News - page 1782

Dropbox today announced some major changes to its Pro storage plans. The cross-platform data storage/sync solution is introducing huge upgrades for its Pro users. The service’s 50GB ($10/month) plan has been doubled to 100GB, and the 100GB plan ($20/month) has been doubled to 200GB for no extra charge. Pro users who already pay for one of those plans will be given the extra storage for free automatically. For those who want even more space on the cloud, a giant 500GB plan has also been announced.

Mujjo makes high quality cases and accessories for iOS devices, and the company is announcing the first sleeve for the brand new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. The hand-crafted sleeve is made in The Netherlands, and you can pre-order it now from Mujjo now for €64.95 ($80). Shipments go out on August 28th.

We conducted a brief chat with Mujjo about their new sleeve, and the product looks fantastic.

Apple’s rivals are already producing smartphones with NFC capabilities, and although NFC is yet to really take off, it’s still capable of some pretty incredible things that we all want from our smartphones. However, there has been some debate about whether or not Apple will adopt the feature, or create an alternative of its own — possibly utilizing Bluetooth.

Since the company unveiled Passbook in iOS 6, that debate has hit an all-time high. Passbook would work wonderfully with NFC, and would allow us to ditch physical cards and tickets in favor of a “contactless” system in which we just hold our devices up to a sensor. And according to a newly granted Apple patent for “iTravel,” it appears the Cupertino company is just as excited about that prospect as we are.

When Apple opened the App Store in 2008, it began a revolution that would lead to the largest and most vibrant mobile apps ecosystem in existence. It should then come as no surprise that Objective-C, the object-oriented coding language used by developers to build apps for iOS and OS X, has become the third most popular coding language, right behind Java and C itself.

It would take a long while to get through all the innuendo-laden jokes made possible by the LenSkirt. So I guess we’ll just take things slow. But first let me tell you what it is: a black cloth bag which sticks to windows so you can shoot through glass without reflections. Now, let the schoolboy fun begin.

Apple has been pretty strict on BitTorrent clients — or anything related to torrent downloading — for iOS, and it does its best to keep them out of the App Store, meaning you must jailbreak your device if you want to install one. However, the Cupertino company appears to have let one slip through its net. Transmission RPC, although not a full-fledged BitTorrent client, is a $1.99 app that allows you to control Transmission for Mac OS X from your iOS device.

Seven new markets received AT&T 4G LTE yesterday, bringing AT&T’s total LTE coverage to 47 cities. AT&T continues their slow roll, while Verizon’s lighting up around 47 cities per month. Since you AT&T customers could probably care less about Verizon’s plague like rollout, I’ll jump right to the new markets so you can see if you’ve hit the AT&T LTE jackpot.

We’ve seen the iPad used in a range of workplaces. Although some are surprising, like industrial farming and the Vatican, most are a bit more pedestrian. The U.S. Navy is planning to use iPads in a way that is both pedestrian and very high-end.

According to a recent government contract that is up for bid, the Navy plans to include iPads in a revamp of its Executive Dining Facility in the Pentagon. The dining room is often used by the Secretary of the Navy and regularly plays host to high-level Pentagon guests.

The Audio Xciter music player’s press release is full of the usual superlatives, and I quickly glossed over them in my usual cynical manner looking for something to make fun of (which I found – more on that in a bit). But one listen of the audio-processing iOS app is enough to make you sit up and, uh, listen.

It really is amazing.

Apple has announced that the new iPad will finally make its debut in China on Friday, July 20, more than two months after the device made its debut in the United States. The third-generation tablet, which is the first iPad to feature a high-resolution Retina display, will be available through the Apple Online Store, Apple retail stores, and from select Apple Authorized Resellers.

Is your Retina MacBook Pro seeing less than half the seven hours of battery life that Apple promised you? Well, this may not be because you keep watching high-resolution videos over and over again on its Retina display (though that is certainly not helping). Instead, it could be thanks to a corrupt file created by Migration Assistant that needs removing with a simple terminal command.

Here’s how to do it and boost your Retina MacBook Pro’s battery life.

Struggling to find beautiful wallpapers for your new MacBook Pro’s high-resolution Retina display? With Wallpaper Wizard for Mac OS X, you can browse over 100,000 high-definition wallpapers with resolutions up to 2880 x 1800 all in one place, saving only the images ones you want to keep. And best of all, Wallpaper Wizard is today’s Two Dollar Tuesday pick, meaning it has 80% off its normal $9.99 price tag.

The official Readability app for iOS has received a major update today that not only promises to deliver “huge performance improvements,” but also adds a number of new features, including new “Top Reads” and “Longform Picks” reading lists, YouTube and Vimeo integration, and more.

Next Issue Media just became available for the iPad, making the jump from its Android roots. The app is a subscription-based magazine app that may redefine what you think of when you hear the words ‘magazine suscription.’

With Next Issue, you purchase a subscription to ALL the magazines in their service, for one fee. Techcrunch makes the obvious comparison to Netflix, for good reason, but we’ll try to avoid that here. Oops.

Sometimes a jailbreak tweak comes along that is so subtle and yet so brilliant. Banner notifications in iOS are great, but Apple made a poor design choice: incoming banners push in on the top of whatever app you’re using at the moment. If you’re using Safari, the address/search bar is momentarily obscured by a banner notification. That’s no good.

A new Cydia tweak called CoverMeNot keeps banner notifications out of the way by automatically doubling the height of your iOS status bar. No more obtrusive banners covering the top of your favorite apps.

Over at the Macintosh 512K section of the 68K Macintosh Liberation Army forums, user macman142 posted a great find – the body of a Mac 512K ED that had been gutted to create a Macquarium. The reason he paid $65 for this remnant was, he wrote, because it came with the original mouse, the 128k/512k style keyboard, and an original keyboard cable – a pretty rare find, as he mentions in his post.

Unfortunately, along with being gutted, the case of the very retro Macintosh had the handle cut out of it, assumedly so the previous owner could manage the fish tank they had installed within. Now macman142 is looking for ideas about what to do with this treasure.

According to Barron’s today, Apple tops the list of tech companies keeping large amounts of cash reserves overseas. Barron’s quotes Moody’s Investor Services as estimating Apple’s overseas cash supply at $74 billion, which is higher than the $64 billion of last year.

Apple isn’t the only technology company sending cash and other liquid investments out of the country, of course. Microsoft comes in second place with an estimated $50 billion in cash, while Cisco and Oracle are estimated to have $42.3 and $25.1 billion socked away in cash, respectively.

In an email sent out today, Apple has begun to push OS X developers to submit their Mountain Lion ready applications to the Mac App Store. This email follows the release today of the OS X Mountain Lion GM build to developers.

Apple has just released the OS X Mountain Lion GM seed. It’s unclear as to what’s new at this point, but we’ll keep you updated as more information arrives. The update comes after Developer Preview 4, issued a few weeks back.

Dice’s monthly report of the IT job market continues to show that developers remain the most in-demand jobs. Fully half of the top ten jobs listed are for various kinds of developers with mobile app development ranking as the second most in-demand skill.

That’s not too surprising all things considered. As we noted this morning, a recent Symantec study notes that 59% of companies are actively working to create mobile versions of their internal line of business. That doesn’t even take into account customer-facing apps, which are more and more seen as a requirement.

Other in-demand development skills include Java, Microsoft .NET, web, and the rather generic software developer. Java stole the number one slot. With one exception, development skills make up the top five skill sets. The one non-developer position was related to data and network security.

Steve Wozniak recently spoke at the Entel Summit in Chile, and as usual, expressed his thoughts on emerging technology. Wozniak offered his opinion on Google Glass, Microsoft’s Surface tablet, and even the Kim Dotcom case surrounding Megaupload.

Until Instagram made the jump to Android, the photography social network was an iPhone-only affair. With plenty of web apps and even native apps like Carousel on the Mac, you can also use Instagram from your desktop computer. Thanks to a beautiful app called Instagrille, even Windows users can check their Instagram feed in style.

The free Instagrille program allows you to check your feed, make comments, like photos, see your notifications, and even download photos to your hard drive. Not bad.

If you’re an IT professional charged with rolling out Macs and iOS devices to employees in your company or students in your school, the Penn State MacAdmins Group has a wealth of new resources for you.

The group puts on an excellent annual conference for Mac and  iOS administrators and IT professionals each year. The sessions cover just about everything you might need to know when it comes to developing a solid strategy for deploying and managing Macs and iOS devices in schools or business. Sessions are led by IT professionals with a solid background in Mac and iOS technologies. Real world experiences with the tools and processes involved are discussed along with tips, tricks, and advice.

If you weren’t able to attend the conference, however, you can view the sessions online.

Notification Center on the iPad isn’t that great. It functions just like the iPhone, meaning you pull down a window from the status bar to see your notifications. While that interface works nicely on the iPhone, the window isn’t scaled appropriately to the iPad’s larger display.

In OS X Mountain Lion, Notification Center makes more sense on a larger screen. Instead of coming down from the top of your Mac’s display, your notifications are displayed on the side of the screen. Want that type of Notification Center interface on your iPad? A jailbreak tweak called MountainCenter will make it happen.

 Tired of typing in your email address to login to websites on your iPhone? I know I am. Heck, even typing on the iPad can get to be a pain, with every site LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and the like asking for log in credentials – most of them wanting my email address or login name. Or, heck, password. You can use the iPhone autofill email address feature to make this process seamless.

Just like changing the default “OMW” text message auto-correct, here’s another idea on making the most of your iPhone time, rather than spending it typing in your email address, password, or street address.