Following Google’s acquisition of Sparrow earlier today, Acrylic Software has announced that it has been bought by Facebook. Acrylic makes a Mac/iPad RSS reader app called Pulp and Mac/iPhone app called Wallet. As a development firm known for its top notch design work and attention to detail, the Acrylic team will be joining Facebook’s design team.
Future development of Pulp and Wallet has stopped, but Acrylic will continue to support its users and keep its apps available for download.
The title really says it all: Flower, a baby alpaca over at the Insight Ranch in Southern California, spends her time making farting sounds with her mouth, trembling almost faster than the speed of video and scrolling through photos on her MacBook Pro.
The title screams cute; the video screams something halfway between surrealism and nightmare. This could have been directed by David Lynch on a dare.
Source: YouTube
Via: Laughing Squid
Popular third-party email client Sparrow has announced that it has been acquired by Google. The iPhone and Mac app will remain unchanged, but all development of new features has been discontinued. Sparrow has promised to continue supporting its user base as it transitions into becoming part of the Google family.
Google will merge the talented team at Sparrow with the Gmail team.
Clueful, from antivirus experts Bitdefender, is a great little app for iOS that tells you which of your apps are accessing your personal data, and exactly what data they may be interested in. We wrote about it back in May when it first hit the App Store, and I liked it so much that I included it in one of my must-have apps roundups.
But it seems Apple wasn’t so keen, because it has now yanked Clueful from the App Store, and no one knows why.
Early last year, Apple applied for a patent which described how they could add a “wild new dynamic screen saver system that could sense the environment it is in and in a chameleon-like fashion automatically change the screen saver.”
Clumsy wording aside, I loved the idea from the get go. Imagine, docking your iPhone at night, only for the screen to perfectly match the decor of your bedroom. Unfortunately, like most of Apple’s patents, there’s no telling when or even if Apple will ever actually roll out such functionality.
Luckily, we don’t need to wait for Cupertino to get off their duffs, because Chameleon Clock is here to turn our iPhones and iPads into chameleons for us.
Mozilla is working on a new smartphone operating system called Firefox OS that hopes to compete with Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. The project was first announced back in 2011, and earlier this month, it was reported that Mozilla had made TCL Corporation its hardware partner.
It’s still early days for Firefox OS, but if you’d like to see what Mozilla has in store, you can now run the platform on your Mac using a Boot2Gecko (B2G) “nightly” build.
According to a report issued by the World Bank this week, there are now six billion mobile device subscriptions worldwide and the number of phones, tablets, personal hotspots, and other mobile devices continues to grow and unprecedented rates. The report noted that the number of active mobile devices and mobile carrier subscriptions/accounts “will soon exceed that of the human population.”
That raises some interesting implications for a world mobile market in which Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are expected to dominate for the immediate and foreseeable future.
If you’re itching for some more Batman action after the credits have rolled in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, then why not continue protecting Gotham City in Gameloft’s latest release for Android and iOS? As promised, Gameloft has released it’s newest game, The Dark Knight Rises, in conjunction with the blockbuster movie in theaters today.
Whenever the Apple HDTV comes out, it’s going to need an array of slick media content partnerships to get off the ground. That’s one reason why Tim Cook might have been hobnobbing with Hollywood executives at a recent media conference, but these deals are tricky to strike, and take time.
According to analysts, that’s why the Apple HDTV might not launch until 2014… and when it does, it will be a U.S.-only launch.
The ChargeCard is an iPhone charging that’s designed to live in your wallet, purse, or pocket. Shaped like a credit card and measuring just 2.54mm thick, this is the thinnest iPhone charging cable you can buy, and you can pull it out whenever you find a free USB port to charge your device. What’s more, you can finally say goodbye to carrying messy cables.
A consulting firm has discovered that Apple’s existing iOS 6 betas will only support up to 500 installed apps at any one time, and that with any more than that, devices suffer from slow boot times, random reboots, and “other issues.” The firm has had to convince Apple that users need support for more than 500 apps to have the limit lifted.
If you have a tendency to drop your expensive gadgets, and you’re looking for something a little more robust than the iPad, you should probably check out Google’s new Nexus 7. According to this drop test from warranty provider SquareTrade, Google’s $199 slate handles drops and water damage better than the new iPad.
Apple’s third-generation iPad finally goes on sale in China today, more than four months after making its debut in the United States. And unlike previous iPhone and iPad launches in China, which have been marred by huge crowds and violent scalpers, this one has been described as “quiet” and “low-key.”
About a week after an incredulous tweet from Runic Games, Apple has taken down Armed Heroes Online, an MMO for iOS.
In the tweet, Runic’s community manager Brian Ward claimed that assets were stolen from Torchlight – a Mac and PC game available on Steam – to be used in the iOS game by Entertainment Game Labs (EGLS).
Various iCloud users are reporting that 20th Century Fox movies are now available for re-download via iTunes in the cloud. As Cult of Mac reported mid-March, Universal and Fox studios weren’t able to close a deal with Apple for iCloud availability due to licensing conflicts with HBO.
Universal Studios content was released for iCloud availability soon after, in April. Now it’s Fox Studios’ turn.
According to new plans filed with Catawba County, Apple is building a second data center near an already begun facility in Maiden, North Carolina.
The planned 21,030-square-foot data center will store server clusters, with a total cost of the 11-room building targeted at a little over $1.8 million. The permits filed include the installation of 22 air conditioners, five fans, 14 humidifiers, six electric heaters and heating ducts.
When Apple released iOS 4 two years ago, with a framework for device management built into the OS, the focus of IT departments and security specialists was to activate, configure, and lock down iPhones and iPad as well as other mobile devices. Mobile device management (MDM) was the big iOS-in-business buzz word for quite some time. Over the past several months, however, the discussion around mobile management has shifted significantly as a new concept has become the IT mantra for mobile devices.
That new concept is Mobile app management (MAM) and it has come to be seen as a critical part of supporting and securing mobile devices (including iPhones and iPads) in business. MAM has a different focus from mobile device management (MDM).
This photograph by Reddit user Sean Petykowski is absolutely beautiful, and a lovely reminder of the extraordinary, almost crystalline complexity that makes up even Apple’s simpler products, like this Apple Wireless Keyboard.
Verizon’s Q2 earnings call took place today, and while the gist of the call went something like “we’re making tons of money, money money,” there were a few interested bullet point in regards to Android and smartphones in general.
Both the Atlantic and NY Times ran stories this week focusing on Coursera, an initiative involving several high-profile universities that are putting a range of classes online for anyone who wants to take them. The initiative is part of trend in higher education to make learning available to anyone who has the personal or professional interest in taking a college or university class regardless of financial or geographical challenges.
While Coursera is getting a lot of media attention and is racking up hundreds of thousands of students around the globe, the idea of free college learning is hardly new. Apple introduced the concept of watching or listening to college lectures when it first rolled out iTunes U in 2007. More recently, Apple revamped iTunes U to offer a much more immersive experience that includes assigned readings, activities and projects, and even note-taking in addition to recorded lectures.
Do you have a Retina MacBook Pro, 2012 MacBook Pro or a 2012 MacBook Air? Have you noticed things running a bit hot, or the battery life not quite being up to par with what Apple’s told you to expect?
Apple has just released a new software update for MacBooks from June 2012 onward that fixes issues that can lead to increased CPU power consumption, as well as improve compatibility with some USB devices through these device’s new USB 3 ports. The update weighs in at a little over 76 megabytes and can be downloaded at the link below.
Source: Apple
You know those annoying friends that grab your iPhone at parties and then think it’s cool to explore all your pictures, texts, phone calls, and every other crevice of your iPhone? Some people don’t understand that there’s this thing called privacy, and that you have to get permission to look through all that stuff. It’s in the constitution. Look it up.
Apparently the privacy laws that some people thought we had with our iPhones actually don’t apply to police seizures, as two recent court rulings have shown that it is totally legal for police to seize an iPhone and impersonate the owner. If your iPhone ever falls into the clutches of the police and they want to sext with your ex-girlfriend, you’re just out of luck because that’s totally legal.
In putting together the various features of Mountain Lion, Apple may end up encouraging business and enterprise customers to actually make their Macs less secure instead of ratcheting up security as some key Mountain Lion capabilities are intended to do.
There are a handful of technologies involved, but they center around iCloud and Apple’s requirement that apps sold in the Mac App Store support Apple’s application sandboxing technique.
The most expensive app I’ve ever purchased is now on sale for half the price. The SlingPlayer app has been discounted by 50% across all mobile platforms and can now be had for $14.99. This deal applies to both the tablet and phone apps and is well worth the price to have your full home cable service in the palm of your hands.
When Ron Johnson left Target to become Apple’s Retail Chief in 2000, people thought he was absolutely nuts. Apple was in danger of going out of business, and other PC manufacturers like Gateway were closing their retail locations. Johnson ignored all the warning signs because he says he saw that Apple was about to be a huge part of the digital revolution. He also recognized that Apple offered consumers something other companies couldn’t – amazing products and an incredible retail experience.
In a recent interview at Fortune Conferences, Johnson explained why customers choose to come to the Apple store to buy their products when they could get them on Amazon or Best Buy for a lot cheaper: