The iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, and iPhone 5S resting on the same flat surface. One of these things is not like the others. Andrew Cunningham

Following numerous complaints about the issue on Apple's support forums, Gizmodo looked into reports that the motion sensors on the new iPhone 5S are not calibrated properly. By comparing the iPhone 5S to an iPhone 5 and also to several real-world tools that the phone replicates with motion sensors (including an actual compass and a spirit level), Gizmodo found that the gyroscope, compass, and accelerometer in two separate iPhone 5Ses do indeed appear to be off by a small but consistently measurable amount.

We confirmed Gizmodo's findings when we...

Apple seems to have acquired Cue, a former personal assistant application for the iPhone. TechCrunch says that the purchase price was in the realm of $40 million, and AppleInsider initially reported the rumor this morning. Cue’s service shut down yesterday, leading to the acquisition chatter. The company gave its “sincerest thanks” to users, but did not provide detail behind the closure…

The application was sort of a mixture of iOS 7′s Notification Center “Today”...

Apple's iPhone line is known for its build quality and reliability, but a recent examination appears to show that the sensors in at least some models of the iPhone 5s are noticeably miscalibrated.
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Online retailing giant Amazon is putting the finishing touches on a set-top box that may be on the company's virtual shelves in time for Christmas, according to a new report.
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Nike has scheduled a Tuesday, October 15th media event in New York City to discuss “the future of the digital world and physical activity.” Besides that, the company has been light on official details about what will be announced. However, we’ve been hearing about an upcoming Nike fitness/digital-related event for the past few weeks, and we are expecting a successor the popular Nike FuelBand fitness device to be announced. The event was originally planned for November, but perhaps the upcoming announcements from competitor Fitbit put pressure on Nike to move up its timeline…

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Our sister site Engadget has a nice scoop this morning -- Google is testing a native iOS Google Music app internally at this time, and they'll launch that app for public consumption later this month. The app will highlight Google's Play Music All Access streaming service.

Engadget notes that users in more than 19 countries can sign up for the Standard and All Access music services for offline or streaming access. The iOS app will apparently echo the feature set of the Android app, which offers custom radio and smart recommendation features.

The All Access service has a US$9.99 monthly subscription fee associated with it, and there's a 30-day free trial as well as a non-subscription version of the service. The image at the top of this post shows the Android app running on both smartphone and tablet, and is not meant to represent...

Sega’s The Cave ($5) is an adventure game from Double Fine Productions and Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert. The Cave was previously released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U, just now making its iOS debut. Players explore a sprawling cave using a team. Users pick three explorers…

About a year ago, TUAW highlighted a Kickstarter project aimed at making a tiny wearable camera that would take photos about once every 30 seconds for upload to a website where they'd be condensed into a continuous lifelog. The project was delayed, but now the Swedish developers behind the project report that they've received new funding, that they've changed the name of the device and their company and that first deliveries will take place on November 1, 2013.

The company's new name is Narrative, with the former Memoto camera now being called the Narrative Clip. According to Narrative VP of Marketing Oskar Kalmaru, "We've quickly grown to love the new name, Narrative, and it is one that describes what we've been trying to do all along -- help users tell the stories of their lives. We called the camera 'Narrative Clip' to reflect its attributes of being wearable, quick...

Cupertino's planning commission has voted to approve Apple's future "spaceship" campus, officially known as Campus 2. The vote took place on Wednesday, following a Tuesday night "shared study session" with public participation. Final approval is only waiting for a vote by the Cupertino City Council, which is expected to take place October 15th....
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All SD and no AirPlay make Netflix a dull app. Well those days are over, my friends, as Netflix released an updated version of its iOS app that brings both HD streaming and AirPlay support to anyone with an iOS 7 device. (You have upgraded to iOS 7, haven’t you?)

If Netflix offers HD streaming of a TV show or movie—you’ll see a little ‘HD’ box in the upper-right corner if it does—you can now enjoy that higher-quality streaming on an iOS device. This should come as particularly welcome news to those with Retina iPads.

HD and AirPlay, oh my!

The other big change is AirPlay support. In the past you could enable AirPlay Mirroring on your iOS device to send Netflix video to your Apple TV. The latest update adds true AirPlay support, with which you can start playing Orange is the New Black, tap the AirPlay icon, and choose an Apple TV to stream to. That also means...

From Florian Mueller’s patent blog:

Three months ago I saw a filing by Nokia that related to some discussions with Samsung considered so secretive that it wanted even the very title of a document to be sealed. It was clear that Nokia and Samsung were talking about something that also related somehow to the 2011 Nokia-Apple settlement, about the terms of which nothing was known except that Apple described it, at a very high level, as “merely a ‘provisional license’ for a limited ‘standstill’ period”. One could figure that Nokia and Samsung wouldn’t talk about some other patent agreement without talking about some sort of patent deal between them — a license or an outright purchase.

On Wednesday evening local time, Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, whose writing style is well-liked by various patent litigation watchers including me, entered an order that finally sheds light on this. The order...

AgileBits

AgileBits today released 1Password 4 on the Mac App Store, a major upgrade to one of the best-known password management applications.

The application has a new design and various features aimed at making it easier to use, such as a menu bar utility. It also brings back Wi-Fi Sync, which lets users sync password data from a Mac to an iOS device without storing their encrypted keychain in Dropbox or iCloud.

AgileBits described security improvements including a new keychain design with 256-bit AES encryption keys and data integrity checks that increase resistance to tampering....

The countdown has started and the new Apple "spaceship" campus in Cupertino, Calif., is one step closer to launch. Last night, the Cupertino Planning Commission approved Apple's plans for the campus. Tuesday evening, the company provided a slick video presentation to the commission and the public featuring lead architect Norman Foster and others who have had leading roles in the design of the circular structure.

On October 15, the Cupertino city council will put the new campus to a vote, with a final vote expected on November 19. The project has grown in scope since first being announced by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 2011, growing from initially housing 6,000 employees to the current 14,000 employees. The campus is expected to cost close to US$5 billion at completion, much of that going into premium construction materials including six square...

In the face of a second set of investigative reports detailing exactly how Samsung leads other Android makers in exaggerating its performance on specific benchmarks, the company has issued its second denial this year, and which still fails to address any specifics.
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In the old days, a couple of years ago, the best way to sell digital music was to get your song featured in an Apple commercial.

New option: Get your song featured in the series finale of really popular show.

More than 10 million people watched the last episode of “Breaking Bad” Sunday night, which means more than 10 million people listened to “Baby Blue”, Badfinger’s 1971 hit. And, as reports suggested earlier this week, a bunch of people bought the song that very night.

Nielsen SoundScan says more than 5,300 digital copies of the song were purchased Sunday...

Apple has asked a California court to sanction Samsung for inappropriately sharing with its executives a confidential patent-licensing deal shielded by protective order in its landmark intellectual-property case against the company.

A new filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday shows Apple alleging that some “Highly Confidential — Attorneys’ Eyes Only” licensing agreements it provided to Samsung’s outside counsel were given to the Korean company’s executives. Those agreements described the terms of an Apple-Nokia patent license and were not to be shared with anyone beyond Samsung’s legal team.

But, according to Apple, they were. The company alleges that they somehow found their way, unredacted, into the hands of dozens of Samsung executives, including Dr....

Upgrading iPads to iOS 7 has inadvertently wiped out supervision profiles, a number of schools are complaining. The profiles are meant to restrict what students can access online, and give IT administrators remote management privileges. Without them in effect, students can access anything while away from a schools's Wi-Fi network, including content schools and parents might deem offensive or inappropriate....
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Netflix has launched an update for its iOS app, introducing support for HD playback and AirPlay streaming. With AirPlay streaming users can play content on an Apple TV while running the app in the background, which differs from the previous AirPlay mirroring option. Other changes in v5.0 include playback optimizations and stability improvements. The update is live in the App Store and requires iOS 7 for both HD streaming and AirPlay mirroring....
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HAPIlabs has announced that their unique HAPIfork smart fork is now available for pre-order and will ship on October 18th. The HAPIfork was first demoed at CES this year and has successfully raised over US$100,000 on Kickstarter. HAPIfork monitors and tracks your eating habits by tracking your arm motion while eating with it. An LED will light up and the fork will vibrate if it registers that your plate-to-mouth speed is too rapid, which suggests you are eating too fast.

The fork uses Bluetooth to send the data to an iOS app, which provides stats on your eating habits such as how long it took to eat your meal, the amount of "fork servings" taken per minute, and the intervals between "fork servings."

If you want a HAPIfork, go on over to their website where they'll redirect you to their reseller Brookstone. HAPIfork comes in your choice of five...

Since first announcing its Google Play Music ‘All Access’ streaming service earlier this year on Android, Google has been delaying the release of an official Google Play Music app for iOS for unknown reasons. Android chief Sundar Pichai originally said the app would be out in “the next few weeks” in May, but four months later we’ve yet to get an iOS app or access to the $9.99 month streaming service on iOS. Today, Engadget reports that Google is continuing to test the app internally and will launch it later this month:

Sources aware of Google’s plans have let slip to Engadget that not only is the company currently...

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....
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During the course of Apple's original patent lawsuit with Samsung, the South Korea-based tech conglomerate routinely raised the ire of Apple's legal team for engaging in behavior that was ethically questionable at best. Apple, for instance, accused Samsung of purposefully destroying evidence it was required to hand over during discovery. Notably, this wasn't the first time Samsung was accused of engaging in such behavior, having been hit with sanctions in 2004 for willfully destroying emails in its lawsuit with MOSAID Technologies.

Now, Samsung is at it again, with Apple requesting sanctions after finding out that Samsung executives were improperly given access to secretive documents from Apple and Nokia's 2011 licensing agreement.

During the discovery phase of litigation, great pains...

Fraser Speirs offers a voice of reason about kids supposedly “hacking” their iPads in Los Angeles.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Cupertino's planning commission gave Apple's new corporate campus the go-ahead this week, clearing the way for a final vote on the project by the Cupertino City Council later in October.
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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 iOS 7 is the biggest single upgrade to Appleís storied iOS franchise since it shipped on the original iPhone back in 2007. Rightly, much of the attention has focused on the vibrant new look of the iOS 7 interface, which has been driven by Apple design guru Sir Jony Ive whose design team worked closely with Apple software chief Craig Federighi and his engineers to transform the iPhone experience in the space of less than 12 months. However, there is a lot more to iOS 7 than meets the eye, with ground breaking 64-bit architecture underpinning the entire operating system including a native...
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Snapchat has announced the next evolution of its self-destructing picture service. In a blog post, the company described a new "Stories" feature. Stories pumps Snapchat up into a full-fledged social network by creating a picture feed for each user. Any snaps posted to your picture feed will be live for 24 hours before they self-destruct. Additionally, posters can see which of their friends have viewed their pictures. From Snapchat's blog:

We're introducing Snapchat Stories. A totally new way to share your day with friends - or everyone. It's fun and ephemeral, just like Snapchat.

Snapchat Stories add Snaps together to create a narrative. When you add a Snap to your Story it lives for 24 hours before it disappears, making room for the new. Your Story always plays forward, because it makes sense to share moments in the order you experience them.

Your Story never ends and it's always changing. The...

Online music streaming service Rdio launched a free version on Thursday in the United States, Canada, and Australia. The move follows a deal with Cumulus Media and should help Rdio better compete with services such as Pandora and Spotify, as well as Apple's brand new iTunes Radio.

The Mac Observer Spin:
The online streaming music market was already a big battle ground, and with Apple joining the mix it's no surprise that companies like Spotify, Pandora, and now Rdio are working to make their products more compelling. Adding a free option to to its lineup was a smart move for Rdio.

It appears that Amazon’s long-rumored TV product may be called ‘Firetube’ according to recent Trademarks filed in the US and Canada. There are, of course, rumors of an Amazon TV that stretch back quite awhile. Lots of rumors. Bloomberg thinks Fall 2013 is the planned launch window. That’s right now.

As for Amazon on iOS products, Amazon has pushed out a lot of updates,...

Sonoma Wire Works is holding its annual RiffRumble competition and are giving away thousands of dollars in prizes. This time the RiffRumble theme is Metal and I will be judging the top five songs, after public voting has been completed.

∞ Read this on The Loop

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...

JLab has released its new product, the INTRO On-Ear Headphone, as quality budget choice for audio listening. Priced at $25, INTRO is equipped with 40mm drivers and foam ear cups. Its tangle-free cable is flat, and features a gold-plated jack, universal mic and built-in track control. Fully rotational cups with custom hinges allow the user to wear, adjust and store the headphones with ease and flexibility. Consumers can purchase JLab's INTRO On-Ear Headphones, available in black and white, on JLab's online store....
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The Federal Aviation Administration's advisory committee looking into the use of electronic devices during takeoff and landing has concluded current restrictions prohibiting their use aren't necessary. The committee said handheld devices and Wi-Fi connections were safe for all parts of flights instead of just above the current 10,000 foot limit.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Yes, please. Let us use our electronics whenever we're on flights instead of just above 10,000 feet. Based on the number of passengers that violate the current restrictions anyhow, we've already had more than enough testing to show that there isn't a safety concern.

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

Seems like something in iOS 7 is stripping the filters that schools set up to prevent students from accessing adult content.

“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, verified by AllThingsD. “In the short term, the district will be collecting iPad devices at the end of each day until the safety protection measure is reinstalled.”
And Manitou Springs School District 14 is not an isolated case. According to Apple’s support forums and some external IT discussion boards, schools across the United States are grappling with the issue, which is causing a lot of angst and frustration for administrators.

Hopefully, Apple can get this fixed quickly, before it injures their reputation with schools.

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Rdio has launched a free personalized radio stations option within its iOS and Android apps. This is a more controllable version of the You FM feature added back in August.

Like iTunes Radio, you can’t choose a specific artist or track, but you can create a radio station based on a song, artist or genre and then listen to the stream Rdio creates based on your selection. Unlike iTunes Radio, Rdio’s free streaming service is ad-free, at least for now.

New subscribers also get a 14-day free trial of the Rdio subscription service, allowing you to play specific tracks. Once the 14 days end, however, you’ll revert to radio stations only unless you sign-up at $9.99 a month to keep the paid service....

Mobile app discovery engine Quixey said Thursday that it had scored another $50 million in funding, led by an investment from Alibaba.

Though the service is primarily thought of today as a means to search for apps, CEO Tomer Kagan said the new funding will help the company develop its broader goal — to become a means to search within apps as well.

Today’s mobile apps are extremely powerful, but one has to know exactly which app to query for their need.

“There’s an answer to just about everything that you would want … yet we don’t have a very good level of access.” Kagan said in an interview.

Quixey’s current search engine is primarily designed to help people find the right app by typing in queries like “pay my taxes” or “learn Spanish.” It offers search via its own site, but gets most of its traffic from partners, including...

Internet radio service Rdio has launched its free music service in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Stemming from a deal with radio station operator Cumulus Media last month, the service will now offer a subscription-free way to listen to music, as it tries to wean users away from competitors such as Spotify and Pandora....
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If you’re upgrading to the just-released 1Password 4 for the Mac, or if you’re using its release as an excuse to get your passwords in order (a good idea!), Joe Kissell’s new “Take Control of 1Password” is here to provide all the help you need.

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.

iOS 7 was supposed to make it easier for schools to manage the iPads that are becoming increasingly common in the classroom. But for some, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system is proving to be a bit of a headache.

A number of schools that have upgraded their iPad deployments to iOS 7 say installing the new OS removed the supervision profiles they had installed on the devices. This rendered those iPads unsupervised, depriving administrators of their remote management privileges and eliminating the filtering protections they had established to protect students from inappropriate content they might stumble upon outside school.

“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...

US megastore chain Target, competing against rival Walmart's "Straight Talk" service for prepaid and unlocked phones, said it will launch its own brand based on T-Mobile's network and dubbed "Brightspot." The rollout, which begins on Sunday, allows buyers to choose from a selection of Android-based feature or smartphones, or bring their own unlocked device. Plans include unlimited talk and texting for $35 per month, or the same with 1GB of unthrottled 3G or LTE data $50 per month....
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Netflix has just released version 5.0 of their iOS app, bringing Netflix HD and AirPlay streaming to iOS 7 users.

With AirPlay streaming, videos can be streamed from the device to an Apple TV while running the background. The feature no longer relies on AirPlay mirroring, so users aren’t tied to the app while watching videos on their TVs.

From my personal experience with version 5.0, the iPad app isn’t working with AirPlay streaming yet, but HD is available. On the iPhone, AirPlay streaming (in the background) is working as well as HD.

What’s New in Version 5.0

* Netflix HD for iOS 7
* AirPlay streaming for iOS 7 (requires disabling AirPlay mirroring)
* Playback optimizations
* Stability improvements

Visit...

Mocana will soon allow companies to wrap iOS 7 apps in a layer of security software designed to insulate enterprise data from hackers who are becoming increasingly interested in smartphones.

“What people really care about is securing the data, and today everything is coming in and out of the applications themselves,” said Tushar Patel, senior director of products at Mocana. “So we offer this product called Mobile App Protection, and it allows you to add a protective layer to applications that you have already been developed.”

Version 2.5.6 of Mobile App Protection (MAP) includes stronger security features for apps running on iOS 7 and earlier version of the operating system. Once an application has been “wrapped,” IT staff can add policies to control things like access, encryption and the ability to copy and paste between apps.

The new version of MAP also allows the use of encrypted tunnels that secure the connection between the application itself and...

While reviewing Samsung's Galaxy Note 3, reviewers at Ars Technica discovered that the device is configured to artificially inflate benchmark results.

We noticed an odd thing while testing the Samsung Galaxy Note 3: it scores really, really well in benchmark tests -- puzzlingly well, in fact. A quick comparison of its scores to the similarly specced LG G2 makes it clear that something fishy is going on, because Samsung's 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 blows the doors off LG's 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800. What makes one Snapdragon so different from the other?

After a good bit of sleuthing, we can confidently say that Samsung appears to be artificially boosting the US Note 3's benchmark scores with a special, high-power CPU mode that kicks in when the device runs a large number of popular benchmarking apps. Samsung did something similar with the international Galaxy...

In keeping with our recent decision to not report on crowdfunding projects until they've passed their initial funding goals, we decided it was a good time to talk about one project that not only passed it's US$10,000 goal, but thoroughly skyrocketed past it. The eleMount is an anodized aluminum mount that uses polyurethane mounting pads to stick to any surface, including the back of your iOS device.

While it can stick to your car dashboard or desk to use as a stand or car mount, the base of the eleMount can also be unscrewed to reveal a standard tripod screw mount. A ball and socket joint is used to move your iPhone or iPad into whatever orientation you desire. In case you're wondering, the material used to stick to surfaces does not leave any residue, so you can attach it to any new or future iOS device without fear of leaving a mark.

The eleMount will...