AT&T announced today that it’s expanding unlimited talk and text Mobile Share plans to include two new data options including 300MB and 2GB. The new options will fill the gaps between the carrier’s current 1GB and 4GB plans, allowing users that use less data to take advantage of a less expensive plan.

The 300 MB plan is only $20 a month, with additional costs per device added. Now, customers with basic and quick-messaging devices can share data and unlimited talk and text for as low as $50 a month and smartphone customers for $70 a month.

The new 300MB plan will be available for $20 and the 2GB for $50 when they become available later this week on July 26th.

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Notable software releases this week include MacBook Air (Mid 2013) Software Update 1.0, TextWrangler 4.5.3, BBEdit 10.5.5, and Logic Pro X 10.0.

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.

Well this is certainly an easy story to make fun of. Patently Apple directs us to a patent filing from Google which appears to resemble, in rather specific detail, a patent diagram from one of Apple's own patent filings.

What you see above is a Google patent drawing detailing how presence detection might be implemented in future Chromebooks.

Below is a patent drawing from Apple from an already granted patent. Notice anything in common? Or rather, a more appropriate question or challenge would be to point out any differences between the two diagrams. Indeed, the only difference I see is that that video camera located at the top of the laptop is circular in Google's laptop and horizontal on Apple's.

Patently Apple adds:

As you could see for yourself, the hand positioning in the Google patent figure is absolutely identical to...

Following its acquisition of local data company Locationary last week, Apple also was confirmed to have acquired HopStop, an online transit navigation service that specializes in mass transit directions. HopStop offers mass transit travel directions in more than 500 cities — subway, bus, walking, cycling, and taxi directions…

Many reading this would probably agree with me that smartphones (the iPhone particularly) are amazing. As a journalist, the iPhone is my most valuable tool. It lets me have instant access to news, notes, and any other dozen things I need on a daily basis. More importantly, it frees me from my desk.

But as great as the iPhone is, it's easy for it to become hard to put down. Next time you're out just keep track of how many times you glance at your phone -- or your friends glance at theirs. For one guy, Jake Knapp, a Design Partner at Google Ventures, the amount of time he spent checking his phone became a problem. So, a few months ago, he made his smartphone less smart:

It started taking away my appreciation of what was going on right then, in the real world. When I got bored for just a moment I'd take the phone out. And each time I was basically saying, "Gee, anything is better than this."

I felt like my...

Twitter may be loads of fun, but the constant barrage of email notifications? Not so much. You can, however, get those email notifications back under control with a quick trip to your Twitter account settings. Get ready for lots of mouse clicks.

A man named Ibrahim Balic has identified himself as the person behind a hack of the Apple Developer Center. Balic describes himself as a "security researcher," only interested in seeing "how deep" he could go rather than causing any problems. He adds that he reported 13 bugs to Apple, one of which allowed him to gain access to user information....  ...

Last night we reported that Apple confirmed that its Developer Center was hacked and taken offline as a precaution, but now a UK security researcher named Ibrahim Balic says he is the one who performed the hack to highlight a security hole that could leave developer data exposed. As The Next Web Reports:

Balic claims that showed Apple 73 user accounts from its own workers to illustrate the flaw when he contacted the company to help them fix it. Though he admits he managed to get hold of data from more than 100,000 users, he maintains he did not hack the system for malicious purposes.

Balic also says that he is "a bit irritated" Apple is citing the incident as an attempted security breach. Below is a video he...

Apple is testing larger screens for both iPads and iPhones, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to company suppliers, Apple has “asked for prototype smartphone screens larger than 4 inches and has also asked for screen designs for a new tablet device measuring slightly less than 13 inches.” The…

Apple is experimenting with different iPhone and iPad screen sizes, if the rumors are to be believed. Chris Foresman

iPhone and iPad users looking with envy at the ever-ballooning screen sizes of Android devices shouldn't lose hope just yet. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has been experimenting with iPhone screen sizes larger than the current four inches, echoing rumors from earlier this year that the company may be looking to supplement its current offerings. The WSJ also says that Apple is experimenting with larger iPads, specifically a model with a gigantic 13-inch display—while a larger iPhone would be in line with current trends, the trend in tablets has been toward...

Apple will be issuing an important update to the Apple Store app for the iPhone on Tuesday, an anonymous source claims. The app is reportedly redesigned, with an interface following after the App Store, iTunes Store, and iBookstore. Part of the reason for this is that the app will promote downloadable content, even offering some of it for free for a limited time....  ...

Apple has snagged HopStop.

Per AppleInsider and AllThingsD, Apple on Friday purchased transit navigation service HopStop, which also has an iPhone app of the same name, in a possible bid to bolster its own in-house mapping solution.

Citing sources with knowledge of the deal,...

They’re just babies.

Following in the footsteps of AT&T's "Next" program and T-Mobile's "Jump" offering, Verizon last week introduced the Edge program:

If you want to stay on top of the latest technology, the new Verizon Edge device payment plan offers an affordable way to upgrade to the newest device and satisfy your love of technology. Verizon Edge is a flexible equipment payment plan that spreads the retail price of a phone over 24 months. You can also upgrade to a new phone after six months if 50 percent of the retail cost has been paid.

Here's how it works: Choose the phone you want and sign up for a month-to-month service plan, it's as easy as that. The full retail price of the phone will be divided over 24 months and you'll pay the first month at the time of purchase. If you want to upgrade after 6 months, just pay off 50% of the full retail price of the phone and you can choose a...

This is great. Just click on the number of beers at the top of the video and everything instantly changes.

Being able to take loads of photos means the quality will vary widely, and the act of judging your photos is what Jeff Carlson discusses in the fifth chapter of “Take Control of Your Digital Photos.” You’ll learn how to set up a workflow that will help you easily determine which shots you want to share with others, which need work in an image editor, and which should be culled. In the process of evaluating each photo critically, you’ll become a better photographer too.

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....

New York startup Canary aims to bring affordable and easy to use home security to iPad and iPhone users in a single canister-like device, which delivers 720p streaming video, motion detection, push notifications, and more.   ...

Security researcher Ibrahim Balic says he reported a Developer Center security vulnerability hours before Apple shut down its developer Web site. The vulnerability enabled Balic to access the email addresses and real names (but not passwords) of more than 100,000 users. Balic told 9To5Mac that he promptly reported the vulnerability to Apple and is planning to delete the information he collected.

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.

Image: joyenjoys.com

A two minute SIM card hack could allow an intruder to listen to your phone calls, send text messages from your phone number and make mobile payments from your account. The vulnerability, discovered by a German security researcher, is present in an estimated 750 million SIM cards – around one in four of all SIM cards.

Give me any phone number and there is some chance I will, a few minutes later, be able to remotely control this SIM card and even make a copy of it … 

The vulnerability was discovered by Karsten Nohl, founder of Security Research Labs in Berlin – the man who, back in 2009, created a tool to break the GSM encryption, enabling anyone with a scanner and a laptop to listen in to...

Our own Jeff Carlson joined Chuck Joiner of MacVoices to discuss his new book, “Take Control of Your Digital Photos.” Jeff and Chuck discuss the experiment of publishing the book as in-progress chapters for TidBITS members, and then move on to chat about choosing a photo-management program, importing photos, assigning and exporting keywords, setting up smart albums, working with online services, backing up photos, and much more.

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.

As the site puts it, “every bloody designer on the planet has had a go, so you might as well try too.”  This tongue-in-cheek interactive design tool lets you create your own take on iOS by selecting from a range of backgrounds, fonts, colors, corner shapes and shadows.

Here’s our own Seth Weintraub’s application for the post of deputy to Jony Ive:

For more information about iOS Devices, humor, and Satire continue reading at 9to5Mac.

What do you...

The Apple Developer Center has been offline since Thursday, 18 July 2013, and after days of silence and much speculation, Apple finally sent email to developers on Sunday, explaining that it had detected an intruder and shut down the developer Web site. Apple says that it is completely overhauling its developer systems, updating server software, and rebuilding the entire database, so it is uncertain when the system be available again. In the meantime, developers can’t obtain identities, certificates, or provisioning profiles, making it impossible to distribute an app for testing or submit it to the App Store. The developer forums are also offline.

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...

Roman David DeSilva

HopStop, the transit navigation app Apple recently acquired for an undisclosed sum, appears to have had its platform availability narrowed a bit since the deal closed.

Though it was available for Windows Phone as recently as last week, HopStop’s support for Microsoft’s mobile operating system has been discontinued without explanation. The app has disappeared from the company’s Windows Phone Marketplace; it’s been erased from the HopStop Apps page; and its Windows Phone iteration now pops a “HopStop no longer supports the Windows platform” alert when launched....

The ongoing downtime of the iOS/OS X Developer Center is linked to a hacking attempt, Apple now admits. "Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our registered developers from our developer website," an updated site message reads. "Sensitive personal information was encrypted and cannot be accessed, however, we have not been able to rule out the possibility that some developersí names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed. In the spirit of transparency, we want to inform you of the issue. We took the site down immediately on Thursday a... ...

Apple

Since Thursday, registered Apple developers trying to download OS X 10.9, iOS 7, or any other Apple software from the company's developer portal have been greeted with a notice that the site was down for "maintenance." Today, the company issued a brief statement (above) blaming the extended outage on an "intruder," and that Apple "[has] not been able to rule out the possibility that some developers’ names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed."

The notice says that "sensitive" information could not be accessed by the intruder because it was encrypted, and the company told MacWorld that the system in question is not used to store "customer information," application code, or data stored by applications....

All-new dial-in experience! See below -- do not call into Talkshoe, we won't be there. Be sure to set up Fuze Meeting before the show if you want to join in live.

It's Sunday, and it's time for the TUAW talkcast! Hopefully we haven't lost too many listeners to the heat.

Hopefully we'll have a lovely batch of developers with us since the developer portal is still down. This usually means developers end up resorting to things like socializing to fill their time, so who knows who you might have on the show this evening! We also have Logic Pro to discuss, and there's an excellent chance we'll do a bit of speculating on the aforementioned outage. We'll be sure to discuss the other news of the week as well, so please join us!

Reminder on new-style talkcasting:...

I spoke with Apple tonight about news that its developer portal was hacked last Thursday by someone attempting to gain access to personal information about the company’s developers. While the company admitted already that the site was breached, there are some important details that you should know.

Apple Developer Website Update

Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our registered developers from our developer website. Sensitive personal information was encrypted and cannot be accessed, however, we have not been able to rule out the possibility that some developers’ names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed. In the spirit of transparency, we want to inform you of the issue. We took the site down immediately on Thursday and have been working around the clock since then.

In order to prevent a security threat like this from happening again, we’re completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database. We apologize for the significant inconvenience that our downtime has caused you and we expect to have the developer website up again soon.

Oh shit.

...

Apple’s developer site was accessed by “an intruder” last Thursday, the company has disclosed, and Apple has not ruled out the possibility that developers’ names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses were compromised.

The company just sent developers an email, after pushing them off for the past four days with notices that the site was down for maintenance.

Apple says developers’ “sensitive personal information” was encrypted, so it has not been accessed.

Before it reopens the developer site, Apple is “completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database,” the email said.

The site, which allots access to iOS 7, OS X Mavericks and other development kits, helps developers allocate apps to beta testers, and also includes popular developer-only forums, went down...

San Francisco wants tech employee shuttle buses — which have become a loathed symbol of elitism for many residents — to be a little more considerate.

But the city’s proposed demands are pretty mild. It just wants companies who ferry their employees around in private buses to limit and pay for their use of city bus stops.

A Google bus

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency corporate board this week discussed a plan for an 18-month trial of a policy that would bring the much-blamed and essentially unregulated private bus systems into line. If it’s approved, it could come into effect early next year, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The...

Screen recording directly on iOS devices has usually required the device to be jailbroken. Rather than recording sans-PC, the general solution is to hook up the iPhone/iPad to a computer and use some sort of a mirroring app then record the computer’s display. Now, the app xRec has made its way into the App Store. As you can see in the video above, you do have to deal with a red “xRec” bar at the top of all screens since it is taking advantage of iOS’ recording APIs. On the plus side, you can quickly record the entire operating system on-the-go without plugging into a computer.

Of note, the app currently does not work with iOS 7 and it seemed to crash multiple times on my current-gen iPod Touch. Even after a reboot, opening the Mail app or a game crashed the recording.

The developer assures me iOS 7 compatibility is on the way (after iPad compatibility is built), but stability of the current app would be more appreciated.

xRec is...

As the success stories keep piling up, so do the number of projects filling up crowdfunding websites with, among other things, neat hardware- and software-related products. Some projects, like Pebble, gain thousands of supporters as well as millions of dollars in funding (and end up at Best Buy’s retail stores). Other projects flop and don’t reach their necessary funding amount.

Rather than make you sift through all of these projects, we’re rounding up the best or most notable projects from around the web and delivering them to you in a simple roundup.

• WigWag (...

This week members of the AllThingsD staff showed up live and in person on all sorts of channels. Should you want to see some of the week’s tech news highlights, rather than just read about them, watch these quick videos.

Mike Isaac turned up on CNBC with some smart answers to a somewhat silly question: “Is Twitter toast?”

Arik Hesseldahl joined WCBS to give some background on emergency cell phone alerts, after one woke up many New Yorkers in the middle of the night.

He was also on the BBC for a hit on the ongoing Dell saga, which he’s been covering on a more-than-daily basis.

–>...

Congrats to Rush and The Guess Who.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Someday, I hope this happens to me.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Apple is certainly beefing up its Mapping team with some interesting and exciting acquisitions. Earlier today we reported that Apple had acquired a Canadian mapping start-up called Locationary. Locationary harvests crowd sourced data to deliver what All Things D termed a "Wikipedia for local business listings."

Now comes word via Bloomberg that Apple has also acquired HopStop.com, a public transit app which shows users in hundreds of cities how to get to and fro via public transit.

Indeed, one of the glaring omissions in Apple's homegrown mapping app is that it lacks the public transit directions that many consumers became accustomed to with Google Maps. Hopefully the acquisition of HopStop means that Apple is finally serious about integrating transit...

If you're ever reading one of the articles I write for TUAW and notice a typo, chances are it's because of this black lab. This is Harry ("Harold" to close friends), who lives with me in London. Whenever I'm writing he's usually sitting right next to me and will let me know it's time to stop and take him for a walk by bumping my arm with his head. Harry is pretty much the best dog you could ever ask for for so many reasons, but what's especially amazing is I've actually gotten him to successfully communicate with my friend's greyhound via FaceTime.

If you've got a Dog Days nominee to share, let us know via our feedback page (and please remember that the photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple and its products). For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (...

Another report of an accidental electrocution has surfaced in China, this time a 30-year-old man named Wu Jian Tong who was stricken when plugging in an iPhone 4 using an unapproved third-party charger. The man survived the ordeal but has been comatose for the past 10 days. He was not breathing when paramedics arrived and was revived using CPR. Authorities believe his coma is due to severe oxygen deprivation to the brain. Earlier this week, a 23-year-old former air stewardess was killed when she allegedly answered a call on her iPhone using what is believed to be a non-Apple charger.... ...

A new report says that Apple and Samsung have continued to hold talks in the hopes of reaching legal settlements on their numerous complaints with each other, including high-level private meetings in Seoul late last year. Talks are ongoing, but there is no sign of an imminent settlement, unnamed sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal. According to some redacted documents filed as part of one of the US ITC cases, the sticking point appears to be Samsung's push for a "universal" cross-licensing deal.... ...

Gene Steinberg of the Tech Night Owl invited me to talk about Apple TV, Microsoft’s Surface RT fiasco and of course Google’s Android. You can tune into the live broadcast stream Saturday night from 7:00 to 10:00 PM Pacific, 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM Eastern, at http://www.technightowl.com/radio/. An archive of the show is available for [...]

As with reading glasses, sometimes all we need is a bit of sound magnification. In this week's Free on iTunes, Vern Seward point out 3 iOS app that may give you super hearing.

On the same day it became public that Apple had purchased business-listing and information service Locationary, it has been confirmed that the iPhone maker has also acquired public transit navigation service HopStop. The most likely plan for the service is to fold it into Maps, Apple's own in-house GPS and mapping program. Apple's decision to forego transit directions when it launched its own Maps app was a major point of criticism from early users, and a selling point that kept many using Google's Maps application once it returned to iOS.... ...

As an unusually long maintenance for Apple's developer portal continues, the company recently posted a message on the service's holding page saying developer memberships set to expire during the period will be extended.  ...

Apple has reportedly bought HopStop, a mapping company with technology that provides users with the fastest routes for pedestrian trips on foot, bike and mass transit, including subways. HopStop provides routing directions in some 140 cities in the U.S., meaning that it could significantly boost Apple Maps in the U.S.

The Mac Observer Spin:
In other words, HopStop's technology and data could dramatically boost one of Apple Maps' biggest shortcomings, which is pedestrian and mass transit routing. In this area, Google has a clear lead on Apple, making HopStop a very strategic purchase for Apple.

Apple has added some additional information to the Developer Portal’s maintenance page stating that memberships that were supposed to expire during the unexpectedly-long downtime have been extended to accommodate for the issue and apps will remain on the store until the portal is available again and developers can properly renew their accounts:

We apologize that maintenance is taking longer than expected.
If your program membership was set to expire during this period, it has been extended and your app will remain on the App Store. If you have any other concerns about your account, please contact us...