The cloud storage wars continue with a new tweet from Microsoft’s SkyDrive Twitter account. The service, typically offering seven gigabytes of online storage for free, just made an offer Apple’s jilted MobileMe members might not be able to refuse.
In a tweet today, @SkyDrive offered anyone who could forward the Apple downgrade email to a special SkyDrive email address would receive an extra 15GB of Microsoft’s own cloud storage system for one year for free.
Remember MobileMe? When Apple transitioned to iCloud, MobileMe users with paid plans were coaxed over with 20GB of complimentary storage. Apple had originally planned to take the free gigabytes away on September 30th, 2012, but the deadline got pushed back another year.
In an email to affected customers today, Apple reminds everyone that the free storage promotion comes to an actual end this year on September 30th.
“When it expires, your iCloud storage will be automatically adjusted to the free 5 GB plan,” explains Apple. “If you exceed your storage plan on September 30, 2013, iCloud Backup, Documents in the Cloud, and iCloud Mail will temporarily stop working.”
If you need more storage than 5GB, you can upgrade your iCloud plan now.
Source: Apple
Cult of Mac reader, Josh K, asks:
If I download a podcast episode when I am out and about, then get home and sync my iPhone, I find when it is finished syncing, whatever episodes were downloaded have been removed. And I have to either download them again or manually sync them.
How can I make this process easier or stop the phone taking the recently downloaded episodes off every time I sync?
Unfortunately, there’s no simple fix for this one, so you’re going to have to choose, Josh: either sync via iTunes or manage podcasts on your iPhone. I’m not able to find a solution which lets you do both. Here’s what I recommend.
One of Apple’s biggest antagonist regarding smartphone theft says that he’s pretty happy with the improved security features of iOS 7.
After announcing his efforts last week to test Apple’s new security lock, San Francisco District Attorney, George Gascón says that Apple’s Activation Lock is a “clear improvement” over previous solutions aimed at deterring thieves from stealing smartphones.
Registered developers have been testing the iWork for iCloud beta since Apple announced it at WWDC, but it appears Apple is now opening testing up to the general public. Many iCloud users who aren’t registered with the company’s developer program have received invitations to get involved.
Do you have an easier time remembering faces than names? Have a ton of contacts with the first name “Mike” but want to reach a specific one that you know by seeing him rather than hearing his name? If so, Cult of Mac Deals has an offer that is going to help you deal with your contacts with that sensibility in mind.
Ensoul is the easiest way to create perfectly sized wallpapers and full-size contact images for your iPhone, and Cult of Mac Deals has it for a limited time for the low price of only $5.
Apple’s new ‘iWork for iCloud’ suite of browser-based apps are now ready for testing. Developers received a notification today that iWork for iCloud is up and ready for a test drive.
iWork for iCloud allows users to edit any iWork document from a web browser. The programs will run on a PC or Mac as long you’re running Safari, Chrome, or Internet Explorer. iWork for iCloud includes browser-based versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.
To access the new service, developers can head to beta.icloud.com and log in.
Source: Apple
Via: FSM
Were you beginning to think iWork was dead? Fear not. Today Apple announced iWork for iCloud, its answer to cloud-based document creation in the browser. Also, new versions of the three existing iWork apps are coming later this year.
Byword, a wonderful Markdown editor for Mac and iOS, has today been updated to version 2.0. The release brings a number of new features to both platforms, with the most notable edition being the ability to publish directly to WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, and more.
Rockstar Games has today updated Grand Theft Auto 3 for iOS to finally introduce support for the iPhone 5’s larger display. The update also adds the ability to play custom playlists in-game, and sync your game saves between other iOS devices via iCloud.
If you’ve been looking for that perfect mail client for Mac since Sparrow sold itself to Google, then now’s the time to stop and check out Airmail, a gorgeous new mail client that just hit the Mac App Store.
It actually looks a lot like Sparrow, and it’s designed to provide you with a “modern and easy-to-use experience.” But it’s packed full of great features to give you everything you’ll ever need for your email. It’s also a bargain at just $1.99.
During a Q&A session at D11 last night, Tim Cook was asked whether Apple would ever port any of its apps to rival platforms like Android or Windows Phone. His response was somewhat surprising; Cook said that Apple wasn’t against porting apps and services to other platforms — if it made sense.
The only problem is, Cook doesn’t believe that it does make sense.
Rovio has launched a new service called Rovio Accounts, which allows you to pick up your saved games on any mobile device. So if you complete ten Angry Birds levels on your Android smartphone, you’ll see the same progress when you login on your iPad.
Rovio Accounts isn’t just compatible with Angry Birds, but other titles from Rovio as well. The service will initially launch worldwide inside The Croods, as well as in the original Angry Birds game for iOS in Finland and Poland.
iCloud push services could soon resume in Germany more than a year after they were killed after a high court stayed Motorola’s patent trial against Apple on Wednesday. Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court issued a press release that said both Apple and Google — which now owns Motorola — agreed to the stay, which has called into question the validity of Motorola’s patent.
Today Apple announced its financial earnings for the last fiscal quarter, reporting the first year-over-year loss in profit the company has seen in ten years. The tone of Apple’s call with investors was quite different than past quarters. Tim Cook and co. seemed very much on the defensive, as Wall Street has been hammering AAPL for the past several months.
There were still several interesting tidbits from the call that we’ve rounded up. Tim Cook spoke vaguely about exciting new products in the fall and throughout 2014. Comments were made about the possibility of a larger iPhone, iMac supply constraints, and, of course, plenty of numbers.
Apple has added a small but notable option to the iTunes Store. You can now choose to download movies and TV shows later. When you make a purchase, a new dialog box asks if you want to download the media now, or store it in your purchases list.
While the feature itself isn’t anything new—you’ve been able to download previously purchased items for awhile—the option to postpone a download until later is something Apple just added.
Before the disastrous launch of Apple Maps, one of Apple’s biggest failures of all-time was the launch of MobileMe. Apple set a group of engineers out to rebrand .Mac and create a new cloud-based product that totally fell over the night it launched.
Steve Jobs famously met with the entire MobileMe team in the campus auditorium and fired the manger of the project on the spot. Then he told everyone, “you’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation … You should hate each other for having let each other down.” It was one of Steve Jobs’ most famous tough-leader moments, but according to one insider, Steve should have been yelling at himself because the MobileMe launch failure was really his fault.
LaunchBar power-users should get their virtual asses over to developer Obdev’s nightly builds page and grab the latest version of v5.5. Amongst a whole bunch of neat fixes and tweaks it adds one essential new feature: support for your iCloud documents.
Nope, it’s not just you: iMessage and FaceTime are experiencing issues this morning, with loads of users on Twitter (and, for that matter, my girlfriend) reporting problems. Yesterday, iMessage and Facetime also reported a number of issues. Jeez, Apple, get it together.
Source: Apple
Readdle Documents has today been updated with support for the iPhone, following its launch on the iPad back in January. Documents isn’t just a file manager, but also a document editor, a web browser, and a media player. So whether you’re editing a letter, organizing some photos, or you just want to kick back and watch that movie you downloaded, Documents will let you do it all — and for free.
Having a hard time sending iMessages to friends recently? You’re probably one of those that are affected by the current iMessage and FaceTime outage.
Word of the outage quickly spread across Twitter this afternoon that users are experiencing outages with iMessage. A FaceTime outage quickly followed and Apple just updated its support page to acknowledge the service outage.
We’ll let you know once things are back on.
Update: Looks like everything is back up and running.
Real Racing 3 is set to get its first update since hitting the App Store back in February, and it’s going to be a big one. In addition to adding two new cars, users will see more than 100 new events, a new game mode, and iCloud save syncing. EA has published a teaser trailer ahead of the update’s release, which shows off the new cars.
Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is one of my favorite Sega games on iOS, and it’s making its way to the Mac thanks to Feral Interactive. The game will be available to download from the Mac App Store tomorrow, April 4, with support for Game Center and iCloud game syncing.
Bookmarks are a great way to return to the websites you’re most often interested in. However, there are a ton of times when you just want to remember a specific website once, maybe to show to another person or do some research with. There are a ton of online bookmarking services, like Delicio.us and Pinterest, but they have a whole social networking layer that maybe you just want to skip.
If you want to save the URL of any website in an iCloud-synched app, look no further than Apple’s own Notes app.
iCloud is a pretty neat system, working in the background across a ton of different apps without much input needed from us users, except our login name and password. It lets you sync Notes, Reminders, save documents, keep game saved-states, and even manage your music collection