Buster Hein - page 168

iOS 8 is cruising through the final stages of development ahead of its fall release, and while most users can’t wait for its arrival, one NY-based startup already had to cut a third of its staff, after privacy changes in iOS 8 have threatened to already make its retail tracking technology obsolete.

Nomi, a startup that creates solutions for retail stores to track shoppers and their spending habits, has laid off 20 of its 60 or so employees, thanks in part to some small changes in iOS 8 that make make it impossible to identify repeat visits from shoppers with an iPhone.

The Apple rumor mill has been abuzz for months with whispers that the company plans to release an even thinner MacBook Air with a Retina display, and Intel’s new line of Broadwell processors could be the vital component that makes that makes wafer-thin MacBooks a reality.

Intel’s Broadwell chips have been delayed b early manufacturing problems, but today Intel revealed new details on its new 14-nanometer processors that combine the high-performance of the Haswell Core i3, i5, and i7 processors, with low power improvements that may allow Jony Ive to slim the next MacBook Air down to just 9mm thick.

Microsoft is arming its Surface marketing campaign with a heavy dose of Apple-hate, but Apple is continuing to take the opposite approach by highlighting the amazing things people do with their iPads.

In the latest additions to the Your Verse campaign – Striking a new Chord and Organizing a Movement – Apple has included segments that highlight how Jason Hall has helped revitalize Detroit by organizing massive bike rallies from his iPad, while the Chinese electro-pop duo Yaoband are blazing into a new musical frontiers aided by the iPad Air.

When Apple Maps disastrously launched in 2012 even the most faithful of Apple fanboys thought it’d never be competitive against the obviously superior Google Maps. But just two years after it announced its own mapping platform, Apple is now dominating Google in mapping traffic on 4G, at least on one U.K. carrier.

We’ve already seen two new iPhone part leaks out coming out of China this morning, but to complete today’s hat trick a new set of images show that Apple could be looking to make some serious improvements to the iPhone’s True Tone flash module.

Several new iPhone 6 parts have been leaked according to Nowhereelse.fr, among which is an alleged iPhone 6 flex cable that shows Apple has created a round True Tone flash module.

Reports of the Apple’s ban in China have been greatly exaggerated according to the country’s chief procurement center, which has denied a report from earlier this week that claimed MacBooks, iPhones and iPads have been banned from state use by the Chinese government.

Security concerns were allegedly the reason for the banning in the first, but according to a Reuters report, Apple’s short exclusion from the country’s procurement list was just a simple misunderstanding.

A federal judge has rejected the $324.5 million settlement Apple and others have agreed to pay after facing accusations that the company colluded with Silicon Valley’s top tech firms to avoid poaching each other’s employees.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh rejected the proposed settlement from Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe, saying that the total amount “falls below the range of reasonableness.”

Apple is bringing some much needed relief to your wallet with the addition of iOS 8’s new Family Sharing feature that lets your friends and family enjoy the apps you’ve paid for without purchasing them again, and to make it clear which apps support the new feature, Apple has added some extra info in iTunes and the App Store.

A new set of leaked iPhone 6 photos from luxury iPhone upgraders Feld & Volk reveal that Apple’s next handset may come with recessed volume buttons, a protruding camera lens, and an embeddable Apple logo that might be made of Liquidmetal.

The iPhone 6 is expected to be unveiled next month, but a plethora of leaks flooding out of Shenzhen have already given fanboys an idea what to expect, and these new photos add a few more pieces to the puzzle with details on how Apple will slim the profile of the device and make your shiny Apple logo scratch-resistant.

Take a look at the allegedly leaked parts below:

Apple added a new Beats by Dre section to its online store that makes it quicker than ever for shoppers to locate Tim Cook’s new favorite headphone brand among the mountain of iPhone and iPad accessories.

Apple dropped a slew of new beta releases earlier this week for iOS 8, Yosemite and Apple TV, but the company is also patching up Mavericks with the second beta build of OS X Mavericks 10.9.5.

Football madness kicks off in four more weeks and to satisfy your hunger for everything related to the gridiron, the NFL just launched its new NFL Now app for iPhone and iPad, that brings a deluge of video content for your favorite teams, all for free.

NFL Now includes highlights, interviews, Hard Knocks, and decades of old games from NFL Films. Best of all, the app is highly personalized based on your favorite teams and players that you pick when you first log in to the app.

The Apple Store on New York’s Fifth Ave has become nearly as iconic as the other shiny glass and aluminum beauties it sells, and now Microsoft is ready to take on Apple in the Big Apple with a Fifth Ave store of its very own.

Microsoft is in negotiations to open its first ever NYC store on Fifth Ave, reports the Daily News, which says the new shop will go up a mere six blocks away from Apple’s famous store.

Each second wasted during a 911 call could be the difference between life and death, making precise location data crucial to the whole lifesaving process, but according to the top U.S. cellphone carriers, getting that exact location to responders is just a little too expensive on 911 calls from a smartphone.

AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint are fighting back on an FCC proposal that aims to save lives by making it easier to locate 911 callers. The government proposal calls on carriers to upgrade their networks so that tracking callers indoor is easier, but AT&T says the project would be a waste of scarce resources.

ABC News launched its live news channel on Apple TV just over a month ago, but the media giant has already made some pretty surprising discoveries about the platform, like the fact that users are more likely to watch live ABC News on their Apple TV than their Mac or iPhone.

Apple fanboys with a sense of humor and few hundred bucks to spare can own a piece of the thermonuclear history between Apple and Samsung, by throwing down on an eBay auction by the guy who had the worst name for an Apple Store specialist ever.

Sprints is giving up on its dream to buy T-Mobile and merge into a mega-carrier powerful enough to take on AT&T and Verizon, after months of pursuing a multi-billion acquisition of the magenta-hued UnCarrier.

Winning approval from regulators was deemed to big an obstacle for the merger to overcome, and according to the Wall Street Journal, Sprint has decided to end acquisition talks altogether.

A U.K. man has been charged with murder after using Find My iPhone to track down and kill the thug who stole his son’s iPhone at knifepoint earlier in the day.

Derek Grant reportedly used Apple’s tracking software to locate the nearby thief after his son was robbed on his way home from work at McDonalds. When Derek confronted the thief and demanded he return the iPhone, the thief blinded him with a knife to the eye, which Grant says caused him to lash out in self defense and kill him.

Since Apple announced its Q3 2014 earnings last month everyone seems focused on less-than-stellar iPad sales, but along with the impending launch of the iPhone 6, Apple’s got a lot to celebrate as the company told CNBC that the App Store had record-setting revenue numbers in July.

Apple says it saw a record number of customers making transaction on the App Store in July, prompting Tim Cook to launch a celebratory tweet to developers:

Months of leaks and hundreds of rumors are finally set to culminate with the official unveiling of the iPhone 6, and according to Re/code we’re only a month away from the big day.

When the original iPhone launched in 2007, the only thing worse than its abysmal camera was the cellular data provided by AT&T’s sluggish, outage-prone network.

Even Steve Jobs thought AT&T’s data speeds sucked, and according to Re/Code’s Walt Mossberg, Jobs wanted to circumvent the need for cellular data altogether by creating an open WiFi consortium.

iOS and OS X weren’t the only platforms that got some Apple beta loving today. A new update for Apple TV beta 4 was seeded to developers as well this morning that comes with a long awaited UI makeover.

Apple still hasn’t completely done away with the grid of icons approach for Apple TV, but it has given the UI an iOS 7-style makeover with a new set of icons that are a lot flatter than their old counterparts.

Apple is putting the finishing touches on iOS 8 ahead of its fall release, and while previous betas brought some surprising new features, the release of iOS 8 beta 5 is mostly full of tiny tweaks, bug fixes and a few small new additions.

Most of the changes might go unnoticed by most users, but iOS 8 beta 5 has a few nice surprises that refine the iOS 8 experience that will make your iPhone feel new once its released in the fall.

Here are all the tiny changes Apple made in iOS 8 beta 5: