Alex Heath - page 30

Last month, we told you about a new startup called Typo Keyboard that’s backed and co-founded by TV/radio personality Ryan Seacrest. The story behind it was that Seacrest was so frustrated with the iPhone’s lack of a physical keyboard that he decided to personally invest $1 million in a solution.

We called the Typo keyboard accessory “BlackBerry-inspired” at the time, which was a mild way of saying that it looks like a complete ripoff of Blackberry’s layout. Blackberry isn’t happy, and the company has now sued Seacrest’s startup.

The Consumer Electronics Show used to be the premier trade show for the unveiling of major products from big tech companies. But it’s been years since Apple made an official appearance at the Las Vegas convention, and recently the show’s relevance has been questioned as titans like Google and Microsoft have packed up their booths.

Still, Apple’s presence will be strong at International CES 2014, most significantly in the iLounge Pavilion, a sprawling section of the massive show floor that houses hundreds of Apple accessory makers. It’s bigger than last year, even if the actual number of exhibitors has shrunk.

Every week Apple picks an app to showcase in the App Store as app of the week, and to kick off the new year Readdle’s Scanner Pro has been selected. The app is designed to turn your iPhone or iPad into a portable scanner that can store all kinds of documents, whether it to be a receipt for dinner or a work visa.

There’s a lot more to this app than meets the eye, so get it now if only to have it in case you ever need it one day. It supports iCloud sync, and you can share documents via Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, email, or print. Scanned documents are automatically fixed up to look they best they can when added to the app, and everything that’s scanned is turned into a PDF.

Scanner Pro normally costs $7, but as part of Apple’s week-long promotion, it’s available now in the App Store for free. The deal ends the 9th. Such a steal.

Source: App Store

The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas next week, and today it was announced that Apple’s iBeacon technology will be used to organize a scavenger hunt on the show floor for attendees.

The iOS 7 jailbreak was released last Sunday, but it was a messy release that had a lot of bugs and compatibility issues. We warned everyone to wait at the time. Today the last major issue with the jailbreak was fixed for newer iOS devices with the A7 chip.

Jay ‘saurik’ Freeman, the creator of Cydia, has updated Mobile Substrate for iOS 7 and the new 64-bit architecture found in the iPhone 5s, iPad Air, and second-gen iPad mini.

Apple denies working with the National Security Agency to create a backdoor into the iPhone and other products that would give the spy agency access to users’ data.

The denial is a response to leaked NSA documents published yesterday from 2008 that detail a backdoor into the iPhone called “DROPOUTJEEP.” The spyware is able to intercept data like the iPhone’s SMS messages, contacts, location, and more after being installed.

The Fitbit is one of the most popular fitness trackers out there, and today its companion iOS app was updated with an interesting new feature for iPhone 5s owners. By taking advantage of the new phone’s M7 co-processor (a chip also found in the latest iPads), Fitbit has turned the 5s into a health monitor without the need of an additional wrist strap.

MobileTrack uses the M7 to track the user’s activity throughout the day and distill it into helpful data, like miles traveled and calories burned.

The U.S. National Security Agency has spyware designed to grant backdoor access to the iPhone specifically, according to leaked documents shared by high-profile security researcher Jacob Appelbaum and German publication Der Spiegel.

While speaking at the Chaos Communication Congress in Germany, Appelbaum shared his knowledge of “DROPOUTJEEP,” a top-secret NSA program that can intercept an iPhone’s SMS messages, contacts, location, camera, and microphone.

Occasionally a rare piece of Apple gear will appear on eBay and be suddenly pulled. Why? Apple doesn’t like it when its internal hardware gets exposed out in the wild. But sometimes a prototype slips through Cupertino’s watchful eye and gets sold.

An eBay seller in Australia has sold what appears to be an original iPhone engineering prototype for a nice sum of $1,499.

Besides its fantastic longform features, The New York Times Magazine is known for its striking cover art. The Sunday publication has been creatively led by Arem Duplessis for the past decade, and now Duplessis is leaving to join Apple as a creative director within its marketing department.

It was widely reported in January that Apple was in talks to buy Waze, an Israeli startup with a hugely popular maps app. Waze was rumored to be asking Apple for $750 million. The same outlet that broke the acquisition rumor quickly backpedaled and said no such deal was taking place. Google ended up buying Waze in June for $1 billion.

And so goes the buyout game in Silicon Valley, a power play where tech giants like Apple and Google court hot startups with the hopes of adding them to their war chests.

Apple had its biggest year ever for acquisitions in 2013, with a record 15 smaller companies joining the fold. A dozen of them have now been publicly disclosed.

For an entity as secretive as Apple, examining the companies it buys is one of the only ways to peek into its future plans. When AuthenTec, a company that specialized in fingerprint readers and identification software, was purchased in July 2012, speculation immediately followed. What did Apple want with fingerprint sensors? The answer ended up being obvious, and the technology debuted in Touch ID in September 2013.

Often the outcome of an Apple acquisition isn’t so immediately apparent.

Historically, Apple acquires far fewer companies than its competitors. But the line is starting to blur. Google publicly bought three times as many companies as Apple in 2012 and not even twice as many in 2013. Apple bought more companies than Microsoft in 2013.

So what does all of this say about Apple’s future?

Nokia’s HERE mapping app has been available in Apple’s App Store since the problematic launch of Apple Maps with iOS 6 last summer. But due to “recent changes in iOS 7”, Nokia has pulled HERE indefinitely.

Here’s what Nokia PR had to say:

The barrier to entry for emulating classic games on a Mac has always been pretty high, until now. OpenEmu is an amazing retro game emulator for the Mac that has been literally years in the making, and it’s finally available for everyone to download and use for free.

Apple has been fined 20 million New Taiwan dollars by the country’s Fair Trade Commission for illegally fixing iPhone prices with Japanese carriers. At only $670,000 U.S, the fine is chump change for Apple, but the allegations are serious.

In Japan and other Asian countries, an annual tradition that many retailers participate in during the holidays is called “Fukubukuro,” commonly referred to as “lucky” or “mystery” bags.

The concept is simple: you put together bags of heavily discounted products at random and sell them to customers who don’t know exactly what they’re getting. It may sound weird to westerners, but if you really think about it, an overweight old man in a bright robe coming down your chimney at night is a lot weirder.

Anyway, Apple Japan is participating in the tradition again this year, and it has confirmed the special sale’s kickoff date of January 2nd. Lucky Bags will cost 36,000 yen, or around $345. Bags usually contain items like iPods, random accessories and t-shirts, but customers have received more expensive hardware like iPads and even MacBooks in years past.

Supplies are limited, so Apple stores in Japan will definitely have lines of eager customers after New Years.

Source: Apple

This is the first year Apple has made its 12 Days of Gifts app available for U.S customers, and to kick things off the company is giving away a free EP of Justin Timberlake’s performance at the 2013 iTunes Festival.

The iOS app will be giving away a free gift (music, iBooks, apps, movies, etc.) once a day until January 6th. A new single from popular artist Lorde was released as a separate, bonus giveaway through the app last week.

Four exclusive tracks and two accompanying videos from Justin Timberlake’s concert are available for download. Once you tap the album cover in the app, you’ll be taken to the iTunes Store where you can get the album.

Source: App Store

Christmas came early this morning for jailbreakers who have been waiting for iOS 7 to be cracked. Today the Evad3rs, the same group of hackers behind the iOS 6 jailbreak, released the full iOS 7 untethered jailbreak to everyone’s surprise.

Evasi0n7 is available now for free, but here’s why you should wait to jailbreak your iOS 7 device:

Things has been a staple to-do app on iOS and OS X since the iPhone app was first released back in 2008. And despite its infamously slow update cycle, it remains popular.

The Apple Design Award-winning app has not yet received its major iOS 7 redesign, but today Cultured Code has announced that Things 3 will be coming “as early as possible in 2014.”

On top of that, Cultured Code is also announcing that Things has sold one million copies to date.

We’ve shown you plenty of app deals, but this one may be the best. App Santa is a new project from some of the best and most popular indie iOS developers. It includes 15 award-winning apps that have been discounted for Christmas, like Clear, Tweetbot, 1Password, and Day One.

Here’s the full list:

Shazam has been a favorite iOS app of mine for years. Have you ever been out and about, heard a song, and wondered what it was? That’s what Shazam is for. It’s always felt like magic to me, and the app’s developers have even added the ability to identify TV shows.

The most recent update to Shazam adds a feature I’m not sure I like, the ability to listen and identify music/TV without the user asking. In the past, you’ve always had to tap the button in the center of the screen, but now an auto switch makes it possible for the app to be listening in the background even when it’s not open or the iPhone is locked.

The new Mac Pro finally went on sale this morning with initial orders shipping by December 30th. After only a few hours of being on sale, shipping estimates slipped to February for all configurations.

Now Apple is saying that it will be awhile before it can catch up with demand.

It’s been three days since Apple released OS X 10.9.1 to the public, and today developers received the first beta of 10.9.2. No new features are named by Apple, but devs are asked to focus on Mail, Messages, VPN, Graphics Drivers, and VoiceOver.

This Mavericks beta will likely undergo several updates for devs before Apple releases it in the coming months to everyone in the Mac App Store.

Update: FaceTime over Audio has been discovered in today’s beta. Here’s what it looks like:

When Apple announced a completely redesigned Mac Pro this past summer, the biggest question mark was the price tag. As a company that’s known for selling quality hardware at a premium, would Apple price the Mac Pro ultra-competitively or stick to its infamous ‘Apple tax’?

Well, the most expensive Mac Pro you can buy costs nearly 10K by itself. For normal people, that’s a hard price to swallow. But with two base configurations and plenty of build-to-order options, the real pros have no trouble dropping cash on Apple’s new powerhouse.

Here’s what a maxed out Mac Pro looks like:

The Mac Pro has been on sale for barely 12 hours, and most buyers haven’t even gotten their hands on it yet, but that hasn’t stopped Apple from releasing a firmware update. Today the company put out EFI Firmware Update 2.0 in the Mac App Store.

“This update improves system reliability during reboot, resolves an issue with memory self-test, and improves graphics power management when using Boot Camp,” notes Apple. You can also grab it directly from Apple’s website.

Source: Apple

If you haven’t already ordered a new Mac Pro on Apple’s website, don’t count on it arriving before the holidays are over. Shipping estimates for Apple’s just-released Pro have been pushed back to February, which is a sure sign that the computer is facing significant supply constraints.

After being on sale for less than a day, a quick visit to the online Apple store will show that every Mac Pro configuration won’t ship until February. The fact that Apple didn’t start selling it until the latest possible moment in 2013 also speaks to stock shortages. Apple had promised all year that the product would ship by the end of 2013, and it barely fulfilled that promise.

And if you think you’ll be able to just waltz into an Apple Store and pick one up, good luck. Apple’s business clients have had their pick of the litter by now. It’s worth calling an authorized reseller in your area if you’re that desperate, but getting your hands on a Mac Pro before February will be quite the stroke of good luck.

Source: Apple Store