News - page 1609

With Nintendo’s Wii U and Microsoft’s Smart Glass initiatives, it’s not surprising that Sony would find their own second screen solution, this one via a PlayStation app, planned for both iOS and Android devices. The PlayStation App will allow gamers playing Sony’s newly announced PlayStation 4 gaming console to look at in-game maps, buy games from the PlayStation Store while on the go, or watch other gamers play on their own PS4s.

If you’re like me, you’re always on the hunt for gorgeous wallpapers to lovingly bestow upon your shiny gadgets. Merek Davis has curated a fantastic selection of wallpapers by designer Kyle Gray, and you can download them all in Apple-friendly resolutions from his website.

I love this collection of stuff because it’s all wonderfully minimal. Loud and busy wallpapers are distracting, but these are simple enough to fade into the foreground of your display. Really nice.

Square, the mobile payment startup that lets you pay for your coffee with an iPhone app, has announced a new product for small business owners. Since Square already specializes in helping merchants use the iPhone and iPad to process payments, the company is launching what it’s calling a “Business in a Box.” The package includes an iPad stand, cash drawer and optional receipt printer. It lets Apple’s tablet totally replace a traditional cash register.

Yesterday it was reported that malware had infiltrated the Macs of Apple’s employees. It was big news because this is the first attack to affect Apple internally on such a big scale. The source of the malware was traced back to a popular forum for iPhone developers called iPhoneDevSDK. A vulnerability in a Java plugin on the site allowed for hackers to hijack the plugin and use it to insert malware.

While iPhoneDevSDK has been a dangerous site to visit due to the hack, the site’s administration has confirmed that it is “clean” to use again.

As Apple continues to expand its presence internationally, the company has reportedly created a new executive position for handling business affairs in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa. An unverified report claims that Josh Rosenstock, former Director of External Communications for luxury car maker Rolls Royce, has been hired to fill the spot.

This gorgeous iWatch concept designed by Nikolai Lamm by commission of MyVouchersCode is my idea of what an Apple watch should actually look like, and how it would function: as an accessory to the iPhone.

Spotify is one of the best music services available now and practically negates the need to ever buy music from iTunes. Being able to stream almost any song to your iPhone whenever you want is a dream for most people; the only problem is you have to pay a monthly fee for the app to work.

A new report claims that Spotify is trying to change all that by renegotiating deals with record companies so that you can get Spotify on your iPhone for free.

Last Friday, the BBC published part of its interview with Jony Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, which was shown during a special episode of children’s television show Blue Peter on Saturday morning. The full interview has now been posted to YouTube, and it shows Ive talking about product naming techniques.

Following yesterday’s surprise announcement that multiple employee computers within Cuptertino had been compromised by a malicious zero-day Java exploit that was uploaded to an iOS developer forum, the owner of the attacked site has spoken out, claiming that not only did he have no idea he had been hacked… Apple never even contacted him to tell him.

It’s been over 16 months since Steve Jobs passed away, leaving Apple without its inspirational leader. Even though the company has released a number of new products and reported record-breaking sales, some of Steve’s closest friends at the company still miss him.

Apple’s chairman, Art Levinson, was a close friend and colleague of Steve Jobs, and he’s been on Apple’s Board of Directors since 2000. So when he was recently asked what it’s like running the company’s Board now that Steve’s gone, Levinson only had one word to describe it: “weird.”

Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple alongside Steve Jobs back in 1976, believes the Cupertino company still has the ability to determine the future of consumer electronics, despite increasing competition from its rivals. He admits, however, that the company may be losing its edge, and that it increasingly needs to rely on its premium brand.

For the last two decades of his life, Steve Jobs was a Mercedes man, through and through. But in the 80s, Steve Jobs was a Porsche man. He gave one as an award to the salesman who sold the most Macs in the United States. And in 1980, Apple even sponsored a Porsche to race in the 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car endurance race.

When we first saw Google’s Glass project, we were fairly skeptical that A) it would work as advertised, B) not make you look like some maxiod cyberborg super dweeb. We still have reservations about both of those problems, but using Project Glass looks freaking awesome.

Google just released a video this morning that shows what the UI is going to look like for people who are willing to shell out $1500 for some fancy Google branded eyeglasses. I could describe all the magical features for you, but here, just watch the video below:

Despite the fact that you’ll probably end up killing someone because of it, you’re going to keep using your phone in the car. With this in mind, I bring tidings of the Airframe from Kenu, a tiny smartphone mount which clips to the louvers of your car’s ventilation holes and hugs the phone tightly. The idea is that your iPhone is now secure and convenient, making it less likely that you’ll mow down a cyclist while you try to compose a Tweet.

With analysts openly chattering about how Cupertino needs to take a few lessons from Samsung on how to innovate in the smartphone market, a reality check: during the last quarter of 2012, the iPhone 5 was the best selling smartphone in the world. And the second best-selling smartphone? The iPhone 4S, edging the Galaxy S3 out by over 2 million units.

Foxconn has reportedly placed a recruitment freeze across most of its factories in China as the company slows production of the iPhone 5, the Financial Times reports. This is believed to be the first such freeze since 2009, and it’s seen as an emphasis of the “weakening demand” for some Apple products. But does the freeze really have anything to do with Apple’s devices?

AU Optronics, a display manufacturer that produces panels for the iPad mini, has reportedly caught up with its orders following poor yield rates during the second half of 2012. The company has produced one million displays for the device, according to industry sources, and it has now begun work on its next project — a new display for the next-generation iPad mini.

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.