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News - page 1759

Sprint Reduces iPhone 4S To Just $149, Waives Activation Fee For Online Orders

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But is it a good time to buy?
But is it a good time to buy?

Sprint has a warehouse full of iPhone 4S units it needs to shift before Apple announces the new iPhone in September, which is great news for consumers. If you don’t plan on picking up the sixth-generation device later this year, you can now grab its predecessor for just $149 with a two-year contract. And if you buy online, Sprint will waive the $36 activation fee, too.

Court Filing Reveals Exactly How Much Apple Wants Samsung To Pay In Damages For Each Device

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You weren't expecting Apple to issue a straight and sincere apology, were you?
Apple is seeking around $2.5 billion in damages from Samsung.

Apple wants Samsung to stump up a whopping $2.5 billion in damages for allegedly copying its iOS devices, but how much does Apple feel it is owed specifically for each device? A new court filing entitled “Summary of Apple’s Damages Calculations” provides a complete breakdown of the damages, and shows exactly which of Samsung’s Galaxy devices are accused of infringing Apple’s patents, and what the Cupertino company is demanding in damages for each one.

Apple Responds To Journalist Victim of “Epic” Apple ID Hack

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Mat Honan of Wired.
Mat Honan of Wired.

Last week, Wired columnist Mat Honan’s digital life was destroyed by hackers who were able to connect to his Apple ID and remotely erase all of the data on his iPhone, iPad, and MacBook.

Apple responded today to Honan via a spokesperson, Natalie Kerris. In a statement to Wired, where Honan posted an account of his experiences, Apple promised to look into how users can protect their data and security better when they need to reset their account passwords.

Samsung Memo Compares Own Products To iPhone – The Difference Between Heaven And Earth

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Switching from the iPhone to the Galaxy S III? You're crazy. Here's an app to help you switch.
Just make the screen bigger, ok?

An internal Samsung email was submitted today into evidence in the Apple vs. Samsung case being heard in Northern California. In the correspondance, head of mobile communications for Samsung JK Shin praises the iPhone, and describes the difference between his own company’s user experience and that of the iPhone as “the difference between heaven and earth.”

It’s fairly rough evidence for the Korean electronics maker, who had tried to keep the document out of the trial until a misstep today by Samsung legal counsel John Quinn, who mentioned the phrase “crisis of design” from the email, allowed it to be admitted.

Samsung May Sell More Units, But Apple Makes More Profit [Report]

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Still winning.
Winning.
Photo: Cult of Mac

While Apple and Samsung duke it out in Northern California this week, it makes sense to take a little time comparing the two on sales numbers, units shipped, and profit made. And while many folks these days like to bring up the fact that more Samsung devices are sold than iOS devices, those same folks are missing the boat.

According to a report from Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt, via website AllThingsD, Apple’s iOS devices are making its company a ton more profit than Samsung’s devices are. Let’s take a look at the numbers.

Everything You Need To Know About The Apple Vs. Samsung Trial [Day Four]

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applevssamsung

Keeping up with all the latest Apple vs Samsung happenings can be tough, and confusing. The trials is underway in San Jose California. Some days are filled with interesting witnesses taking the stand, while others are packed with lawyers hammering boring witnesses with silly questions.

To help you keep up on the Apple vs Samsung trial we’ve compiled the entire day’s events into one short news story that consists of the best tweets from the reporters there on the scene. Here’s everything you need to about what happened in the Apple vs Samsung Trial on day four, August 6th.

NASA’s Nuclear-Powered Mars Rover Curiosity Essentially Has The Same Brain As A Bondi Blue iMac G3

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curiosity615

Here’s an interesting little factoid for you. The Curiosity rover — which landed last night on Mars, remote controlled by a team of NASA scientists armed with MacBook Pros — runs on a RAD750 radiation-hardened single board computer.

This computer, in turn, is based on the IBM PowerPC 750 CPU, which Intel first introduce on November 10, 1997. This CPU was used by Apple in many computers in the late 1990s, including the original iMac.

As one insightful redditor notes: “Curiosity is essentially a 2-CPU Power Macintosh G3 with some nifty peripherals and one HELL of a UPS.”

Source: Reddit

Developers Can Jailbreak iOS 6 Beta 4 With The Current RedSn0w [Jailbreak]

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iOS 6 beta 3 is already jailbroken.
iOS 6 beta 3 is already jailbroken.

Apple unleashed iOS 6 beta 4 this afternoon with several minor changes and the glaring omission of the stock YouTube app. iOS 6 is expected to make its public debut this fall alongside the next iPhone, but for now the software is entrusted to the hands of the developer community.

Those who know what they’re doing will be pleased to know that iOS 6 beta 4 can be jailbroken with the current version of the popular RedSn0w tool.

Apple Shows Off iAd With New Profile Of Land Rover Campaign

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Screen Shot 2012-08-06 at 4.14.07 PM

Apple’s iAd network hasn’t really caught on as fast as the Cupertino-based company would have liked, but that doesn’t mean iAds aren’t creating great results for the companies who have hopped on board. In a new video profile on its iAd Network portal, Apple shows how iAd has helped Land Rover raise awareness for its Range Rover Evoque automobile.

MacTech Conference 2012 Registration Opens With Early Bird And Education Discounts

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Pre-registration open for this fall's MacTech Conference 2012.
Registration is available for this fall's MacTech Conference 2012.

Registration is now open for MacTech Conference 2012. The annual conference, which is a great learning and networking experience for IT professionals and developers, will be held October 17 – 19 in Los Angeles. A pre-registration discount is available for anyone who registers by the end of August.

The conference is sponsored by MacTech magazine and was launched in 2010, the year that Apple chose to focus its annual Worldwide Developers Conference solely on iOS. Since then, the conference has grown into a major event for IT professionals that need to support Macs and/or iOS devices in business, enterprise, and education environments. The conference has also become a serious event for Mac and iOS developers.

Do You Ever Use The YouTube App On Your iPhone? [Let’s Talk]

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youtube

When the iPhone first came out I remember using the YouTube app almost everyday for the first couple of months. It was amazing to be able to stream videos anywhere I had service, even if it took forever for them to buffer. It was magic. I couldn’t get enough. And then I stopped using it.

Now the YouTube app feels like a clunky old dinasaur. I get annoyed when a link opens a YouTube video up in the app rather than the web browser, and I hide the app in my “Apps I Wish I Could Just Delete” folder, along with Stocks, NewStand, and a few others.

Do you ever use the YouTube app? Why or why not?

Click here to go to the Cult of Mac forums and tell us what you think of the YouTube app.

Apple Adds ‘Bluetooth Sharing’ Feature To iOS 6 Beta 4

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bluetooth

Along with the removal of YouTube as a default app, one of the new features of iOS 6 beta 4 is the ability to share data via Bluetooth. It’s not exactly clear what kind of purpose Bluetooth Sharing will serve.

It might be linked to the iPod Nano as a watch where users will be able to view text messages, weather, answer calls, and more by tapping on their iPod Nano when the latest version is released.

Apple Just Removed The Default YouTube App From Latest iOS 6 Beta

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youtube

 

Apple just released iOS 6 beta 4 to developers. So far it looks like there are a few small bug fixes and performance enhancements except for one unexpected surprise – Apple has removed the YouTube app from the iPhone and iPad.

It’s no secret that Apple has been trying to remove Google’s app from iOS and replace them with better alternatives. Some might think YouTube’s removal isan act of war, but we think it’s just as likely that Apple removed YouTube as a default app just because of plain obsolescence.

Senator Al Franken Also Thinks AT&T Shouldn’t Charge For FaceTime In iOS 6 [Video]

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al-franken-headshot-intro

It’s safe to say the general consensus is against AT&T charging for FaceTime over cellular in iOS 6. The carrier is expected to introduce some sort of fee for Apple’s video calling service this fall, and AT&T has been trying its best to keep the issue quiet for as long as it can. While you would still be able to use FaceTime over a WiFi connection, carriers like AT&T obviously doesn’t want a bunch of video calls hogging everyone’s bandwidth.

Minnesota Senator Al Franken has been very vocal in the tech scene for years. He famously emailed Steve Jobs about the iPhone tracking debacle back in 2011, and he has continued to stand up for consumer privacy rights with the carriers and companies like Carrier IQ.

Franken recently spoke out on AT&T potentially charging its subscribers for FaceTime over cellular, noting that it would be flat-out “wrong.”

Apple Releases iOS 6 Beta 4 To Developers

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Screen Shot 2012-08-06 at 3.36.55 PM

It appears that Apple has started seeding iOS 6 beta 4 (build 10A5376e) to developers as an over-the-air update. Beta 3 was released about 3 weeks ago in the Dev Center. iOS 6 will power the next iPhone, rumored 7-inch iPad, and iPod touch when it is released to the public this fall.

Every iOS Device To Be Updated With A Smaller Dock Connector This Fall [Rumor]

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ios_family

Rumors of a smaller iOS dock connector have been continuing to surface in the weeks leading up to Apple’s September fall event. Initially the consensus was that we’d see a smaller 19-pin connector in the new iPhone, but lately the word on the street is that Apple will use even less pins—possibly as few as 8. Leaked photos of the next iPhone’s exterior show a much smaller dock connector, and the change is likely to meant to accommodate the device’s slimmer design.

According to a new report today, Apple will update not one, not two, but all of its iOS devices with a smaller dock connector this fall.

Education IT Pros Petition Apple To “Fix” Bonjour

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IT Pros like the idea of Bonjour, AirPlay, and AirPrint, but feel they don't fit will on college campuses.
IT Pros like the idea of Bonjour, AirPlay, and AirPrint, but feel they don't fit will on college campuses.

An online petition has been created to try to convince Apple to make changes to its Bonjour network discovery service and related technologies including AirPlay and AirPrint. The petition is asking Apple to redesign Bonjour and other services to deliver a better fit with education and enterprise networks. It was started by Lee Badman, wireless network architect for Syracuse University, on behalf of the Higher Ed Wireless Networking Admin Group at Educause, a non-profit resource organization for IT staff working in higher education.

Partly Cloudy Might Be The Beautiful iOS Weather App You’ve Been Waiting For

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partlycloud2

Minimalist weather apps must be the current hot trend among developers right now because we’ve seen a slew of pretty new iOS weather apps hit the App Store recently. If the last three weather apps we covered haven’t quite done it for you, maybe Partly Cloudy will.

Partly Cloudy is different from most weather apps in that it displays all the information you would need to know for a single day in one unique and compelling infographic. Modeled on a traditional clock face, Partly Cloudy’s infographic presents weather data in a fun new way that’s also very useful.

Camera Straps Made From Neckties

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Looking good! The Camera Strap Necktie.
Looking good! The Camera Strap Necktie.

I don’t own a necktie, and I haven’t been clean-shaven since sometime in the mid-to-late 1990s. But that doesn’t mean I can’t brush up nice and get all dressed up from time to time. Which is why I’m seriously considering one of Photojojo’s smart-looking Camera Strap Neckties.

AT&T’s New Shared Data Plans Will Be Available On August 23rd

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AT&T announced last month that it would be launching shared plans for pooling monthly data allotments between up to 10 devices per account. Instead of paying for a separate data plan for each smartphone, subscribers would be able to use a 1-20GB shared plan across multiple devices, including tablets and desktop computers. Verizon announced a similar strategy in June.

Today AT&T has confirmed that its shared data plans will be available to new and existing subscribers on Thursday, August 23rd.

Droplings Makes Dropbox File Sharing Dead Simple

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Droplings helps you look professional when you share Dropbox files
Droplings helps you look professional when you share Dropbox files

How you and I share files right now:

  • Open and write email.

  • Realize we need to attach a file.

  • Hide and/or move mail window out of the way.

  • Find file.

  • somehow manage to drag that file into the e-mail message window.

How Droplings shares a file:

  • Drag file to menubar item. File uploads to Dropbox and link is copied automaticlly to your clipboard.

  • Paste link.

NASA Used A Lot Of MacBooks To Get The Curiosity Rover To Mars

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macbooks
NASA's heroes in the Mission Control room working from their Macs

Did you hear that we touched down on Mars? Again. Late last night NASA’s rover Curiosity successfully carried out a very challenging landing on Mars so that it can explore the red planet and send data back to Earth.

How’d it get there? First there was a bunch of rocket science stuff that we don’t really understand, but the landing sequence was guided and watched by a bunch of NASA brainiacs on their MacBooks Pros. Who says hipsters are the only ones that use a Mac?

Here’s another picture of the NASA MacBook setup:

CandyBar From Panic Gets Mountain Lion Support, Goes Free Due To Uncertain Future

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CandyBar is now free, but its days may be numbered.
CandyBar for Mac is now free, but its days may be numbered.

Panic’s terrific CandyBar tool has just been updated to support OS X Mountain Lion, and if you don’t already own it, you can now pick it up for free. Panic will no longer be charging for the app because of the new restrictions Apple has introduced to Mac OS X, which means CandyBar’s future is now unclear.

1Password Proves It Can Stand Up To Password Crackers

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1Password goes head-to-head with password cracker and shows why complex passwords are important.
1Password goes head-to-head with a password cracker and shows why complex passwords are important.

 

1Password by AgileBits is a an incredible tool for keeping your data safe. More than just a password manager, 1Password allows you to encrypt and organize a wide range of data (website passwords, non-web digital accounts, credit/debit card numbers and financial account details, software licenses, and files containing confidential information.

Those features are all well and good, but the biggest feature is 1Password’s ability to keep all that data secure in the face of brute force attacks – the kind of attacks where a piece of software simply tries combination after combination of possible passwords. Password cracking software that rely on such attacks can easily try thousands of potential passwords each second.

To find out whether or not 1Password can withstand such attacks, AgileBits tested one 1Password against John the Ripper, one of the most well-known password cracking tools.

Mountain Lion ‘Save As’ Command Also Overwrites Original File

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Save As... Or is it?
Save As... Or is it?

 

 

Remember that neat little hack to bring the Save As command back to Mountain Lion? It turns out that it’s not quite as handy as we first thought. Sure, you can now “Save As” instead of being forced to “Duplicate” the file and then save it, but Mountain Lion will not only save your changes in the new document, but write them to the original at the same time.