The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has subpoenaed Apple to give the details of its iPhone search deal with Google. The request is a result of the Google antitrust probe the FTC is currently conducting. Apple has been required to reveal the agreements it made to make Google the preferred search engine on the iPhone.
Have you ever wanted to have access to the lyrics of your favorite tunes in the iOS Music app? Do you not want to take the time to manually add lyrics for every song in iTunes? A jailbreak tweak called Lyricalizer automatically fetches the lyrics for songs as their playing on the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and lets you view them right in the default Music app.
One short sentence in the help documents for the new Apple Configurator tool shows that the company is aware that many workers are bringing their personal devices into the office. More noteworthy is the fact that it shows that Apple is thinking about some of the potential privacy issues that can arise in situations like BYOD programs where a personal iPhone or iPad is managed by a company’s IT department.
The sentence in question is in the section on supervised or managed devices. It reads as follows:
Important: When a device is initially supervised during the Prepare process, it’s wiped of all content and settings. This prevents a person’s personal device from being supervised without their knowledge.
Your iPhone’s camera might be good enough to replace your old point-and-shoot — especially if you have the iPhone 4S — but it does have some flaws. For instance, it’s not great at taking those really close-up shots for catching the smallest details; it just doesn’t focus.
But with just a droplet of water, you can add a macro lens to your iPhone that allows you to capture crystal clear high-resolution close-ups. Here’s how!
Siri is arguably, the best digital personal assistant in the world. She can tell you if you need an umbrella. Wake you up when your late. Remind you that you forgot to buy your girlfriend a birthday present, and so many other tasks that sure are nifty. She’s better than having a personal assistant because she doesn’t get all pissed off when you tell her to go get you a coffee, or call in sick so she can go hangout at the beach with her friends.
Did you know Siri can sing too? Yeah, she totally can, and it’s like having J.Lo in your back pocket at all times, without the obtrusive lady lumps. Need proof? Here’s Siri singing a tear jerking robotic rendition of Stairway To Heaven.
Apple Configurator is a new free tool that let’s you manage iOS devices in business or education settings. The app can be used simply as an initial deployment tool or as an ongoing management solution. It’s particularly well suited to environments where iPads and other iOS devices will be shared among multiple users since it can be used in “lending library” fashion with users checking out devices because Configurator backs up user data on check-in and applies to a new device on check-out.
This guide covers each part of Configurator with step-by-step instructions.
Everybody has heard of how crappy Apple supplier Foxconn treats their workers. Long hours. Low pay. Shoddy conditions. Working at a Foxconn factory is in no way glamorous and wonderful, and it looks like even Foxconn is ready to admit as much. In an effort to reshape their image, Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory is looking to hire a Saftey and Security Officer and a Lifestyle Services Manager to make life a little bit more fabulous for their workforce.
Why spend $20 on a good-quality, purpose-made macro lens for your iPhone when you could spend $10 on 3-D printing your own holder and another $4 for a glass lens to put inside it? That, my friends, is a saving of six whole dollars. Six American dollars that Appsman — the maker of this clever lens — is doubtless frittering away on a night of frenzied celebration. And if you, too, want to make yourself six bucks richer, then read on.
Camera+, one of the most popular photography apps for the iPhone, has been updated to version 3 today. In addition to a fancy new icon, the update brings a ton of new features including improved photo sharing, focus and exposure locks, workflows, and more. The release also quashes several bugs.
A rare and interesting Apple prototype surfaced on eBay recently, and although the auction has since ended we thought it notable enough to merit mention. A 1993 prototype called a WALT – Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone – combined a telephone, fax, personal address book and more with a HyperCard user interface. It never shipped, but this vaporware breakthrough netted the seller a cool $8000 on eBay.
A new jailbreak tweak has been released, and it lets you access your Home screen from anywhere in iOS. It’s called Springround, and it costs $0.99 in Cydia, the jailbreak version of the App Store.
It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing on your iPhone; you can quickly view your entire Home screen, all your app pages, etc. on top of the app you’re currently in. Sound interesting?
Do you ever feel like you need a little more screen space while you’re working away on your Mac? Does your iPad sit in its dock next to your iMac staring back at your with a blank face? With Air Display from Avatron, you can put that iPad to good use by turning it into a secondary display for your Mac, allowing you to extend your desktop with an extra 9.7-inches of real estate.
Here’s how to get started with Air Display.
Instagram is one of the most wildly successful apps to ever hit the iOS App Store. The app’s co-founder, Kevin Systrom, recently revealed that Instagram now boasts 27 million active users on the iPhone alone during the South by Southwest conference (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.
We’ve all been clamoring for the popular social photography app to make its way to Android for many months, and it has been confirmed that Instagram for Android is coming “very soon.” The app is currently being tested in private beta.
The boldest claim Systrom made was that Instagram for Android is, in some ways, “better than our iPhone app.”
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the iFrogz Boost, a magic box which amplifies the sound from an iPhone or other device just by being close. You put the iPhone on top and the battery-powered iBoost speaker goes to work, making everything louder.
The technology used is called near field audio, or NFA, but nobody would tell me how it works. Luckily, the iFrogz folks sent me one, so I took it apart to see what’s inside.
Though our own reader poll and the sellout of the new iPad strongly suggest otherwise, at least one gadget site says its readers are not interested in buying the latest version of the device.
Only a quarter of readers polled on gadget news aggregator Drippler who own first-gen iPads plan to upgrade and about the same percentage of iPad 2 owners plan to pony up for the next iPad. (The site wouldn’t reveal exact numbers behind the poll but says they have predominantly U.S. readers who are gadget hounds.)
The Apple TV isn’t positioned as a business or enterprise product, but its small size, easy setup, and AirPlay make it a very solid presentation tool – and the low cost doesn’t hurt, either.
While the Apple TV has the obvious advantage of being wireless and integrated with other Apple products, specific business advantages beyond its small form factor and the ubiquity of HDTVs and other HDMI-enabled display devices like projectors aren’t always immediately obvious (though those are pretty big advantages in their own right) – but at least one company is designing its business solutions around Apple’s so-called hobby device.
Business Intelligence developer MicroStrategy has taken the Apple TV/iOS combination to a new level by building its mobile apps around AirPlay and the Apple TV.
Flight Control is one of the most popular games to ever land in the App Store. The game makers, Firemint, won an Apple design award for the beautiful iPhone and iPad app. The next iteration of Flight Control is set to arrive later this month, right in time for the new iPad’s Retina display.
Flight Control Rocket will take you into space for a new set of adventures. This one looks like a whole lot of fun.
There are a host of hidden debug settings in iOS that developers, security researchers, hackers, and others use to analyze data and fix errors. While most normal users won’t care to look through their iMessage logs, the more inquisitive may feel dangerous enough to try.
Remember when a mysterious new category appeared in the App Store on the eve of the this past week’s iPad announcement? The discovery led most of the Apple blogosphere to believe that some sort of interactive catalog experience would be making its way to the new iPad’s gorgeous Retina display. How exciting!
As it turns out, the Catalogs section of the App Store has launched, and it’s not really that amazing at all. In fact, it’s pretty awful.
An App Store app called iTether got a lot of attention a few months ago for allowing free 3G tethering from any iPhone. Despite the fact that carriers don’t officially support such activity apart from their exorbitant data plans, Apple originally approved iTether. The app shot to the top of the charts before it was pulled less than a day later. If you didn’t get your hands on it then, you were out of luck.
The creators of iTether are announcing something big today. Tether is launching a new HTML5 web app for the iPhone that lets you tether your 3G-enabled iPhone or iPad to any wireless-enabled device. No monthly fee. No jailbreak required.
Apple included a list of new features in the release notes for iOS 5.1, which became available on Wednesday alongside the announcement of the new iPad. It seems that Apple included some unannounced features as well – some of which enable more iOS device security and management when paired with a mobile device management (MDM) suite or with Apple’s new Apple Configurator tool for iOS.
The new management features seem to be primarily related to Siri on the iPhone 4S and they include the ability to prevent any use of Siri while an iPhone 4S is locked as well as the ability to filter out profanity. Additionally, as noted by the Intrepidus Group, a security consulting firm, is the ability to block location services on any iOS device.
A recent update to the iTunes Terms and Conditions adds an interesting clause regarding free trials for in-app subscriptions in the iOS App Store. Ever since the launch of the App Store in 2007, users have been clamoring for some kind of demoing system for paid apps. It looks like Apple may be slowly making strides towards that reality.
Publishers “may offer a free trial period” via in-app subscriptions in an iOS app, according to Apple.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22WWyQeztKw
The website and accompanying YouTube channel might come off like a desperate hobo panhandling for cash, but the meat of the iConnectionKit team’s project looks very interesting. They’re working to enable the iPad camera connection kit on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
China Telecom has become the second Chinese carrier to offer the iPhone 4S today, ending the exclusivity enjoyed by China Unicom for the last 18 months. The company announced back in February that it would begin selling Apple’s popular smartphone from March 9, and it has taken over 200,000 pre-orders in just the last week.
A common complaint that I heard earlier this week at the CITE conference in San Francisco was that Apple wasn’t a “real” enterprise vendor. IT professionals have whined and moaned about the fact that Apple doesn’t behave like most enterprise vendors for years (as a long time Mac and Apple IT professional myself, I’ve probably muttered under my breath about Apple’s approach to the enterprise many more times than most of the CITE attendees). What’s changed, however, is that CIOs and other IT leaders can no longer simply say “no” anytime Apple or an Apple product is mentioned.
This week, Apple even reiterated the point by dropping Apple Configurator, a completely new free tool for managing iOS devices in business. It’s a tool that offers new workflows when it comes to how businesses work with iPads (and to a lesser extent iPhones) and Apple released without telling its mobile management partners or its enterprise customers.
To all those IT folks bitching and complaining that Apple doesn’t publish 18-month roadmaps and doesn’t reach out to every enterprise months in advance of a product upgrade or cancelation, I have to say this: deal with it.