Luke Dormehl - page 348

Apple has lost its latest bid to put court-appointed antitrust monitor Michael Bromwich on hold, with a federal appeals court rejecting Apple’s claim that the monitor’s work was causing irreparable harm.

In a brief order, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said that Bromwich (the former U.S. attorney and Justice Department inspector general given the job of ensuring antitrust compliance regarding e-book price fixing) may continue to examine Apple’s antitrust compliance policies, while Apple pursues a broader appeal seeking to remove him altogether.

Carl Icahn has backed off campaigning Apple to increase its stock buyback — citing the company’s recent repurchases, along with influential proxy adviser ISS’s call against his proposal.

In a letter directed to Apple shareholders, Icahn noted that he was ditching his non-binding proposal to get Apple to add a further $50 billion to its buyback plan — down from the original $150 billion he was initially requesting.

Borrowing its premise from the Jet Li-starring cult martial arts actioner The One, Only One is a retro-styled arena slasher that pits a sword-wielding hero against waves of enemies on what looks to be a giant floating platform in the sky.

Popular universal iOS journal app My Wonderful Days has been given an update, adding several notable features.

First and foremost is the ability for users to now add videos to their multimedia journals — either shooting one themselves, or else adding an existing video from their iOS device’s library.

iPhone manufacturer Foxconn has signed a letter of intent promising to invest up to $US1 billion in Indonesia.

The $1 billion investment would be carried out in between three and five years, and will cover areas including R&D, electronics software design, manufacturing and assembly of electronic products.

For the most part, iOS 7 controllers are still pretty expensive and a bit of a luxury. If you already own one, however, and have a taste for retro video games, you’ll be pleased to hear that Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic CD have now received updates adding controller support.

Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) has recommended that shareholders vote against Carl Icahn’s share buyback proposal for Apple.

According to the ISS report, “[The Apple board] has returned the bulk of its U.S.-generated cash to shareholders via aggressive stock buybacks and dividends payouts. In light of these good-faith efforts and its past stewardship, the board’s latitude should not be constricted by a shareholder resolution that would micromanage the company’s capital allocation process.”

iPhones with the deleted smash hit iOS game Flappy Bird still installed are garnering bids of up to $99,900.00 on eBay.

Leading the way is eBay user pindrus who is selling his used 16GB iPhone 5s (“The item may have some signs of cosmetic wear, but is fully operational and functions as intended”) with the game, and has so far attracted more than 70 bids.

Just a few months after its launch, LinkedIn has made the call to kill controversial feature LinkedIn Intro — which embedded LinkedIn profiles inside your iOS Mail app.

Despite being a cleverly designed solution, LinkedIn Intro was cricitized almost immediately for being invasive and a potential security risk. Security firm Bishop Fox described the service as “a dream for attackers.”

Until Apple finally comes out with its eagerly anticipated iWatch, Nike — at least in terms of style — is perhaps the closest thing to Apple in the wearable computing space (Tim Cook does, after all, sit on its board). I resisted picking up the original 2012 Fuelband but, motivated by a desire to get fit for the new year, bought its sequel, the Fuelband SE, earlier this year. Having had a bit of time to try it out, here’s what I make of it. (Thoughts registered between exercise-related wheezes.)

Popular wine tasting app Wine Spectator WineRatings+ has received a notable upgrade, adding updated content, a new design interface, and a version designed specifically for iPad.

While the mandatory iOS 7 design improves readability and ease of use, the real improvements include an updated Top 100 Wines list for 2013, containing editors’ latest list of the world’s “most exciting” wine.

A recent report suggested that Apple was restarting manufacture of the iPhone 4 to target India, Indonesia and Brazil as developing markets. In fact, sources say that Apple never stopped making the phone.

A news story for BGR India claims that — while the volumes might not have been so high as that of the iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, or even the iPhone 4s — Apple continued manufacturing the iPhone 4 ever since its introduction, since the phone serves as a key component of Apple’s sales strategy in countries outside of the U.S. and Western Europe.

Popular MMO (that’s Massively Multiplayer Online) game, Line of Defense, has arrived on iOS via a new combat strategy game called Line of Defense Tactics.

Giving gamers the opportunity to take control of a team of four Galactic Command Marines (GALCOMs) as they embark on a range of missions across space stations, starships, and planetary battlefields, Line of Defense Tactics lets you train your squad, upgrade their stats, weapons, inventory and abilities en route to becoming the ultimate fighting force.

The money side of Apple is nothing out of the ordinary for anyone who follows investor news and views. The idea, however, that Apple products — specifically the iPhone — may be considered a form of hard currency in themselves is something a little bit different.

That’s the premise of a recent post by Bloomberg News reporter Vernon Silver, however, who claims that in recent months he’s been using unlocked iPhones to pay his bills.

Today sees the App Store launch of retro-styled hack n’ slash iOS actioner, Only One.

Borrowing its one-man-fights-off-millions-of-enemies-on-top-of-a-giant-tower premise from the Jet Li-starring cult movie The One, the game is the fighting equivalent of a never-ending platformer — only with waves of enemies (70 in all, plus 7 bosses) taking the place of constant leaps and obstacles.

Tim Cook has acknowledged that Apple has bought back $14 billion of its own shares over the past two weeks — reacting to an 8 percent decline in shares following the recent financial quarter results.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Cook admitted that he was “surprised” by Wall Street’s reaction to Apple’s last quarter, in which the company broke records by selling 77 million iOS devices over the holiday season.

Apple’s recent share repurchase is the largest of its kind for a company of Apple’s size over a similar timespan. During the past 12 months, Apple has bought back $40 billion of its own shares — part of a plan to repurchase a total of $60 billion. In the past two weeks Cook says that Apple bought $12 billion of its shares through an “accelerated” repurchase program, and a further $2 billion on the open market. Apple plans to disclose updates to its buyback program either next month or in April.

We’ve all likely done it: you’re sending a text message — only to find out after hitting the “send” button that your carefully crafted comments have fallen victim to some embarrassing autocorrect abomination.

Clearly someone at Apple has had the same experience, since a new Apple patent suggests that future iPhones may include an option for correcting messages after the user has instructed the device to send, but before the transmittal of the message has taken place.

From quadrocopter deliveries to rumors of a 3D Kindle smartphone coming in 2014, Amazon has been on the cutting edge of tech for quite some time now. The company’s latest update for its iOS app, however, might be among the most fun new developments we’ve seen.

Along with the ubiquitous bug fixes seen in practically every iOS app update, version 3.2.1 of Amazon’s retail app includes a feature called “Flow” which lets users quickly and easily search for products using their iOS camera.

We said it wouldn’t be too long until a jailbreak was available for iOS 7.0.5, and thankfully the good folks at Evad3rs haven’t let us down — since Evasi0n has just released its untethered iOS 7.0.5 jailbreak.

U.S. iPhone users won’t get a whole lot from the iOS 7.0.5 update, since its changes mainly deal with minor bug fixes to network errors on Chinese carriers — but for those looking for assurance that their unlocked iPhone can be used internationally without problem, it may be worth a download.

What do Steve Jobs, Tony Hawk, Elvis Presley, and Marlon Brando have in common? All of them qualify as “cool.”

That’s the verdict of the curators of a new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery — opening Friday — which explores the concept of “American Cool” through some of its most iconic figures.

Apple’s dislike of bitcoin has been on display for quite some while now, but the cyber-currency has been hit yet again as Apple removed Blockchain — the world’s most popular bitcoin wallet — from its App Store late Wednesday.

Apple had previously removed fellow wallets BitPak and Coinbase — while Blockchain had previously found itself excised, only to later be re-accepted.

After what seems like a lifetime of anticipation, Final Fantasy VI for iOS has finally touched down in the App Store.

Representing the FF series at its 2D peak, the game (which originally hit consoles back in 1994) takes place in an eye-popping Industrial Revolution-inspired world, as characters Terra and Locke battle to escape the clutches of an evil Empire.

When I was young, maybe between the ages of twelve and fifteen, I used to make very basic games with a friend of mine called James Brzezicki. They were almost always the simplest things imaginable: a single sprite jumping over other sprites, or a ball bouncing back and forth between two paddles. This wasn’t because we had worked out how to strip gaming down to its most base elements, but rather because it was all we could work out how to program.

A new Apple patent describes an invention that may one day replace the Mac’s Finder.

Referring to a method for classifying documents in such a way as to allow for a multi-dimensional graphical representation of their contents, the patent would move away from the way information is currently structured toward a “graphical multidimensional file management system and method” that would be far more intuitive than the system used today.

President Obama used an iPad for an impromptu interview during a recent appearance at a Maryland middle school.

The President — who has previously claimed that he spends hours using the iPad each day — seemed perfectly at home as he used the device to carry out an interview with the classroom teacher, before turning the iPad to record the pupils, assembled press members, and “Mike, my secret service agent” who he claims “never smiles.”