David W. Martin - page 10

Apple has now made iTunes 10.3.1 available to download an incremental update to iTunes 10.3 released earlier this week. In case you missed it here’s what’s new!

Apple released an update to iBooks today that incorporates a new feature called read-along plus the usual improvements and bug fixes we typically expect from Apple.

Apple has updated Find My iPhone today to improve support for devices that are offline.

Today, Apple announced a new service called iCloud which will be available this fall. Apple’s iCloud will be free for iOS 5 and OS X Lion users.  Users that sign up for iCloud will be able to retain their me.com or mac.com email address and all of their MobileMe mail, calendars, contacts, and bookmarks will move to the new service.

We don’t know about you, but personally we are more excited about the next version of iOS than we are the next version of  the iPhone. The iPhone 4 is fairly adequate and meets most of our needs, but iOS has a lot of room for improvement. WWDC 2011 is just around the corner and we know that Apple will be announcing iOS 5 there so here is a round-up of the current rumors surrounding the next version of iOS.

Apple last update for iwork.com was released in January this year. Users were notified via e-mail, that enhancements to iWork.com Apple’s public beta online service for iWork ’09 users had been released.

This announcement came out of the blue at the time regarding a service that has definitely been off the radar for a long time and in beta for longer than I can remember. It’s future isn’t clear considering the pace at which Apple is deploying features on it. Perhaps that will change this year with the rumored release of iWork ’11 and the imminent release of Apple’s iCloud services at WWDC 2011 next week.

XtremeMac recently released a thin plastic snap-on shell that covers the back of the iPad 2 called the Microshield ($35). It ships as is with no other options and the minimalist case leaves you wondering about who it was made to appeal to and the use of the word “shield” in selecting a name for it is misleading.

Apple has released an update to Logic Express and Pro so that both applications support the ability to open projects that users create on an iPad using GarageBand on that platform.

A couple of YouTube videos have surfaced demonstrating the new interactive iPad software located next to all Apple products in the Apple Store 2.0 retail layout.  Each iPad acts as a kiosk that customers can use to explore product features, perform product comparisons, and summon help from a sales associate.

Apple Store 2.0 has launched in Australia and it looks like some of the rumors are true. The new version of the store features interactive product displays using iPads.

Jack Dorsey, the head of Square and co-founder of Twitter, dropped a hint on Saturday via a cryptic Tweet about a possible deal with Apple. The Tweet simply said, “Apple @Square” along with a link to an Instagram photo of a plate of sliced Apples shaped like the Square logo.

Rumors have been circulating for the last week or so about changes to Apple’s online and retail stores. Now a new one has cropped up about the Apple Store iOS app.

Apple’s order status web page is down this week-end for maintenance. If you attempt to check the status of an existing order you’ll see the above message displayed for all online stores across the globe.

Intel’s family of Sandy Bridge processors is about to get a whole lot bigger as the chip manufacturing company ramps up production of new ultra-low voltage (ULV) processors that would be a perfect fit for my favorite portable computer — the MacBook Air.

The folks at All Things Digital have obtained a statement from Apple in regards to the explosion that occurred at Foxconn’s facilities in Chengdu China where the iPad 2 is manufactured.

According to a report on local television station KHOU Channel 11 you just might get more than you bargained for after your next trip to a local Apple Store in Houston, Texas. According to authorities in Houston there have been at least six Apple customers in Houston who have been followed home and robbed at gunpoint.

On Tuesday this week Square started passing out invitations to the companies first special event. The event will take place at Square’s headquarters in San Francisco on May 23rd at 10:00 AM PDT. Some “exciting news” will be announced.

Apple has released two new updates today that improve support for processing raw image files from recently released digital cameras and provide enhancements and bug fixes for Apple’s audio/video production tools for professionals.

My most favorite feature of Mac OS X Lion, Mission Control, now has a separate control panel in System Preferences in Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 3. However, this isn’t the only new thing you’ll find in the latest release of Mac OS X Lion.

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We’ve been speculating on Apple’s partnership with Nuance for some weeks now, and confirmation the two companies are working together comes with the new speech technology discovered in the Mac OS X Lion beta. Now you can hear those new voices for yourself.

I’ve seen a lot of iPad and iPhone cases over the last few years and the iSkin Summit is the first iPad case that makes me want to scratch my head in disbelief. It’s so different that I just have to call it weird and the garish red color of the sample I was sent only made it worse.

Apple is reinventing the way we think about accessing application windows, organization of those windows, and the way we access running applications. A new feature called Mission Control in Mac OS X 10.7 lion makes it all easy.

Apple has released the fifth version of its developer preview for Xcode 4.1. But what’s new?

We’ve received various reports from developers testing Lion Developer Preview 2 that the Preview 3 update is no longer appearing in Software Update on machines running Lion Developer Preview 2 released on March 30th.

A number of users are reporting problems with Wi-Fi or 3G data connections after upgrading their iPhones to iOS 4.3.3. I’ve encountered the problem myself on 3G and a friend called me the other day to complain to me about the problem on both Wi-Fi and 3G. He was pretty frustrated about it and I cannot blame him since it seemed to come and go for him.

You’ll notice the problem manifest itself whenever you try to access a network resource and the busy indicator to the right of the carrier signal label seems to get stuck and nothing happens – mail isn’t downloaded, a web page doesn’t load, etc. I haven’t noticed the problem on my iPad 2 nor have I seen people complain about it happening on their iPads.