News - page 1801

It’s a pretty good bet that iPhones and iPads will be responsible for 3G/4G traffic spikes around the Moscone Center in San Francisco this week as Apple developers lucky enough to score a ticket attend WWDC. Beyond this week, however, it seems that iPhone users have a tendency to gobble up a large amount of data – more so than other platforms including Android.

On average, iPhone owners represent about 20% of smartphone customers for mobile carriers worldwide. You might expect that those customers would amount to around 20% of data usage. That isn’t the case as  iPhone users account for an average 45% of carrier data traffic and data use by iPhone users is more consistent than data consumed by Android customers.

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference has spawned some huge lines this year, with many waiting outside San Francisco’s Moscone Center a full nine hours before the keynote will begin — as we showed you earlier. But it isn’t just Tim Cook and co. who will be enjoying all of the attention; the local Starbucks is struggling to keep up with thirsty attendees.

Source: saschasegan on Twitter

It’s almost here, folks. One of the biggest events of the year for an Apple fan is today, June 11th. Tim Cook, Phil Schiller and others will be taking the stage at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in sunny San Francisco at 10 A.M. Pacific/ 1 P.M. Eastern.

We’re expecting a whole lot of announcements from Apple tomday, so stay tuned to Cult of Mac for breaking coverage all day, and especially starting at 10/1 Pacific/Eastern, when our live-blogging coverage of the keynote will commence.

Thousands of developers will be crammed into the Moscone Center this morning to watch Apple talk about new products like iOS 6, Mountain Lion, and possibly some new Macs. It’s going to be a very busy, exciting day. We can’t wait!

Don’t expect Apple to stream today’s keynote live, but keep hitting refresh on Cult of Mac for breaking news stories all day, plus post-keynote reactions. Apple usually posts a video recording of the keynote a few hours later, and we’ll have that live as soon as it’s up, along with a 90-second video recap for you impatient types. To whet your appetite, check out our complete roundup of what to expect from Apple at WWDC 2012 and our history of Apple product announcements at WWDC from the past decade.

Image: James Martin/CNET

Today at 10AM Pacific, Tim Cook will take the stage at the Moscone Center in San Francisco for Apple’s annual WWDC keynote, and if the rumor mill is to be believed, he’ll be hard pressed to fit everything Cupertino is ready to announce into its 90 minute presentation. We’re looking at massive upgrades to the entire Mac line, the official unveiling of iOS 6, loads of new apps, and maybe possibly even our first glimpse of the iPhone 5 and Apple HDTV.

Here’s what we think Apple will (and won’t) announce today, ranked in order of likelihood.

Tim Cook gave his first major interview since becoming Apple CEO at the AllThingsD conference last month, and the full video interview with Cook has now been made available.

Clocking in at 1 hour and 40 minutes, Cook’s interview with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg tackles all kinds of topics, including the state of Apple post-Steve Jobs, upcoming products, China labor practices, and more.

Apple’s online store has gone down ahead of the company’s keynote presentation at WWDC in just under four hours. We’ve had our suspicions that the company will be refreshing a number of its Macs, and this almost confirms they’ll be available to order today.

Apple’s unveiling of its next major operating system, iOS 6, is right around the corner. Scott Forstall and Co. are expected to announce the new OS to developers at WWDC next week. Very little is actually known about iOS 6, but there have been some rumors that made headlines over the last few months.

iOS 6 looks to be an evolutionary upgrade from iOS 5, rather than a revolutionary jump forward. Here’s what we expect to see.

As we patiently wait for Tim Cook to kick off Apple’s WWDC keynote in just under five hours time, the last of the WWDC rumors and reports are spilling in. One of the more questionable pieces comes from KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who believes the new MacBook Pro won’t get that thinner, lighter, MacBook Air-like form factor we’ve all been hearing about. But that a resurrected MacBook will instead.

Since iOS 5 was introduced last summer, our lock screens finally do something worthwhile, and that is present all of our unread notifications in one place, so that we can see what we’ve missed at a glance. However, when you have no outstanding notifications, the lock screen is stall a rather boring place.

AnimateLockscreen is a new jailbreak tweak that aims to change that, by breathing new life into your lock screen with gorgeous animated wallpapers.

Lines are already starting to form for the WWDC keynote at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. A Photo tweeted by iOS developer Glasshouse Apps (responsible for The Early Edition and Quip, among others) shows the beginnings of a line outside the glass-fronted conference center.

We’re almost certain Apple will announce a new MacBook Pro at WWDC this week, but what we’re not quite so sure of is exactly what the new notebook will bring. An Intel Ivy Bridge processor and a high-resolution Retina display seem like the most feasible changes, but there’s also been much debate over a new design.

Some reports have suggested the device will sport a thinner, lighter form factor that will be heavily influenced by the MacBook Air. While others have claimed the design will remain the same as existing MacBook Pros. Now a leaked logic board for the upcoming device seems to side with the latter.

Chinese forum WeiPhone.com has posted alleged download links to Apple’s iOS 6 and Safari 6 developer preview files ahead of WWDC tomorrow. Apple is expected to introduce the software on Monday, June 11th and release a preview to developers. The links provided by WeiPhone are currently inactive, but they will assumedly start serving iOS 6 and Safari 6 beta downloads for supported iOS devices once Apple lifts the curtain tomorrow.

Heading up this week’s must-have apps roundup is Color Splash Studio, a terrific photo manipulation tool originally built for Mac OS X, which has finally made the leap from Mac App Store to iPhone. We also have a great music video mixing tool from Algoriddim, the guys behind Djay; a camera app that’s perfect for your kids, and more.

Kicking off this week’s must-have games roundup is Uplink, a title you may remember from 2001, when it made its debut on PC. This computer hacking simulator has now been remastered for the iPad’s touchscreen, and despite being 11 years old, it’s still an awesome game.

Accompanying Uplink is a hugely enjoyable platformer, a unique take on golf, a first-person catapulting game, and more.

I’ve never been particularly interested in theming iOS on my jailbroken iPhone. Apple’s stock iOS design is simplistic and efficient. The last thing anyone wants is to look at an over-designed interface every day.

With that said, I’ve also been wanting a change of pace recently. With iOS 6 on the near horizon, I’ve been looking for beautiful and interesting jailbreak themes to switch things up on iOS 5.1.1. It just so happens that one of the most gorgeous themes ever made was just released in Cydia.

More good news for those of you attending WWDC next week. Apple just announced the speakers for its lunchtime sessions, and a couple of celebrities will be giving talks.

Namely, Hollywood director/producer J.J. Abrams and actor LeVar Burton will be giving presentations on storytelling through technology and creative inspiration.

Following the privacy fiasco surrounding iOS user tracking and Apple’s deprecation of the UDID, a report today says that the company is planning to release a new tool for developers that aids in tracking app users. According to The Wall Street Journal, the software tool’s “new anonymous identifier is likely to rely on a sequence of numbers that isn’t tied to a specific device.”

There’s been a lot of talk over the past year or so about mobile payment systems and the concept of an iWallet. One of the challenges to any digital wallet concept is that it needs several components, most of which are provided by different companies and governed by different regulations. At a minimum, those components need to include on-device hardware, a mobile app or OS that can manage the transaction, a banking or credit card system that actually transfers money from your account to a retailer, support by major POS and cash register systems, and some mechanism for your phone to securely check-in with your selected account(s) to ensure money is available for purchases.

That’s a tall order and a lot of cooperation is needed when you have a different company providing each of those required functions. One way to simplify the process is to have one company deliver all or most of those functions on its own. There are few companies in the world that can pull all those capabilities together. One of them is Apple.

Apple’s decision to cancel the Xserve unleashed a range of questions and concerns from Mac IT professionals. The Xserve was the best Mac server option that Apple had ever created and its 1U rackmount design was a perfect fit for any server closet or data center. The Xserve delivered a tremendous amount of power and flexibility including fibre channel connectivity – a key feature for managing Apple’s Xsan storage system.

Apple positioned the Mac Pro and Mac mini Server as alternate server machines, neither of which deliver the same combination of power, expansion flexibility, and standard network rackmount options as the Xserve.

Despite complaints from enterprise customers about the demise of the Xserve, it’s a forgone conclusion at this point that Apple will never revive it. Mac upgrade and peripheral maker Sonnet Technologies, however,  may just have created a true Xserve replacement.

Not that there was any doubt, but as this picture proves, yup, Apple is unveiling iOS 6 at WWDC on Monday.

Source: CNET

The chances of iOS 6 being anything like this video concept by Joost van der Ree are pretty slim: we already know most of what to expect in iOS 6, and across the board, it looks like an app — not feature — focused update.

But who cares? This still looks great. We’re not so sure about the redesign of the Notification Center to pull down under the home screen — this seems counter intuitive — or the need for a “Mission Control” for finding running apps — the existing task switcher is an expert feature unused by most people which works just fine for poiwer users — but we do love the major innovation of this mockup: “Flipcons”, which show all your app updates and notifications as an overlay that pops out of each individual app on the homescreen.

None of this stuff will be in iOS 6, of course. But maybe some of it will come via jailbreak, and if it doesn’t, there’s always iOS 7.

Source: YouTube
Via: Redmond Pie

Earlier today we showed you the email Apple marketing VP Phil Schiller sent in response to Apple removing Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil Speakers Touch app from the App Store. Yanking the app caused quite the stir, as Rogue Amoeba was accused of misusing Apple’s AirPlay API to receive audio to an iOS device.

Schiller said that Rogue Amoeba used AirPlay functionality without proper licensing, and the Airfoil Speakers Touch makers have responded to Schiller with more points of their own.

There has been rather a lot of interest recently in the 3D motion sensing device Leap by San Franciscan company Leap Motion. While the company CTO was somewhat reluctant to talk about The Leap’s modus operandi / camera / sensor, he was more than happy to give Cult of Mac a demonstration of Leap in action. Watch the video here.

A hardware bomb! That’s what CultCast special guest and Ars Technica writer Chris Foresman thinks is about to go down at next week’s WWDC. I think he’s right, and on our brand new CultCast we’ll tell you why Apple might be about to refresh every Mac they make. Plus, there’s iOS 6. We’ll tell you what to expect from Apple’s new mobile OS too.

And don’t miss our winner of Faves and Raves, the game where we pitch our favorite hardware/apps and then vote on which is best.

All that and too many LULZ on our brand new CultCast. Subscribe now in iTunes and read on through for our show notes.

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) has been a staple event for the company since since the turn of the 21st century. The first ever WWDC was held in 1983, but it wasn’t until 2002 that Apple started using the conference as a major launchpad for new products. Since then, Steve Jobs and Co. have unveiled products like the Power Mac G5, Mac Pro, iPhone, and plenty of software. Because WWDC has always been a developer-focused conference, Apple uses the event to announce new apps, OS X versions, major iOS updates, etc. For an Apple fan, it doesn’t get much better than WWDC.

With WWDC 2012 set to kick off on Monday, June 11th, we decided to take a look back at the big announcements Apple made at WWDC over the past decade.