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...

Good news, note hoarders. Evernote has released a new major update that brings new Shortcut and Skitch features to the already powerful app. Shortcuts works as a sort of Favorites, giving users quick assess to their most commonly used tags, notebooks, and notes. Worry not multiple device users, your shortcuts sync across-platforms, meaning you'll never be without your list.

The second major feature is integration with Skitch, an already popular service owned by Evernote, used for marking up images and PDF files. Now you can annotate and doodle to your heart's content by simply pressing the Skitch icon in your menu bar. This feature requires that you already have the Skitch app installed on your iOS device.

Premium users also get a new Related Notes feature...

From 9to5Toys.com:

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

Also check out the latest...

More details about the “Grandma Drummer” have emerged.

I’ll be honest with you, as the owner of several Les Paul guitars, I’m not quite sure what to think about this guitar.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Apple on Friday has reportedly 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.  ...

Earth will get a very not too close closeup today from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, now on the far side of the planet Saturn. The photo session will take place between 2:27 PM and 2:42 PDT. The Cassini mission. The earth will be seen from 900 miles away. It won't be a detailed image, but it is the longest range photo ever taken of the earth. This will likely be the one and only image the spacecraft takes of the earth.

You can follow along with a couple of iOS apps that will virtually take you there. First, SkySafari has just had an update to the iOS and Mac apps they offer. SkySafari's basic version will be free on the iTunes Store from July 19th through July 21st; it's normally U.S. $3.00 at the iTunes Store. With SkySafari,...

The latest edition of iLounge Weekly, our weekly newsletter covering all things iLounge, will be arriving in subscribers’ inboxes early next week. iLounge Weekly is a summary of the week’s best news, reviews, and feature articles we’ve published, and it also features giveaways and accessory discount offers from various companies.…

It’s back. After a short hiatus, the 9to5Mac Happy Hour has returned and will be coming out every Friday with new content, giveaways, promo codes, and exclusive interviews. With new segments and special features, this updated format doesn’t lend itself well to the “live” environment, but there may be special live episodes in the future.

Subscribe to the 9to5Mac Happy Hour podcast

Today’s episode:

• Dan Desilva of 9to5Toys.com discusses the latest deals for potential Macbook buyers and others
• An anonymous developer speaks of their game plan for iOS 7
• Mark Gurman speaks of the latest iWatch rumors – the “dream team” Apple is building

During the episode, we...

Nearly a year ago, Eightloops made a little bit of noise when it announced Unibox, promising “something new” for people yearning for an email client other than OS X’s built-in Mail.app. But after the end of 2012, the company went quiet, and followers voiced their frustration on the company’s Facebook page.

The silence is finally broken: Eightloops has announced sign-ups for a private beta of Unibox, which will distribute the app to a small number of people to test, with the hopes of releasing the finalized version in the Fall. Here’s a quick look at what that beta offers, with the caveat that, like all betas, this is a work in progress.

For people persons

Eightloops says on its website that Unibox has a “people...

Great resource.

∞ Read this on The Loop

The ongoing patent struggle between Apple and Samsung recently came close to an end according to a new report that also says the two firms are once again working together to close the book on their worldwide legal struggle.  ...

Playing video on iOS is kind of like Henry Ford’s Model T: You can use any file you want, as long as it’s an MP4. But with the return of a once-missing app, your options for video formats may soon increase.

VLC is a popular media-playback app on the desktop—an open-source project, it runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. And, once upon a time, it was even available on the iOS App Store. Just a few months later, however, it was forced out, thanks to a licensing dispute.

That issue has now apparently been resolved, and VLC is back in the App Store as version 2.0. The goal of the free app remains the same: Play any video files you throw at it. While the app itself could reasonably substitute for iOS’s built-in Videos app, it offers a number of...

This week at Apple's online store, save on refurbished Apple displays, Mac Pros and more. The refurbished 27-inch Thunderbolt Display has been reduced by $200 from $999 down to $799. Also priced at $799 is the refurbished Apple LED Cinema Display. Pair either display with a refurbished Mac Pro with a 2.8GHz Intel quad-core Xeon processor, 3GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive, now $1,819 after a $680 discount....  ...

It’s hard to ignore a Flash Player update.

On Friday, Adobe released Flash Player 11.8.800.115 for Mac OS X, an 18 megabyte download via MacUpdate. The new version adds the following fixes and changes:
- Sandboxing enhancements: This feature adds enhancements to the existing sandbox feature by better addressing application launches in protected mode.

- Recursive stop on MovieClip: For Flash Player, this feature allows a game developer to effectively pause/stop a running SWF without having to iterate through all of the objects on the DisplayList...

On Friday, Parallels released version 8.0.18608 of its Parallels Desktop virtualization software. The new update, a 336.7 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:
- Install Windows 8.1 Preview using Express installation.

- Work with Ubuntu 13.04 in Coherence view mode.

- Resolves an issue with the Contact Card opening too slowly in Microsoft Outlook 2013.

- Resolves an issue with visual artifacts in Microsoft Outlook 2013.

- Smoother mouse scrolling in guest operating systems.

- Improved 3D graphics performance: playing World of Tanks, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and other games in a virtual machine became more stable.

- Resolves an issue with...

Leaked documents may give a hint of the internal specifications of the low-cost iPhone, sometimes known as the iPhone Lite. Three different codenames are given: Zenvo, Zagato, and Bertone, although the Zagato and Bertone appear to be versions of each other. The Zenvo is said to have a dual-core, 1.23GHz "H5P process" chip manufactured by Samsung, plus 1GB of RAM and Bluetooth 4.0 support. The Zagato and Bertone use chips based on an "H6P process" and are equipped with TDD LTE, suggesting a higher tier, but use the same RAM module as the Zenvo....  ...

We've all been there. You get a new device, download Angry Birds, and are outraged to discover that there is no record of your completed levels. Dismayed, you have no other choice but to start over at level 1.

Sure, it's a quintessential first world problem, but Rovio today announced a long-awaited solution to said problem.

The answer is Rovio Account, a new service which lets users sync level progress across devices.

Rovio Account lets you store your game progress and continue playing on another device.

Some of you may have noticed a new feature in your Rovio games called Rovio Account. Our fans have been asking for a way to play their game on different phones or tablets without losing their progress when changing the device. This is exactly what Rovio Account lets you do!

As it stands now, Rovio Account is only available for the original Angry Birds and The Croods, but the company notes that it will be...

The Wall Street Journal summarizes information from court documents and various sources that points to Apple and Samsung being back at the bargaining table after the two companies spent much of 2012 in court proceedings regarding patent infringement claims. During the summer of 2012, Apple won a major lawsuit in California court against Samsung due to design patent infringement claims regarding the iPad and iPhone.

Today’s report shares that since that time, the Cupertino and South Korean tech firms have met multiple times in private to come to some sort of settlement. Since last summer, the two companies have still been filing lawsuits against each other. Notably, today’s report claims that a settlement was near this past February, but the talks dissolved...

An outage of Apple's Dev Center website has persisted for the last day, prompting developers to wonder when the online resource will return.   ...

The New York Times is releasing an app that will allow users of the Leap Motion Controller to read articles with gestures. Details of the app come at the same time as reports that the controller manufacturer is starting to ship the device to customers that pre-ordered, ahead of its expected delayed ship date of July 22nd....  ...

Apple is now the proud owner of Canada-based Locationary, a company that crowdsources information about local businesses. The purchase means Apple has yet another tool in its arsenal to help ensure its Maps app has up to date and accurate information about stores, restaurants, and other businesses.

Evernote has pushed out an update for the iOS version of its popular note-taking app. Version 5.4 introduces Shortcuts, a rebranding of the Favorites feature from the iPhone, which gives users a method to quickly access important notes, notebooks and tags. These Shortcuts can be synced across all versions of Evernote, and can even be made for saved searches. Other changes include support for marking up images, PDFs and notes, the ability to see recently viewed notes along the bottom of any note, and a new Announcements section with the latest news from Evernote.... ...

Hey, isn’t the music business supposed to be rebounding?

That’s presumably why SoftBank offered $8.5 billion for Universal Music — that’s $2 billion more than anyone thought the music label was worth — earlier this year.

And that’s presumably why Universal’s current owner, Vivendi, turned the Japanese telco down.

But someone forgot to tell U.S. music buyers about the recovery: Retail sales were down 4.6 percent in the first half of the year, according to Nielsen Soundscan.

For the last decade or so, whenever you wrote a story about the music industry’s never-ending slump, you would note that while sales of CDs were plummeting, digital sales...

Questimate! from Motion Math is a enjoyable estimation game in which you create off-the-wall questions and try to estimate their answers. It's a challenge you can play alone or against others in either pass-n-play mode or Gamecenter mode.

As its name implies, Questimate! is based on quests that are comprised of a series of questions. You are given three lives, which allows you to make three mistakes as you progress along a quest. It's a game of estimates so you don't have to be perfect, but you do have to answer most of the questions in a quest reasonably well if you want to win. The app includes a free intro quest, with additional quests available via an in-app purchase of coins.

When you start a new game, you are prompted to build a question by combining several phrases like "How many microwave...

A set of leaked documents appears to show that Apple will be releasing multiple models of its bestselling smartphone this year, with one aimed at the traditional iPhone audience and the other aiming possibly for the low-cost segment, though both devices are claimed to feature a full gigabyte of RAM.  ...

Josh Centers shares his home office setup — from the computer to the coffee — along with how to choose the best equipment at the best prices. His choices may not match what you would need, but his thinking is absolutely worth keeping in mind as you equip or update your own work environment.

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.

It's time to save some of that hard-earned cash with our Daily Deals, featuring a handy list from Dealnews and our own hand-picked selections that include some sweet deals on iOS and OS X software (all prices are USD and subject to change).

Deals from Dealnews

• MacUpdate Promo: [Mac Software] PhoneView 2 for Mac downloads for $15
• StackSocial: [Mac Software] Parallels Mac Bundle downloads for $50: Parallels Desktop, WinZip Mac, more
• Best Buy: [MacBook] Apple MacBook Laptops at Best Buy: Up...

With the perspective of a recent college graduate, David Rabinowitz looks back on the technology that populated his years in school, from learning to type in third grade to taking real-time class quizzes at the University of Virginia. He also looks at a technology he missed, the iPad, and talks with a pair of innovators who are building it into the everyday educational experience at their schools.

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.

Jim Metzendorf joins Rene Ritchie and Peter Cohen to talk about Logic Pro X, the new Mac Pro and U.S. carriers’ new upgrade plans.

∞ Read this on The Loop

I would do this. Gone!

Apple may not have said much about the issues with iOS’s Maps at last month’s Worldwide Developers Conference, but the company is clearly still working on improving the service. Case in point: its recent acquisition of Toronto-based Locationary, which the company confirmed to AllThingsD on Friday. Both the startup’s team and the technology are reportedly part of the deal.

Locationary is a startup that’s focused on improving data about local businsesses. It pulls location information from a variety of sources, then aggregates and reconciles it, ensuring that the data provided to users is complete and up-to-date. That way, you don’t drive an hour out of your way to hit that great restaurant that actually closed six months ago.

An infographic from Locationary explaining their system.

That’s of particular importance to Apple,...

Over at Macworld, author Kirk McElhearn argues that Apple should eliminate DRM in titles sold in the iBookstore, citing Steve Jobs’s 2007 open letter, “Thoughts on Music,” as an example of how Apple could pressure publishers. The core problem is that titles purchased in the iBookstore are readable only on iOS devices and not on a Kindle, other ebook reader, Android device, Windows PC, or even a Mac until iBooks arrives with OS X 10.9 Mavericks. However, titles purchased on a Kindle can be read in the Kindle app on nearly all of those platforms. As a result, McElhearn says he usually buys from Amazon instead of Apple, a strategy we’ve heard many other ebook aficionados adopting as well. Like all other Take Control titles, McElhearn’s most recent book, “Take Control of LaunchBar,” is of course DRM-free.

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a...

Gizmodo pointed us to some research carried out by someone who must be the poster child for having too much time on your hands: he decided to measure the amount of power a MacBook Pro uses for each tab open in a browser. The answer, in case you were curious, is 0.19 watts per tab in Safari or Chrome.

There is some point to it, though: the experiment showed that having 100 tabs open reduces battery-life by around an hour. While I doubt that many of us have quite that many tabs open at any one time, it does suggest that when you’re trying to...

Apple has signed on to an open letter asking for more transparency from the U.S. government’s national security requests. Joining Apple are AOL, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Tumblr, Twitter, Yahoo, Wikimedia Foundation, Y Combinator, and many other groups. Notably absent from the list are any major telecom companies, which reportedly refused to sign the letter. The signing companies want permission to publicly report statistics on government requests related to the USA PATRIOT Act, FISA, and National Security Letter statutes. The letter is addressed to President Obama, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker of the House John Boehner, and a variety of other prominent members of the House and Senate.

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...

The best part is that the game is on your iPhone, so if you want to play at your friend’s house, you just connect to the Apple TV and play.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Apple's iPhoto app has some very basic slideshow features built in. Sure, you can apply the Ken Burns effect all day long, and even save your slideshows as screen savers. But if you are bored by iPhoto's simple dissolves, pans and wipes, it's time to check out ScatterShow (US$29.99) from Smith Micro.

The OS X app (which can be purchased as a download or in a physical box) allows creation of some really unique arrangements and animations of slides, all of which can be set to music. The app includes a number of pre-set templates, or you can choose to start from scratch. Once you select a background from those provided by Smith Micro or have added your own, you're practically done making your slideshow. Images for the slideshow can be selected individually, or you can add a complete folder.

Each photo can be converted to black and white or retouched with a variety of filters. The app provides a simple way to...

Impressive.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Siri's an excellent personal assistant, and she's just a long home button press away. She can place a call for you, send a message, add items to your calendar, and more. And while I typically perform these actions for myself, there are times when it's more convenient for her to take care of a quick task for me while I give my attention to something else -- and you can make Siri do your bidding without pressing any buttons. Michael Johnston shows you how.

The Mac Observer Spin:

With smartphone thefts ever on the rise, Apple introduced a new feature in iOS 7 called "Activation Lock" which prevents thieves from turning off the "Find my iPhone" feature without first entering a user's iCloud credentials. As an added security layer, iOS 7 also prevents thieves from wiping a device without first providing a user's Apple ID and password.

The goal, of course, is to make iPhones a less appealing target for criminals.

In the wake of iOS 7 unveiling, top prosecutors in San Francisco and New York expressed cautious optimism that Apple's new "activation lock" security feature might serve as an effective crime deterrent.

Now CNET is reporting that both state and federal government agencies began testing the feature this week...

Don’t judge a book by its cover. This elderly lady visits the Coalition Drum Shop La Crosse, WI, sits down behind a Gretsch Catalina Birch kit and proceeds to TEAR SHIT UP.

As rumors swirl about the next iPhone, the current models of Apple's popular smartphone may be selling better than expected. Sales of the iPhone for the quarter that ended June 30 will beat Wall Street expectations, according to a report released Wednesday by Morgan Stanley. Some 29 million to 32 million units were sold during the period, 10-20 percent better than the 26.5 million units expected, according to the report authored by Katy Huberty, Jerry Liu and Scott Schmitz.

Your Mac's Contacts program keeps all sorts of info on you—where you live, what your email address is, maybe even who your spouse is or what your kids' names are. But what if you don't want everything on your vCard to be shared with the people you send it to? You can easily configure what you send and what you don't, and it's all here in this tip. If you're as paranoid as we are, you'll love this.

Apple is no stranger to beefing up its mapping efforts through company purchases. We’ve counted at least three big map company purchases including Placebase, C3 and Poly9 that have helped Apple in its growing mapping and location services effort. As we know Apple is still a long way from mapping nirvana and as any Apple PR person will read from a boilerplate to you, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

Today...

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images Sport

Dear Tim, Larry, Steve, and Jeff,

Sorry to bother you during earnings season, but I wanted to lob in an idea from the cheap seats.

I’ve been watching closely as all of you have tinkered with television for the last few years. I can see the attraction: The TV Industrial Complex is a big, lucrative target. It hasn’t ever had real competition.

The problem: So far none of you guys have tried building something that could really shake things up.

Again, for good reason. The...

wiredmikey writes "Despite fevered arguments that iOS is more secure than Android, and that Android offers developers more options than iOS, a study has found that both platforms are equally as invasive and curious when it comes to collecting user data. Security firm BitDefender analyzed more than 522,000 apps over the past year and focused on the 'intrusive behaviors' the app developer may have included in the product, such as tracking location, reading contact lists, and leaking your email address or device ID. According to Catalin Cosi, iOS applications appear to be more focused on harvesting private data than the ones designed for Android. Cosi did acknowledge that Android apps state all the permissions needed at installation time and there is no way to change the settings afterwards, while iOS permissions are requested at run-time, as the specific resource is used, making iOS a little bit more secure in practice."

...