The Apple Store was briefly down as Apple updated the homepage with a special Father’s Day gift promotion and updated the page to a new squarer & cleaner look – more possible evidence of Jony Ive’s growing design influence …

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The page leads with the iPad and iPad Mini, highlighting the free engraving option, as well as suggesting a range of alternative gift suggestions ranging from the $79.95 iGrill cooking thermometer to $399.95 GoPro HD Hero 3 Black. The homepage has a link to shipping deadlines for a range of products to reach buyers in time for Father’s Day on June 16th.

The redesign has replaced rounded corners with square ones, more of a...

Apple CEO Tim Cook defended his company's tax policies in Congress Tuesday, after the Senate released a report that condemned it for tax policies that used global subsidiaries to avoid paying billions in U.S. taxes. The report alleged that Apple dodged paying taxes on as much as $44 billion in foreign income from 2009 to 2012. The company reportedly used subsidiaries to get around certain tax responsibility. When the senators spoke in percentages, Cook spoke dollars and cents.

Image: Wall Street Journal

Yesterday’s Senate subcommittee hearing, in which Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked to explain alleged tax avoidance measures, turned into something of a damp squib, each side effectively stating their respective positions rather than engaging in any head-to-head debate …

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Senator Carl Levin, Chair of The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, gave a lengthy introductory speech which merely repeated the claims already made, and Cook responded with a pretty general statement saying little more than Apple complied with the law and did not use any tax gimmicks. Cook did take the opportunity to argue for tax reform, proposing both lower domestic corporation tax rates and a special...

Apple on Wednesday updated its online storefront, adding a special section for Father's Day with a heavy emphasis on the iPad, the iPad mini and related accessories.   ...

Unity, the company behind the eponymous game rendering engine, announced on Tuesday that it will no longer be charging an $800 licensing fee to developers looking to make apps for Apple's iOS and Google's Android.  ...

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Burstly acquired the beta testing service TestFlight just a few months ago, and TestFlight released a mobile analytics service called FlightPath soon after that. Now, Burstly has announced that it is restructuring its offerings, to set up a full set of services to take developers from developing and testing their app with TestFlight, to preforming analytics with FlightPath, and then monetizing with Burstly's tools, now rebranded as SkyRocket.

This is a smart bit of revamping -- TestFlight is very popular, but FlightPath has just started out and SkyRocket's name is brand new to most developers, so combining these tools under the same umbrella should make them all more accessible to developers. All of these services are still...

CS Odessa has posted a minor update for ConceptDraw Project, the developer's project management software. The v6.4 release adds new resource types, which should let organizers better describe both resources and resource behavior. Separately, new filters can be used to generate custom views of a project, which in turn can be saved for later use....  ...

Escape Motions has released Flame Painter 2.0, an update of the developer's illustration software. The v2.0 upgrade brings in a host of new features, such as smoother antialiasing, unlimited layers and editable vector layers in the Professional edition. Brush options include new Flame, Follow, and Ribbon brushes; presets; Normal, Lighten, and Darken modes; gradient transitions; and lastly, the ability to drag-and-drop brushes from a website....  ...

Seagate Technology has announced the new Seagate Video 3.5 HDD -- the industry's first 4TB, 3.5-inch hard disk drive engineered specifically for use in video applications such as digital video recorders, set-top boxes, and surveillance systems. Purpose-built for video solutions, the Video 3.5 HDD can store up to 480 hours of high-definition (HD) content. The drive supports up to 16 simultaneous HD streams or 20 standard-definition streams as well as 24-hour operation capabilities optimizing it for video content applications.... ...

The team at Olloclip has taken the wraps off of their newest product, a case for the iPhone 4/4S and iPhone 5 called the Quick-Flip Case (US$49.99) that works with the Olloclip 3-in-one lenses to produce a lightweight solution for all-purpose iPhoneography. Let's take a look!

Design

At first glance, this doesn't look like much of a case. It's made out of a smoked translucent black or opaque white polyurethane material and looks like any of a thousand other slip-on hard cases for iPhone. But then the little features start to appear and you realize how the Quick-Flip case can be used to assist in taking photos with your iPhone.

Gallery: Olloclip Quick-Flip Case and Pro-Photo Adapter

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Apple Inc.’s real tax bill isn’t as big as the one it reports to its investors.

Among the findings of an investigation by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations are figures that show Apple’s reported taxes substantially exceed the sum it actually pays the U.S. Treasury.

One factor: Apple uses a conservative approach to accounting for taxes on its overseas earnings. It has been setting aside billions of dollars a year in provisions against possible taxes on income that it earned abroad. But those taxes wouldn’t be due until Apple brought the funds home to the U.S., something Chief Executive Tim Cook said he has no intention of doing.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer had a straight-forward and direct message for a Senate subcommittee questioning the company about its tax practices: we comply fully the law, we don't hide profits from the U.S., and if you don't like what we're doing, change the law. Note that in this analysis, Bryan Chaffin discusses the politics of the situation.

Microsoft has announced a brand new game console today, though the company would probably disappointed to hear that I called it that. The Xbox One is really more of an entertainment center all-in-one -- it's designed to connect your games, your streaming media, and cable television all together in one set-top box. In some ways, it's a competitor to Apple TV. The Xbox One will also include a new Kinect camera, which will boast Siri-like voice control over all of its functions, and allow users to switch back and forth between live games, live TV, or any of the console's various apps.

Obviously, that release is only tangentially related to Apple and its products, but there are a few closer ties that might become more important in the future. First up, Microsoft has already confirmed that the Xbox One will work with its Smart Glass system, for which...

Intel has noted that it has appointed Mike Bell to lead its emergent technology and product trend group, which includes ultra-mobile products. The new division will be "tasked with turning cool technology and business model innovations into products that shape and lead markets," according to Intel....  ...

Every year, Millward Brown Optimor produces the BrandZ list, a listing of the 100 most valuable brands. As with last year, Apple is at the top of the list with a 2013 brand value of just over US$185 billion.

Apple's brand value rose only 1 percent this year, but that number is still well over #2 Google at $113.7 billion. How much of a gap lies in the brand value between Apple and Google? How about almost the value of the venerable Coca-Cola brand at $78.4 billion (the soft drink company is at #5 on the list).

Another tech brand rounded out the top three, with IBM coming in just behind Google at $112.5 billion. The value of the top 100 brands is a staggering $2.6 trillion globally, up 7 percent from 2012.

Although Apple's share price and investor sentiment have lagged in the last year,...

During Apple's April 2012 earnings conference call, Tim Cook emphatically stated that he hates litigation.

"I've always hated litigation," Cook explained. "I continue to hate it. I just want people to invent their own stuff."

That notwithstanding, Apple today finds itself embroiled in a myriad of patent infringement lawsuits. With Samsung in particular, Apple has ongoing legal battles with its Korean-based competitor in 11 countries across 4 continents.

Oddly enough, Apple's legal battles were tangentially brought up during Tuesday's congressional hearing which was held to take a closer look at Apple's tax practices. At one point during the hearing, the narrative veered a bit of course when Tim Cook was asked to answer a question about Apple's challenges with respect to protecting its intellectual property in the U.S.

Cook took a moment to gather his thoughts and answered thusly.

I think the U.S Court system is currently structured in such a way...

Apple has posted the opening statements two of its executives -- CEO Tim Cook (PDF) -- and CFO Peter Oppenheimer (PDF) -- made during their testimony in front of the US Senate earlier today. The documents don't reveal anything new, but do constitute a record of Apple's stance during the Senate hearing. "We pay all of the taxes we owe -- every single dollar. We not only comply with the laws, but we comply with the spirit of the laws," Cook's statement reads....  ...

Apple pays a fair share of the taxes it owes the U.S. and other nations, its CEO said Tuesday, despite criticism from U.S. senators that the company is ducking taxes by shifting profits to subsidiaries that the company does not consider tax residents of any nation.

Apple CEO Tim Cook defended the company Tuesday before a Senate subcommittee, saying that Apple uses no “tax gimmicks” in assigning about two-thirds of its worldwide profits to three subsidiaries in Ireland, where the company has negotiated a corporate income tax rate of less than 2 percent.

In reality, Apple has paid a far lower rate than the 2 percent negotiated in Ireland, with one subsidiary paying no income taxes in the past five years, and another paying 0.05 percent in Ireland in 2011, according to...

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Add your own content, customize the style, and you’ll have a website that looks great on any device.

Try Squarespace for free at squarespace.com.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Steve Wilhite, the inventor of the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), received a Webby Award for lifetime achievement. He reiterates that he intended it to be pronounced like “jif.”

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.

ABC Aquarium ($3) by Peapod Labs is yet another release in the company’s ABC family of universal iOS education apps. Each app has brought a new theme, complete with an alphabet’s worth of new photographs, videos, and simple rub-on-the-picture activities, plus small user interface improvements. Aquarium leverages all of…

Jesus Christ, Silicon Valley on the belief that Yahoo bought his Tumblr blog:

In the meantime, whatever I want: mine. You want to talk excitement? That’s excitement. I just Amazon Primed a fucking speedboat.

LOL!

∞ Read this on The Loop

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.

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Daily Update for May 21, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 21 May 2013 15:45:00 EST. Please see our...

In a brief sidetrack during his Senate testimony today, Apple CEO Tim Cook voiced his opinion on US intellectual property law. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) asked Cook about the IP benefits of running a company in the US versus other countries, but appears to have been surprised when Cook took a critical tone. "I actually think that we require much more work on IP in this country," he said....  ...

Apple CEO Tim Cook

Chris Foresman

There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International (AOI), which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world.

AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday.

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), who...

On Tuesday, software company Delicious Monster released version 3.0.2 of the shareware favorite, Delicious Library. Delicious Monster allows Macs with webcams to scan the bar codes of any book, movie, music CD or video game, then creates an archive based on background information from the Internet. Additional features help keep the library organized and reseller’s tools allow for items to be quickly posted for sale online.

The new version, an 80.3 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:
- Items without a cover show title and creator on shelf.

- Synopses can be added and edited. Custom synopses imported from Delicious Library 2 now display.

- Many changes to make...

Mark Crump at GigaOm has an interesting piece on how the iPad is becoming an important tool for music bands. Crump is an amateur musician whose band is rehearsing for a gig. What's interesting is Crump's realization that the iPad is almost all his band needs at rehearsal.

Crump explains how his iPad fits into band rehearses. First, he chooses the songs in the Music player app and sends his friends links to the songs on YouTube. Next he'll use the AmpliTube app (free) to load up his selected song from the iPad's music app and play along with it via a Fender Squire USB guitar. To chart the songs during rehearsal, Crump uses Apple's Pages app (US$9.99). He...

After installing OS X Mountain Lion, some people are finding their internal optical drives are no longer functioning.

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).

Deals from Dealnews

• Monoprice.com: [24-Inch LCDs Or Larger] Monoprice 27" IPS-G LED LCD Display for $474 + $17 s&h
• Oyen Digital: [Drive Enclosures] DataTale SMART 4-Bay Thunderbolt HDD Enclosure for $540 + free shipping
• MacUpdate Promo: [Mac Software] Drive Genius 3 for Mac downloads for $40
• ...

There may be some life in Flickr (and its current owner, Yahoo) after all…

Per Mac|Life, the Flickr Blog announced Monday that the cloud photo service would be making a big change, effective immediately, combining 1TB of free storage with a beautiful new look and feel for the web app.

“At Flickr, we believe you should share all your images in full resolution, so life’s moments can be relived in their original quality,” the blog post reads. “No limited pixels...

Blendoku is based on a crazy idea, made even crazier by the fact that it works. I am just plain terrible at colors. When I was working retail, I spent an entire day learning to lay out merchandise according to color. I was so bad at it, the trainer sent me right back to customer service. That's the very skill set that Blendoku tests, yet I still enjoy playing it.

You're presented with several different colors which must be sorted by shade, lightness, or various other qualities. Some levels are simple, with just a strip of various colors going back and forth, but some are very complicated, with multiple colors mixing up in different ways. The game works well. Moving the colors around is intuitive, and the fun, simple aesthetic allows you to focus on the puzzle.

Blendoku was a surprise. If someone asked me if I'd like a game about lining up color combinations, I don't think I would have said yes....

Tim Cook on Tuesday morning appeared before Congress to talk about Apple's tax practices, with a specific focus on Apple's foreign stash of cash. As it stands now, the bulk of Apple's revenue is derived from overseas sales. Consequently, Apple has chosen to keep that cash abroad where it's subject to much lower tax rates than the corporate income tax rate of 35% it would be subject to if it brought that cash back.

During his opening remarks, Cook highlighted all Apple has done for the U.S. economy, emphasizing how much the company already pays in domestic taxes and how it's been responsible for the creation of hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the U.S.

Further, Cook noted that Apple was investing $100 million to begin manufacturing Macs in the US. While we had previously heard of Apple's plans to do so, Cook for the first time fleshed out some more details, in a geographic sense, surrounding Apple's plans.

Specifically, Cook noted that Apple's upcoming "made...

Native Instruments (NI) announced the release of Abbey Road 50s Drummer, a collection of samples of two classic drum kits popular in the 1950s and recorded inside the famous Abbey Road studios. Built for NI's Kontakt engine, the samples also include templates that allow them to be used as MIDI instruments, with electronic drum kits, and with various software packages. This collection was sampled using a combination of current state-of-the-art equipment and vintage gear. All of the Abbey Road collections have been amazing, and the 50s Drummer collection joins 60s Drummer, 70s Drummer, 80s Drummer, Modern Drummer, and more. It's priced at US$99/€99 and is available now.

The Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai is often referred to as "the world's only 7-Star hotel." And now you can see why. The hotel has announced that it will be giving 24-carat gold-plated iPads to guests at check-in. The iPad will act as a "virtual concierge" for the hotel's guests, with information like maps, housekeeping services, spa services, and more.

Guests will be required to give the iPads back when they check out, unless they choose to purchase it (there's no word on the cost). The gold-plated iPad isn't the only Apple product that the Burj Al Arab's guests can enjoy: each of its 202 rooms has an iMac as well.

"The world's only 7-Star hotel" is giving 24k gold-plated iPads to guests originally appeared on ...

The new machine sees Microsoft add a Blu-ray drive and Skype functionality to its console, built in feedback into its gamepad triggers, and upgrades its Kinect camera sensor to 1080p high definition resolution.

Xbox is the one Microsoft product I really like.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Microsoft has revealed its latest iteration of its Xbox game console at a media event. The Xbox One, codenamed Durango during its development, is billed as an all-in-one system for the living room, with a greater focus on allowing users to watch live television and other media, along with heavier Kinect integration, Skype calling, and gaming improvements....  ...

At Apple's online store, take advantage of low prices on refurbished MacBook Air models. Save $300 on the 13.3-inch MacBook Air with a 1.7GHz Intel dual-core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and 256GB of flash storage, now $1,099. For $1,059 is the refurbished 11.6-inch MacBook Air with a 1.8GHz Intel dual-core i7 processor, 4GB of RAM and 256GB of flash storage....   ...

Apple is some good company.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Environmental activist group, Friends of the Earth HK, claims Apple's Causeway flagship store in Hong Kong is a major contributor to light pollution in the area. Apple reportedly runs about 500 lamps and spotlights over night, and the light spills outside of the store into the Hong Kong streets. According to a report in M.I.C. Gadget, Friends of the Earth HK says light from the store can be seen as far as 700 meters away.

Hong Kong is known for its colorful and illuminated skyline, but all these lights may be having a negative effect on residents. A recent study suggests that parts of Hong Kong have light levels that are 1,200 times higher than international standards. This nighttime brightness is affecting the...

As I mentioned in my review of a couple of wood cases, I’m not normally a case kind of guy. I’ve never quite seen the point of paying a premium for something beautifully designed and then hiding it away inside a case.

However, a cycling holiday from the Netherlands to Denmark in which my iPhone would be used for both photos and video suggested that at least a temporary change of policy might be in order. Videoing while cycling always carries the risk of an unintended phone-road interface, and using it with the screen on a lot during some long days might also be pushing the battery-life …

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The Otterbox Defender iON case seemed tailor-made for the job. Otterbox Defender cases are rigid plastic cases housed in a silicone skin, designed to offer a reasonably high level of impact protection. The Defender iON goes one better, housing a 1450mAH battery inside the...

While Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI) are accusing Apple of using shelters in other countries to avoid paying U.S. taxes, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is accusing the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of bullying Apple. Senator Paul's comments came on Tuesday during a subcommittee hearing into corporate tax practices in Washington DC.

The Mac Observer Spin:
If Apple is complying with the law, but you think the company should pay more taxes, it's time to change the law. Assuming Apple is in the right and hasn't violated any tax codes, Congress needs to look to itself for change and not big corporations.

Apple has announced that its next Apple store will open at Rundle Place Centre in Adelaide, South Australia this Saturday. It will be the first Apple Store in South Australia. This will bring the number of Apple's retail stores in Australia up to twenty.

Rundle Place Centre is a four-story shopping center with over 70 retail outlets. The store is set to open at 10 AM local time this Saturday. However, interested customers can already set up Genius Bar appointments on the store's web page.

Apple's first store in South Australia to open on Saturday originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 21 May 2013 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of...

During this morning’s Senate hearing regarding Apple’s tax strategies, Apple CEO Tim Cook provided opening statements regarding Apple’s perspective on the issues. Notably, during a time in which Cook was discussing Apple’s United States-based operations and strategies, the Apple CEO said that Apple’s upcoming Made-in-the-USA Mac line will be assembled in Texas…

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Apple has not previously disclosed where the already announced US-built Mac will be assembled. Foxconn, Apple’s main assembly partner in China, has factories in Texas.

We’re using our earnings growth to invest billions of dollars in the U.S. to create even more American jobs. We’re investing $100 million to build a Mac product line here in the U.S. The product will be assembled in Texas, include components made in Illinois and Florida, and rely on equipment produced...

Google’s new music subscription service Google Play Music All Access doesn’t yet have its own iOS app, but an existing app may add support for the service in the near future. An update for gMusic, a $2 Google music player app, has been submitted to the App Store to…

Catch up on all of Apple's tax controversy here as both CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer gear up to testify in front of Congress to address Apple's billions in foreign-stored cash.

Livestream of Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer at today's congressional hearing originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 21 May 2013 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | ...

Football fans rejoice (that's soccer for you in America)! Sky Sports has released an update to its popular iPad app that offers a new feature called Sky Sports 360. It lets you switch between over 20 camera angles during a replay. The app also allows you to choose to view the replays at normal speed or in slow motion. Announcing the new feature, David Gibbs, Director of Sky Sports Digital Media, told Sky Sports:

"This is great news for the Sky Sports for iPad app, which keeps getting better and better. This is about putting the technology into the hands of the viewer and allowing them to recapture the big moments in the final. It's the first time we've offered this through our app and it's another example of our investment in the Sky...