Additional themes can make a huge difference in iBooks Author projects
The overuse of standard templates can make anything from a resume to presentation seem boring and generic – so much so that the phrase “death by PowerPoint” has emerged in business world.
Apple’s iBooks Author tool is no exception. The app can be used by teachers and instructors to create their own textbooks, by businesses to deliver marketing materials and reference documents, and authors that want to self-publish in Apple’s iBookstore. One problem with iBooks Author is that Apple includes just six themes for ebooks in iBooks Author – all of which have a textbook feel to them that isn’t a good fit for many projects. Thankfully, there are some alternatives.
It's pretty clear in this image that the new iPad's Retina display (right) is suffering from a horrible yellow tint.
Apple’s latest iPad has already been plagued by issues related to its Wi-Fi and 3G connections, but it seems its problems don’t stop there. No, I’m not talking about its slightly warmer feel, which isn’t a real issue. I’m talking about issues with its new Retina display, including yellow, blue, and pink tinting; dead pixels; dust; backlight bleeding and blotches.
Cydia on iOS 5.1 could soon become a reality, but there's still a long way to go.
Regret upgrading to iOS 5.1 and losing your jailbreak? Yeah, me too. But thankfully, Pod2g and his team of iOS hackers have now discovered all of the exploits required for the iOS 5.1 jailbreak.
Isn't that the prettiest iPad keyboard you've ever seen?
Logitech already makes one of the best keyboard cases available for the iPad, but its latest solution looks even more incredible. The Ultrathin Keyboard Cover is, as its name suggests, is a super thin wireless keyboard that takes advantage of your iPad’s Smart Cover magnets to double up as protective aluminum cover. It’s the perfect partner for your iPad.
Steve Jobs’ career is usually discussed in two major segments – his early years when he co-founded Apple with Woz, and then the latter end of his life when he returned to Apple and resurrected the company with one hit product after another. But 11 years passed between the time that Steve was kicked out of Apple and the time he returned to save the company. Many people call those his “Wilderness Years” as he struggled to cope with getting kicked out of Apple.
What many view as a dark period of exile, Brent Schlender claims it was actually one of the happiest periods in Jobs’ life. Writing a new article for Fast Company about Steve Jobs time in exile, Schlender rediscovered his trove of lost interview tapes he recorded with Jobs during those “Wilderness Years.”
The entire article is riddled with new Steve Jobs quotes and ideas that haven’t been heard before, but here are the eight best:
A billion dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? Two billion dollars.
The dirty secrets surrounding Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram have remained relatively unkown, until now. Many were taken aback by the incredible amount of money Facebook dropped on the photography app, but it turns out that Instagram wanted more than $1 billion. It’s been revealed by The Wall Street Journal that Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom originally pitched his app to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a price tag of $2 billion.
According to new research from Norton Symantec research, Flashback now infects around 140,000 Macs. That’s a significant drop considering Apple’s removal tool was only released 4 days ago.
Many started speculating about the possibility of a 4-inch iPhone when a guy named Colin made a very interesting argument for such a device one week ago. The rumor mill has been saying for months that a larger iPhone is coming, but no one had really thought about how it would actually work. Colin proposed that Apple would need to simply change the aspect ratio from 3:2 to a stretchy 16:9. Brilliant, right?
Not so fast. There are multiple reasons why an elongated iPhone screen would not work.
MokaFive adds mobile information management without whole device management
One of the big discussions around enterprise mobility this year has been whether companies need to completely lock down iPhone, iPads, and other devices for security reasons or is creating a secure data store on the device that IT can remotely wipe enough? With the ever-expanding BYOD trend, the idea removing corporate data without wiping any personal data is an attractive one. Put more simply, does IT need to manage the device or just the corporate data on it?
MokaFive is a company that has always focused on securing business data rather than computers themselves. The company has made a name for itself in providing secure Windows virtual machines that can provide a fully functional and secure environment on any supported device including Macs as well as PCs. MokaFive even allows such virtual machines to be fully customized while still being secure and managed.
This week, MokaFive introduced its first iOS solution. Not surprisingly, it’s centered around securing data rather than restricting the functionality of the device.
Multiple free accounts can mean unlimited cloud storage but with serious tradeoffs
Almost every cloud storage service on the Internet operates using a freemium model. Anyone who signs up gets a certain amount of storage for free. When someone uses up all their free storage, they can add more for a fee. Cloud providers usually layer on a few extra features for paid customers like the ability to stream audio files or the ability to restore deleted files or older versions of documents. Just like most companies now, they to outsource the support process making it easy for clients to resolve issues easily. Netzen is a company that provides IT support to businesses in the UK, consider checking them out if you need help with your IT.
With so many free options, however, it can be tempting to use multiple services simultaneously. Add files to a free Dropbox account up till the free 2GB, then create an account with Box for the next 5GB (Box’s free limit), then create a SugarSync account and on and on.
This approach, known as cloud squatting, effectively nets users unlimited free storage so long as they’re willing to play an ongoing game of musical chairs with their data. iOS and other mobile apps that can access and edit files across different services make it surprisingly easy for users to become cloud squatters – and it’s surprisingly difficult for a business or IT department to prevent or deal with cloud squatting employees.
Apple and Samsung have been trading body blows in their legal war-on-the-street for awhile now, suing and countersuing each other the Earth over for patent and IP violations. Now U.S. Judge Lucy Koh has ordered Apple CEO Tim Cook and Gee-Sung Choi to stop suing each other for a second and meet to try to talk it all out.
Do you remember when Twitter patented the pull-to-refresh tech they acquired from Loren Brichter when they purchased Tweetie and made it their official, thereby effectively putting all the apps that use pull-to-refresh (like Tweetbot or even Facebook) in their legal crosshairs?
Pull-to-refresh inventor Loren Brichter said there was no reason to worry, and it seems like he was right, as Twitter has today announced an awesome initiative in which they have promised that their patents will only ever be used defensively… even if they sell them to another company down the line!
One of the most annoying things about Apple’s Bluetooth implementation in iOS is that turning it on or off is a four-step process involving digging deep into Settings. Considering the battery drain associated with just leaving Bluetooth on and the wide variety of devices you can connect via Bluetooth to your device, it’s a constant irritation for many.
Jailbreak utilities like SBSettings make turning bluetooth on/off on the fly a fairly simple proposition, but unfortunately, Apple hasn’t borrowed inspiration from any of them when it comes to baking better Bluetooth toggling into iOS. A new $0.99 app on the App Store, though, makes it much easier to toggle Bluetooth on the fly on your device even without a jailbreak. Launch the app once to toggle Bluetooth on, launch again to toggle off. Simple.
Google on its parts always said it had done nothing wrong, and used known functionality in Safari to make sure their advertising cookies were always stored locally on users’ machines, even if their cookie settings were set to private. Looks like that might not have been enough for the FTC, though, who are now looking to start doling out fines to Google over the issue.
Verizon continues its onslaught of 4G LTE rollouts across the U.S. and after expanding a slew of California markets last week, they’re back at it again. This next bombardment of 4G LTE is a huge one and reaches across various markets from New York to Colorado. Hopefully by April 19th, your city/town will have been added to the coverage list and you’ll be able to ditch that 3G in favor of the fast lane speeds of 4G LTE. Rollouts and expansions are expected to start Thursday and will cover the following markets:
Earlier today, the Space Shuttle Discovery took its final flight on the back of a modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Washington, D.C. where it will go on display in the Smithsonian.
As it flew over the U.S. capitol, Instagram user Adam Wells took this totally sweet shot of the Discovery being piggy-backed to her final home at the Smithsonian’s Air & Space facility in Chantilly, Virginia. Beautiful.
This iPhone case weighs 4.6 pounds and will stop a 50-caliber bullet
This is the world’s biggest and heaviest iPhone case. How big and heavy? Well, it’s chunky enough to stop any door in your home from closing, and heavy enough (2.1 kilos) to cause serious damage if hurled into an enemy’s face. In fact, the seller – Marudai – warns that “Serious injury and will certainly drop on top of the foot”. Ouch.
Apple has been increasingly interested in powering its operations with that happy old sun, working on a 20-megawatt solar farm coupled with a 5-megawatt fuel cell facility at its data supercenter in Maiden, North Carolina. But that’s not nearly good enough, according to Greenpeace. In fact, the environmental activist group has gone so far as to call Apple out for using “asthma-inducing, climate-destroying coal” which makes the iCloud “the dirtiest thing on the internet.”
BYOD programs often mean IT can track your iPhone/iPad and restrict access to features and apps
BYOD programs are popping in workplaces of virtually every shape and size. One of the big advantages of these programs is that you can decide what kind of mobile device (iPhone, iPad, or other device) and what apps make the most sense for your job and how you work. Some companies even offer reimbursement of some of the expenses associated with using your personal tech in the office – an example being your iPhone or iPad’s data plan (or a portion of it).
That sense of freedom is very empowering, but it often comes with the tradeoff of your company’s IT department enrolling your device in a mobile management system. This means that certain features of your device are likely to be restricted for security purposes. It also means that your company will be able to monitor and track how you use your iPhone or iPad and can wipe data remotely at any point.
With Windows 8, Windows RT, and Windows Phone, Microsoft seems to be copying Apple strategies
Yesterday, Microsoft announced its Windows 8 product lineup. The lineup includes just three editions as opposed to Windows 7 and Vista, which offered twice as many options though some were targeted at developing and niche markets. In addition to streamlining the overall offerings, Microsoft also drew a sharper line between Windows 8 for desktop, notebook, and tablet PCs with x86/64 processors and Windows for ARM-based tablets.
If the dividing line between a full-fledged version of Windows and a version designed for low cost tablets seems vaguely familiar to you, it’s because the strategy is pretty similar to the distinction between Apple’s OS X for Macs and iOS for iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches.
In fact, the entire desktop and mobile lineup that Microsoft is developing seems to borrow pretty heavily from Apple’s playbook.
Peeoooyngg! The one thing the SlingShot won't do is catapult your iPhone across the room
UPDATE: This post incorrectly stated that the SlingShot’s inventor, Charles Waugh, was also responsible for the AirClip iPhone grip. He is not.
It seems that there’s an almost infinite number of ways to stabilize your iPhone while taking photos and video, but possibly the most absurd – and at the same time extrmely practical – method so far is to drop it into this catapult-shaped tripod/slingshot.
I chuckled when I first saw it. And then I thought, “that’s actually pretty damn clever.”
Games like Magna Doodle are what allowed 1970s kids to develop such long attention spans
Remember the MagnaDoodle? If you fall on my side of the Great Age Divide, then your answer will be an excited “yes!” The re-usable screen of the Magna Doodle was just about the closest thing that us 70s-born youngsters had to the touch-screen iPhone which you ungrateful kids enjoy today.
If you’re on the wrong side of the Great Age Divide, your answer will be all like “WTF old man you suck LOL.” To which I would respond with the following punishment: You will be forced to use this Magna Doodle for a week. Without the iPhone inside.
If you liked Read It Later, you'll love Pocket. And so will your wallet.
Read It Later, the most popular way for users to save content they find on the web, has just received a new name, stacks of new features, and lost its price tag in a major update released today. Now called Pocket, the new app is free across Android and iOS devices, and delivers a new user interface, video and image filters, favorites, and much, much more.
This unique string of alphanumeric text attached to every iPhone and iPad is the source of a lot of privacy concerns.
Many of us feel a deep personal connection with our iPhones, and small wonder: the average person’s smartphone knows more about them than their spouse or significant other. Our iPhones hold our contacts, photos, videos, music, banking data, texts, emails, voicemails, web logins, apps and more. We use our phones to pay our bills, send texts to our girlfriends, check-in to our favorite club, play games with friends, and much more besides.
That makes our iOS devices a juicy target for tracking, and what most people aren’t aware of is that, historically, Apple has made it very easy to anyone to tell what you do with your iPhone. It’s called a Unique Device Identifier or UDID. Every iOS device has one, and using it, third-parties have been able to put together vast databases tracking almost everything you do with your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
The good news for privacy advocates is that the days of UDID are numbered. Following the recent stink the U.S. Congress raised over how iOS apps handle a user’s personal information without permission, Apple has given an ultimatum to third-party App Store developers: either stop tracking UDIDs or get kicked out of the App Store. Now ad networks and developers are scrambling to agree on a way to track your device in the future.
But are these replacements any good, or do they pose even bigger privacy concerns than UDIDs did?
Future iOS devices could offer glasses-free 3D technology that's better than anything else you've already seen.
Apple has filed for all sorts of patents related to 3D technologies over the years, sparking speculation that the company will one day bring us 3D-capable Macs and iOS devices. But evidence that it’s about to get serious about 3D technology for iOS devices comes from a recent job listing on its website for a “Computer Vision specialist to strengthen its multi-view stereo research group.”
