Alex Heath - page 69

I was craving a pumpkin spice lattee from Starbucks the other day. I didn’t have time to go get one myself, but one of my friends was going later in the day. He offered to pick one up for me. Yay!

Starbucks recently added support for Apple’s Passbook service in iOS 6, and I hadn’t yet been able to try paying for Starbucks with Passbook. I had already added my Starbucks Rewards Gold card to Passbook on my iPhone 5, and I like using my Gold card to pay whenever I can because it earns me points towards free drinks. So I had three choices: pay my friend back in cash, give him my Starbucks card from my wallet, or let him use my Passbook. I went with the third option, and it was as easy as taking a screenshot.

What is Apple’s perfect recipe for the living room TV experience? The tech industry has been asking itself that question since rumors of an Apple-branded TV set started circulating months and months ago. While ‘iTV’ rumors have died down recently due to the iPhone 5 and iPad mini hype, Apple has quietly been trying to work out licensing deals with Hollywood for a mysterious iCloud, TV-ish service. Will it be baked into iTunes, the current Apple TV, or come packaged in a totally new device? These are the questions.

While Apple’s real plans are obviously shrouded in mystery, there’s a very strong case to be made for using existing ingredients to make the TV experience Apple ultimately desires. The recipe is actually a lot simpler than you may think. An Apple TV set-top box and iOS device may be all it takes.

Apple and Samsung are in the midst of what is perhaps the most heated patent lawsuit in history, but that doesn’t mean the two companies won’t still steal from each other’s camps. One of Samsung’s most prominent chip designers has joined Apple, the Korean company’s sworn enemy. “Veteran” processor guru Jim Mergard could help Apple create proprietary chips for the Mac, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Mergard’s expertise could mean that Apple will eventually switch from Intel on the Mac to its own processors, like its in-house “A” chip series for iOS devices.

The two main questions I always get asked about jailbreaking are, “How do I jailbreak?” and “Can my iPhone even be jailbroken?” Because a jailbreak usually has to be manufactured for each new release of iOS, there’s a good chance that certain version of iOS are jailbreak friendly while others are not. For instance, there’s no public jailbreak for iOS 6 yet.

So, how do you check to see if the iOS device you use is jailbreakable or not?. You could search Google for a few minutes trying to find the right tool, or you could visit a handy web app called JailbreakStatus.

Apple’s new Maps app in iOS 6 has been the subject of intense criticism in the press for weeks. Tim Cook had to issue a public apology for the widespread inaccuracy of Maps, and Apple is now recommending other third-party mapping solutions in the App Store. Not exactly a great product launch.

Google’s Eric Schmidt commented on Apple ditching Google Maps in an interview tonight. “Apple should have kept our maps,” said Schmidt. Why? Simply put, “They’re better maps.” Touche.

T-Mobile launched a new marketing campaign around the same time as the iPhone 5 launch. Called “Bring Your Own Device,” T-Mobile used Apple’s latest smartphone to demonstrate how customers can bring their unlocked devices from other carriers and use them on T-Mobile’s unlimited everything plan. Because Apple still hasn’t partnered with T-Mobile officially, the smaller carrier’s best bet is tempting unlockers with its attractive data pricing.

It’s only been a month into the campaign, but T-Mobile is already removing the iPhone brand from all marketing materials. Did Apple force T-Mobile’s hand? Not exactly.

When Steve Jobs said that the iPad was ushering in the “post-PC’ era, he was right. Gartner has released its PC shipment results for the third quarter of 2012, and things aren’t looking good for traditional computer makers like HP and Acer. The rise of smartphones and tablets has caused PC shipments to decline drastically in the last year, and it doesn’t look like the downwards spiral will be ending anytime soon.

Major League Baseball has been thrilled with the success of Passbook. After integrating with the iOS 6 service only a couple weeks ago, MLB is already seeing 12% of its e-ticket buyers opt for using digital passes on their iPhones.

It doesn’t look like Apple is going to be making its own dock for the iPhone 5 and its new Lightning connector. You could go the third-party route and order something like this unofficial Lightning Dock from TLD, or you could get creative and use Legos.

There’s a 42-peice Lego set available online that’s specifically designed to create a minimalistic dock for the iPhone 5, and it looks awesome.

Apple is widely expected to unveil the rumored ‘iPad mini’ at a press event this month, with many speculating that event invites will be sent to the press as soon as tomorrow, October 10th. The mythical 7-inch tablet will likely be priced between $200-$250 and target competition like the Google Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire. Apple has been poised to enter the cheaper tablet market for quite some time, and the company has reportedly started manufacturing an upwards of 10 million units to sell this holiday season.

A new report today claims that the iPad mini will be Wi-Fi-only, unlike the current third-gen iPad that can operate on 3G and 4G carrier networks. Apple is also expected to unveil an updated version of the current third-gen iPad with 4G support in the U.K. and the new Lighting dock.

Apple won’t let you put the iOS Newsstand icon in a folder for some ridiculous reason. It’s annoying. A lot of people don’t use Newsstand on the iPhone, and after awhile that wooden bookshelf icon seems to just sit there, mocking you. Wouldn’t it to be nice to hide it in a folder with all the other stock apps you don’t you use, like that stupid Compass app?

There was a trick discovered in iOS 5 that lets you hide Newsstand with some finger magic, but the process is a little tedious. A new utility app for the Mac called StifleStand puts Newsstand in an iOS folder for you, no jailbreak required.

Back in August, Square announced a huge partnership with Starbucks. The coffee chain giant will be integrating Square’s mobile payment system into many of its U.S. stores this fall, and Starbucks has also invested $25 million in Square.

While we knew that Square was coming to Starbucks sometime later this year, it’s now been revealed that the partnership is launching in early November. Instead of having to use your credit card or cash, you’ll be able to use the free Square app to pay for your skinny vanilla latte.

Steve Jobs was passionate about a lot of things: simplicity, challenging the status quo, creating products that people loved, etc. He was a man of many shining strengths and deep personality flaws. As one of the most dynamic titans to ever grace the tech industry, one can only imagine what Jobs would think of Apple in 2012. How would he have handled Mapgate? We’ll never know.

Based on what we do know about the late CEO, there are several things Jobs would have definitely been proud of at Apple in 2012.

The iPad mini’s rumored announcement is drawing near, with many speculating that Apple will unveil the mythical device by mid-October. We’ve seen a few part leaks of the smaller tablet, and The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Apple is starting to ramp up mass production for the expected launch. Hopefully low yield rates overseas can pick up to meet what will undoubtedly be crazy consumer demand.

Martin Hajek made some strikingly accurate concept designs for the iPhone 5 before it was announced, and now he’s back with Gizmodo for the iPad mini:

Apple has quietly released two supplemental updates for OS X Mountain Lion and Lion today. The first supplemental update for OS X 10.8.2 is available now in the Mac App Store, and a similar update to 10.7.5 has also been made available. Both updates contain small bug fixes.

Facebook hit 1 billion users earlier today, and Mark Zuckerberg has been making the rounds with the press to celebrate the milestone. While speaking with NBC’s Matt Lauer, Zuckerberg talked briefly about Steve Jobs and Apple’s influence on Facebook as a company.

When asked about Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg mentioned how his company and Apple share a respect for user experience. “He [Steve Jobs] was just so focused,” said Zuckerberg. “For him, the user experience was the only thing that mattered.”

I’m kind of obsessed with wallpapers for my Apple devices. That’s why I got excited when the guys at 2048pixels contacted me about their site’s 2.0 launch. I wrote about 2048pixels back in May, and it’s been cool to watch the site evolve with more and more awesome wallpapers over the last several months.

In case you didn’t know, 2048pixels is a website that offers free wallpapers for the third-gen iPad’s Retina display. You can discover and download them right from the site on your iPad, and version 2.0 brings a number of improvements, including the ability to edit wallpapers on the iPad before you download.

Apple is widely considered the most secretive company on earth, so any chance to get even a tiny peek behind its walls is a rare one. When you visit Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, you can’t get past the gift shop without a special friend. If you’re lucky, you’ll get treated to a delicious lunch at the company’s Caffe Macs. That leaves the rest of Infinite Loop up to your imagination.

A neat service called Worldcam uses Instagram’s GPS data to gather all of the photos shared from a specific location. We’ve collected some rare shots from inside and around Apple’s top secret HQ:

SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 — JailbreakCon, the convention dedicated solely to jailbreaking and all that it entails, took place this past Saturday, September 29th. Hackers and developers from around the world gathered together at the South San Francisco Center to network and share ideas.

New projects were announced, and the future of jailbreaking iOS 6, the iPhone 5, and Apple TV was discussed. Don’t worry if you weren’t able to attend the event or watch the live stream—Cult of Mac has you covered. Here’s everything you missed at JailbreakCon in a nutshell:

SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 — To the world, he’s known only by his online pseudonym, “pod2g.” On Twitter, he has amassed over 340,000 followers. As one of the most respect iOS security researchers today, he frequently fields job interview requests from the biggest technology companies in the world. To the millions who jailbreak, he’s a living legend.

At JailbreakCon, pod2g gave a fascinating talk on his past experiences as a hacker and mastermind jailbreaker. He’s been immortalized by jailbreakers and the security research community, but in his own words he’s just a “lucky guy.”

SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 — Apple has Twitter and Facebook integration in iOS 6, but for some reason you can’t easily share the music you’re listening to with friends. Apple has never been great at social music discovery (just ask Ping), but it’s surprising that there’s still no sharing integration in the native Music app. Sometimes you just want to tweet a song you’re enjoying or email the track listing to a loved one. That’s where Scale, a new jailbreak tweak for the iPhone, comes in.

Unveiled by Joshua Tucker at JailbreakCon, Scale adds a new button in the Music app for sharing your tunes over Twitter, Facebook, email, or iMessage.

The iOS App Store has seen unprecedented success since its launch in 2008. Apple undoubtedly boasts the largest and most vibrant app ecosystem in existence, but the App Store’s success has come at a cost.

Apple’s ‘walled garden’ approach gives the company complete control over which apps are published in the App Store. If an app doesn’t follow Apple’s playbook, it doesn’t get in. You may work for months and months on an app only to get it rejected. Publishing in the App Store can be a huge gamble. But if you get lucky, the payoff can be huge.

Aaron Ash kicked off JailbreakCon with a talk on developing for the App Store vs. Cydia, the alternative storefront for jailbreakers. Ash has an unusual perspective because he has seen incredibly success has a developer in Cydia, and he is also a developer in the App Store.

SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 — Jay ‘saurik’ Freeman just finished his presentation at JailbreakCon, and the creator of Cydia gave some interesting numbers regarding the jailbreak storefront. According to Freeman, Cydia developers were paid an estimated $8 million in sales last year. While it’s difficult for Freeman to specifically track the number of jailbroken iOS devices that are out in the wild, he said that an average 1.5 million users open Cydia each day.

SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 —Jailbreak hacker extraordinaire Cyril, or “pod2g,” just took the stage to talk about jailbreak techniques and the future of iOS 6 jailbreaking. After giving a technical run-through of his past exploits in iOS 4 and 5, Cyril explained that there is no working untethered jailbreak for iOS 6.

Considering that this is the world’s only jailbreak convention, many speculated that Cyril and the Chronic Dev Team would announce an iOS 6 jailbreak today, but that is not the case.

Cyril opened the iOS 6 section of his talk with, “Will I release the iOS 6 jailbreak today? No! Of course not!”

SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 — Since Apple added iMessage to the Mac in OS X, there’s even more ways to communicate between Apple devices. The iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Mac can all send and receive via iMessage, but one person usually sends from multiple addresses across devices. You may, for instance, send a message through your phone number on the iPhone, and then later send another through your Apple ID email address on the Mac.

Apple recently introduced iMessage contact unification in iOS 6, meaning that you can now be reached at both a phone number and email address on a device like the iPad. But there’s still an annoying problem with iMessage: messages from different IDs create new conversation threads. Conversations in the Messages app are not always up to date and properly synced between devices, and it can be confusing to track down which thread to reply to.

Developer and designer Joshua Tucker introduced a jailbreak tweak today called Merge. Tucker’s new tweak solves the aforementioned problem with an elegant, Apple-like solution.