News - page 1604

Audible. An amazing service, with the worst app ever. Until now, that is. Not only has Amazon (Audible’s owner) finally made a version for the iPad, it has also tweaked the iPhone version extensively.

Unless it’s full of unread notifications, the iPhone’s lock screen is already pretty bare — Apple has designed it to be clean and clear, like the rest of iOS. But you can take it a step further with SubtleLock, a new tweak for jailbroken iPhones that adds a touch of minimalism to your lock screen to provide you with more space and a cleaner look.

The more and more we all use social network tools like Facebook and Twitter, the more we can see the benefit of using them in smaller, more unique groups. How great would it be to have a social network that is only open to members of a school project, a church group, or a hot rod club? Instead of going through the hassle of building a Facebook group, figuring out privacy and membership, you could just connect folks together easily and quickly and be done with it.

Well, the folks at Celly seem to have thought of that already, offering a build your own social network that you can create and manage while you’re on the go.

Tweetbot for Mac has received a great new feature for keeping track of specific accounts. You can now receive custom notifications for individual Twitter users.

The app has also been updated with the ability to choose what kind of notifications appear in the dock or menubar icon. There’s timeline thumbnail support for Vine and Flickr, and a lot more.

Earlier today it was reported that Apple’s computers had been compromised by a zero-day exploit in Java. Apple quickly released an update to patch the flaw for all Macs, but not before some of its own employees had been hacked.

The hack in question affected more than just Apple; Silicon Valley giants like Facebook and Twitter were also compromised. How exactly were hackers able to gain access to some of the biggest tech companies’ computers? The source is a single web forum for iPhone development.

With only five days left in their Kickstarter project, the team behind Vendetta Online would like to get your support. This cross platform massively multiplayer online space game is currently available for the Mac and other platforms, but really wants to get onto the iPad.

The Kickstarter project is looking to raise $100,000 dramatically expand the existing game and create it on the iPad, but they currently only have $38,000 pledged toward that goal.

Apple released iOS 6.1.2 earlier today, and jailbreakers are officially safe from the brand new firmware. Two updates to iOS 6.1 have been released since the Evasi0n jailbreak was unleashed, and Apple has yet to patch the hack. It was revealed earlier today that 6.1.2 was still safe on Twitter.

The Evasi0n website has been updated to officially recognize 6.1.2 as a supported firmware version. You can download it now and use the free tool to jailbreak any iOS device running 6.1.2. Existing jailbreakers on 6.1 have no reason to update to 6.1.2 and re-jailbreak unless they are affected by the Microsoft Exchange bug.

If you’d like to jailbreak with Evasi0n, make sure to use our handy tutorial.

Source: Evasi0n

Apple today released an update to iTunes on Windows and Mac. iTunes 11.0.2 is a minor update that address numerous bug fixes and adds the ability to sort music by Composer. The app’s responsiveness has been improved when handling large playlists. You can grab the 54.2 MB update now in the Mac App Store.

Hot on the heels of Oracle’s own update, Apple has released a Java for OS X 2013-001 software update for download that addresses the software vulnerability that compromised a number of their employees’ computers.

Following today’s big story that a number of employee computers within Apple were compromised following a zero-day Java exploit, Oracle has just released update 15 for Java 7 and update 41 for Java 6.

While there’s no specific mention of what has been updated, there’s excellent reason to believe it fixes the vulnerability that compromised both Apple and Facebook.

Over the last couple months, we’ve seen Apple fanboys’ obsession move away from an Apple TV set, and focus on the iWatch. As rumors have ramped up that Apple might make their own wearable computer very soon, people have wondered what an iWatch might look like.

We’ve seen a lot of concept renderings of iWatches over the past two years, and while many of them have been a bit crazy, some are pretty neat and feasible. We don’t really know much about the iWatch other than it will have a curved glass display and be worn on the wrist, but if you combine a few aspects from each of these concepts, you might get a ballpark idea of what the iWatch will look like.

iOS 6.1.2 is out now, quashing some battery life and Microsoft Exchange issues… but is it safe to update if you’re a jailbreaker?

Right now, the answer to that question is a qualified no. If you want to keep your jailbreak, you shouldn’t update yet, but according to Team Evad3rs member Planetbeing, iOS 6.1.2 will in all likelihood be jailbreakable in very quick time. [Update: Planetbeing now says that Evasi0n will be updated tonight with iOS 6.1.2 support!]

Having all but dumped my iPad for an iPad mini, I’m now back in the bag dating pool, searching for the perfect match for my little friend and his favorite accessories.

The Polly bag certainly isn’t that perfect match – it’s a girls’ bag and it’s for the big, ugly retina iPad – but when it turned up on my dating radar I figured that it’s totally worth a look.

V-Moda likes to say their new Crossfade M-100s ($310) are the first pair of “crowdsourced” headphones on the market today. Put simply, that means they culled product feedback from forums and social media, and solicited input from audiophiles, journalists, and enthusiasts to create them.

I applaud the endeavor—working with so much public input definitely had the potential to backfire on them; have you seen the Homer car? But V-Moda, somehow, someway, was able to weave the wisps and whispers of public and professional feedback into a a set of headphones so good, they just earned the highest review score I’ve ever given.

What Happened?

According to Apple, a “small number” of its employees computers were compromised due to a vulnerability in Java.

How Did It Happen?

It appears that this zero-day exploit is the same one that resulted in a number of Facebook employees having malware installed on their laptops as a result of visiting a mobile developer website that had been compromised: Apple says their employees were infected “through a website for software developers.”

Following up on the news that Apple experienced a recent attack by hackers who infected some Macs with malicious software, Apple says they know how they did it.

In a statement released to All Things D, Apple says that the hackers accessed a number of Mac systems through a vulnerability in the Java plug-in for browsers.

Here’s the full statement:

Like an idiot, I just last week gave The Lady my old aluminum MacBook to replace her dying plastic one. And now I see the Vool, a MacBook stand so gorgeous that I want to buy a can of silver spray-paint to somehow steal back my old MacBook without her noticing.

There’s a lot of things you have to keep track of in outer space. How much oxygen you have. Whether cosmic rays are irradiating your fellow crewmen. Which of your fellow astronauts are possible Russian saboteurs. How much murderous sentience your onboard space computer is exhibiting. And, of course, whether or not you are maintaining a balanced diet.

Right now, there’s not an app for that, believe it or not… but NASA and TopCoder, a program competition company, are working on that. And they need your help.

According to a report from Reuters, Apple says it was attacked by a group of hackers who infected a small number of its Mac computers.

The admission from Apple comes just a few days after Facebook admitted that they were hacked by an unidentified hacker group that has been traced back to China. The group has staged sophisticated attacks by infiltrating Apple employee’s laptops, but Apple claims no user information was compromised.

Apple has released iOS 6.1.2 for all of its iOS devices, including the iPad mini and iPhone 5. The release notes say that a bug with Microsoft’s Exchange accounts has been fixed. This public release follows iOS 6.1.1, an update that was made available for the iPhone 4S on February 11th.

The minor 6.1.2 update is available now OTA. Apple has previously said that it would fix a lockscreen passcode bug in a future update to iOS 6. This update most likely patches the Evasi0n jailbreak as well, so jailbreakers beware!

We’ve got the direct download links below the break.

Forget 8-megapixel pictures and HDR — if you want photos that instantly look cool, then it’s time to take a step back… all the way back to the eighties. Camera C64 is a free iPhone app that helps you relive the days when the Commodore C64 was considered cutting-edge technology by delivering authentic 16-color photos that are almost guaranteed to look good.

Everpix is my new favorite photo app. Or rather, photo service. Grab the apps for your iPhone, iPad, Mac and PC and Everpix will upload all your photos (except screenshots) to its servers and then perform some special magic upon them. For instance, the Highlights view will only show you the very best of your pictures. It’s pretty neat.

HTC’s much-leaked flagship phone, the HTC One, has just become official in New York and London, but you’ve got to be wondering how the new 4.7-inch Android superphone stacks up against the competition. Wonder no more, we’ve got a spec-by-spec breakdown on how it does compared to the BlackBerry Z10, iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920, Samsung Galaxy SIII and Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD, and the answer to that question is: damn well, all specs considered.

ECBC’s new range of roll-along luggage packs a rather neat feature: a battery pack which will charge your gadgets as you travel.

Apple could launch its $330 “iPhone mini” as early as this summer to boost the company’s smartphone sales in China, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty. It’s expected the low-cost device could provide Apple with an additional 20% of the smartphone market, adding to the 10% it has already claimed with the iPhone 5. And with smartphone prices now beginning to stabilize in China, now would be an ideal time for such a device.