't quite figured out yet. It appeared on the App Store a little while ago from a company called Winning Blimp, and the core idea of the app is that you need to clear the screen of colored squares by firing them in from the sides.

The issue, however, is that if the square you shoot in hits a square of another color, it will switch out instead. Squares of the same color get cleared off, so your goal is to try and fire squares of the same color together, lining them up and clearing them off the board, refilling your meter for more shots. Mosiaque is the kind of game that's simple to play, but fairly tough to master -- even with the playtime I've put in, I'm not completely sure how deep the game's strategy gets. But there is a solid amount of fun to learning the game's mechanics, and as you play through the levels, there are some new tricks, too....

CW’s Xbox app

During a presentation with advertisers, CW Network president Mark Pedowitz announced that the network would be expanding its content offerings to new multimedia devices. This strategy will include a spot as an app on the Apple TV set-top-box’s home screen.

The network confirmed this to MacRumors:

It’s a dedicated CW app that will work like our Xbox and mobile and tablet apps – no cable authentication required, full episodes of our shows available next day after air, ad-supported.

Notably, as noted in the above quote, the CW content will be ad-supported.

CW currently streams its content to software on...

App analytics firm App Annie has released a new report about portable gaming, and announced that iOS gamers are now spending more money on Apple's platform than on traditional handheld titles. The light blue above is last year's fourth quarter, the dark blue is this year's first quarter, and as you can see, both iOS and Google Play spending is up, and has actually topped spending on traditional handheld devices like the Nintendo 3DS and the PS Vita.

This is mostly due, says App Annie, to a seasonal drop in traditional handheld game spending -- game sales always tend to go up over the holidays, and then drop in the new year. But it's also clear that iOS is growing a lot -- and in fact, in the chart above, it's actually higher than even traditional gaming was last quarter.

We'll have to see how this plays out going forwards. Both the PS Vita (made by Sony) and the 3DS (made by Nintendo...

The CW has struck a deal that will bring the network's content to the Apple TV, reports Deadline. At the company's annual Upfront Presentation in New York today, CW president Mark Pedowitz announced that the CW's TV Now applications, which are currently available on Xbox 360 and Windows 8, will be coming to the Apple TV as well.

"This year we're reaching more viewers on more platforms," said Pedowitz, speaking of the deal. "We are reaching our audience everywhere they are, and we want you to be with us everywhere we go," he went on to say to advertisers at the event.

The CW told MacRumors that the app will function similarly to the company's Xbox and mobile apps and confirmed that it will...

By: aaron

Promise has posted a technical FAQ on their new VTrak A-Class SAN appliance. http://kb.promise.com/Goto10346.aspxMore info in our comments thread here: http://www.xsanity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18760

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Thursday revealed that the first Mac to built completely in the U.S. in almost two decades will be a new model in an existing product line, shedding a bit more light on the company's "Made in USA" plans.   ...

In his interview with Politico earlier today, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared some additional details about the new Mac model that will be manufactured in the United States when it is announced later this year.

Cook said that not only will the machine be assembled in the U.S., many of the components will be sourced from suppliers in the country as well.
And Cook is also promoting a $100 million investment in domestic manufacturing, where the company will begin producing a new version of a current Mac product later this year.

"We're going very deep in this project," Cook said, noting that not only will the final product be manufactured in the U.S., but so will many of its components. Arizona, Texas, Illinois, Florida and Kentucky are among the states he mentioned as having parts and assembly located.
Cook...

Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com

Apple CEO Tim Cook will testify Tuesday before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation, which is examining U.S. companies’ offshore tax practices. This will be Cook’s first appearance at a congressional hearing since becoming CEO of Apple in 2011, and a potentially tough one during which he’ll be asked to field hard questions about Apple’s offshore cash holdings.

Not that Cook won’t have some good answers prepared. In the past, Apple has dispatched questions about its shifting of profits offshore by noting that it remains one of the largest taxpayers in the United States despite that practice; the company paid $6 billion in...

Back in April, Apple gave shareholders yearning for a bigger cut of Apple's profits something to be happy about. Specifically, Apple a few weeks ago announced that it was upping its quarterly dividend by 15%, raising it from $2.65 a share to $3.05 a share.

Apple's first dividend payment under the increased amount is scheduled to go down tomorrow. Shareholders with shares that were purchased on or before May 9, 2013 will be eligible for the increased quarterly dividend.

Since Apple first announced its increased quarterly dividend, along with a massive increase to its stock repurchasing plan, shares of the company have gone up by 7%.

Apple noted in a press release at the time that it is now one of the largest dividend payers in the world, "with annual payments of about $11 billion."

...

Apple CEO Tim Cook will be using his time in a Congressional hearing to propose an overhaul to the U.S. corporate tax system. News that Mr. Cook would appear in the hearing broke early Thursday morning, but the leader of the world's richest corporation told The Washington Post that he will propose changes that make it easier for U.S. companies to bring profits back to the U.S. rather than holding them offshore.

The company behind the Pebble smartwatch, which not only looks awesome but connects up to your iPhone, has picked up $15 million in funding from venture capitalists, and has released yet another version of its SDK. The funding is obviously a solid chunk of change, and should help Pebble not only fulfill its current orders (the company is still aiming to get watches out to all of its supporters from a successful Kickstarter bid), but push the company on into the future as well.

This latest SDK release, called the PebbleKit, allows for two-way communication back and forth between...

Tim Cook is going to Washington to talk taxes and overseas cash holdings, and the Apple CEO is heading to the hill with a message: We pay every dollar that we owe.   ...

I've been using the Google Hangouts app on the iPhone since it was announced on Wednesday, and I've really liked it so far. I haven't messed around with it much on my iPad, except to install it, but it was enough for my Android-using husband to be jealous that we got it first.

Like Apple's Messages, it's pushing conversations to my iPhone when I'm not at my computer, a feature which I've grown to love in iOS and OS X. The Hangouts app has a great feature to snooze notifications, which is great if you're going to be at the computer for awhile and don't want the iOS app constantly alerting you to new messages. However, there's no way to change your status and alert people you're having discussions with that you might be out of pocket for a bit, but it's something that's not in Apple's Messages either.

The biggest missing feature in Hangouts is SMS integration, and Google vows it's on the way....

Apple has revved iTunes to 11.0.3. According to Apple, it includes a dramatically simplified player, a completely redesigned Store, and "iCloud features you'll love." Per Apple's release notes, this is what you get with iTunes 11.0.3:

° Completely Redesigned. iTunes makes it more fun to explore and enjoy your music, movies, and TV shows. You'll love the beautiful edge-to-edge design, custom designs for each album, movie, or TV show in your library, and getting personal recommendations any time you click In the Store.

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.

Subscribe via RSS

Daily Update for May 16, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 May 2013 15:15:00 EST. Please see our...

Apple CEO Tim Cook, in a break from his predecessor, is giving a number of interviews to Washington press outlets ahead of his appearance in front of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation next week.

Washington newspaper Politico spoke to Cook about Apple's offshore cash pile -- which the company has thus far refused to repatriate to the United States because of the significant tax burden that would result -- and Apple's political activities.
"We don't have a large presence in Washington, as you probably know, but we care deeply about public policy and believe creative policy can be a huge catalyst for a better society and a stronger economy,"...

eBay has released an updated version of its iOS app featuring a redesigned interface with multiple search views, new shopping car functionality, and larger photo views. Unlike previous versions, users can now add multiple items into their shopping cart and pay for all of them simultaneously. The iPad version has also received several new image editing tools, while the iPhone version includes a new account creation tool that can setup a new account by scanning the barcode of a drivers license. Other changes include new "Search By Best Offer" options, feedback filters, and support for uploading... ...

A new semi-functional malware has been found for OSX. Discovered on a computer at the Oslo Freedom Forum by researcher Jacob Appelbaum, the OSX/KitM.A is a backdoor application which launches on boot and captures screenshots on a regular basis, which are then dumped in a folder....  ...

When defragmenting a file with snfsdefrag, an invisible "__defragtmp" file may be created which cannot be deleted.
This issue may occur when the following are true:

The defragmented file's name contains precomposed Unicode characters, such as letters with diacritical marks (an accent, grave, or umlaut).
snfsdefrag is run by root.
snfsdefrag is run when the current working directory is on an Xsan volume, or snfsdefrag's recursive option (-r) is used.

The Pebble smart watch development kit was updated on Thursday to allow two-way communication between watch and phone apps, along with a new sports API for tracking exercise.   ...

Apple has posted a new support download for mid-2012 MacBook Airs, MacBook Air Flash Storage Firmware Update 1.0. Unusually, Apple states that the patch is mandatory; it fixes a problem with the Air's firmware that can, potentially, prevent a computer from recovering from a crash. The file is a 1.69MB download, and requires either OS X 10.7.5 or 10.8.3....  ...

iLuv announced Thursday that it is shipping the Aud 5, the company's first Lightning speaker dock for iPhone 5. The device allows you to charge your iPhone 5 through a built-in Lightning dock, and you can play music through the dock, too. The Aud 5 also has a 3.5mm auxiliary input for playing music from other devices. It features four speakers and a passive radiator, and it's priced at U$149.

Apple iTunes lets you organize and play digital music and video on your computer. It can automatically download new music, app, and book purchases across all your devices and computers. And it's a store that has everything you need to be entertained. Anywhere. Anytime.

Version 11.0.3:

• New MiniPlayer. MiniPlayer now includes a beautiful new view that showcases your album artwork. In addition, a progress bar is now built right into MiniPlayer.
• Improved Songs View. You can now enjoy your album artwork while in Songs view.
• Multi-Disc Albums. Albums with multiple discs now appear as a single album.

• OS X 10.6.8 or later
• Safari 4.0.3 or later

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Apple has released a new firmware update for the mid 2012 MacBook Air today that helps to address problems with the device recovering from a crash. Apple release notes said the update addresses “a storage firmware issue that, in rare cases, may cause a system to fail to recover from crash.”

The MacBook Air Flash Storage Firmware Update 1.0 is available to download on Apple’s website here and should be hitting Software Update soon. The 1.69 MB update is available for mid 2012 MacBook Airs running OS X 10.7.5 or OS X 10.8.3.

//

Police broke up a fight at a sci-fi convention between fans of Doctor Who and Star Wars.

∞ Read this on The Loop

If you were hoping that the next update to iTunes might reverse some of the drastic changes Apple made in last year’s version 11, don’t hold your breath. A minor update released on Thursday, iTunes 11.0.3, makes some tweaks to the program’s interface, as well as applying fixes for some security issues.

iTunes 11.0.3's new MiniPlayer (left) and the older version (right), with no progress bar.

Among the changes in 11.0.3 is a revamped MiniPlayer, which now features a progress bar, complete with draggable playhead. The audio output button, which now uses a speaker icon instead of Apple’s traditional AirPlay icon, is also now visible even when you’re not hovering over the window.

The album art player in iTunes 11.0.3 (left) sports a new look, with access to more of the program's features than the old one (right).

There’s...

New Mac spyware was discovered earlier this week on a computer at the Oslo Freedom Forum, an annual human rights conference. Located by computer security researcher Jacob Appelbaum, the malware, which has been deemed OSX/KitM.A, is currently being investigated by anti-virus company F-Secure, reports CNET.

The malware is a backdoor application called "macs.app," which launches automatically upon login and captures screenshots that it then sends to a MacApp folder in the user's home directory. Two command-and-control servers, located at securitytable.org and docsforum.info, are associated with the malware, but one does not function and the other gives a "public access forbidden" message.

...

The Foxconn Technology Group faces a “challenging” task in trying to meet a July deadline for cutting work hours to comply with Chinese law, according to the labor monitor appointed by Apple, its largest customer, according to "Bloomberg" (http://tinyurl.com/bfxg4kt).

On the bright side, Apple has resolved 98% of the 360 issues raised by the Washington-based Fair Labor Association, the group said in a new report. The company has improved safety conditions, including testing sprinklers and maintaining equipment, and increased membership in worker unions.

read more

If you're looking for ways to focus better on your work, taking advantage of Apple's application-hiding features may help.

Apple is paying its shareholders a slightly larger quarterly dividend on Thursday, distributing over $2.867 billion in $3.05 per share payments across the company's 940 million outstanding shares.  ...

On May 16, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals their ongoing work with their future "Shopping App." Apple first revealed an extensive patent filing for NFC as it related to "Shopping" back in 2010 as a companion app to their future iWallet. Just like Apple's Passbook keeps gift cards, coupons, tickets and passes into an organized app, Apple's iWallet is likely to contain another round of things that relate to their financial app and the "Shopping" feature is just one. Last week's update to the Shopping app focused on methods of setting payment option preferences and more. Today's patent application adds at least five major aspects to the "Shopping" apps patent claims. The base of the patent doesn't change much if any. It's all about securing key aspects of the invention that Apple wants to protect, just in case they have to go court over it in the future.

kenekaplan writes "In an interview with The Atlantic before stepping down as CEO of Intel, Paul Otellini reflects on his decision not to make a chip for the then yet released iPhone. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'"

...

Apple released iTunes 11.0.3 on Thursday with several changes including a new album artwork view in the MiniPlayer. iTunes is Apple's media player and management app as well as the gateway to the company's music, video, movie, and iOS app stores.

Apple has released an update to its iTunes music and media application, bringing it to version 11.0.3.

The update updates the compact MiniPlayer, adding album artwork and a progress bar, as well as better support for multi-disc albums and large iTunes libraries.
This version of iTunes comes with several new features and improvements, including:

- New MiniPlayer. MiniPlayer now includes a beautiful new view that showcases your album artwork. In addition, a progress bar is now built right into MiniPlayer.

- Improved Songs View. You can now enjoy your album artwork while in Songs view.

- Multi-Disc Albums. Albums with multiple discs now appear as a single album.

This update also provides performance improvements when searching and sorting large iTunes libraries.The update weighs in at 187.50MB on the Mac, and is available through the Mac App...

Apple has released iTunes 11.0.3, adding a new MiniPlayer, improved Songs view, and support for multi-disc albums. A greater emphasis has been put on allowing users to showcase album artwork in the redesigned MiniPlayer and Songs view, and the MiniPlayer now includes a built-in progress bar. In…

TUAW has covered the US Department of Justice price-fixing case against Apple for the past several years. Now an email sent from late Apple CEO Steve Jobs to James Murdoch of News Corporation (parent company of HarperCollins publishers) is being interpreted by the DOJ as showing that Apple and HarperCollins conspired with other publishers to raise ebook process. John Paczkowski at AllThingsD pointed out yesterday that the DOJ might be taking the email out of context.

The seemingly incriminating portion of Jobs' email is this: "Throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream e-books market at $12.99 and $14.99." As Paczkowski points out, reading the entire email, it appears that Jobs was simply using those price points as "price caps in broader pricing tiers" and that he "openly concedes that the agency model he's proposing may...

Apple just released iTunes 11.0.3 with several new features including enhancements to the MiniPlayer, an improved Songs View, and multi-disc albums.

Apple’s new MiniPlayer, which it first introduced in iTunes 11, today gets a new “beautiful view that showcases your album artwork” as well as a progress bar viewable right from the MiniPlayer. The new view for MiniPlayer can also be expanded to show an entire playlist (as pictured above).

Other improvements...

The release also tweaks the rendering of multi-disc albums for an improved display in Albums view, plus adds display of album artwork to the Songs view. (Free, 188 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.

UPS announced today that it is finally rolling out a native iPad app that brings the ability to track and schedule deliveries as well as access to features of UPS My Choice® and enhanced mapping features. These features were previously available to users in the free...

A long-standing rumor that the next iPhone -- presumably called the 5S -- will be available in colors beyond just black and white received a boost with the publication of photos featuring differently-colored SIM trays, along with high-rez pictures of various other small parts said to be from the forthcoming iPhone model, expected to be released sometime this summer. Though the SIM tray images would be easy to fake, Apple has been making the iPod touch and iPod nano in a set of colors and may have decided to follow suit with the iPhone 5S -- and perhaps a future iPad.... ...

Sharp, one of Apple’s display suppliers that is rumored to have just begun production on next-gen iPhone displays, this week announced it will soon begin producing notebook displays with the highest pixel density in the biz. With displays ranging from 11.6 inches to 15.6 inches, it’s entirely a possibility that one could end up in a next generation MacBook with Retina display.

IGZO technology enables smaller thin-film transistors and increased light transmittance. As a result, fine text can be rendered crisply and clearly, and images can be displayed with impressive realism. For example, the 14-inch panel boasts a pixel density of 262 ppi, which represents 1.67 times the number of pixels of full high definition*3. Increased light transmittance also means lower rates of...

If an update reduces the pressure on the CPU, how can you be against it?

On Thursday, Dropbox released version 2.0.12 of its cloud-based storage client for Mac OS X. The new version, a 29.3 megabyte download (via MacUpdate), which adds the following fixes and changes:

- Lower CPU usage when idle.

Dropbox 2.0.12 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to install and run.

If you’ve tried the new beta and have any feedback to offer, please let us know in the comments.

Today Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, announced that Amazon has struck a deal to add new shows from NBC/ Universal studios to Amazon Instant Video. The additions include Grimm Season 1, Suits Season 1, Covert Affairs Seasons 1-2 with Hannibal coming and Defiance coming at later dates....

High-resolution photos of what may be components from Apple's next-generation iPhone have leaked to the Internet, with multi-colored SIM trays adding to rumors that the so-called "iPhone 5S" will be available in more than just black and white.  ...

I'm not an organizational wizard. Neither is my wife. We've got busy schedules, artistic personalities, and cleaning is often the last thing on our minds. Worst of all, when we do finally find time to clean things have usually gotten so bad we' don't know where to start. Enter BrightNest.

BrightNest is a iOS app and website that makes organizing home improvement tasks a breeze. The app is offers users eight possible areas of home improvement to choose from.

• Handy for maintenance
• Healthy for keeping away germs
• Green for lessening environmental impact
• Savvy for saving money
• Curious for educational lessons
• Clean for keeping messes away
• Creative for DIY projects
• Hungry for meals and snacks

Each section features a list of articles that easily explain what your task is, how long it will take, and what...

One surprise is that the new spyware found on Oslo Freedom Forum members' systems has a valid Apple Developer ID.

Pebble, the popular bluetooth smartwatch that raised over $10M on Kickstarter before shipping to backers in January, today announced the release of an updated SDK and APIs that will allow iOS and Android developers to create apps for the platform. Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky had this to say about the updates:

“The tremendous response we received from Kickstarter backers validated our belief in the value of a smart watch as a wearable computer, but also in the value an open platform brings to truly personalizing the watch to their daily activities”, said Eric Migicovsky, Pebble’s founder. “This new investment will help us build out the Pebble development ecosystem and deliver on Pebble’s extraordinary potential.”

The updated Pebblekit SDK will now allow developers to create third-party apps that will be able to send and receive data to apps...

When in doubt, offer some additional competition.

Per AppleInsider, Google on Wednesday introduced its long-anticipated Spotify competitor: Google Play Music All Access, a “uniquely Google approach” to subscription music service.

Google engineering director Chris Yerga announced the new music service during the keynote for the search giant’s annual Google I/O developer conference. As was previously rumored, the streaming service is similar to popular music service Spotify, but it also adds elements similar to Internet radio service Pandora.

“We set out to build a music service that didn’t just give you access to the world of music,” Yerga said, “but also helped guide you...

In the race for third mobile platform, there’s a new favorite: Windows Phone.

According to new research from IDC, Microsoft’s mobile operating system accounted for 3.2 percent of global smartphone shipments in the first quarter. That’s a significant gain from the OS’s performance in the first quarter of 2012, which saw it capture a market share of 2 percent. And it was enough for Windows Phone to unseat BlackBerry from its third-place spot and claim the rank for its own.

Admittedly, ousting BlackBerry wasn’t exactly a difficult task. In the first quarter, the struggling handset maker saw its share of global smartphone shipments halved year over year. In Q1 of 2012, it claimed a 6.4 percent share. This year, BlackBerry managed to snag only 2.9 percent.

An unfortunate loss of momentum for BlackBerry, though one that’s not entirely attributable to the ascension of other platforms...

JellyBus, the makers of popular iOS image editing software PicsPlayPro, recently launched a collage making app, Moldiv, and packed it full of features that'll appeal to creative types who are looking to throw together a beautiful collage.

The first thing you notice about Modiv is the large number of frames available at your fingertips. There are 80 free frames and 60 premiums that you can buy as a pack via a US$1.99. Moldiv's basic frames provide you with a variety of columnar and angular layouts that are sufficient for most users.

The next thing you notice about Modiv is how easy it is to use. Tap on your frame to select your photo layout and then tap on a section to add a photo. You can pull the photo from your photo gallery or take a new one using the camera. Once you add in your photos, you can spend a few minutes tweaking...

An iPhone-driven e-wallet service from Apple could simplify checking out at the store by presenting users with options based on data such as their location, current balance, or applicable rewards cards.  ...

There’s some cool stuff coming out of Google IO 2013 and this is no exception.

Per Android Central, Google has announced that new features will be coming to the Google Maps for iPhone later this summer and, what’s more, it’ll be getting an iPad-specific interface as well.

Albeit unconfirmed at this point, the new version could also incorporate Google’s new five-point rating system, integrated Google Offers, and more.

Also interesting, Google Maps in the browser will be using WebGL, which could be interesting depending on how it’s implemented.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.