Sony has signed a deal to supply music for Apple's upcoming streaming music service, usually nicknamed iRadio, a source allegedly familiar with the talks says. The agreement should mean that Apple has the three biggest record labels on board, including also Warner and Universal. Still missing is Sony/ATV, a joint venture that handles publishing....   ...

Sony Music has agreed to terms with Apple on the company’s iRadio service, making an iRadio debut at next week’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference likely. A report notes that Apple has now agreements with “all three major music labels,” although the company was previously reported to be working to sign…

If you’re using Windows 8 on your Mac, there’s some changes coming down the pipe.

Per The Verge, Microsoft demonstrated a number of new features in Windows 8.1 earlier this week, but the company briefly showed the return of the Start button as well.

During Computex this week the company took the time to fully demo the Start button. In the following video you can see how Microsoft is adding options to show the All Apps view when the Start button is activated. The animation of the Start button switching between the desktop and Start Screen is clearly shown too with the new support for desktop wallpapers on the Start...

Give them time at the negotiation table and they will come.

Per AppleInsider and AllThingsD, Sony Music, the last big kahuna they were waiting for, has reportedly signed a deal with Apple for its anticipated “iRadio” streaming music service, marking the last of the three major music labels to reach an agreement.

The story cites a source familiar with negotiations between the two companies, the agreement lending credence to the rumor that Apple is gearing up to unveil its rumored “iRadio” service at next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

Details of the...

Logitech has announced the acquisition of TT Design Labs, a Kickstarter-backed smartphone accessory maker. The company's two co-founders will be joining Logitech to help design future smartphone products, with Derek Tarnow joining full time and Zahra Tashakorina offering advice through an ongoing consulting basis. Logitech plans to further develop two of the acquired products, JustMount and TidyTilt+, and release them to customers under the Logitech brand. Meanwhile, the Logitech JustMount and Logitech TidyTilt are available for pre-order today and will ship to consumers in the coming weeks.... ...

More documents allegedly related to the National Security Agency (NSA) and its data harvesting activities has surfaced, courtesy of hacking collective Anonymous. The group released a total of 13 documents that it claims "prove that the NSA is spying on you," and that its spying activities are not just covering Americans, but also people in over 35 different countries....  ...

A Washington Post report claiming the National Security Agency and FBI are accessing the servers of Apple and eight other companies has been denied by Apple. The program is code-named PRISM — launched in 2007, it is claimed to let the NSA directly collect data from Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo,…

All 2014-model BMW cars will support the Siri "Eyes Free" technology included in iOS, the luxury automaker has announced. The technology is being delivered through an update to BMW's iDrive platform. By pressing and/or holding a voice command button on the steering wheel, people will be able to trigger Siri without reaching for their iPhone. The same button will also be able to trigger S Voice on Samsung phones....  ...

We often need multiple apps on our iPhone and iPads to perform the same functions a single app handles on our Macs. Mark Greentree thinks that's a problem leading to extra steps for what should be simple tasks, and to frustration for those of us that use iOS regularly.

Apple lawyer Orin Snyder questioning Thomas Turvey, Google’s director of strategic partnerships in the e-book trial:

Things went downhill from there. Under Snyder’s questioning, Turvey acknowledged that he couldn’t remember a single name of any of the publishing executives who had told him Apple was the reason the publishers were switching their business model. He conceded that the publisher’s move to the agency system was important to Google’s own business, yet Turvey couldn’t remember any details about the conversations with publishers. By the end of the interview Turvey had gone from saying the publishers had told him directly, to saying they had merely told people on his team, to finally saying the publishers had “likely” told someone on his team.

Oh Google.

...

Mac Sim City fans hoping to grab a copy of the popular lifestyle game next week are going to be disappointed with EA today. The gaming company confirmed that it is delaying the launch of Sim City for the Mac from the original June 11th date to sometime in August.

A post on the Sim City blog claims the quality of the game is not up to EA's standards and the company needs more time to work out the kinks.

Hi, Mayors - today we are announcing that we are moving the release date of the Mac version of SimCity to August. We are announcing that we are moving the release date of the Mac version of SimCity to August. We have made this tough decision because we do not believe it is ready for primetime yet. We want to ensure the...

AllThingsD briefly reports that Sony Music has agreed to a deal to bring its content to Apple's rumored streaming radio service, informally dubbed "iRadio". The development comes following word that Apple was pushing hard to complete deals in time for an announcement at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote next Monday.Sony Music has signed on to Apple’s forthcoming iRadio service, according to a person familiar with negotiations between the two companies.

The deal means Apple now has agreements with all three major music labels.Apple signed Universal Music back in April and...

Earlier this year, we discovered buttons in iOS 6 that seem to imply that users will be able to purchase the songs that they listen to via Apple’s upcoming radio service.

AllThingsD reports that Apple has secured a deal with Sony to launch its long rumored iRadio service. You may recall Sony was the last major record label to secure as Apple had already signed deals with both Warner and Universal. We expect to see iRadio previewed at WWDC which kicks off Monday.

Sony Music has signed on to Apple’s forthcoming iRadio service, according to a person familiar with negotiations between the two companies.

WSJ previously reported that Apple will pay...

While we've covered work by BlueStacks to bring Android apps to Macs and PCs, the company has an even more interesting announcement to make today, revealing that its upcoming GamePop set-top box designed to offer subscription mobile gaming on TVs will also include support for iOS games. 9to5Mac has more on the developments, which include word that Fieldrunners developer Subatomic Studios will be the first major partner on the service.As for what developers will have to do before submitting their apps, John tells us it’s as simple as changing in-app payments to use Google or Amazon like the rest of the content on GamePop. The rest of the magic is handled by BlueStacks’ API-level virtualization technology dubbed Looking Glass. It’s what will allow just about any iOS game...

Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com

Sony Music has signed on to Apple’s forthcoming iRadio service, according to a person familiar with negotiations between the two companies.

The deal means that Apple now has agreements with all three major music labels. Apple had been pushing music executives to come aboard in advance of its annual developer conference next week, so you should expect to hear an official announcement Monday.

It’s still possible that Apple may have hurdles to clear. As of earlier this week, the company had yet to sign up Sony/ATV, Sony’s music publishing arm.

But the gaps between Sony/ATV and Apple were supposedly smaller than the ones Sony Music and Apple were looking at a few days ago. I’ll update on that deal if I learn more. Apple has previously signed on Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group, the two other major labels....

Has Wall Street finally seen the folly of their ways when it comes to backing all-things Samsung who blindly favors market share over profit? Well it sure looks like it. Today, a new report states that Samsung has lost $12 billion in market value, hit by brokerage downgrades that have underscored concerns about slowing sales of its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone.

In case you hadn’t heard: BlueStacks, the company with around 10M+ using its technology that brings Android games to PC and Mac, has recently been working on a new dedicated Android gaming console that aims to compete with OUYA and others in the space. It’s yet to launch, and up until today its big differentiator has been its $6.99/per month subscription model, but today it becomes the first to bring iOS games to the TV.

We spoke to John Gargiulo from BlueStacks who told us a little more about the announcement and how the company will bring iPhone and iPad games to the GamePop platform using its ‘Looking Glass’ technology. It’s also announcing its first major partner from the iOS developer world, and it happens to be creators of the hugely popular Fieldrunners series, Subatomic Studios.

//

As for what developers will have to do before...

A perfect game with which you can waste your entire Friday right from the comfort of your own desk (or couch, or chair, or bed, or ... wherever). Visit GeoGuessr, see a 3D view of someplace on earth, and get points for guessing it correctly. The closer you are, geographically, the more points you get. We're sorry, we know you had other things to do today. Just remember to come back here to TMO, because we've got some more cool stuff coming your way, too.

As I mentioned in an earlier article, the File and Storage Role is installed by default in Windows Server 2012. This means you can create a file share with a very minimal amount of work on a brand new server. To get started, as with many things regarding Server 2012, open Server Manager..ked1{position:absolute;clip:rect(428px,auto,auto,497px);}small cash advance very cheap

From Server Manager, click on File and Storage Services in the Server Manager sidebar. Then click on Shares. From the Shares screen, click on the Shares drop-down list and then click on New Share.

This will open the New Share Wizard. From here, select a type of share. For the purposes of this article, we’ll create a very basic SMB share, so click on “SMB Share – Quick.” Then click on the Next button.

At the...

Amid concerns that sales of the Galaxy S4 could disappoint, shares of Samsung fell more than 6 percent on Friday, in a selloff that mimics Apple's own losses driven by investor pessimism starting in late 2012.  ...

Apple's aggressive enforcement of environmental policies in China has turned activists ? who were once some of its harshest critics ? into ardent defenders.   ...

The antitrust trial pitting the U.S. Department of Justice against Apple over fixing e-book prices began this week, and it didn't take long for the company's lawyers to poke a hole in the government's case. On Wednesday, they showed through questioning that a key element of the DoJ's case had less to do with Apple colluding with publishers to hike e-book prices than with standard business practices. Apple cooked up a scheme with major publishers to increase the price of e-books, the DoJ maintains.

iFunia has released iFunia YouTube Downloader 4.0, an update to their freeware app for Mac OS X. For more info go to http://www.ifunia.com .

It supports most common YouTube videos, including 720p, 1080p HD videos and HTML 5 videos on OS X-based Macs. In version 4.0, the interface has been completely redesigned. Users can get the online video from YouTube and choose from any available web video formats.

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The worldwide software market grew 3.6% year over year in 2012, less than half the growth rate experienced in 2010 and 2011, according to the "International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker."

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Virtual city planners counting down the days until the June 11 release of SimCity for Mac will have to revise their calendars. The release date has been pushed back to August, according to a blog post on the SimCity website.

“We have made this tough decision because we do not believe it is ready for primetime yet,” wrote SimCity Senior Producer Kip Katsarelis. “We want to ensure the Mac is a great experience for our players and that is why we are taking more time.”

As a consolation, buyers of SimCity for Mac will get the SimCity Launch Park, an area that was made available to early adopters of SimCity for PC in update 4.0.

SimCity for Mac is available for pre-order though Electronic Arts’s Origin online store. The $80 Digital Deluxe version and the $60 standard version are...

Penclic's Bluetooth B2 Mouse is a cool, functional wireless mouse that runs on Mac, PC and Linux systems. The pen-shaped mouse is designed to fit the natural form of your hand.

What's more, the B2 operates without the need for a mouse pad, allowing you to use it to glide over your work surface in simple, direct motions. Equipped with a laser that senses where you plan to move the cursor, the B2 offers precision control. Its ergonomic design also makes it comfortable to use.

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RedleX (http://www.mellel.com) has released Mellel 3.2, an upgrade to its word processor for Mac OS X (10.5 and higher). The new version introduces hyperlink support, is now offered in a "lite" version, and introduces a host of smaller improvements and a long list of bug fixes.

The new hyperlinking feature allows linking to any file on the disk, making it easy to link to documents, references, and even launch relevant applications from within Mellel, according to the folks at RedleX. Hyperlinks are exported to Word format, RTF, and PDF as live links.

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Unless you are a cardiologist, learning about how the heart works can be an daunting task. Words alone can't describe it and static images can't capture the complexity of how the heart functions. Medical students, heart patients or anyone with an interest in cardiology should look beyond paper textbooks and take a look at HeartPhys from Dr. Michael Parker.

Dr. Parker is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and has a background in computer science. He brought those two skills together to create interactive medical books and web-based animations describing the heart, lungs and kidneys. The next logical step in making this material accessible to the public was to bring these multimedia elements to the iPad in the form of an educational app.

HeartPhys was born out of desire to educate medical students, physicians and heart patients about the heart and how it works. The...

The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday called a Google director to testify against Apple in its antitrust case over e-book price fixing, but the move proved unhelpful at best as the executive buckled under questioning.  ...

It's that time again! TUAW and MacTech will be at WWDC and would like to talk to you. From MacTech:

Once again, MacTech Magazine and TUAW are joining forces to do a series of interviews and stories on those attending the 2013 Apple Worldwide Developer Conference. The interviews will explore what they think about the announcements Apple makes on Monday, what they are hearing, as well as what developers have in mind or coming.

MacTech and TUAW be doing a combination of video interviews and written stories and are currently taking requests for 10-minute appointments on June 11 at a location near Moscone West (easily walking distance). For more info go to http://www.mactech.com/WWDC-2013-Interview-Request .

"Our strong preference is principals from each company rather than public relations personnel...

Zen Studios is very well known for their pinball titles, which all feature great graphics, well-made themes, and excellent pinball table mechanics. Just today, Zen has brought their very popular Marvel Pinball game to iOS, and you can now download the app itself for 99 cents.

Unfortunately, that price is a strange one -- all it will get you is one Avengers-based table, which is interesting enough, with its various Avengers-style pinballs that you can send out into battle as you play for points against Loki. But there are 14 other tables to play with, and all of them need an in-app purchase of $1.99 each. That's it -- there's no way to earn or unlock tables from within the game itself, which is a missed opportunity at the very least. Charging users 99 cents to download the app for one table in this case just seems like charging for a free trial, unfortunately, and I wouldn't be too surprised if the...

You can say what you will about Gameloft (and lots of people do, as the company has earned a reputation for essentially copying HD console games onto Apple's iOS platforms), but this is at least true: The developer knows how to put a game together. Modern Combat is Gameloft's take on the extremely popular Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series, and the company has just released a trailer for Modern Combat 5, which serves as the latest and greatest full first-person shooter on iOS. Thanks to the success of Angry Birds, most iOS trailers consist of a series of cute animals playing around to some overly sweet music, but not this one. As you can see below, Gameloft has figured out how to draw a whole lot of realism out of the iPad and the iPhone.

Modern Combat 5 is set for a release in the fourth...

In an interview on Thursday, YouTube's vice president of sales Lucas Watson disclosed that mobile ad sales have tripled over the past six months, suggesting the removal of Apple's ad-free version formerly baked into iOS was a key factor in driving revenue.  ...

Finally we've received the third in the Mophie Juice Pack trilogy. First, it was the slender and lightweight Juice Pack Helium (US$79.95). Next, it was the classic Juice Pack Air ($99.95). Now Mophie has filled out the Juice Pack family with the ultra-big-capacity Juice Pack Plus for iPhone 5 ($119.95).

Design

Like the two other Juice Packs, the Juice Pack Plus has a two-piece design; an upper sleeve containing the battery that your iPhone 5 slides into, and a bottom portion that contains speaker channels, the charging connector, and a set of LEDs to tell you how much juice is in the pack.

As you'd expect from a battery case with a 2,100 mAh capacity (compared to 1,400 mAh for the Helium and 1,700 mAh for the Air), the Plus is thicker than the other kids in the family....

Game makers Electronic Arts and Maxis delivered some bad news for Mac gamers on Thursday, alerting them that the release of the Mac version of SimCity has been delayed until August.  ...

As more information regarding a secret Internet data mining initiative comes to light, one report reveals Apple staved off advances from both the NSA and FBI until six months after cofounder Steve Jobs died, though the company claims not to have even heard of the program.  ...

The ebook negotiations game, in case you were wondering, is hardball. Meanwhile, Apple may start trading places (for your iPhone) and your MacBook Air may become even more magical. The remainders for Thursday, June 6, 2013 just had two weeks left before retirement.

Apple ebooks trial: Amazon ‘yelled … and threatened’ when publishers tried to control prices (The Verge)

The ebook price-fixing trial continues apace, and we continue to hear about how Apple and Amazon negotiated with the publishers, which is starting to sound a bit like excerpts from Glengarry Glen Ross 2: Die Harder.

Apple Said to Start IPhone Trade-In Program in Stores (Bloomberg)

...

It's too soon to tell, but Samsung might have finally beaten Apple to become the United State's top smartphone maker, at least for now. A new report by the investment research firm Canaccord Genuity shows that Samsung beat Apple in US sales in May. In particular, Canaccord found the Galaxy S4, Galaxy Note II, and Galaxy S III sold more units combined than Apple's iPhone.

It's important to be aware of the methodology Canaccord used to develop their findings. The study surveyed only the retail stores of carriers AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless. Apple Stores were not surveyed. At Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint stores the Galaxy S4 was the top-seller for the month of May. The iPhone 5 only beat the Galaxy S4 at AT&T stores.

According to Canaccord analyst T. Michael Walkley:

"While we believe Samsung and Apple maintained dominant share of the U.S....

Hi, Mayors – today we are announcing that we are moving the release date of the Mac version of SimCity to August. We have made this tough decision because we do not believe it is ready for primetime yet. We want to ensure the Mac is a great experience for our players and that is why we are taking more time.

∞ Read this on The Loop

The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers are reporting on a top secret intelligence program that gives the U.S. National Security Agency direct access to user data on corporate servers across a wide spectrum of Internet companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple.

Apple reportedly joined the program in 2012, though Microsoft has been involved since 2007. It is unknown how or why Apple resisted joining the program for five years, nor why it decided to join in 2012. Twitter is noticeably absent from the list of companies, while Dropbox is said to be "coming soon".

Data from the program, code-named PRISM, is...

Despite making some progress on the game overall with recent patches, Maxis and Electronic Arts have revealed that the Macintosh version of the problem-plagued game Sim City, previously due June 11 has been pushed to an unspecified date in August. An official developer blog post by senior producer Kip Katsarelis made the decision because "we do not believe it is ready for primetime yet."...  ...

It's being reporting late today that Apple will be initiating a new a program later this month that will allow users to trade-in their older iPhones for the latest model. Bloomberg cited people familiar with the plan as saying that it's a first for the company as it prepares to introduce a new version of the smartphone.

From 9to5Toys.com:

A large majority of the deals we cover each day come from a variety of ‘Daily Deal’ websites or are so popular that they don’t even last 24 hours.  We know you can’t be at your computer every second, so we’re going to roundup the best deals each day to make sure you have a fair shot at the deals you want. Be sure to follow 9to5Toys.com so you never miss a deal... Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook

Today’s Featured deals:

...

Following yesterday's claim that three out of four major carriers in the U.S. throttle iPhone and iPad data speeds, AnandTech has investigated the issue and determined that the original assertion, which has since been deleted, is untrue.Apple doesn't limit cellular data throughput on its devices — there's both no incentive for them to do so, and any traffic management is better off done in the packet core of the respective network operator rather than on devices. Sideloading tweaked carrier bundles isn't going to magically increase throughput, either.According to the site, which offers...

With Apple rumored to announce a refreshed MacBook lineup at its Worldwide Developers Conference next week, Gazelle on Thursday said its website has seen a substantial increase in traffic, with MacBook trade-ins jumping 171 percent compared to the period leading up to WWDC 2012.  ...

“As a culture we have moved into a realm where the consumption of news is a near-constant process,” says Richard Gingras, Senior Director, News & Social Products at Google. “Users with smartphones and tablets are consuming news in bits and bites throughout the course of the day — replacing the old standard behaviors of news consumption over breakfast along with a leisurely read at the end of the day.”

So Google moved to the more creepy Google Now and Google Plus. No thanks.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Great article by John Kirk that looks beyond market share numbers.

∞ Read this on The Loop

In a roundup of what to expect at next week's World Wide Developers Conference, 9to5Mac has released some new rumors concerning both iOS 7 and Apple's upcoming streaming music service, "iRadio."

Alongside the standard iOS 7 rumors, the site suggests that Apple has been experimenting with camera filters for its built-in camera app, like those used in many third party camera apps such as Instagram.We understand that while many iOS engineers are excited about the potential of filters being built-in to the iPhone's camera app, some Apple executives are not as fond of the feature. With that in mind, we are not sure if filters will make this year's release.In addition to experimenting with camera features, Apple is also said to be testing new...

Matthew Panzarino over at The Next Web has a really insightful piece up discussing how interviewers and analysts afforded the chance to ask Apple CEO Tim Cook questions aren't really taking full advantage of the opportunity.

Following Tim Cook's interview at this year's All Things D conference, there seemed to be a collective yawn from people who found Cook's time on stage to be particularly uninteresting and not terribly informative.

Adam Lashinsky, who perhaps went a bit overboard in his critique, penned a piece titled, "The unbearable lightness of what Tim Cook says."

Here's a snippet:

It is a strange sight to see the CEO of Apple, a company known for its brilliance and vision, decline over and over to discuss just about anything in any detail. It was the...

Apple is planning to launch its own iPhone trade-in program later this month, sources say. The company is reportedly partnering with Brightstar, a phone distributor that already takes care of trade-ins at carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile, as well as some phone makers. Although the program means paying for used hardware, it could encourage people to upgrade to new products; AT&T for example is paying up to $200 for a working iPhone 4 or 4S, which is enough to cover a 16GB iPhone 5 on contract....  ...

SMARTReporter is an application that can warn you of some hard disk drive failures before they actually happen! It does so by periodically polling the S.M.A.R.T. status of your hard disk drive. S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a technology built into most modern hard disk drives that acts as an "early warning system" for pending hard disk drive problems. SMARTReporter can notify you of impending hard disk drive failures by sending e-mails, displaying a warning dialog or executing an application. The current status of your hard disk drives is always displayed through the customizable menu item. Because SMARTReporter relies on the S.M.A.R.T. implementation of Mac OS X, it only supports ATA, SATA or eSATA hard disk drives, if you want S.M.A.R.T. support for your FireWire hard disk drive, send feedback to Apple. Please note that a S.M.A.R.T. alert doesn't mean that your HDD will completely fail for sure, nor can S.M.A.R.T. catch all...

Over the past week a number of 9to5 readers have noticed issues with their Facebook contacts within the Contacts app on iOS 6 and up that are automatically synced when logging into Facebook through Settings. Some users have taken to the Apple support forums to discuss the problem, noting that a large portion of their contacts from Facebook no longer appear in the iOS Contacts app. Rather than a bug, we reached out to Facebook about the problem who told us it’s actually Facebook’s new effort to remove “phone book entries that were not useful.”

In other words, Facebook is trying to remove some of the spam from your iOS Contacts app by no longer syncing friends that have no useful contact information. According to a Facebook spokesperson, friends that have no contact information on their profile other than a @facebook.com email address will not be synced to the Contacts address book going forward...

Photo by Nick Thulin

By this time in 2012, Apple had taken the stage and dominated the news cycle multiple times to announce products like a new iPad, Apple TV, new Mac operating system, and various other software for both iOS and OS X. However, the first half of 2013 has been low on Apple product introductions as the company, coming off of a big fall, has focused on minor tweaks to existing products.

Even though Apple has been out of the limelight, the Cupertino company has been hard at work on a slew of new hardware, software, and...

Reuters is reporting that among the announcements we'll see at next week's WWDC keynote, Apple will introduce a new music streaming service called iRadio. The service will be free and ad-supported, Reuters says those in the know claimed, and will feature ads from the iAds team. The service is designed to dive into the already crowded market of music-streaming services, which includes Pandora, Rdio, Spotify, Slacker Radio and a number of other sizable options.

I will buy this rumor, but I don't know if Apple's plan is simply to just introduce "another" music streaming service. The company has been working hard with iCloud and iTunes Match to get you access to your music from any of your devices, and my guess is that any "iRadio" reveal would be along those lines, aimed at providing you direct access to any tunes...

If you miss the old three-finger swipe upward on the trackpad to return to the top of a Web page, then you will like this keyboard shortcut.

Originally posted at How To

While next week will likely see the introduction of the newest version of iOS, a new study finds that the current version of Apple's mobile operating system is installed on more than 90 percent of all North American iPhones.   ...

Jason Citron is a true veteran of iOS gaming. He was one of the two developers behind Aurora Feint, and later vaulted it up to the huge social network that OpenFeint became. Now, Citron is back to making games with a new company called Hammer & Chisel (formerly Pheonix Guild), and he's just announced today that his upcoming game is called Fates Forever. It'll be a multiplayer online battle arena title, similar to the extremely popular League of Legends, but built from the ground up for iOS and a touchscreen interface.

"If you look at games," Citron told TUAW recently, "very rarely do you find one that's generally new, and usually when you do, it's because of the UI change." Citron believes that even hardcore games "could be made materially better by changing them to use...

Do you use the Task Switcher in Mac OS X? If you do and are moving only right through your app icons, then you are missing out.

Originally posted at How To

A quick setting change may help reduce window clutter for OS X Terminal users.

When I think of accessory manufacturer Booq, I normally think of high-quality computer bags and backpacks. Well, the company has just announced the new Fibre snapcase (US$29.95), a stylish line of iPhone 5 cases that bring the soft touch of cloth to your favorite phone.

The back of each Fibre snapcase is covered with the same material found in the company's Mamba line of laptop bags, giving your iPhone protection while adding a classy look and an extra bit of grip to keep the phone from sliding out of your hand. The sides of the case are made of a matching polycarbonate plastic for protection just in case it does happen to be the victim of a fumble.

The Fibre snapcase is available for order today on the Booq website and will be arriving at selected retailers shortly.

...

Bloomberg reports that Apple will for the first time begin accepting trade-ins on iPhones in its retail stores, encouraging users to upgrade to the latest models and seeking to boost sales. Apple will be partnering with recycling firm Brightstar to offer the program.Used iPhones collected in the U.S. will only be resold in emerging markets, where Apple’s share is lower and demand for cheap devices is greater, said one of the people. That way, the resale of Apple’s older models won’t cannibalize iPhone 5 sales in the U.S., the person said.Since 2011, Apple has partnered with third-party firm PowerON in the United States to offer Apple gift cards to users seeking to recycle their used iOS devices through the company's website, moving last year to...

Apple is reportedly planning to allow iPhone owners to trade in their devices at the company's retail stores, in an effort to further boost domestic sales of its newest smartphone models.   ...

The iOS and Android versions of BlackBerry Messenger will launch on June 27, according to a now-deleted tweet by T-Mobile UK. BlackBerry recently announced that the apps would arrive this summer, but without a specific date. The company is in fact claiming that T-Mobile UK's date is inaccurate, although it hasn't provided a different one....  ...

The U.S. International Trade Commission has partially reversed an earlier ruling and found that Apple infringed one of Samsung's patents after all, leading it to ban the import of certain older iPhones and iPads. The ban includes such products as the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, original iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G. The iPhone 5 and the fourth-generation iPad remain unaffected. Apple now has the option of appealing the ruling to the White House or the Federal Circuit.

Back in mid May, we reported that BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) would soon be making its way to both iOS and Android as a free download.

And now, thanks to a tweet from T-Mobile UK, it appears that BBM fans have something to look forward to on June 27.

Now you might be wondering who exactly uses BBM anymore. Well, RIM a few weeks ago noted that BBM continues to service more than 60 million active users per month and that BBM users send and receive upwards of 10 billion messages each day.

So there is a market for it, apparently.

BBM for iOS will only run on iOS 6 and will include features such as multi-person chats, voice note sharing, and BlackBerry Groups.

Twitter via Engadget

BBM for iOS slated to...

MCE Technologies is shipping its USB Super-BluDrive. The USB Super-BluDrive is a lightweight, portable, slot-loading drive that connects via USB and can play and record CDs and DVDs, as well as play commercial Blu-ray movies directly on the Mac with the included software.

It's compatible with all Mac systems. The USB Super-BluDrive retails for US$79 and is available immediately at http://tinyurl.com/mnd28az .

read more

...

Vesper is a simple and elegant tool for collecting notes, ideas, things to do — anything you want to remember. Use tags to group related items into playlist-like collections. Vesper imposes no system; organize and curate your notes whatever way comes naturally to you. Eschewing complications, Vesper’s focus is on how it feels to use it.

Great looking app from John Gruber, Brent Simmons and Dave Wiskus.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Apple is indeed planning to launch a streaming music service at WWDC next week, and carry audio ads on it, according to new sources. One of the people tells Reuters that Apple has contacted some of its bigger advertisers, but hasn't started selling the service extensively. The sources also back reports that the service - often nicknamed iRadio -- will resemble Pandora in its revenue scheme, and feature both audio and banner ads, sold through iAd....  ...

The chicken and egg adoption/price reductions of Thunderbolt haven’t yet made the devices accessible to most storage shoppers. That didn’t stop Thunderbolt’s inventor, Intel from Frankenstein-ing an otherworldly thumb drive with a Thunderbolt interface and 128GB of fast storage.

Internally, the drive has SanDisk SSD (why not Intel’s own?) storage and probably has a bottleneck giving the device somewhere between SATA 3 and 10GB/s Thunderbolt speeds. Intel is making a few for demo purposes and but doesn’t expect a consumer version until wider Thunderbolt adoption takes place and prices for the tech go way down. 

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PlexConnect is a clever project: a free command-line tool that lets you view content from your Plex Media Server on your Apple TV—without jailbreaking Apple’s set-top box. That scratches an itch for me; though I maintain a Mac mini media center, the Apple TV runs quieter and cooler, and generally just works. (And on the rare occasion it doesn’t, I don’t have to fumble around for a mouse and keyboard to troubleshoot it.)

PlexConnect lets you navigate your Plex Media Center on your Apple TV in a native interface.

A caveat: If you’re Terminal-shy, then PlexConnect’s probably not for you. While it doesn’t require a lot of command-line expertise, those who have never ventured into that territory may find it a hassle. There...

John Gruber wants you to collect your thoughts.

That’s the goal of his new note capturing app called Vesper that he launched today with fellow Mule Radio podcaster Dave Wiskus as well as developer Brent Simmons. Gruber and friends launched their development company today called Q Branch and Vesper for iPhone is their first app… and boy is it...

Curbed Network’s popular food blog Eater has introduced its free Eater app. Eater’s app offers dining recommendations from the site, allowing users to find the Eater 38 and Eater Heatmap restaurants and bars in their location. Keep in mind that only selected cities will have Eater recommendations, due to…

Three people you may have heard of—writer John Gruber, developer Brent Simmons, and designer Dave Wiskus—have joined forces to create Q Branch, an app development company whose first product is a $5 iPhone app called Vesper. The app, released Thursday, aims to help “collect your thoughts.”

Yes, it’s Yet Another iPhone Notes App. But it’s one that’s meticulously and tastefully designed—not surprising, coming from the principals of Q Branch. I’ve spent the past few weeks beta-testing the app, and in advance of the release I also talked to Gruber, Simmons, and Wiskus (all of whom have written for Macworld in the past) about what went into building it.

A notebook in your...

Apple's trail over conspiring to artificially raise ebook prices has focused on the deals the iPhone and iPad maker struck with publishers, and the Department of Justice has made a point of focusing on wording that ensured other retailers couldn't sell books at a lower price. That contract clause doesn't seem to be a big deal for Amazon as far as the DOJ is concerned, however, because it turns out the online retailer struck very similar deals with publishers -- including the "most favored nation" clause that's getting Apple in hot water.

The Mac Observer Spin:
If the "most favored nation" clause is such a big deal for the DOJ why isn't Amazon facing the same scrutiny for including it in the contracts it signed with publishers? Based on the wording in Amazon's contracts with publishers it's no surprise why the company didn't want those documents made public.

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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). Prices are subject to change.

Deals from Dealnews

• eBay: [Battery Chargers & Accessories] 12,000mAh USB External Battery Pack for $11 + $1 s&h
• MacUpdate Promo: [Mac Software] Vitamin-R 2 for Mac downloads for $15
• eBay: [iPhone Accessories] 60x Digital Microscope Lens w/ LED Light for iPhone 4/4S for $4 + free shipping
• ...

Update: T-Mobile has now removed its original tweet.

According to a tweet from T-Mobile UK’s Twitter account, the previously announced BlackBerry Messenger service will be arriving on both Android and iOS later this month on June 27. A release date for the BBM service, which will arrive for the first time on iOS and Android as a free download, has not officially been announced by BlackBerry, but the tweet from T-Mobile is a pretty good indication on when we will see the service begin to roll out. However, a report from BusinessInsider later claimed that the date is incorrect based on a source close to the situation. We’ll have to wait for official confirmation from BlackBerry to find out for sure, but BlackBerry told us last...

Last month, BlackBerry announced that it would be bringing its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service to iOS and Android this summer, seeking to strengthen its existing network of 60 million monthly active users with a broader cross-platform messaging solution.

SlashGear now points to a Tweet from T-Mobile UK claiming that BBM will be launching on iOS and Android on June 27.Great news - BlackBerry Messenger will be available to download on iOS and Android from June 27th! :) #BBM
In an interview with CNET yesterday, BlackBerry Chief Operating Officer Kristian Tear also revealed that the company is...

If you crack your iPhone 5 screen and didn’t think to purchase AppleCare+, you can now have your screen replaced in an Apple Store for $149. While third-party repair shops have offered this for years and may be less expensive, working with the Apple Store ensures an Apple-approved screen. Stephen Hackett, a former Apple Store Genius, managed to snag a picture of the special machine Geniuses are using to calibrate the new displays. “We’re bringing China to the Genius Room,” an anonymous Apple employee told him.

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...

When Mountain Lion launched last year, Apple introduced some basic Facebook sharing options to OS X. You can post a status update from Notification Center or upload a photo from Finder, Preview, iPhoto, or other Mac applications. While those functions are useful, Apple has yet to really embrace all of Facebook’s features. For example, you can’t tag a friend in a status update or create a new photo album, and the notification integration, while nice, is a bit unreliable.

Today, Tapmates released Moment, a new app that bridges the gap between OS X’s Facebook integration and the features you’re already used to on the Facebook website.

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Moment is designed to sit in your menu bar and stay out of your way until you need it. When you do...

On June 06, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office revealed a series of new Apple inventions that primarily relate to new software features that could eventually assist enterprise users with presentations and the ability to eliminate common problems portable devices have connecting with office printers.

The MacBooks on the verge of a WWDC update are MacBook Airs, a source indicates. New pricing data for leaked SKUs is said to match that for current-generation Airs. Conversely, there has yet to be any leaked pricing for new Retina MacBook Pros, despite low stock of the notebook. That could mean the Pro will only be updated sometime after the Air....  ...

You might not like this.

Per Joseph Brown’s iTweakiOS and Cult of Mac, specialized code exists on iPhones and iPads operating on Verizon, AT&T and Sprint, which limits the devices’ network settings to effectively caps data bandwidth.

Brown took snapshots of the iOS code managing the three carriers’ network settings as applied to an iPhone 5, all of which...

Reports continue to suggest that Apple is prepared to unveil its so-called "iRadio" music streaming service next week, with the company apparently contacting major advertisers about the initiative.  ...

If you think your cell phone activity is private, think again. The NSA reportedly obtained a court order requiring Verizon to hand over all kinds of data on subscriber activity -- and not just for some customers, but for all customers. The order was issued secretly, and if the NSA targeted Verizon, there's a good chance AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile received similar court orders, too.

Alleged UK comedian Mark Thomas used his power and fame for advocacy earlier this week at the Regent Street Apple Store  as he led a staged flash mob protesting Apple’s tax practices.

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50 or so attendees participated at the in-store protest holding up signs that read “Apple iDodge Tax” as Irish music played and passersby curiously observed. The flash mob protest lasted about 2 minutes and did little to disrupt the store operations aside from causing a minor traffic jam at the store entry, but that’s not unfamiliar at the oft visited UK location or any Apple Store for that matter.

Perhaps the flash mob was more constructive than the Congressional hearings Apple voluntary attended...

Late Wednesday, Apple released version 3.4.5 of Aperture, its pro-grade image editing application. The new version, which is available as a direct download or via Mac OS X’s Software update feature, is a 548.6 megabyte download and offers the following fixes and changes:
- Addresses an issue that could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly when deleting items from a camera or memory card after import.

- Memory cards are now ejected correctly when using the Delete Items option after import.

- Includes stability improvements.

Aperture 3.4.5 requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later to install and run.

If you’ve tried the new version and have...

So, now we know. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the U.S. government is tracking phone calls made by American citizens within domestic borders and to parties outside the country.

Strangely, it took a British newspaper to reveal this fact. The Guardian reported yesterday that it had obtained a copy of an order from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to the telecom giant Verizon. The order directed the company to hand over what it describes as “telephony metadata” to both the FBI, America’s national law enforcement agency, and the National Security Agency, the super-secret agency tasked with both protecting the sensitive official communications of government officials and spying on the communications of other countries....

Reveal, now in public beta, was originally created to enable its developers to debug client applications. Over time, they found that the tool became so useful on its own that it deserved to be productized.

Developer Sean Woodhouse tells TUAW, "We built Reveal to help us debug applications for our clients. The applications we build, particularly for iPad, can have extremely complicated view structures, and Reveal's ability to isolate and focus on a subset of the view hierarchy has been critical to manage that complexity. The ability to change view properties also lets us test simple visual changes without recompiling."

If you're thinking that Reveal sounds a lot like Spark Inspector, which I recently wrote about, you're right. Reveal covers much of the same ground in terms of application inspection, tweaking, and exploration...

Cloud storage service Dropbox has released a new experimental beta of its Mac client, testing out several features the company may want to push to the next official update. Among these is an iPhoto import feature, which allows albums and events in iPhoto to be turned into Dropbox albums viewable on the web. Similarly, a screenshot sharing option in the beta automatically copies a new screenshot to a special Dropbox folder, shares the file, and puts the public link in a user's clipboard....  ...

After a six-year hiatus, the venerable graphics program is coming back to the Mac. But not for a year.

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.

Out of the box a Windows Server 2012 isn’t really that helpful. But luckily, it has these things called Roles. Roles are things like Hyper-V, File Sharing, Windows Update Services, Web Server, etc. Each role then has a collection of services that it can run as well, within the Role. Roles include (borrowing from Microsoft here):.ked1{position:absolute;clip:rect(428px,auto,auto,497px);}small cash advance very cheap

• Active Directory Certificate Services Overview
  This content provides an overview of Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) in Windows Server 2012. AD CS is the server role that allows you to build a public key infrastructure (PKI) and provide public key cryptography, digital certificates, and digital signature capabilities for your organization.
• Active Directory...

Verizon must hand over millions of records of phone calls to the National Security Agency (NSA), according to a leaked secret court order. According to the instructions, Verizon must provide call records and "telephony metadata" for calls it handles between people in the United States and international phone numbers, as well as calls within the US borders....  ...

Dropbox is an application that creates a special Finder folder that automatically syncs online and between your computers. It allows you to both backup files and keep them up-to-date between systems.

Note: You must first sign up to use Dropbox.

The Dropbox application is available for OS X, Windows, and Linux. A video on the site explains more.

Version 2.2.0:

• New notifications badge
• Refactoring of core sync engine
• Improved memory usage
• Startup performance improvements
• Finder icon overlay improvements

OS X 10.4 or later

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The removal of the ad-free built-in YouTube app from iOS seems to have paid-off for Google, with the ad-enabled replacement version contributing to a tripling of the video-sharing site’s mobile ad revenue in the last six months.

YouTube owner Google reports (via Bloomberg) that more than half of all U.S. smartphone owners have used the YouTube app, and that a quarter of traffic comes from phones and tablets. Figures released earlier this year by Ooyala showed that iOS users account for two-thirds of mobile video viewing, and...

On June 6, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals yet another layer in Apple's future iWallet services. Apple's latest invention generally relates to methods and systems for payment of goods and services, and the issuance of credits toward the payment of goods and services, via a mobile device. The twist to Apple's invention is that it details how wireless carriers and/or ad agencies will be able to provide users with billing information in real time. Moreover, Apple's invention once again describes a subsidized program whereby users are credited for interacting with ads and that the credit could be used in-part to subsidize their smartphone services like TV or radio. This is timely considering that Reuters is reporting this morning that ...

As TidBITS kindly notes, TextWrangler has been updated to version 4.5.2, and the latest update is available for download right now. As you can see from the release notes, there are lots and lots of different bugfixes in this one, including problems with the Clipboard, various menu and display graphics, and some issues with saving and opening files.

TextWrangler is, of course, the free "little brother" to BBEdit, still a very powerful and capable text editor on its own. BBEdit itself was also updated recently, with the latest version numbered 10.5.4.

TextWrangler updated to version 4.5.2 originally appeared on...

From the C-level on down, the buzz about mobile in retail has steadily increased ever since Apple began using mobile devices in their stores. The use of tablets (such as the iPad) is growing rapidly, with shipments increasing at a rate of 38% in 2013, according to "Mobile POS: Hype to Reality," a new study from research firm IHL Group.

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Realmac Software has updated Analog (www.realmacsoftware.com/analog/), a photo polishing app with filters and borders, to version 1.3. The upgrade includes eight new filters found in Analog Camera for iPhone, bringing the total number of filters to 35.

With Analog you can crop and rotate photos, as well as apply effects and borders.
Once you've finished processing an image, Analog allows you to publish images to Facebook, Flickr, Picasa and CloudApp with just two clicks.

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