News - page 1739

Ahead of the launch of Parallels Desktop 8, Parallels has launched a crowdsourced “Apple In The Workplace Barometer” that allows businesses or individual employees to see how their workplace ranks in terms of BYOD readiness for Macs, iOS devices, and other technologies. The site offers a quick and simple questionnaire that asks workers (or managers) about their work computing tasks, resources, and company-provided options. At the end of the survey, their company is plotted on a grid that measures active adoption of Apple technologies and active IT support for Macs, iPhones, and iPads.

For the last week and a half, we’ve been asking Cult of Mac readers to spill out their gadget bags and show us what’s inside for a chance to win one of three incredible bags and sleeves by one of our favorite designers, Waterfield Designs, as part of our “What’s In Your Gadget Bag?” contest. We got dozens of fantastic entries, but at the end of the day, we only have three prizes to give away, so here are the winners.

After months of delays, Isis has announced the debut of its mobile payment system. A joint venture by AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, Isis made news earlier this year at the Mobile World Congress in March, but has been pretty quiet since then. During that quiet period a number of other players in the mobile payment market have stolen the spotlight and announced major deals.

Apple is expected to eventually unveil its own mobile payment system, one that will most likely be based around the iTunes Store payment system, but hasn’t made announcements beyond iOS 6’s Passbook feature. Apple has also kept quiet about whether it will include NFC chips used in some mobile payment systems in the upcoming iPhone 5, which some analysts and pundits consider a barrier to entry into the mobile payment market.

Google Wallet has been out for almost a year now, and it allows you to store your credit cards on your Android phone and make payments via NFC, but because of limited partnerships during its launch, it hasn’t really taken off yet.

Now that Google’s seen some of the features Apple plans to bring to the iPhone with the Passbook app, Google has decided to double down on Wallet and bring in new features so it functions more like Passbook.

Imagine if your took the ultimate hippy artifact (apart from the roach clip, I guess), and combined it with the ultimate must-have hi-tech accessory. That’s right: the beanbag chair meets the microfiber cloth.

Now, further imagine that you shrunk the result, and added some fabric designs that would be more at home on a corporate robot’s necktie than on a filthy 60s dropout’s cheap furniture.

Now, behold the result of your crazed imagination: the Toddy Wedge, (not to be confused with the “Todd Wedgie, which was an unfortunate schoolyard event that led directly to the laugh-a-minute movies Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness)

Apple’s lengthy battle with Samsung came to a close last Friday when a jury decided Samsung was guilty of infringing six of Apple’s patents, and that it must pay more than $1 billion in damages as a result. Not only was this a huge blow to Samsung, but it appears it’s also hit the Korean company’s customers, too.

One used electronics company has seen a 50% growth in the sale of Samsung devices as customers “jump ship” following its loss.

With the iPhone 5 right around the corner, you’re probably thinking about selling your iPhone 4S to raise some cash for your new purchase. One of the best ways to do that might be to sell it back to Apple. The Cupertino company is currently offering up to $345 for the iPhone 4S, depending on its condition and specifications, as part of its Reuse and Recycle Program.

FioWriter is yet another new iPad text editor, but with one huge difference: it has Command, Option and Control keys right there on the keyboard.

What’s more, they work as they should: hold down the modifier and hit a key to execute a command. For instance, press Cmd-F (for “find”) and a search box pops up over the keyboard. And that’s not it. Not even close.

Apple has reportedly started work on its first retail store in Belgium, which will be located in the city of Ghent in the Veldstraat shopping center. The store is expected to open in late 2012 — in time for the holiday season — or in early 2013.

Final Draft is the Microsoft Word of the screenplay world: users hate it, but it’s the industry standard, and if you don’t submit your draft/edits in .FDX format, you’re about as popular as Ben Stiller after an award acceptance speech.

Still, in the same way that we all want Word on the iPad, we all want Final Draft Writer on the iPad too. And while it has been a coupleof years in the making, FD is now on iOS.

In an effort to better meet the demand of its mobile devices — and make things very difficult for its competitors — Apple has reportedly been bidding to secure exclusive access to TSMC’s (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) custom smartphone chips. Qualcomm has also been bidding up against the Cupertino company, and both parties are believed to have submitted bids in excess of $1 billion.

The Genius Bar is a great way to get help and support for the problems you’re having with your Mac and iOS devices. The problem is, with only 375 Apple stores worldwide, you usually need to live close to a big city to be close to a Genius Bar. But that’s no longer the case, because you can now speak to am Apple specialist from the comfort of your own home, via the company’s online store.

U.S. Federal Judge Lucy Koh has moved the hearing for Apple’s request for an injunction against Samsung phones to December, possibly diluting the economic effect of last week’s patent trial verdict.

Sunside Games announced that their well-received iOS game, Crow, is coming to the Mac platform this Thursday, August 30, 2012. Crow for the Mac will have Game Center support, including leaderboards and achievements, as well as high rez graphics and a remastered soundtrack.

“Crow has had an incredibly successful run so far on the App Store. It’s a really unique immersive experience and it demonstrates that there is a desire for something fun and different. We’re really excited to bring this experience to the Mac,” said Richard Cowgill, CEO of Sunside, Inc.

Telltale Games announced today that the third episode in The Walking Game video game, “Long Road Ahead,” will launch tomorrow on Mac, via digital game portal Steam of Telltale’s own website store. The adventure game will also be available on Xbox 360 and PC tomorrow as well, while PlayStation Network players can get it today, the lucky devils.

For a company that’s wanting to “sell against the iPhone,” T-Mobile still wants whatever business it can get from unlocked iPhone owners. Earlier today we told you about T-Mobile’s new microSIM kits that will easily unlock an iPhone 4/4S to run on its GSM network.

It appears that T-Mobile is also readying flyers that say “Bring Your iPhone to T-Mobile for BIG SAVINGS!” But can T-Mobile’s network really support iPhone users on 3G and eventually 4G speeds?

iLounge has shared the first pics of what it claims are accessories designed for Apple’s new dock connector. A smaller 8-9 pin dock connector is expected to debut in the iPhone 5 next month, and we’ve seen plenty of part leaks showing the connector itself. This is the first time we’ve seen an accessory designed for the smaller dock, however.

Apple is planning to launch an enhanced version of its AirPlay streaming technology in September, according to a new report from The Telegraph. Called “AirPlay Direct,” the new version of AirPlay would allow users to wirelessly stream music without the need of a WiFi network.

Instead, iOS devices would be able to create their own ad-hoc-style networks with AirPlay-enabled accessories and peripherals.

Apple’s retail division has come under fire recently regarding staffing cutbacks and layoffs. Earlier this month, Apple’s newly-appointed head of retail, John Browett, admitted that he “messed up” with the new staffing formula, and that things would go back to normal for retail employees.

According to a new report, Apple’s retail stores are still suffering from new policies that have been implemented under the leadership of CEO Tim Cook and Senior Vice President of Retail John Browett. The internal focus has started to shift towards a more revenue-driven strategy instead of a strategy that prioritizes the customer experience.

According to several U.S. security agencies, a hack burrowing dangerously around the web through browser-based Java software has already hit Windows and is a serious danger to Mountain Lion OS X.

While the latest Java update, Java 7, has seen stable performance, security personnel have warned it is vulnerable to numerable exploits over the last year.  Oracle has consistently updated critical patches to fix security bugs, with the last update two months ago fixing 14 dangerous vulnerabilities.

What is a Goophone? It sounds absolutely filthy, but the Goophone i5 is the first of what will undoubtedly be many flagrant Chinese rip-offs of the upcoming design of the new sixth-generation iPhone, set to be unveiled next month. Expect to see a lot more of these going forward, but credit where credit’s due: these Chinese counterfeiters certainly have their acts together if they can steal the design of a phone that isn’t even out yet.

Source: Nowherelese.fr
Via: Gizmodo

It’s no real secret that bring your own device (BYOD) programs and the explosion of iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices in the workplace have begun changing how we work, how we view work as a part of lives, and how much we work out of the office. A study earlier this year concluded that the average American worker using mobile technologies works seven hours outside of the office (essentially one business day) every week. A more recent study indicated some mobile professionals work even more – up to 20 hours each – during off hours thanks to BYOD programs.

One of the impacts this has one iPhone and iPad-toting professionals is a disruption from the traditional work/life balance that can make hard to fully “switch off” at the end of the day. Now there’s evidence that such a disruption can have a physical as well as a psychological impact on the human body.

Information about the fabled iTV has been bouncing around the rumor-mill for a few years now. Supposedly, Apple is going to build an HDTV that has a ton of cool features, such as Siri, FaceTime, iTunes Streaming, iCloud and the works. It’s a dream device. Like a big ass iPad you can mount on your wall to watch the series finale of Breaking Bad on.

The iTV was supposed to launch at some point this year, but we haven’t seen any hardware leaks for it, and now the rumor is that Apple won’t launch it until 2013. But does Apple really need to make an HDTV? Would a really awesome Apple TV style set-top box for cable companies be a better, cheaper, option than trying to get an iTV into every home? We can see the benefits on both side of the coin, but we’re really curious to hear what you guys think. Should Apple just come out with an improved Apple TV instead of an iTV? Or do something else entirely?

Click here to go to the Cult of Mac forums and share your thoughts on the rumored Apple HDTV

Static publishing is the new, uh, CMS. Or something. What’s for certain is that there has been a recent surge in interest in blogging platforms which publish single, pre-rendered, static HTML pages instead of generating those pages on the fly from some kind of database. The latest of these uses the venerable VoodooPad to generate your pages instantly, ready for uploading to your web-server of choice.

It’s been over two years since Apple unveiled iOS 4 with mobile management features designed to make the iPhone and iPad a significantly better corporate citizen. During those years, the landscape of business and enterprise mobility has changed dramatically. RIM has collapsed and will never truly recover, Microsoft has doubled down on the interface it launched late in 2010 with no guarantee of success, and Android has become much more enterprise friendly. Perhaps more important is the fact that idea of mobile management and security has shifted from a focus on devices to a focus on securing data and managing mobile apps.

As all this has happened, Apple’s mobile management framework, which is the system that all mobile management vendors plug into in order to secure and manage iOS devices, has essentially stagnated. With iOS 6 on the horizon, lets look at the areas that Apple needs to address if it wants iOS to remain one of the preferred mobile platforms for business.