When my fingers are covered in egg, or I want to use my iPad as a second-screen when working at my Mac, or when I’m performing computer surgery and I want to keep iFixIt in the corner of my eye, there’s a lot of situations in which I might want a stand for my iPad.

Unfortunately, of the few I’ve tried, I’ve found most of them only to be good in specific situations: great for, say, using your iPad as second monitor at your computer, but not good for cooking or doing computer surgery.

The iOStand by iOMounts is the first stand I’ve really liked, because sometimes simpler is better. But it’s not perfect.

The Good

All the components to the iOStand system.

The iOStand by iOMounts is about as simple a gadget as you can imagine. It’s essentially a pedestal for your iPad (or iPhone, or any other mobile tablet), made up of a couple of components: a weighted base, a long arm with a ball on it, and a powerful magnet poking itself out of the ball.

This magnet is called the iOCore, and because magnets are both simple and neat, it works exactly like you expect: you affix a small steel washer to the back of your device, and once it’s on, the magnet will stick to your iPad or iPhone (or, indeed, anything else made out of metal).

The iOStand isn’t so much clever as it is effective. Because the iOCore is concave, it can “roll” across the ball at the top of your iOstand at almost any angle you’d like. The iOStand, then, is more adjustable then most iPad stands: if the viewing angle isn’t convenient to you, you just need to nudge it to one that is.

You’ll have to stick one of these on any device you want to use with the iOStand.

The washer system isn’t the most elegant solution to docking your iPad with a stand, but given the alternatives, which usually require you to fit your iPad into some sort of holster so it’s secure on the end of the stand, it’s a pretty good one. The washers — which iOMounts calls “iOAdapts” but are, in fact, just steel rings with some sticky on the back — are only .025 inches thick, so they hardly make much of an impact upon your iPad’s profile.

In use, the iOStand is a very convenient and quick way to use your device with a stand. In fact, I found myself using it a lot more than I expected to, transfering my iOStand from room-to-room as I, say, moved from my work desk at the end of the day to the kitchen to cook dinner, or from dinner to the bedroom to watch a movie. As a stand, it’s just as good for, say, keeping your eye on Twitter throughout the day as it is for watching a movie or consulting a recipe.

So I really like the iOStand. But I have a couple caveats.

The Drawbacks

First of all, conceptually, the truth of the matter is that using an iOStand to hold your iPad about a foot above the surface of your desk, table or countertop, you’re making it vulnerable to falling over. The iOStand has a weighted bottom, and it’s quite solid and rugged, but it can be accidentally knocked over… if it is knocked over, it’s going to tip over, probably face first, with a heavy steel ball pressed against the back of your device, almost guaranteed to shatter your screen.

The same warning goes for accidentally jostling your iPad while it’s on the iOStand arm. It’s not going to be easy to knock your iPad off the magnet base, but it’s certainly possible. Magnets are a very convenient and easy way to dock an iPad to something like a stand, but they are going to inherently be less stable than, say, putting your iPad in a special case to connect it to a stand.

The iOAdapts can also be hit or miss. In my experience, they don’t work at all sticking them to anything that isn’t metal, so you can’t just affix one to the back of your iPad case. If your device isn’t going bareback, the iOAdapt might not stick, and since they cost $10 for three of them, that’s worth considering if you use a case.

Finally, this is a matter of subjective opinion, but the iOStand costs $100. This is a solidly constructed product, but that seems pricy to me for something that is essentally 100% analog, with no moving parts, proprietary systems or revolutionary industrial design.

The Verdict

I really like the iOStand. It’s pretty, it’s portable, it’s solidly constructed, and magnets are always super cool. But it’s also pretty expensive, it requires sticking washers to your device, and these washers make it hard to use a case. I can’t think of an iPad stand I’ve liked more, but there are certainly cheaper ways to prop up your iPad: if you want the iOStand’s elegance, you need to go in being well-aware of what it costs.

Product Name: iOStand The Good: Magnets are cool! Solidly constructed. Infinitely adjustable. Portable around the house. The Bad: Expensive. Washers don’t stick on some cases. The Verdict: The best iPad stand we’ve used, but you pay for elegance. Buy from: iOMounts

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ 

Next time Maverick, Goose and Ice Man enter the Danger Zone, they’ll be flying about 40 pounds lighter, thanks to the U.S. Air Force’s recent decision to replace bulky flight bags with iPads… a move which could save the government $50 million in the next ten years.

With more and more commercial airlines ditching flight bags for iPads, the Air Force is following suit, purchasing up to 18,000 iPads for the Air Mobility Command, which provides Air Force cargo, passenger transport, refueling and aeromedical evacuation services.

“We’re saving about 90 pounds of paper per aircraft and limiting the need for each crew member to carry a 30 to 40 pound paper pile [of flight manuals],” said Major Brian Moritz, EFB program manager, in a phone interview with The Street. “It adds up to quite a lot of weight in paper.”

And digitizing all that paper ends up resulting in big fuel savings: AMC expects to save $750,000 on fuel every year just by leaving the heavy flight bags stuffed with tens of thousands of documents behind.

If you’re interested in what it’s like to fly with an iPad, we’ve taken an in-depth look at an iPad-equipped airplane before.

Source: The Street

Inside every Mac — the one I’m writing this one, the one you’re reading this on, the one next to you at the cafe — is a little chip called the SMC, or system management controller. If you’ve ever had a problem related to your Mac’s performance or power supply, resetting the SMC is usually the first thing people suggest.

For most of us, worrying about the ‘security’ of our SMC is pretty harmless. While your SMC can be hacked, it’s a Mission Impossible style process that is only really likely to occur if you’re so important that the techno-elite of another country’s government decides they want to know what’s on your laptop.

Here’s where it gets funny, though. Let’s say China did want to hack your Mac’s SMC… how might they start? By entering the name of a Harry Potter spell!

According to a fascinating write-up by Dan Goodin over at Ars Technica, ever Mac SMC has secret settings that can be accessed by entering the word “SpecialisRevelio.”

If you’ve read the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling, those words might seem familiar: it’s the name of a spell that reveals hidden charms and hexes.

It’s nothing for you to worry about. Any Harry Potter style attacker would have to have physical access to your Mac, and an incredible degree of sophisticated computer knowledge to compromise your machine through your SMC. Besides, you can always thwart an attack by pulling out your wand and shouting “Expelliarmus!” at your Mac during boot-up to neutralize the attack.

Source: Ars Technica

Although Apple doesn’t like to talk too much about it, they admit right on their official website that all of the glass used in their iPhone and iPad displays are made by Corning, makers of Gorilla Glass.

Corning’s always looking to make their glass stronger, thinner and more useful to Apple, though, which is why they’ve just announced Corning Lotus XT Glass, which looks to be a prime contender for use in the upcoming iPhone 5S, iPad 5 and iPad mini 2.

The video above, frankly, is pretty boring. Here’s what you need to know: Lotus XT Glass is a new type of glass from Corning that is specifically designed for use in high-performance displays, like Retina displays. Its primary characteristics are that they allow more light through, so Lotus XT Glass reduces power draw (light goes through easier, so a backlight needs to do less to compensate) and increase color vibrancy. In addition, Lotus XT Glass is easier for manufacturers to work with, reducing manufacturing costs and increasing yields.

Press release is after the jump.

Corning Introduces Corning Lotus™ XT Glass and Showcases Glass Innovations at SID Display Week 2013

Second-generation composition features host of new capabilities

CORNING, N.Y., May 16, 2013 – Corning Incorporated (NYSE: GLW) today announced the commercial launch of Corning Lotus™ XT Glass, a second-generation glass substrate specially formulated for high-performance displays. The company will feature its latest specialty glass innovation – alongside its other advanced glass technologies – in its booth (#801) at the Society for Information Display’s (SID) Display Week in Vancouver, British Columbia, May 21 – 23.

Lotus XT Glass features best-in-class total pitch variation, which is integral to efficient panel manufacturing. Essentially, total pitch – usually measured in microns or parts per million (ppm) – is the distance features move during panel processing.

“If you can predict the amount the glass shifts, then you can account for this movement. Deviation – or variation – from this predictable movement can ultimately result in yield loss,” said John P. Bayne, vice president and general manager, Corning High Performance Displays. “Lotus XT Glass is designed to have improved thermal and dimensional stability over higher temperatures, generating higher yields for our customers.”

The Corning Lotus Glass platform enables organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays and liquid crystal displays (LCD) that use either low-temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) or oxide thin-film transistor (TFT) backplanes. The result is an energy-efficient, immersive display device that features high resolution, fast response times, and bright picture quality.

In addition to Lotus XT Glass, the Corning booth will feature each of its advanced glass technologies, including: Corning EAGLE XG® Slim for a-Si displays; Corning® Willow™ Glass, the company’s ultra-slim, flexible glass; and Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3 with Native Damage Resistance™. Corning experts will provide daily demonstrations of Gorilla Glass 3, the industry-leading, damage-resistant cover glass. Attendees should consult booth staff for exact times.

Display Week attendees will also have the opportunity to hear several of Corning’s technology experts deliver presentations at the conference.

“Display Week is a time to take stock of the industry and its future,” Bayne noted. “The industry is changing, and Corning believes each of its innovative glasses helps solve tough technological challenges – advancing displays even further.”

For additional information about Corning’s presence at SID Display Week 2013, please visit www.corning.com/SID2013.

A new Mac malware has been found in the wild that allowed attackers to steal data and install unauthorized apps on a compromised machine. What makes this malware different than other recent Mac malware, though, is that it breezes right past Gatekeeper… and the people behind it might have been gunning for the life of their malware victim.

Known security researcher and privacy activist Jacob Applebaum discovered the malware — which is being called OSX/KitM.A by Finnish antivirus firm F-Secure — on the laptop of a human rights activist at the Oslo Freedom Forum earlier this week.

KitM.A got on the machine as a result of a spear phishing attack, which is a phishing attack in which specific individuals (instead of a wider range of victims) are targeted. The malware takes screenshots of what is happening on the Mac amd sends them to servers in the Netherlands. It can also download and install other malware, executing commands on behalf of attackers and manipulating the network activity monitor so that its presence remains undetected.

What’s so interesting about this specific malware is that it was signed by a valid Apple Developer ID. This means that it just blew past Gatekeeper, OS X Mountain Lion’s anti-malware firewall that is supposed to keep out just this sort of program. But it also means that Apple can just revoke the app’s certificate, killing it instantly on all computers with Gatekeeper turned on. And hopefully, it means that the attackers behind this particularly insidious form of malware can be tracked down and prosecuted, because they’ve left a signature: their own Apple Developer ID.

Applebaum said that he may publish more details on the attack once he ascertains the threat to the victim’s life. Someone was gunning for him, after all, and given what’s going on in Angola these days, that’s a sensible precaution.

Source: Macworld
Image: MyFWCMedia

If you have a mid-2012 MacBook Air, Apple has released a small firmware update that addresses “a storage firmware issue that, in rare cases, may cause a system to fail to recover from crash.”

The update itself is just 1.69MB, and can be downloaded here

Blackberry Messenger might finally be coming to iOS this summer… but it’s just been confirmed that doesn’t mean a native iPad version.

The depressing word comes straight from Blackberry’s software portfolio chief Vivek Bhardwaj, who confirmed to Trusted Reviews:

At this point it is iOS and Android, and that’s iOS phones running iOS 6 and higher… Smartphone is our real focus and again it comes back to what BBM is. If you look BBM and the engagement and the activity, it’s because it is mobile, because people are on the go.

This isn’t too surprising: Blackberry’s never really been comfortable with tablets, and their own tablet, the Playbook, is widely considered a dud.

That’s not to say iPad won’t get BBM eventually, of course, but it is a low priority for Blackberry right now. At least iPad isn’t alone in being neglected here: it doesn’t seem as if Blackberry’s taking tablets seriously on any platform.

Source: Trusted Reviews

See that girl in the MacBook Air on the right? She’s a professional model for stock image site Shutterstock.com, who once did an entire set of images called “Pretty Woman Lying On The Sofa Holding Her Smartphone.” And that smartphone in question is clearly an iPhone 3G/S.

Okay. Now see the image on the left? That’s from a recent Samsung ad, and what do you know? The model’s iPhone has been artlessly photoshopped into a Samsung Galaxy S4… even though that device features a 5-inch display that is so large, the phone’s tiny size in the model’s hand implies a woman who is over eight-feel tall. Here’s proof. 

On the one hand, this is a photo from a stock photo site, meaning as long as Samsung paid for the image, they can do what they like with it. But still…. jeez, Samsung. Surely there’s one pretty girl in the world who prefers her Galaxy to an iPhone that you could track down for a photoshoot, right?

Via: Samsung Copies Apple

What if your iOS lockscreen intelligently pulled together all the data inside your iPhone and made sure that you could keep track with your real-world life without even sliding-to-unlock?

This beautiful iOS 7 concept by Jürgen Ulbrich of Apfellike.de reimagines iOS as something a lot more similar to Google Now than we’ve ever seen in iOS before.

Stylistically, we can quibble about it — the visual style of this concept obviously is more in Google’s school than Apple’s — but the functionality is exquisite. I would love a Google Now-like experience on my iOS 7 lockscreen, wouldn’t you?

With the exception of the possibility of new color offerings, we all know that the iPhone 5S will likely look pretty much identical to the iPhone 5… but that doesn’t mean things aren’t changing significantly on the inside. And BGR thinks they have proof.

BGR has posted a number of images of parts they say is from the upcoming iPhone 5S, including a re-designed loud-speaker bracket, ear speaker bracket, vibrating motor assembly, Wi-Fi flex cable ribbon and SIM card tray. The SIM card tray is gold or beige in the image, which BGR believes suggests that rumors of multiple colors in the iPhone 5S range are true.

These aren’t the first leaked images we’ve seen of the supposed iPhone 5S. Just a week ago, a small circuitboard component supposedly from the iPhone 5S leaked to the web.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to confirm any of BGR’s claims here. These could be components from the upcoming iPhone 5S, or they could just be a bunch of random parts someone had lying around for other devices entirely. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Source: BGR

Apple’s current flagship store in San Francisco is in something of a cramped location, so Apple wants to move it three blocks away, to Union Square.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Apple has submitted plans to open a new retail store on Union Square, replacing its nine-year-old store at Stockton and Ellis streets a few blocks away.

Supervisor David Chiu said he hoped the new silver box-shaped computer store and customer service center would “turbo-charge” the Union Square area, which has long been home to many of the city’s high-end retailers.

The new outlet will occupy the space at Stockton and Post streets formerly occupied by Levi’s and be about 45 percent larger than the existing space, though it will include all the same features.

In addition to being larger, the new location will actually employ more workers, although not 45% more: instead, Apple expects just 50 new jobs to be added.

San Francisco is hopeful that while the new Apple Store may be further away from a public transit stop, it will increase foot traffic in Union Square and help boost sales for other businesses in that area. Seems likely.

No date for the move has yet been announced.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Mobileaks says the above render comes from a tipster who has seen the iPad mini 2 with Retina display. We’re not so convinced.

According to a “source” speaking to Mobileaks, these will be the specifications of the iPad mini 2:

7.9 inch Retina display
2048 x 1536 pixels
324 ppi
Apple A6X processor
8.0 megapixel camera
2.0 megapixel front camera
16, 32, 64 GB internal memory
7.5 mm thickness

At first blush, all of this looks about right. The 324 ppi looks a little bit off — by all accounts, the Retina iPad mini should have the same PPI as the iPhone at around 326ppi — but this is just a rounding difference because of different screen sizes: in reality, these screens are identical when it comes to pixel density.

For us, the hard thing to buy is Mobileaks’ claim that the bezel for the iPad mini 2 will shrink again around the edges. Not only does it look fairly strange, but we just don’t see Apple changing the form factor of the iPad mini again when they’ve already gotten it right.

Finally, there’s the matter of release: Mobileaks says in the third quarter of the year. We’d love that to be true, but right now, it’s not looking likely for an iPad mini with Retina Display to land before 2014.

Source: Mobileaks

Apple’s got to keep the ever-mounting demands on its Siri servers down somehow, so here’s a new one. If you ask her something too long, Siri will respond with trite quotes upon the power of brevity, such as this one by William Strunk of Strunk & White fame:

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

Of course, it’s not up to a voice-recognition program to dictate what is an unnnecessary word or sentence, any more than it is up to a pencil which line in a drawing is “unnecessary”, or an engine schematic which part isn’t needed.

But here’s something ironic! Take that exact quote above by Strunk and modify it into a question. “Siri, should a sentence contain any unnecessary words, or a paragraph any unnecessary sentences, for the same reasons that a drawing should not have any unnecessary lines or a machine any unnecessary parts?” And guess what! Siri will accuse Strunk of being long-winded. Take that Elements of Style!

Source: iLounge

By now, you’ve probably see Commander Chris Hadfield’s tear-jerking farewell to the International Space Station: a cover of David Bowie’s classic space song, Space Oddity, filmed and performed by Hadfield himself in zero-g. In case you haven’t, we’ve embedded it above: it’s hard not to be proud of humanity after watching it.

But do you know how Hadfield actually recorded it? With his iPad, of course.

Specifically, Chris Hadfield recorded his version of Space Oddity using his iPad and Apple’s official GarageBand app

Chris Hadfield’s love for iPad is nothing new to our readers. In recording his many video transmissions from Space, Hadfield used an iPad as a teleprompter, along with the Teleprompt+ app.

Here’s a photograph of Hadfield’s iPad, floating in Zero-G:

Is that the first iPad in space? Maybe not, but it’s certainly the most accomplished.

Update: Originally, this article nonsensically said that Hadfield “filmed and edited” the video “on his iPad using Garageband.” Obviously, this makes no sense — GarageBand is a music program, not a video editing program — and I apologize for the brain fart: I have no idea how I made such a mistake. Instead, the song was recorded in space using Hadfield’s iPad, and the video was edited on Earth by Hadfield’s son, Evan Hadfield. Thanks to Evan for setting me straight, and I’m sorry about the confusion.

Jefferies & Co.’s Peter Misek is our favorite know-nothing analyst, having been proven hysterically, horribly wrong on about every major Apple prediction he’s ever made. He’s probably safe on this prediction, though: even Misek doesn’t think Apple’s going to surprise us with a new iPhone in June. But he’s still kind of an idiot, since it directly contradicts his own prophecies back in December.

Speaking to Bloomberg TV and asked about the likelihood of an iPhone 5S coming at WWDC next month, Misek said flat out: “It’s not going to happen.”

His reasoning, for a change, is sound: the iPhone 5S won’t come in June because no one’s making them yet!

It typically takes 60 to 90 days of production before the phone is introduced to retail. If we assume production starts in June, the soonest it would be available is late august or early September. That’s based on 400-plus suppliers we track.

As for what the iPhone 5S will be like, Misek is playing it safe:

We expect the 5S to be broadly similar to the 5, perhaps with fingerprint sensor capabilities added. There’s still a chance it could come in multiple colors. It’s a virtual lock that you will get better processors and a 12 megapixel camera. The changes will be largely under the hood, as they were with the 4S.

This is largely what we expect too, so good for Misek for not pulling apart his buttocks and speaking rectally for once.

Even so, Misek’s changed his tune. A scarce six months ago, Peter Misek flat-out told us to expect the iPhone 5S to come in June, to land in 6-8 colors, to have an even higher-resolution screen and to boost NFC! What happened to all of that, Peter?

Easy. His current prediction is based on a reality largely defined by people who are smarter and have better sources than he does. Other (and far more reputable) analysts like Ming-Chi Kuo have already told us exactly what the iPhone 5S will be like, and what do you know: Misek’s statements here are an exact copy of Kuo’s down to the smallest detail. And if that weren’t good enough, Tim Cook flat out said during Apple’s latest earnings call that new iOS devices wouldn’t land until September.

So Peter Misek’s right this time. But he’s still as dumb as he ever was.

Source: Barrons

What would a budget or mid-range iPhone mini look like with a radical new vision of iOS 7 installed on it, fronted by that skeuomorph-hating design perfectionist, Jony Ive?

Martin Hajek — one of the most talented Apple concept designers around — wanted to know, so he created a new budget iPhone concept that features bighter colors, a smaller screen, and a plastic backshell inspired by the iPad mini, then “installed” Dámaso Benítez’ “really nice concept” of how Jony Ive might flatten iOS 7.

On my part, I seriously doubt iOS 7 will look anything like this: Ive’s sense of design sophistication is not going to have him making app icons that look as if they would be right at home in a preschoolers sticker book. But it’s a nice concept none the less.

Some more images after the break to wet your whistle.

Source: Martin Hajek

If you’re a Daft Punk fan who can’t wait to hear the random access beats of their latest album, Random Access Memories, it’s now streamingfree and live on iTunes here on a computer or iPad. You can also preorder the entire album for $11.99.

I’ve got to say, between this and David Bowie’s latest album, I’m liking this streaming trend Apple’s started.

Source: iTunes

Todd McLellan is an artist whose forte is taking things apart and arranging them neatly, peeling back the layers of an everday object and allowing you to see the shocking mechanical complexity within. He’s like one part Andy Warhol, one part .

This is McLellan’s dissection of a Macintosh Classic, every single piece separated from one another and neatly laid out for your examination. It’s part of his Things Come Apart series, in which “fifty design classics—arranged first by size and then by intricacy—are beautifully displayed, piece by piece, exploding in midair and dissected in real-time, frame-by-frame video stills.” You can see more of McLellan’s work here.

In addition, McLellan has a book coming out at the end of the month called Things Come Apart: A Teardown Manual for Modern Living. The cover art for the book is actually the striking image above. If you want it, you can preorder it online from Amazon.

Source: Todd McLellan

Steve & Steve, an online graphic novel being undertaken by Patrick Sean Farley, has got to be the trippiest thing you’ll ever read about the friendship between Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, in their early HP/Atari days.

How trippy? Well, in the graphic novel, Steve & Steve drop acid in a strange geodesic dome in the middle of the woods, where they begin to debate the origins of technology, Steve Jobs called Arthur C. Clarke a degenerate, Wozniak eludes to a strange criminal past and fantasizes about kissing a girl in his chess club. Then, a Russian nuclear weapon is fired straight at Silicon Valley… or is it?

And that’s just the prologue. It’s beautifully illustrated and written, with some incredible typography. We’ve included a few panels after the jump, but check out the official Steve & Steve site for more. This is already shaping up to be the best Steve Jobs comic we’ve ever seen.

There’s a lot of talk about Apple going back to plastic for the budget iPhone, and while we’ve already seen some very attractive ideas about what that could look like, concept designer Ran Avni has another notion: an iPhone 6 that keeps the stark classicism of the current monotone iPhone color schemes, but adopts a plastic back which borrows design elements from the iPad mini. It’s an interesting look, and very Apple-like, but only time will tell how close this is to what Apple actually delivers.

It seems crazy that iOS is six years old now, and Apple still hasn’t introduced a way to trial apps before buying them. Apple’s motivations in this aren’t clear — are they concerned that trialing apps will give users less incentive to buy them, and therefore make it less likely for Apple to get a 30% cut? — but it seems obvious to me that trial versions of apps would ultimately be a boon to the platform, allowing app developers to command higher prices on apps than they currently can.

How would such a system be implemented, though? iOS and Mac developer Amy Worral has some really smart ideas. And the best thing of all, they’re simple for Apple to implement.

Here’s how Amy sees it working (via Macgasm). When you submit an app to the App Store, you can choose to either eschew trial versions entirely, or allow a trial for 1, 7 or 30 days.

There’s no other options: on an App Store page, you can either opt for the free trial, or buy it outright. If a trial app is downloaded, a “Trial” banner is draped over the app icon, just like how iOS 6 handles New apps. And when you run the app, the status bar always alerts you to the fact that you’re using a trial app, and tapping on the bar lets you buy the app outright.

What happens when the trial expires? Amy explains:

Once a trial is used up, you can’t get a trial of that app again on the same Apple ID. When the trial is used up, the app icon still remains on your device, but the flag says “Expired” and tapping on it takes you to the App Store rather than opening the app.

It seems really simple to me, and the genius of this idea to me is it doesn’t lock any app functionality away. I’d love to see this implemented with iOS 7, wouldn’t you?

Source: Amy Worrall
Via: Macgasm

Nothing’s driving design nerds as crazy as the rumor that Jony Ive is taking a torch to iOS’s egregious skeuomorphic design elements and coming up with something for iOS 7 a lot more modern and flat like Windows 8.

In truth, any hopes that Ive is going to completely raze the ground of iOS skeuomorphism for iOS 7 are probably optimistic: Ive hasn’t had enough time, and it’s just too deeply ingrained into the operating system. More likely, Ive’s sensibilities will more immediately be felt in more subtle pairing-downs, like the way Apple’s Podcast app had the reel-to-reel player removed in a recent version.

But what does Jony Ive eventually want iOS to look like? A stunning new concept video has a very compelling take on that question.

The folks over at digital agency Simply Zesty employed their art director, Philip Joyce, to come up with a strong concept of what the next version of iOS 7 should look like.

What he came up with is very beautiful indeed. Not only do we have completely redesigned, purely square app icons and a widget-able home screen, but total redesigns of many core apps like Calendar, Music, Siri, Facebook and more.

I’m not quite buying the idea that Ive would, for example, ditch round-corner icons for purely square ones — round-corner squares are an Ive speciality seen in everything from app icons to the shape of the Apple TV to the EarPods box — but it’s certainly a compelling take.

Something tells me, though, that when Ive is done with iOS, it’ll be something very different from what we’re imagining.

Source: Simply Zesty

Speaking of Microsoft, they’re the latest company said to be eyeing the living room, designing a new set-top box to go head-to-head with the Apple TV. But Microsoft might have an ace up their sleeves.

According to sources speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft has made several prototypes of their set-top box over the last couple of years, but the latest prototype supports the Kinect accessory for the Xbox 360, bringing gesture control and voice recognition to the set-top box experience for the first device.

That’s interesting, because gesture control and voice recognition have long been touted as possible killer features of the oft-rumored iTV.

Microsoft is actually already the creator of one of the most popular living room media centers ever, the Xbox 360, which is certainly in more living rooms than the Apple TV is, so this is a credible threat. Microsoft already has the living room ecosystem set-up to support a $99 set-top box, and they’ve been doing innovative things with second screen solutions in the living room with projects like Microsoft Glass.

To be honest with you, I’m increasingly convinced the Apple TV’s only advantage over the competition is AirPlay. Just being able to buy a $99 box that lets you squirt any video or audio from your iPhone, iPad or Mac onto your big television screen is a killer feature the competition just hasn’t been able to match. Until that feature is matched by something as good or better, the Apple TV is always going to be a reliable seller, and no company is truly going to be able to trounce Cupertino in the living room.

Source: Wall Street Journal

There’s no denying that iTunes for Windows is one of the most important projects Apple has ever done. It allowed Apple to sell iPods, then iPhones, and then iPads (as well as billions of dollars worth of movies, books and music) to owners of Windows PCs at a time when the iOS ecosystem was much more tethered to the desktop than it is today.

But iTunes on Windows isn’t quite as important as it used to be, especially now that the iPad is king and Windows 8 is here, which has cratered PC sales thanks to the general confusion around its new “Metro” UI.

Any surprise, then, that Microsoft’s having a hard time convincing Apple to update iTunes for Windows 8?

iTunes, of course, already technically works on Windows 8, but not in Windows RT, the ARM flavor of Microsoft’s latest operating system that runs on tablets like the Microsoft Surface. If you have Windows 8 on a regular machine, iTunes will work in Windows 8 desktop mode… but it’s a sub-optimal experience, and brings you screeching-and-crashing out of Windows 8′s much-ballyhooed modern Metro UI.

Yet Apple is seemingly making no steps to sizably update Windows 8, prompting Microsoft CFO Tami Reller to openly complain:

You shouldn’t expect an iTunes app on Windows 8 any time soon. iTunes is in high demand. The welcome mat has been laid out. It’s not for lack of trying.

“Not for lack of trying.” I’m sure: iTunes is apparently one of the most searched for apps in the Windows 8 store… where it can’t be found.

It’s not surprising. Mac sales are about the only PC sales these days that aren’t completely declining. Why waste time on the massive undertaking of creating a Metro iTunes app, or an ARM-based iTunes, when Apple can just ignore Windows 8 entirely in favor of the Mac? God knows that’s what PC users as a whole are doing these days.

Source: The Verge

We’re living in a particularly insecure digital age right now. It seems like every other day, a major internet company is getting hacked, or having its database of user passwords liberated by groups of hackers.

It’s pretty obvious at this point that we need something better than passwords to secure us from increasingly sophisticated hackers and data thieves. Many sites are rolling out 2-Step authentication — access the site on a new computer, and you have to enter a code sent to you by text message — but that implementation can be a pain. There’s got to be an easier way.

Michael Barrett, PayPal’s chief information security officer, thinks there’s a better way. It’s called the iPhone 5S.

Speaking at Interop, Barrett rightly noted that passwords had had their day in the sun. Users have dozens if not hundreds of user names and passwords, and they tend to use the same login for all of them.

“Users will pick poor passwords and then they’ll reuse them everywhere,” Barrett said. “That has the effect of reducing the security of their most secure account to the security of the least secure place they visit on the internet.”

So what’s the solution? Barrett is hawking his own organization, the Past IdentityOnline Alliance (FIDO), which wants to revolutionize online authentication with “ndustry-supported, standards-based open protocol that not only makes users more secure but is also easy and convenient to use.”

Okay, but how? Essentially by combining hardware, software and internet services… something that is Apple’s guiding mantra. The idea here is that if you wanted to log in to an account on a new device, it wouldn’t be enough to just type in a password: you’d need to authenticate your identity using a physical hardware device.

And what better way to do that than with the iPhone 5S, and similar devices coming later this year?

“It’s widely rumored that a large technology providerin Cupertino, Calif., will come out with a phone later this year that has a fingerprint reader on it,” he said. “There is going to be a fingerprint enabled phone on the market later this year. Not just one, multiple.”

That fingerprint sensor under the home button of the iPhone 5S, then, isn’t just going to be some gimmick you use instead of typing in a pin. It’s going to eventually be how you log into all of your accounts online, saving us from passwords once and for all.

Source: Macworld

Science! A 14-year-old girl has discovered that a regular old iPad Smart Cover can “accidentally turn off” a person’s implantable deibrillator… a device that might be the only thing keeping them alive.

Hetr name is Gianna Chien, and having done a report on the issue for her class science fair, she’s now presenting her findings in front of 8,000 doctors at the Heart Rhythm Society.

Here’s the deal. If you have a implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, your heart is automatically restarted with an electric shock every time it stops keeping a normal rhythm. Of course, sometimes these devices go a little funny, and need to be adjusted or replaced, so there’s a way to turn them off… but as you imagine, it doesn’t involve bloodily plunging your fingers beneath your sternum and thumbing an ‘Off’ button.

Instead, it’s done by holding a strong magnet against a patient’s chest… and guess what? You can use an iPad smart cover’s 30 embedded magnets, or even just an iPad held against the chest, to do the same thing. And while most defibrillators will just come back on when the magnet is removed, some don’t, meaning that someone could shut down their defibrillator and not even know it until a couple days later, their heart falls out of whack and suddenly they’re dying on a street corner.

To be fair, this is not an issue with Apple’s device specifically: any old magnets of sufficient strength will do. And to be even fairer, Apple straight out warns people in its online product that people with pacemakers (which a defibrillator essentially is) should keep the iPad at least six-inches away from your chest.

Still, obviously, the danger isn’t well known despite Apple’s warnings, and Chien’s study isn’t just raising awareness, it’s making it obvious that, if you have a defibrillator, falling asleep with one on your chest at night is a particularly poor idea: 30 percent of patients who put an iPad on their chest found their defibrillators shut down.

Source: Bloomberg

What does Apple’s Calendar app and this building have in common?

There’s been a lot of hullyboo about skeuomorphism in the Mac and iOS community right now. Ever since the debut of iOS, Apple’s software has become increasingly ornamented with unnecessary textures and details that many people consider tacky, such as the fake Corinthian leather in Calendar or the green felt background in Game Center. This style of design is called skeuomorphism, and outed ex-Apple VP Scott Forstall was one of Cupertino’s main proponent for its wide spread use in iOS and OS X.

All signs point to Jonny Ive getting away with a lot of skeuomorphic details in iOS 7, adopting instead a more modern, ‘flat’ design.

The way people talk, though, it’s like skeuomorphism is a unique problem of the digital age. It’s not. In fact, the ancient Greeks had a problem with skeuomorphism too. So before you revile Scott Forstall for using it too much, keep in mind, it’s a design technique as old as civilization.

The Ancient Greeks’ version of the reel-to-reel tapes in Apple’s Podcast app.

Today, we think of ancient Greek architecture in terms of marble columns and white temples, but in the earliest days of ancient Greece, buildings were made out of wood instead of marble. That meant ceilings made out of wooden rafters, and the very ends of these rafters would protrude from most buildings.

When the Greeks started building the temples they are known for today, though, they used skeuomorphism to give people a sense of the old and familiar even when looking at this incredible, revolutionary new building technology. Sound familiar?

The most obvious example of ancient Greek skeuomorphism is one particular repeating ornament used by Greeks in the bedmould of their temples’ cornices. When the ancient Greeks started building in stone, they actually continued to carve into their designs a lot of the protruding joints you’d find in wood construction, like where a end of a rafter might “poke” through the other side of an adjacent wall. These were totally non-functional flourishes that were carved into the outside of buildings just to make them look as familiar as wooden buildings, even though they were a completely different technology and form of architecture.

These outcroppings of unnecessary stone are called dentils, and they track back all the way to 500 B.C. The dentil is a major feature in Ionic temple design, and was also employed widely by the Romans (there’s dentils on the Pantheon in Rome) and during the Italian renaissance. Heck, we still use them today, for no reason besides the fact that thousands of years ago, it reminded the Greeks of the way a wood house is “supposed” to look.

So next time you read a story hating on Apple for its penchant for skeuomorphism, maybe try looking at it the other way: Apple’s just being neoclassical.

Via: Design Decoded

Last year, there was a lot of debate about whether the iPhone 5 (the sixth iPhone at the time) would be called the iPhone 5 or the iPhone 6, and the same happened the year before as people bickered about whether Apple should call the iPhone 4S the iPhone 5.

As the seventh-generation iPhone approaches, the debate is opening up again: what should Apple call it? Ex-Apple ad man Ken Segall has raised convincing arguments saying that Apple is shooting itself in the foot with the “S” series naming convention, signalling to consumers that every other year, you get a half-baked iPhone instead of a fresh new one.

Now, some slim evidence is pointing towards the notion that Apple might be listening to their former advertising prodigy, and that the next iPhone might be called the iPhone 6.

There’s not a lot to go on here, but Vodafone UK’s stores are listing a “4G iPhone 6″ in their system. The shot was taken by a Vodafone employee.

This doesn’t mean much. Placeholder product names are put into mobile carrier databases all the time by employees who have no inside track on what Apple will be calling their next device. At the same time, though, these same databases are sometimes are first glimpse at upcoming products that have yet to be announced.

So this is all worth taking with a big grain of salt. Yet Apple would be wise to consider a different naming scheme for the next iPhone. The ‘S’ naming scheme, while honest, does imply to consumers that they are getting only a slightly spec-bumped, year-old phone. What the ‘S’ stands for usually depends: with the iPhone 3GS, it stood for ‘speed’, while with the iPhone 4S, it stood for ‘Siri.’ But it doesn’t send as strong a statement to consumers as a whole new number, and you don’t see the likes of Samsung dicking around with launching, say, Galaxy S4 And A Halfs.

My guess, though, is that Apple won’t call the next iPhone the iPhone 5S or the iPhone 6. Evidence is increasingly pointing to Apple launching an entirely new ‘budget’ iPhone this year to court mid-range customers. If that happens, the iPhone — for the first time! — will become a family of devices… and when Apple was on the cusp of turning the iPad into a family, they helpfully rebranded the latest iPad into the “new” iPad. I’m starting to think Apple will do the same with the iPhone this year, but we’ll have to wait until September to find out.

Source: Stuff.tv

If you want proof Apple is planning a ‘budget’ iPhone to address untapped markets, look no further than a new report which says that Apple’s suppliers are going on massive hiring sprees… and citing the imminent arrival of a new, cheaper iPhone as the cause.

Pegatron — one of Apple’s major assemblers of iPhone and iPads — said that it would increase the number of workers it had in China by 40% in the second half of the year. Since they already employ 100,000 workers, that’s quite the hiring binge.

Even more interesting, supplier sources have apparently told Reuters that it’s all due to the budget iPhone:

Suppliers have told Reuters that Apple is developing a cheaper model of the phone, broadening its sales base to lower-income buyers in growth markets such as China and India.

A supplier source in Japan said small-scale production of the display panel for the model would begin in May, ramping up to mass production in June.

What would a budget iPhone be like? Actually, it’s more likely to be a colorful mid-range model in the $200-$500 (unlocked) price range, and many analysts think that the release of such a device by itself could deal a death blow to Samsung’s Galaxy business in the United States.

Source: Reuters

Another potential component for the iPhone 5S has popped up, a small section of circuitboard that seemingly governs the upcoming iPhone’s rear camera.

Doing some nice sleuthing, Steve over at Nowherelse.fr found images of the above component on a Japanese retailer’s website being floated as an iPhone 5S component.

Obviously, it’s just a small piece, and very hard to identify, but if you compare the component in the image above with the iPhone 5 circuitboard, it seems that this component would be placed in such a way as to connect to the iPhone 5′s front and rear cameras.

Components related to the iPhone’s camera tend to leak earlier than other components, so it’s possible this is a genuine iPhone 5S part, but there’ll be no real telling until Apple releases their next iPhone, and iFixIt tears it apart.

Source: Nowherelse.fr