Apple's massive share buyback program was in full swing in the June quarter, when the company spent $16 billion on itself ??enough to buy rival BlackBerry three times over.   ...

The consumer-grade solid-state drive (SSD) market is getting more crowded every day. There are drives of every capacity and speed, fitting nearly every budget and performance niche. Announced last week, Samsung is soon to ship the ......   ...

There are some trends in the wind, and from what I'm seeing, I'm wondering if we're not heading toward a larger iPad. First, Mac sales were down a bit last quarter. No big deal -- there haven't been any major upgrades, and the MacBook Air upgrade came late in June. Sold well, apparently. Still, it's clear that an awful lot of traditional computing has shifted to smartphones and tablets. Personally, even when a laptop is relatively handy, I'll see friends, family, colleagues and strangers look up things on their smaller mobile devices.

Ashton Kutcher, who plays Steve Jobs in the biopic due for U.S. release on August 16th, told Jay Leno that he passed up the opportunity to meet Jobs.

Kutcher described Jobs as “the Leonardo da Vinci of our generation,” and says that he will never forget the day that he died …

The movie, JOBS, got mixed reviews at its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival but should find fans in its wider release.

Visit 9to5Mac to find more special coverage of...

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday published an Apple patent application for an intuitive mobile device control system that automatically powers down certain components depending on a user's location and habits, thus maximizing battery life.  ...

Sometimes during a spare moment, you will browse through your camera roll and notice two photos that would look great together. You don't have Photoshop on your iPhone and your Mac is miles away at home, so what should you to bring your composition to life? One easy-to-use solution for these moments of creative inspiration is Image Blender. As its name implies, Image Blender lets you blend two images together into one.

Image Blender prompts you to choose a background image and a secondary image that is superimposed on top on the base photo. You can pull these images from your camera roll or snap them as a new photo. If you have Camera + installed, you can import images in from that app as well.

Once you choose your two images, you can select a blending mode to get the right effect. All the familiar blends like Multiply, Overlay, Screen, Color Dodge and Color Burn as available within the app. You can also change the overlay...

The sometimes-accurate Taiwanese online journal DigiTimes claims that local supply-chain companies expect Apple to ship some four million MacBook models during the current quarter, the company's fiscal final quarter of 2013. A combination of back-to-school demand and the expected debut of a Haswell-powered MacBook Pro model is said to spark the growth -- though the prediction, if true, would mark a shocking spike in MacBook sales compared to both the previous quarter and the year-ago period....  ...

Apple apologized to developers on Wednesday evening for the ongoing outage of the company's developer website. In the letter, Apple laid out its plans for bringing services back online, though the company didn't specify when that would happen.

MacNN has received reports that iTunes Connect, a crucial part of Apple's crippled Developer channel, is now online after an unprecedented week of closure following a hacker attack by a security researcher that exposed some data. While the attacker, Ibrahim Balic, has claimed he was just doing "security research," the company shut the system down and said it has been "working around the clock" to overhaul developer systems, update server software and rebuild the entire database to close vulnerabilities. Apple has launched a new "system status" page for the Developer Center.... ...

Glyphish, probably the most popular source for licensed iOS icons, has just been refreshed so you can get ready for iOS 7. Currently bundled at $75 for Glyphish 3 through 6, this over-the-summer special saves you a cool 25% off the normal price.

If you're already a Glyphish customer, it's the Glyphish 6 package ($25) you'll be most interested in. Using thin lines and inspired by iOS 7's visual style, these icons were designed using an Ive aesthetic. Here are a few examples that I pulled out of the packages to compare the old and new designs.

Today, I was able to sit down with designer Joseph Wain to discuss the process of moving Glyphish to iOS 7, and hear his thoughts about the overall changes in the iOS design language. As you can see with these samples, Wain's evolved the entire look of the icon set.

TUAW: So how did Glyphish 6...

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 July 24, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 24 Jul 2013 19:30:00 EST. Please see our...

Today AT&T announced eight new 4G LTE markets as part of its continuing push to rollout the service across the country. The move brings the company's reported coverage zones for the service to 336 regions in the USA.

Residents of Greenville, AL., Troy, AL., Madera-Chowchilla, CA., Merced, CA., Vallejo-Vacaville, CA., New London County, CT., Sussex County, DE., and Columbia, MO., can all look forward to the new service. Provided they have AT&T of course.

The company's goal is to have 400 4G LTE areas activated by the end of 2013, bringing the speedy network to an anticipated 270 million customers.

AT&T expands 4G LTE coverage to 8 new markets originally appeared on...

Let this be a lesson to all of you business-minded iPad owners out there: showing off your plans to clients using your pricey slate may leave you entirely tablet-less. Guampdn reports such was the case for DFS Galleria, a duty-free luxury retailer bidding for a spot in the Guam International Airport. The company -- along with several others bidding for a spot in the concourse -- showcased its plans for a new shop space to airport representatives, but what set DFS apart was that it decided to use eight iPads to display its proposal rather than use simple paper binders.

Rather than returning the tablets to DFS after a decision was made -- for which DFS's proposal didn't make the cut -- the airport is hanging on to them, as per its policy. The airport's guidelines for such proposals states that all documentation from bidders will be kept by the agency's procurement office.

So the iPads...

Display technology company AOC, in partnership with DisplayLink, have announced the new AOC E1659FWU -- a portable 16-inch monitor that receives both power and signal through a single USB 3.0 cable. Compatible with both Mac and PC, the USB 3.0 Monitor has a 15.6-inch viewing window that supports 1366x768 resolution at 60Hz....  ...

Following the attempted breach into Apple’s iOS and Mac Developer Center and its subsequent closing, Apple has posted an iCloud-like Status Page so developers can track Apple’s work for re-implementing Developer Portal Features. Additionally, Apple has outlined its approach to restoring these features.

We apologize for the significant inconvenience caused by our developer website downtime. We’ve been working around the clock to overhaul our developer systems, update our server software, and rebuild our entire database. While we complete the work to bring our systems back online, we want to share the latest with you.

We plan to roll out our updated systems, starting with Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles, Apple Developer Forums, Bug Reporter, pre-release...

I just can’t imagine doing this, but I’m sure there are a lot of people that would.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Last Thursday Apple's developer site suddenly went offline. Apple announced the interruption was attributable to an "intruder" who was attempting to access the personal information Apple's developers. So who was responsible for the downtime? A Turkish security researcher named Ibrahim Balic thinks he might be the cause. He caused a stir this week with the release of a YouTube video explaining exactly what security holes he reported to Apple, and what went wrong.

Now iMore has published an interview with Balic in which he aims to shed more light on exactly what happened, the methods he used to test the developer center's security, and his thoughts on Apple's response.

Balic found an exploit not directly in the Developer Center, but in Apple's iAd Workbench, which...

New submitter transam writes "After a long stint at Apple doing all kinds of Unix-y goodness, Jordan Hubbard has moved onto iXsystems to lead engineering and development, including heading up the FreeNAS project. Apple's loss is their gain."

...

I've just come back from an amazing trip (how many of you have ever been 635 miles from the North Pole or driven a dog sled?), which means that it's time to get back to work while trying to unpack and recover from jet lag. Since it's Wednesday, that means it's TUAW TV Live day.

Today Doc and I will be chatting about Apple's latest earnings report (and the resulting rise in the share price today). Plus I've got a lot of unboxing to do, and I'm sure we'll have other things to talk about for an hour.

To join in to watch the live feed and participate in the chat, just click here. You'll join us on the AOL On Network. If you can't watch the entire show today, come back to this page within 24 hours to see the video or visit http://tuaw.com/tuawtvlive to see the latest show. Past shows are also available on the...

Google on Wednesday pushed out a minor update to its cloud-connected Google Drive iOS app, bringing hooks to the mobile versions of Safari and Chrome, as well as a new way to insert columns and rows into spreadsheets.  ...

Nike today rolled out an interesting update to its Nike+ Running app for iOS. The app update introduces social challenges into the mix, enabling runners to invite friends to run and compete in an old fashioned race.

Dubbed Nike+Challenges, the feature also lets runners communicate with each other mid-race via group chats. This is a great way for racing runners to talk a little trash or deliver words of encouragement and inspiration.

Naturally, the feature monitors everyone's progress and encourages friendly competition through leaderboards and medals. Users can put together one-off races or see who can hit 100 miles the quickest.

The full changelog reads:

o.Ready to take on your friends? With Nike+ Challenges, you'll compete with your friends and motivate each other to go farther and faster than ever before. Track your progress, top the leaderboard, and snag a medal. Every run counts.
o. Choose a distance and invite your Nike+ friends.
o....

One week after the last build, Apple has seeded OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5 build 12F26 to developers. For those running previous 10.8.5 beta builds, the new update is available via Software Update in the Mac App Store. Because the Apple Developer Portal is still unavailable, the downloads are not available for download online. The new seed is also available to AppleSeed members along with a new Safari build.

Thanks, D!

...

Over at Macworld, senior editor Chris Breen has an answer to this all-important questions: should your Aunt Vilma buy an iPad? Her name may be Rosalie or Helen instead of Vilma, or it may be a father or uncle, but you know the type -- a well-meaning older person who has seen all the "cool kids" in his or her age group getting one of these futuristic tablets and then asks you, the younger hipster with all of the latest gizmos, if buying one is a good idea.

As Breen notes, it's not an easy answer and people often don't find out how useful an iPad can be until they've used one for a while. Breen provided six areas of discussion for Aunt Vilma to consider before dropping the coin on an iPad:

Portability -- an iPad, especially an iPad mini, is made to be carried with you pretty much all the time. Portability means that you're able to use the device...

While Apple watchers are still waiting for an iPhone-style Retina display to make its way to the iPad mini, Android lovers got such a screen with the redesigned Nexus 7.

The second-generation Nexus 7 is capable of showing full HD content thanks to a screen that shows a whopping 323 pixels per inch — well into the territory of screens where the individual pixels are too small to be recognized by the human eye from a reasonable reading distance.

Numbers aside, that means that the Nexus 7 can show movies in full 1080p high-definition, a feat Apple’s iPad mini can’t match.

While the larger iPad has a greater-than-HD retina display, it uses a totally different type of screen technology from the iPhone, and the mini is still in the...

The good, speedy Sprint stuff is coming to New York City.

Per The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Sprint has begun rolling out LTE service for parts of New York City, including the Bronx and Brooklyn. Sprint says it will flip the switch for those areas on July 30.

Sprint has been way behind AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile in rolling out high speed LTE services. There is currently some coverage in Queens, Manhattan and Staten Island, although there has been no official start date announced.

New York City is the most populated city in America, and implementing new cell service is difficult due to interference from tall buildings and finding...

One of the cool features of Google’s new Chromecast device: It lets users move whatever they can see on their computer’s Chrome Web browser onto their TVs.

One group of people who might not think that’s cool: TV executives, who are still trying to draw a distinction between things you watch on your computer and things you watch on your TV.

For example: Chromecast’s mirroring capability poses an issue for Hulu. The video website has tried to restrict user’s ability to watch its free Hulu.com service on TV screens; instead, it sells the ability to watch Hulu on a TV as part of its $8 a month Hulu Plus service.

Hulu says it is working with Google to bring a Hulu Plus app to Chromecast, and when it does it will be an “optimized” viewing experience.* And not all of Hulu Plus’s content is available on free Hulu. But a lot is. So in theory, that should make Hulu Plus a harder sell for...

Unified Color has released HDR Expose 3, an update of its HDR image creation tool for Mac and Windows. An emphasis of v3 is on additions allowing handheld photography, including ghost removal and keyframe-based merge alignment. Other features have been implemented as well though, namely adaptive tone-mapping -- for targeting specific parts of an image -- and a new Image Browser, which helps quickly identify bracketed exposures....  ...

A FaceTime conversation with Apple devices is terrific experience, once you get it set up.  However, configuring properly across multiple devices, Macs, iPads and iPhones, with different addresses, can be tricky.  John Martellaro explores some of the basic FaceTime addressing dos and don'ts so that the desired device answers the call.

Google continued its push into hardware manufacturing on Tuesday by announcing Chromecast, a new streaming device that will go head-to-head with the Apple TV set-top box for just over a third of its price.  ...

It’s looking increasingly likely that Apple is readying a cheaper iPhone with a plastic case instead of the glass-and-aluminum case of the current line. But why not just sell the iPhone 5 at a discount once the presumed iPhone 5S appears? Josh Centers digs into the numbers to explain why.

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’s accessibility features in iOS aren’t just for the disabled. Josh Centers shows how AssistiveTouch can help get you out of a hardware jam.

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 has historically never been a company terribly concerned with gaming. That all changed, however, when the App Store was launched and iOS, in the blink of an eye, became one of the more popular gaming platforms in the world.

Highlighting the increasing importance of the iOS platform to gaming, EA executive Frank Gibeau recently said in an interview with VentureBeat that EA generated more revenue via Apple in the last three months than it did with any other partner.

The quarter was a bit of an anomaly because we didn't put out any blockbuster console titles, but our biggest retail partner, measured by dollar volume, in Q1 was not Best Buy or GameStop. It was Apple.

EA CEO Peter Moore said during EA's conference call that this marked the first time Apple "was EA's biggest retail partner as measured by sales."

Some of the more popular EA titles which helped...

Martin Hajek

Tim Cook says Apple has some great stuff coming “in the fall, and across all of 2014.” But when, exactly, can we expect it? The company’s latest earnings guidance may offer a clue.

For its fourth quarter, Apple said it expects revenue of $34 billion to $37 billion with gross margins of 36 percent to 37 percent. And according to BTIG analyst Walt Piecyk, those numbers are only possible if the company debuts some new hardware in September.

“We don’t think that Apple can hit its newly issued revenue guidance for the September quarter unless it launches new products,” Piecyk said in a note to clients. “After delivering $35 billion in revenue in the June quarter, management guided to $34-$37 billion next quarter. Revenue would more typically drop multiple billions if the company had...

Google on Wednesday fired a shot across Apple's bow, unveiling a revamped version of its Nexus 7 tablet that's aimed at outdoing Apple's iPad mini at a lower price.  ...

Apple's own Apple Store app for the iPhone received a small update this week that improves search features. The app lets users shop for Apple products and accessories, set up Genius Bar appointments, and complete in-store purchases.

Google has revealed the new version of the Nexus 7 tablet, one year after the launch of the original, at its breakfast event today. Appearing briefly at Best Buy earlier today, the new Nexus 7 is said to be a more portable version of the tablet line, having shaved a few millimeters from each edge and 50 grams of weight, while retaining the screen size of the first version, and will be the first device to ship preloaded with Android 4.3....  ...

Apple's upcoming new products will be the key to the company's emergence from its current doldrums, CEO Tim Cook told analysts during its third-quarter earnings call Tuesday. Asked by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster if there were any product categories big enough to move the growth needle for Apple, Cook responded: "We'll see, Gene. We're working up some stuff that we're really proud of. We'll see how it does."
"We'll announce things when we're ready."

In a recent post highlighting the state of mobile advertising during the second quarter of 2013, Opera Mediaworks reports that advertising on iOS is doing rather well.

With respect to ad impressions, both iOS and Android garnered about a 30% share during the quarter gone by. When it comes to monetization, however, iOS reigns supreme.

While mobile ads on Android accounted for 28.08% of mobile ad revenue, the iPhone accounted for 36.44%. When we factor in the iPad and the iPod Touch, the difference becomes even more stark with iOS commanding a 49.36% share of mobile ad revenue.

There's a lot more information worth taking a look at in Opera Mediaworks' report, including breakdowns detailing which type of apps generate the most revenue and serve the most impressions.

Opera says iOS...

The Opera web browser project begins.

On Wednesday, Opera Software released version 15.0.1147.147 of its web browser. The new version, a 54.4 megabyte download via MacUpdate, boasts the following fixes and changes:

General and User-Interface Changes:
- Opera 15 is a major reinvention for Opera. Going forward, the browser’s source code will be based on Chromium and Blink, a fork of the WebKit rendering engine.

- New rendering engine based on WebKit.

- New user interface.

- New capabilities.

New features:
- Improved site compatibility.

- Silent auto updates

New features:
- Combined address and search bar. Opera 15 combines the address...

Quark has formally unveiled QuarkXPress 10, the next edition of its design and layout software. The release incorporates a number of major improvements, such as a long-awaited switch to a Cocoa code base. The change should help boost performance, and make it easier for Quark to support future versions of OS X....  ...

Major games publisher Electronic Arts revealed this week that it makes more money from Apple's iOS App Store than any retail distributor, including Best Buy, GameStop, or even its own Origin digital download service.  ...

The UK is trailing behind other countries when it comes to 4G availability. Right now there's only one mobile operator -- EE -- offering 4G. That's set to change by the end of the year when virtually every carrier in the UK will offer the super-fast mobile Internet service. But if you're already on EE you'll be happy to know that the company has expanded its 4G service to another 10 UK cities this week.

As of today, EE customers in Altrincham, Bedford, Camberley, Crawley, Farnborough, Farnham, Maidstone, Rochdale, Tonbridge and Welwyn Garden City will be able to get 4G service to their compatible iPhones and iPads. The addition of the new cities mean EE's 4G covers 60% of the UK now.

However, even if you're in one of the ten new cities, you may want to wait a bit more before you sign up for a 4G EE contract. When the other mobile operators start...

Apple may have tipped its hand during its third fiscal quarter earnings report on Tuesday and hinted at the launch date for the next iPhone model. That date, according to Wells Fargo analyst Maynard Um, is September 27.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Apple already confirmed iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks are coming this fall, so that looks like a perfect time to release new iPhones, too. Mr. Um is right in that Apple typically launches new iPhone sales on Fridays, so September 27 looks like a pretty logical date to roll out the iPhone 5's successor.

Wow, that’s huge.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Comments about the fourth quarter during Apple's Q3 results call suggest a September 27th launch of a new iPhone, says Wells Fargo Securities analyst Maynard Um. He notes that Apple indicated a new product launch in the fall, which runs from September 22nd through December 21st in the northern hemisphere. If Apple holds to its preference for Friday launches, September 27th would be the earliest opportunity. The iPhone 5, for instance, shipped on Friday, September 21st 2012....  ...

Ear Monsters (US$1.99) is an arcade-style iOS game with a twist. Unlike most games on the iOS App Store, Ear Monsters uses 3D audio to drive game-play instead of video.

Ear Monsters is about a monster invasion through wormholes. At first the monsters are visible and you're easily able to take them out with a satifying tap on the wormhole they arrive through. However, soon they arrive invisibly, making killing them a lot more difficult. Fortunately for us, you can still hear them arriving. And that's where focusing on what you're hearing instead of what you're seeing becomes really important in Ear Monsters. Naturally, you need to play Ear Monsters with your headphones!

Ear Monsters takes a little bit of time to adjust to, but once you get used to it, it becomes an incredibly challenging...

This could be interesting.

Per AppleInsider, Sprint on Tuesday announced the availability of a new accessibility feature aimed at helping iPad and iPhone owners on that network with hearing loss better use their devices.

Partnering with Raketu Communications, Sprint has developed Wireless CapTel for installation on the phones and tablets of the hearing-impaired. Wireless CapTel allows users to read conversations with real-time word-for-word captions displayed on the screen of their phone.

Users download the Wireless...

New submitter marcushoward writes in with news of Apple's quarterly results. From the article: "Apple on Tuesday reported fiscal third-quarter revenues of $35.3 billion and profits of $6.9 billion, or $7.47 per share. The revenue number is basically even with Apple’s results from a year ago, but its profits were off by almost $2 billion. Revenues were mostly in line with Wall Street’s expectations of $35.09 billion and slightly above its earnings per share expectation of around $7.31. Apple itself had predicted revenues between $33.5 billion and $35.5 billion." Compared to this quarter last year, sales of Macs are about even, iPad sales dipped slightly (14.6 million vs 16 million), and iPhone sales are up quite a bit (31 million vs 26 million).

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