On the heels of Apple's iTunes Radio release, Google plans to launch a native iOS application for its Google Play Music All Access service on the App Store, according to a new report.
  ...

At every opportunity, we've tried to expose Samsung in the light of a copycat manufacturer and dirty trickster. In the past, we've had the courage to challenge Samsung's blustering claims of blockbuster sales and have been proven correct. Some say we're too hard on Samsung and yet we're the only Apple site that covers Samsung patents in all fairness. If they file for an innovative idea, we try to cover them. But that has nothing to do with us hammering them when they copy Apple's designs and steal or "infringe" Apple's patents. These creeps have tried to invalidate key Apple patents and have repeatedly failed in the US. Yet they kept pushing until they got a German court to invalidate one of Apple's patents that they (Samsung and Google) desperately need to defeat because pinch and zoom and other key Apple inventions define multitouch functionality on mobile devices like no other. So today I applaud the CNN/Fortune Apple 2.0 blog for posting a historical listing of Samsung's dirty...

Game on

This week's roundup features new and old ways of gaming on your iOS device. Like sports, adventures, dieting cats? We've probably got something for your tastes.

Cat on a Diet

Meow hear this: The $1 Cat on a Diet features a cat, Dr. Meow, who does not want to be on a diet. While his owner sleeps, the cat sneaks into an obstacle-laden kitchen in search of the cookie jar. Not recommended for iPhone and iPad users currently on Weight Watchers.

Netflix

Netflix needs no introduction at this point, but this week’s update is definitely worth noting—movies and TV shows can now be streamed in HD from your iOS device, and the app is now compatible with AirPlay.

NBA 2K14

The $8...

Demodit has introduced ClassicWeather for Mac. It's a free Mac version of its iPhone/iPad weather app.

ClassicWeather displays compact widgets with forecasts for multiple cities. Tabbed buttons change the view to informative text and graphics, reporting the weather today, the summary for the next days, hourly weather for next days, and a description in text.

The weather widgets of the app represent weather information for selectable cities. ClassicWeather also supports iOS like swipe gestures.

read more

Apple is even hand-selecting oak trees to plant. That’s detail oriented.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Samsung executives obtained illicit access to the terms of licensing agreements between Apple and Nokia, and at least Apple is requesting sanctions, according to an Apple v. Samsung court order from Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal. The licensing terms were contained in a non-redacted document marked for use by outside legal counsel with the phrase "Highly Confidential -- Attorneys' Eyes Only." Nokia's Chief Intellectual Property Officer, Paul Melin, charges however that on June 4th, Samsung executives ended up using the document in a negotiation session with his company....
 ...

iLuv Creative Technology is shipping TimeShaker, the latest addition to the company's line of alarm clock docking stations. The company says it's the first alarm clock in iLuv’s line to feature Apple’s Lightning connector. 

The dock features iLuv’s "bed shaker," which allows users to hear and feel their alarm, making oversleeping a thing of the past. This dual alarm clock speaker enables users to set two separate alarms and offers multiple alarm options, including iPhone/iPod music, FM radio, buzzer and bed shaker.

read more

You may have noticed that the .com button is missing from the iOS 7 keyboard. Kirk McElhearn found out that it’s still there.

∞ Read this on The Loop

...

On Wednesday, Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California talked of sanctions against Samsung for violation of a protective order, reports "FOSS Patents" (http://tinyurl.com/nm3hqfe).

It seems that Samsung execs were told the terms of a secret Apple-Nokia patent license, a legal no-no. The court is still trying to find out more about how the information was improperly disclosed, but it already knows a lot about what happened. Sanctions loom large, according to "FOSS Patents."f

read more

Sync.ME, a third-party contacts app for iOS with over 8 million downloads, just rolled out an interesting feature that brings new functionality to Apple’s own Contacts app on iOS. As pictured above, the latest version of the Sync.ME app now adds a “Widgets” link within Apple’s Contacts app that provides quick access to social network profiles for contacts and a number of other handy functions for quickly sharing content.

They are called ‘Widgets’, but in reality they are essentially quick links to profiles on social networks and other functions of the Sync.ME app. The interesting aspect is the fact that you’ll no longer have to launch the Sync.ME app and can now access all of the “Widgets” functionality from directly within the native iOS Contacts app.

On top of links to the contact’s Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn profiles, you’ll also find the...

Apple has filed a new motion for sanctions against Samsung in a California court, accusing the Korean electronics manufacturer of unlawfully obtaining sensitive information about the terms and conditions of its 2011 patent license agreement with Nokia, reports FOSS Patents.

The motion states that Dr. Seungho Ahn, a Samsung executive, informed Nokia that the terms of the Apple-Nokia patent settlement were “known to him”, and used that information to negotiate other potential patent settlements in Samsung’s favor. According to the complaint, the Apple-Nokia license terms were turned over to Samsung's outside lawyers during the Apple v. Samsung case and were marked "Highly Confidential -- Attorneys' Eyes Only", but were improperly shared with Ahn and dozens of other...

HP has launched its 24/7 technical support service, HP SmartFriend. Providing one-on-one assistance regarding one's PC or tablet (not exclusive to HP products), users can receive instruction on a variety of troubleshooting needs, be provided with a walk-through of an installation, and more....
  ...

Duolingo for iPhone and iPad joined the collection of apps designed with iOS 7 in mind today with the release of Duolingo 3.

Duolingo is a free iOS app that makes learning a second language like Spanish or French easy and fun, and its redesign for iOS 7 is certainly delightful.

We don’t always redesign the app for iOS 7, but when we do, we prefer to go the whole way. From an entirely new look to exciting end screens showing your weekly progress, Duolingo has been completely redesigned for iOS 7. It’s faster, better, and more fun!

You can find Duolingo for free on the App Store.

...

Originally released for consoles, PC, and Mac in January, Sega today released ‘The Cave’ for iOS, a unique platformer/puzzle adventure from the creator of the popular Monkey Island franchise. It also comes to us with help from Tim Schafer’s studio Double Fine Productions– the development team behind Brütal Legend, Psychonauts, etc– so there’s definitely good reason to have high hopes for the title.

The game...

Photo: ipadsforeducation.vic.edu.au

AllThingsD is reporting that updating school iPads to iOS 7 failed to restore the supervision profiles, meaning that all of the protective filters put in place were lost.

“Apple did not realize that installing iOS 7 would remove our (and thousands of organizations across the country) safety protection measure, which now makes the iPad devices unfiltered when accessing the Internet away from school,” said a memo from the Manitou Springs (Colo.) School District 14 to parents. “In the short term, the district will be collecting iPad devices at the end of each day until the safety protection measure is reinstalled” … ...

The Planning Commission of Apple's hometown of Cupertino, California approved Apple’s plans for the company's new "Spaceship" campus Wednesday night, a day after the company made a presentation to the community at a public discussion, reports CNET. The next steps in the process will be a vote by the Cupertino city council on October 15 along with a final vote on November 19, and the company remains on track for a 2016 opening of the new campus.

Just like any other Apple presentation, this one came with a slickly-produced video. Dan Whisenhunt, the company's director of real estate and facilities, introduced a video featuring lead architect Norman Foster and others in charge of the site's development. One gem from the film is that the site's now infamous O-shaped structure was not the original vision. "It really grew into that born out of an...

If you’ve been carrying out any dodgy searches in Incognito Mode in the iOS 7 version of Google Chrome, you may want to wander casually into settings to delete the search history (looking toward the sky and whistling helps): it appears that Incognito Mode currently isn’t. All searches performed in the private browsing mode are available in search history once you return to normal browsing.

The above video is rather swift, and has no commentary, but what it shows is erasing history to start with a clean slate, entering Incognito Mode, visiting a website, returning to normal browsing and then viewing search history at Google – where the supposed private web session shows up.

Note that you do need to visit Google to see the history: it doesn’t show up when simply using the combined URL/search bar.

Google...

Apple has never been a company to rush a product to market just to be first, or because a competitor is doing it. Instead, the company has a long history of trying to refine and improve on other companies’ earlier attempts. The story is no different with its new music service, iTunes Radio.

[ See post to watch video ]

Released alongside iOS 7, iTunes Radio is a streaming music service that allows you to create personal radio stations based on your favorite artists, songs and genres. It also provides access to more than 250 DJ-curated and genre-based stations, and offers opportunities to listen to new albums before they go on sale. For example, I was able to stream the second album of Justin Timberlake’s “The 20/20 Experience” before it was released on Sept. 30 (verdict: meh).

There is no cost to use iTunes Radio, though there are ads. If...

Netflix has released version 5.0 of its iOS app that adds some much-requested features...if you have iOS 7. The first feature is HD video. Customers can now watch HD video just like Android users have been doing for months.

But the biggest new feature is AirPlay streaming. Now users don't have to rely on AirPlay mirroring to watch Netflix videos on their Apple TV (or the actual Apple TV Netflix app). Users can simply use Netflix on the iPhone or iPad to select a movie and watch it on their Apple TV. This means they don't need to keep the Netflix app open on their iOS device like they would have to with AirPlay mirroring.

Both the HD video and Airplay streaming require iOS 7. Netflix is a free download.

...

Big days of change are clearly ahead for Microsoft. The Board of Directors has some big decisions to make as the largest activist investors are applying pressure to see their particular agenda enacted.

The main issue is that Ballmer himself is leaving Microsoft in the next 12 months — he offered a tearful goodbye to employees at last week’s annual companywide meeting — and finding a new CEO to execute such a dramatic shift in the company’s strategy while maintaining its existing 16 billion-dollar businesses will be no easy task.

That task has been made substantially more difficult in recent days by activist investors — reports surfaced last week that a group made up of “three of the top 20 investors” was pushing for Ford CEO Alan Mulally to take over the top spot, and yesterday news leaked that Microsoft’s board was seriously considering him. At the same time, “three of the top 20 investors” were also credited yesterday with pushing to remove Bill Gates from the...

On October 3, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a series of 13 original patent applications from Apple. Once again there were no knock-out patent filings published today like a smartwatch or fingerprint scanner, but there were a few invention enhancement patents worth noting. One relates to enhancing future iDevice protective mechanisms that will assist iDevices in free fall. Another enhancement covers the iPhone's active noise cancellation function. Today's patent application summary report provides you with specifics behind Apple's key invention enhancements while providing you with links to a number of other interesting patents published today that relate to matters such as cryptographic operations and enhanced velocity estimations for touch inputs and much more.

Netflix on Thursday updated its official application for Apple's iOS, adding high-definition content and AirPlay streaming support for iOS 7 users.
   ...

With any luck, the FAA will accept the recommendations of a panel that has recommended allowing passengers to use electronic devices before reaching cruising altitude… as long as those devices are prevented from generating wireless signals by airplane mode.

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.

Back in June, Apple let a silly game demonstration take center stage at its Worldwide Developer Conference, and it released a new game controller framework with instructions on how developers could build physical game controllers. The two together led me to believe that an Apple sneak attack on living room gaming was imminent. Since then, two more elements have risen to the surface, and now I think the sneak attack is well under way. What is that sneak attack, exactly?

Airports and airlines are clearly focused on improving the travel experience. But are the investments they’re making having the desired impact? Based on new research reports -- for both airlines and airports -- of 2,160 travelers just released from FlightView (www.FlightView.com), a day-of-travel information company, the answer is a resounding "no."

read more

Last week, more than 300 students across three high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) brought their school-issued iPads home and hacked into them, probably to download juicy blacklisted apps and access banned websites.

Well, “hacked” might be a strong word. Students simply removed their mobile device management (MDM) software profile-an easy enough thing to do—which also got rid of Apple’s Global Proxy that ensures traffic goes through a Web filter. It wasn’t much of a hack, rather a couple of finger taps.

The Los Angeles Times reported the story, which was picked up by other media, and LAUSD suddenly found itself in hot water. Headlines screamed: “Students find ways to thwart school iPad security” ( rtv6) and “Students...

Adobe is currently testing a new presentation app for the iPad similar in purpose to PowerPoint and Keynote, via CNET. The project is currently called Ginger. Although details are sparse, it seems to be focused on the creation of sales pitches and what Adobe calls “explainer videos”. Adobe has said that the app is in the beta stage of development, but is yet to confirm whether the app will ever be publicly released.

On Ginger’s minisite, there are a few demos of what the app could create. One example presentation is embedded below …

Markzware's latest version of its preflight solution, FlightCheck 7 Mac, adds support to preflight Adobe documents created with InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, and Photoshop CC graphic software for Adobe Creative Cloud.
 

read more

It was reported on Thursday that schools around the U.S. are finding the supervision profiles installed on deployed iPads wiped clean after upgrading to iOS 7, leaving students unsupervised and unprotected from unsavory Web content.
  ...

Despite having to contend with a market that’s increasingly crowded by competitors, AgileBits’ 1Password is still my go-to repository for every last bit of information that I want to keep safe and secure, like my passwords, software licenses, and banking data.

Luckily, the folks behind 1Password aren’t slacking off. Now that even Apple is baking password management right into its operating systems, they are responding by releasing a new version of their popular app that includes more goodies than ever.

Better and the same

Let’s start with the basics. Despite sporting dozens of new features and having received a new coat of paint, 1Password 4 feels much like its predecessors, which makes the transition very easy to...

Back in December, AgileBits released 1Password 4 for iPhone and iPad. The app presented a completely revamped take on password security, but lacked feature parity with the Mac version of the software.

Today, 1Password for Mac has been updated to version 4, bringing a ton of new features to the Mac. In fact, the update brings so many new capabilities that the Mac version of 1Password has now surpassed the iOS version in features. This is a massive release with a completely redesigned interface, overhauled browser extensions, support for new types of saved...

Snapchat, the popular photo messaging app that is used to share over 350M photos every day, has added a substantial feature in the latest version of their app: Snapchat Stories.

The Verge has a great piece on the new feature:

“Stories: a rolling compilation of snaps from the last 24 hours that your friends can see. You create your Story as you go about your day by tapping “My Story” above the friends you want to send a snap to. Or, you can tap a new shortcut button in the app’s camera screen to instantly post a snap to your Story. But unlike conventional snaps, Stories don’t disappear in a puff of ephemeral smoke after you’ve...

It came to light on Wednesday that at least fifty Samsung employees retained access to highly confidential Apple-Nokia licensing terms originating from the Apple v. Samsung court trial, information that should not have been disclosed to anyone other than Samsung's outside counsel.
  ...

Apple's Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue, has disclosed that artists who appear at the company's yearly iTunes Festival in London are not paid to do so, and use the free concert in London (at a venue that seats a relatively paltry 2,500 compared to the stadiums many of them regularly perform in) as both a chance to put on a show for the fans as well as an opportunity for worldwide exposure and promotion of their latest work....
 ...

It's time to save some of that hard-earned cash with our Daily Deals, featuring exclusive TUAW Deals, a handy list from Dealnews and our own hand-picked iOS and OS X selections.

TUAW's Daily Deals

The Call of Duty Bundle [On sale for $39.99, down from $130]

Step Into Battle With Three COD Titles and Two Map Packs. Titles in this COD bundle include Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops - Annihilation & Escalation Content Pack and Call of Duty: Black Ops - Rezurrection Content Pack.

Save 69% on The Call of Duty Bundle at TUAW Deals. All games are instantly redeemable through Steam upon purchase.

Deals from Dealnews

• ...

Such is the level of Apple's success in making its mobile device, Mac and even its "hobbies" profitable that despite a $60 billion stock buyback program and additional billions given out in dividends, the company continues to make bank faster than it can disperse its capital. According to a new report from Moody's, Apple has at least $147 billion in reserves unencumbered by debt, accounting for about 10 percent of all the cash held by non-financial US companies....
 ...

The M7 motion co-processor Apple packed into the iPhone 5s is already seeing use from a number of fitness app developers anxious to maximize its potential as a new health and wellness platform.
  ...

One of the weaknesses of mobile web browsers is the lack of a simple way to view a website's source information. Sure you could wait until you got home to examine how a site is built, but we live in the future. Waiting till we get home is very 2012. That's where Snoopy comes in.

Snoopy is a bookmarklet that allows you to quickly view source, giving you a look at the doctype, the JS libraries the page uses, what analytics are used, a look at the raw source of the page and a number of other finer details.

There are a few ways to get Snoopy to work in Mobile Safari. The simplest method is to simply drag the bookmarklet from the page, here, up to your bookmarks bar. Turn on iCloud or use an iTunes bookmark sync to your iDevice to have the link show up in your mobile bookmarks.

If you use Google Chrome, simply save the bookmarklet...

Great quote. I actually stopped and thought about this one for a few minutes.

∞ Read this on The Loop

The "twin" problems developers targeting children with in-app purchases and parents who give children their iTunes password -- failing to grasp that it is tied to their credit card on file -- has yet again resulted in an excessive bill tied to in-app game purchases. In the latest case, a British six-year-old twin boy and girl were able to buy $1,590 worth of virtual pets and clothing across two different games. The father has called for tougher legislation for in-game app purchases....
 ...

Flutter, the startup that created a gestured-based music controller for iTunes and Spotify, has been acquired by Google according to a splash page on the company’s website. The Flutter app used a computer’s webcam to detect hand gestures for starting, stopping, or switching songs on iOS, OS X, and Windows. Aside from iTunes and Spotify, Flutter is compatible with a variety other apps, including Quicktime Player, Rdio, and even Google Chrome.

Based on the existing Chrome integration (which allows for control of Netflix, YouTube, ...

Top Movies - A Zoomable Timeline of Movies is a free app that will appeal to movie fans. When you open it, you see posters for the top movies of the decade. Pinching zooms you in to see top films of a particular year, and zooming in all the way will show you films by actual release date. Tap a film poster and you'll either get a link to the Internet Movie Database, or you'll get to the iTunes Store where you can check out a preview or buy the movie.

The database goes all the way back to 1915, where you'll find Birth of A Nation, and yes, you can get that from iTunes.

While I liked the app, I have a couple of issues. What defines a top movie? Box office or popularity? Also, the app is inconsistent. Sometimes it goes to the App Store; sometimes to IMDb; but never...

Apple reportedly has pledged to fix a bug in iOS 7 that has been plaguing some users. This will be the second fix since the iOS 7 was released Sept. 18. The first was issued Sept. 20 to resolve a problem with the iPhone 5s fingerprint scanner. At least 16 iOS 7 problems have surfaced so far, including a bug that lets anyone bypass the iPhone's lockscreen, glitchy media controls, users receiving other people's messages or contacts, and complaints that the user interface causes motion sickness.

From 9to5Toys.com:

Be sure to follow 9to5Toys to keep up with the best gear and deals on the web: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+.

Today’s featured deals:

• OtterBox iPhone 5 Defender Series case in multiple colors...

Anand Lal Shimpi and Brian Klug uncover just how bad companies are cheating in benchmark tests. Personally, I’m shocked that such reputable companies would do this. What’s next, are they going to rip off Apple’s UI?

∞ Read this on The Loop

In an interesting interview with Entertainment Weekly, Apple's Eddy Cue took some time to discuss Apple's iTunes Festival and the company's ambitions with respect to iTunes Radio, Apple's take on Pandora.

How do you gauge the success of something like the iTunes Festival? Is it audience reach? The level of artist that you get year after year?

You can't measure it through the sale of a product or song or any of that. It works by the fact that that we have all of these customers in the U.K. that want to come to it-with the 20 million ticket requests that we've had, the millions of people that watch it on their iOS devices, on Apple TV, and the Web. And that's always been growing on a year-to-year basis.

Notably, Cue explains that artists aren't paid for their performances at the festival. That, however, clearly hasn't stopped A-list performers from taking the...

Several of Apple's online services were briefly impacted by outages earlier today, according to Apple's System Status page. The worst affected the iTunes Store, the iBookstore, and the Mac and iOS App Stores between 1:28 and 2:57PM Eastern time, preventing some people from making any purchases. During the same time period, people may have been unable to use iTunes in the Cloud or iTunes Match, or restore purchases from an iCloud backup....
  ...

Valve's Steam service runs sales on its plethora of titles quite frequently, but unfortunately not every game is available on Steam -- that's where the Not On Steam Sale comes in. Offering a total of 35 indie titles (many of them playable on Mac), the sale is a great way to stock up on a whole bunch of great games you may never have heard of.

The Not On Steam Sale is being hosted by Flippfly, the same folks behind the indie title Race the Sun. The sale ends a week from today, so if you're in the market for some quirky gaming on the cheap, be sure to swipe your credit card before it ends.

[via Joystiq]

...

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 October 2, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 02 Oct 2013 15:15:00 EST. Please see our...

David Schuetz, an Apple TV hobbyist, has been exploring some interesting behavior on pre-iOS 7 Apple TVs. After a bit of hacking, he discovered a way to enable an Add Site feature. This feature opens the possibility of adding custom sites to the Apple TV menu, letting him hook up a Raspberry Pi media server to his ATV. [The iOS 7-equivalent build of the Apple TV OS, released in September, is version number 6, as the ATV is a version number behind the iPhone and iPad. This hack works on v5.x and earlier-build Apple TVs. -Ed.]

He wrote up the details of his discovery on his company website and posted a Github repository containing a talk he recently gave on the subject. Although Schuetz points out the hack does not require a jailbreak, this approach is not suitable for either the weak of...

Martin Hajek has done it again. This time, he's pondered a possible Apple iPad mini strategy. "The question that I asked myself is: will Apple follow a similar s and c strategy for the iPad mini as it has for the iPhone 5s and 5c?" And then, in his brilliant way, Mr. Hajek has rendered some examples. Perhaps the addition of these colors, including gold, plus the TouchID will soon have ecstatic customers wound around the block on launch day. It could happen.

Apple’s fifth-generation iPad and second-generation iPad mini will both have 8MP cameras with larger apertures, according to KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo expects both devices to launch this year. Another report from earlier today expressed doubt that the second-generation iPad mini would launch this year — and if it…

One of the relatively unsung features of iOS 7 is the addition of audio-only calling to FaceTime. Why would you want to use FaceTime to make audio-only calls instead of using the full video/audio capability? Well, maybe you just woke up and look like something the cat dragged in, and you don't want the person on the receiving end of the call to die of fright. Or perhaps you're using a weak Wi-Fi connection with your non-GSM iPad mini or iPod touch in an internet café overseas and don't want to risk not being able to make a FaceTime call at all. Either way, audio-only FaceTime calling is easy to do, and today's video tip will show you how.

iOS 7 video tip: Making FaceTime audio calls originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 02 Oct 2013 14:30:00 EST. Please see our...

With the announcement of the new iPads approaching later this month, rumors surrounding the new full-sized iPad have centered around a thinner, lighter design, but it’s been unclear if the new tablet will sport the Touch ID fingerprint authentication system from the iPhone 5s. I’ve heard that Apple’s most recent internal next-generation iPad prototypes have lacked Touch ID sensors, so it’s unclear if it will make the cut for this year. There are a few reasons why Touch ID wouldn’t make sense on an iPad this year:

• Exclusivity to iPhone 5s could help with sales for Apple’s flagship phone. Notice the iPhone 5c doesn’t have it.
• Supplies for Sapphire Crystal are obviously...

Some users may be experiencing difficulty making purchases on the iTunes Store, according to Apple’s system status page. We’ve heard mentions of issues beginning this morning, and Apple reports trouble starting around 1:30 PM EST. Game Center and FaceTime also experienced issues this afternoon, though the former may be somewhat difficult to notice.

.@MileyCyrus knocked us out with "Wrecking Ball." Listen to First Play: Miley Cyrus, Bangerz. #iTunesRadio (US only) tw.itunes.com/fCo—
  (@iTunes) October 02, 2013

Apple’s iMessage service has been suffering turbulence for days now, which is not reflected on the system status page as it may be limited to iOS 7 users. Apple told the WSJ it is...

Following Tuesday's report that Samsung artificially inflates its benchmarking scores, well-respected hardware review site AnandTech has published evidence suggesting nearly all mobile manufacturers, with the exception of Apple and Motorola, use CPU/GPU optimizations to game benchmark tests.

Samsung and other OEMs use a variety of methods to enhance device performance when a benchmark is detected. For example, with its Galaxy S 4 Samsung raised its thermal limits (and max GPU frequency) to get an edge on certain benchmarks and also raised its CPU voltage/frequency to its highest state when a benchmark was sensed, a tactic engaged by multiple...

Cheating test scores and misrepresenting device capabilities are rampant at Samsung, but are also being used by virtually every other Android licensee apart from Google itself, research shows.
  ...

With Apple’s rumored next-generation iPads expected to be launching as early as this month, often reliable KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is sharing some new details on the expected iPad 5 and second generation iPad mini. Kuo is still expecting both products to launch later this year sometime in 4Q13, but in his latest report claims that Apple is prepping a camera upgrade for the new iPads that would include a bump up from the current 5 megapixel iSight camera to 8 megapixels along with other improvements:

Apple could upgrade the camera as a selling point for the new iPad in a bid to increase competitiveness.

We expect the upgrade will include 8MP rear camera, up from 5MP, and larger aperture. Lens module ASP will rise 10-20% on this optics spec upgrade.

As a reminder, the new iPhone 5s includes a new five-element lens designed by Apple that also includes a larger a F2.2...

The latest firmware updates fix improper battery function in Apple's laptops.

With the perspective of several weeks of usage by tens of millions of users, we look at four notable hassles we and other iOS 7 users have experienced, including crashes under low battery, iMessage not sending messages, Siri failing to respond, and some subtle audio-playing bugs and design problems.

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.

Apple is distributing new pre-release builds of iTunes, Safari, Java, and the OS X 10.8.5 Supplemental Update amongst employees, a report says. The Supplemental Update is said to have reached build 12F45, as opposed to the 12F42 code seen during an initial leak. Safari 6.1 is meanwhile up to build 537A134....
  ...

When Apple SVP Phil Schiller pointed us to a story earlier this week that Samsung was artificially inflating benchmark scores for its new Galaxy Note 3, many were quick to point out it wasn’t the first time Samsung had been caught engaged in such a practice. The same issue was discovered by AnandTech for the Galaxy S4 back in July, and today the site has an extensive report showing that almost every Android smartphone manufacturer is shipping devices that do the same.

As pictured in the chart above, that includes the HTC One, HTC One mini, LG G2, Galaxy Tab 10.1, and many others. In fact, the only companies that appear to not be using the method is Apple and Motorola, as well as Google with its Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 devices:

We started piecing this data together back in...

Isn’t this like admitting you’ve gone too far?

∞ Read this on The Loop

Samsung's recently released Galaxy Gear smart watch may be the product of a rushed development effort spurred on by rumors that Apple was preparing to enter the wearable technology segment in a big way.
  ...

Apple will use iTunes Radio to promote and stream albums before their release, according to Eddy Cue, the company's senior VP for Internet Software and Services. For some time now Apple has been offering full-length preview streams of albums by mainstream acts, but only on the iTunes Store. "Itís a huge improvement to do it on iTunes Radio because you donít go to a store a lot. Hopefully lots of people will be listening to iTunes Radio a lot; from a discovery perspective itís significantly better," says Cue....
 ...

Tee-Boy has announced WeatherSnoop 3 for Mac OS X Lion and higher. Designed to procure, analyze and publish weather data, the app interfaces with a variety of personal and professional weather stations as well as Internet-based data sources.

With WeatherSnoop, you can watch your weather come to life with rendered instruments and gauges that show temperature, wind, rain, and more. Version 3 includes support for multiple stations through Site Documents, which allow users to obtain data from more than one station at a time.

read more

Nektony has announced VSD Viewer 4.0 for Mac OS X. The new version adds the ability to display the shape date of the MS Visio objects.

VSD Viewer allows Mac users to open vsd files created with Visio 2000- 2013, a file extension for a vector graphics format developed and owned by MS Visio. Opening a Visio drawing on Mac with VSD Viewer is as simple as drag and dropping the file to its application window.

VSD Viewer requires Mac OS X 10.8 or later. It costs US$14.99 and is available worldwide through the Mac App Store in the Business category. For more info go to http://nektony.com .

Today, Apple has begun seeding new versions of OS X Mountain Lion, iTunes, Safari and Java to Apple employees. The new OS X build is version 10.8.5, and it is a supplemental update to the version that was publicly released last month. Last week, we noted that Apple was preparing this new version with bug fixes for MacBook Airs, USB, and HDMI, and today’s new seed is a higher build number (12F45 versus 12F42). This indicates that Apple is making progress on the release and that the launch is nearing for customers…

In addition to...

WD has introduced its new My Cloud family of personal cloud solutions. They provide a complete solution for users to organize, centralize and secure the digital content from all of their computers and mobile devices and access those files from any device, from anywhere in the world, says Jim Welsh, executive vice president and general manager of WD's branded products and consumer electronic groups

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Once again rumors abound as to whether Apple will be able to introduce the iPad mini 2 in volume for the holiday season. Reuters who regularly runs negative Apple news, is now claiming that their sources are saying that the iPad mini 2 will only be available in limited quantities for the holiday season. Reuters pointed to one possible reason for the production problems being that there were "delays in Apple's certification of panel producers, which were given strict power-saving requirements." Apple's hot iPad mini 2 with a Retina Display has garnered a lot of press over the year that has focused on manufacturing problems. Our report gives you a run down on the issues and specifically to those surrounding Apple's focus on power-savings.

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Maintain has released Cocktail 6.8.1 (Mountain Lion Edition), the latest maintenance update for users running OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. This version contains improvements to the Pilot scheduler, addresses an issue in which Cocktail may crash at startup and fixes compatibility issues with QuarkXPress 10.

Cocktail is a general purpose utility for OS X that lets users clean, repair and optimize their Mac. This version resolves a number of issues discovered in the previous release and addresses minor compatibility issues with OS X 10.8.4 and Safari 6.0.5.

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Apple has today begun training AppleCare workers on OS X Mavericks, according to sources. During the next few weeks, staff are expected to spend at least six hours learning about new features, the installation process, and troubleshooting options. Apple is reportedly maintaining the same sort of secrecy it applied to iOS 7 and iTunes Radio training, meaning AppleCare advisors will only learn about Mavericks in small groups in order to keep the training process from becoming public....
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Several outlets are reporting that Apple recently hired Jean-Francois Mulé as an engineering director. Mulé is a longtime cable industry veteran and former IBM engineer, and it will be interesting to see just what he'll be doing at Apple.

In a post on LinkedIn, Mulé indicated that he joined Apple last month and will be "challenged, inspired and part of something big" in his new role.

Multichannel reports:

Before joining Apple, Mulé spent the last two years as senior vice president of technology development at CableLabs, where he founded the organization's San Francisco office...

During his earlier career at CableLabs, Mulé also served as VP of IP technologies and services, director of the PacketCable Architecture, and chief architect. During that span, he ran or helped spearhead several projects, including PeerConnect, the cable industry's peering registry, a...

Scott Buscemi:

For pre-iPhone 5s devices, ARGUS usually drains about 20-30% of battery life per day while running in the background. The app continually checks for motion and calculates the distance and number of steps using the accelerometer and GPS. With the M7, however, the app does not need to be running in order to keep track of the number of steps – all of that data is tracked by the M7. As such, ARGUS no longer takes up any battery power while running in the background and the stated battery life from Apple – 10 hours 3G talk time, 250 hours of standby – will stay exactly the same.

This is just huge.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Apple’s second-generation iPad mini with Retina display won’t get a wide rollout this month, and might not even launch until 2014, Reuters reports. Sources in Apple’s supply chain say the company is just now readying production for the new iPad mini. If the device actually is released this year,…

Owners of Google's Chromecast media streaming stick can now stream Hulu content from Hulu Plus on the iPad to the Apple TV competitor. Announcing the move on Google's official blog, the company said:

Hulu has added Chromecast support to their Hulu Plus app-just in time for the fall television season. Now you can easily enjoy your favorite shows, such as "Modern Family," "New Girl" and "Parks and Recreation," on your big-screen TV by casting from Hulu Plus on your mobile phone or tablet. It's the same intuitive, remote-free experience you've come to enjoy with the other Chromecast-supported apps, and is as simple as pressing the Cast button which will now appear in the app.

For now, only iPad users can stream content to the Chromecast from Hulu Plus, but Google says support will soon be coming for iPhone users as well....

Apple will be unable to rollout large numbers of a Retina-equipped iPad mini this month, and will only have limited quantities through the rest of the year if at all, supply chain sources tell Reuters. The supply chain is only now said to be ramping up to manufacture Retina displays for the tablet. Nevertheless, the people claim that Apple will announce a new Mini later in October....
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Buyers interested in the iPhone 5c or the iPhone 5s may want to give Virgin Mobile another look. As we mentioned last week, the low-cost Sprint-owned carrier is offering the new models as of Tuesday, but they’re doing so at a cheaper price than you’ll find elsewhere.

Virgin tends to sell phones for the full unlocked cost, but in this case it’s offering $100 off that unsubsidized price. That means if you’re looking for an iPhone 5s, you can pick one up for $550, $650, and $750 for 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB, respectively. An iPhone 5c, likewise, goes for $450 for 16GB and $550 for 32GB. All that on top of Virgin’s generally cheaper monthly plans, which start at $35, offer unlimited data and text messaging, and do not require a contract.

Of course, Virgin is one of the smaller...

Since more than a year ago, Germans have not had access to push notifications for iCloud Mail services following a dispute between Apple and Motorola in the country that forced Apple to disable the feature. Now, as noted by German Apple blog iPhone-ticker.de, Apple has now confirmed that push notifications services have been switched back on in the country. The news comes following Apple’s success in getting the original injunction lifted after posting $132 million bond, according to FossPatents:

After the Federal Patent Court’s preliminary ruling, Apple filed with the Karlsruhe-based...

Apple has begun the process of training its AppleCare staff on OS X Mavericks ahead of an expected late October launch for the updated Mac operating system, reports 9to5Mac.These sources say that training has begun today, and support staff will be required to learn about the operating system’s new features, installation process, and troubleshooting options for at least six hours over the course of the next few weeks.

The training is said to be similar in secrecy and style to the iOS 7 and iTunes Radio training, and it has yet to begin for all AppleCare employees. AppleCare advisors will learn the OS X Mavericks materials in small groups in order to prevent information about the training process from becoming public knowledge.Publicly, Apple has only stated that OS X Mavericks is "coming this fall", but the company is reportedly targeting a...

Following complaints from iOS 7 users that that the Messages is failing to send their texts, Apple has promised a fix is coming soon. According to complaints, users are sending texts through the Messages app, but they aren't delivered and working around the problem involves restarts and resetting network connections.

The Mac Observer Spin:
The issues Apple has been addressing in iOS 7 may be annoying, but the company seems to be responding quickly. This means we may be updating the software on our iPhones and iPads more often, but it also means we aren't waiting as long as we once did for those fixes to roll out.

Click on the link and a web page with a piece of cloth (looks like a piece of graph paper) will appear. Click and drag across the cloth and you’ll rip it. The simulation is very realistic, complete with gravitational physics.

Even better, if you right click (hold down the control key), your mouse turns into a cutting tool.

And as a pièce de résistance, all the code is there to play with and learn from, including the HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Absolutely brilliant.

∞ Read this on The Loop

German iCloud users may use push again, reports FOSS Patents. Push iCloud email went live again at 9PM local time in Germany last night, more than 19 months after Google's Motorola used a patent the company held to bar Apple from offering its iCloud users in the country the popular feature.

Google's patent was found to be invalid on four previous occasions, but the company still insisted on moving forwards with the infringement case against Apple in Germany, for which Apple had to put up a US$132 million bond. Ultimately, this will come back to bite Google in the end however, as Florian Mueller explains:

But, very disappointingly, Google again and again refused to stipulate to the only appropriate thing to do under the circumstances: an unconditional stay of the enforcement of this injunction. For a company that has criticized assertions of "bogus patents", this behavior is,...

Fortune ran a couple of pieces showing what happened to Apple’s stock price after investor Carl Icahn’s tweets, with his initial announcement that he had taken a “large position” in AAPL, followed by news that he’d had a “nice conversation” with Apple CEO Tim Cook – and a subsequent tweet yesterday that he’d “pushed hard for a 150 billion buyback” over a “cordial dinner.”

The total effect? A jump in Apple’s valuation totalling around $23B – or approaching a cool $8B per tweet...

Twitter has been a bit of a thorn in the side of the Iranian government, giving the world a seldom seen view of the political unrest in the country, especially during the 2009-2010 election protests, the so-called “Green Revolution”.

Social media is still banned in Iran, which made the Twitter exchange between Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and newly elected President Hassan Rouhani so newsworthy.

Dorsey first tweeted, “Good evening, President. Are citizens of Iran able to read your tweets?” And, in response, Rouhani said, “Evening, @Jack. As I told @camanpour, my efforts geared 2 ensure my ppl’ll comfortably b able 2 access all info globally as is their #right.”

Social media still banned. Will this exchange signify coming change? To me, this is a perfect litmus test. Turn on the social media for the people, or it’s just words.

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Under iOS 7, we've got a neat new ability to access links from Twitter right within Safari. And if you've got multiple accounts, it'll pull in the links from all of them, organized into one handy little tab. In this article, we'll give you the what and how and why.

There’s a reported fix that works for some, though not 100%:

AppleInsider reported on Monday that a simple procedure has successfully eliminated the bug for many users:
Disable iMessage in Settings -> Messages,
Reset the iPhone’s Network Settings under Settings -> General -> Reset
Reenable iMessage.

While the method worked, and continues to work, for most iPhone owners afflicted with the iMessage bug, some have reported that the message failures reappeared after a few hours, forcing them to repeat the steps above.

There’s conjecture that the upcoming 7.03 update will contain this fix. Let’s hope so.

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If you’re still hoping to pick up an iPhone 5s from your local Apple retail store, developer Mordy Tikotzky has put together a web app to help.

Just go to the iPhone Check website, put in your ZIP code (it’s US-only at present), select your desired color and carrier and hit the Submit button. The web app carries out the search for you, screen-scrapes the results from apple.com and then presents a neat, color-coded table of results.

Apple briefly introduced an in-store pickup option, pulled it after one day and...

Google Chrome is a Web browser by Google, created to be a modern platform for Web pages and applications. It utilizes very fast loading of Web pages and has a V8 engine, which is a custom built JavaScript engine. Because Google has used parts from Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Firefox browsers, they made the project open source.

Version 30.0.1599.66:

Fixes and Improvements:

• Easier searching by image
• A number of new apps/extension APIs
• Lots of under the hood changes for stability and performance

Security Fixes:

• Races in Web Audio.
• Out of bounds read in Window.prototype object.
• Address bar spoofing related to the "204 No Content" status code.
• Use after free in inline-block rendering.
• Use-after-free in Web Audio.
• Use-after-free in XSLT.
• Use-after-free in PPAPI.
• Use-after-free in XML document parsing...

Cross Culture has released Mergemill Pro 4.6, an update of their app for cleansing and de-duplicating data. The upgrade automates many of the data extraction and processing steps in data mining.

Mergemill Pro takes diverse sources of data -- such as databases, web pages, e-mails and more -- and merges them with templates to produce the desired output, from web pages to customized e-mails. The program features data-processing capabilities such as data filters, multi-level data sorting, BASIC scripting, and multiple search-and-replace actions.

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Reuters is reporting that problems with the rumored retina display for the iPad Mini 2 mean that it will be available only in limited quantities when it launches this year, with full-scale production pushed into 2014.

Apple Inc will be unable to widely roll out a new version of the iPad Mini with a high-resolution “retina” display this month, people who work in the company’s supply chain said [...]

Given the time required to ramp up screen production, a retina display-equipped iPad Mini would not be available in large volumes until early next year, the sources said.

The delays are said to be due to the display suppliers – believed to be Samsung, LG and Sharp – having difficulties meeting the strict power-saving specifications...

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

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

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

Version 7.1.2.2019:

Fixed in this release: Google Earth Client

• The "Enable Controller" option in user preferences is now turned off by default. This prevents red directional arrows from displaying as a result of uncalibrated joysticks and other controllers being...

Sanho Corp.'s iUSBport Mini is the USB port that shound have been on our IOS device.

Similar to the original iUSBport, the US$89.95 device connects to any USB storage device (including USB hard drives and flash drives) and wirelessly makes the contents accessible to iOS, Android or any Wi-Fi enabled device. Shaped like a USB flash drive with a built-in MicroSDXC slot, as well as a USB host port, the iUSBport Mini has a built-in wireless router that creates its own wireless network to share USB/MicroSDXC data with nearby devices.

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For this installment we’re joined by Ed Marczak, with Graham Gilbert hosting. Topics range from hiring to presentations, with a little bit of working in open source at scale. Show links:

http://www.macadminmonthly.org
Managing Macs with Puppet – Graham Gilbert
Computing by the Numbers – Ed Marczak
https://munki.googlecode.com/
http://puppetlabs.com
http://macsysadmin.se
http://www.mactech.com/conference
http://radiotope.com
http://...

The Google Chromecast media-streaming dongle is now able to support video from Hulu. An update to the Hulu Plus mobile app for the iPad and Android will add a Cast button to the menu, which then starts playing the selected TV show through the Chromecast device, with the app acting as the remote control. Support for the iPhone is "coming very soon," according to the Google blog....
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