News - page 1851

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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?

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.”

United Continental Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Zane Rowe has departed his job at the airline to join the Apple team in Cupertino as its new Vice President of Sales. He has been United’s CFO since October 2010, and Apple is “thrilled” to be welcoming him to the camp.

French designer Philipe Starck teased us all last week when he revealed during a radio show interview that he had been working on a “revolutionary” new product with Apple that would launch within the next 8 months. As the news began to circulate, Apple quickly denied working with Starck, and the designer backtracked on his comments.

Starck has now confirmed that he was actually helping the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs design his own yacht.

Unboxing a new MacBook — or indeed any new Apple product — is a pretty exciting experience that most of us only get to enjoy once every few years. But thanks to a team of artists from Melbourne, Australia, you can enjoy the scent of a brand new MacBook Pro every day.

Gavin Bell, Jarrah de Kuijer, and Simon McGlinn have teamed up with Air Aroma to create a new perfume that smells just like a new MacBook Pro.

Apple’s Lisa – now there was a proper computing machine. But, though she was one of Steve Job’s most sexy creations, she was also one of Apple’s biggest commercial failures due to her astronomic $10,000 price tag (10k!). We fancied her though, as any true Apple fan would, so put her cutting-edge, dual-floppy good-looks on a tee you’ll be proud to wear over your torso.

Cult of Mac’s new In Love With Lisa tee is perfect for you or the Apple fan in your life (bonus if that fan’s name is Lisa!). Remind the world of a time when Apple computers were big, boxy, and downright uncouth!

Our new tee is crafted from 100% super-soft cotton, ships worldwide, and is available right now. We’re already half sold out, grab yours now over at MightTees.com.

A couple of new ads for the iPhone 4S surfaced earlier today. Featuring none other than the one and only Samuel L. Jackson, the first 30-second spot highlights Siri, the new iPhone’s loving digital assistant. The second ad stars the lovely Zooey Deschanel. Both ads seem to be in rotation for all three U.S. iPhone carrier partners — AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

Apple appears to be spearheading a new ad campaign featuring high profile celebrities and the iPhone 4S, but so far these two ads are the only ones that have been spotted. Here they are in full HD, courtesy of Apple…

Quickoffice announced its new cloud service known as Connect at the end of last month. The service is designed to sync Microsoft Office documents between your iOS devices, Android devices, Macs, and PCs. It’s an extension to the Quickoffice apps for iOS and other mobile platforms that offer the ability to create, edit, and view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files on the go.

Connect by Quickoffice is now available from the App Store and it’s a very slick app and a great addition for any iOS user or mobile professional.

It’s always fun to speculate about what Apple should or could do with its horde of cash, and this video runs through some of the wackier ideas: from building and staffing a lunar base for eight-and-a-half years. to buying a third of the world’s drugs and throwing a continent-wide coke party, to enslaving the Rolling Stones and making them play a concert night after night after night for thirty-four years. It leaves the best for last though: making 4,813 baby clones of Steve Jobs.

(<em>Thanks, Mike S!</em>)

Next time you’re making a flight through Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport you might want to keep your iPad in your carry-on rather than leave it in your luggage. Or hope Transportation Security Administration agent Clayton Dovel isn’t on duty that day – which he probably won’t be because he just got busted for stealing a bunch of iPads from travelers’ luggage.

https://youtu.be/ovh0mdAHsyQ

Here in America, AT&T’s rather desperately trying to convince people to buy the Lumia 900 by saying it’s a “notch above” an iPhone.

In Russia, though, Nokia’s taking a different tack and trying to get people to buy the new Lumia 900 with this advertisement, in which they seem to imply that being locked into a two-year contract with a garish Lumia phone is like being entombed alive in a metal box filled with bad techno music, seizure-inducing flashing lights and half-a-dozen garishly made-up Russian call girls covered in glitter and reeking of cigarettes and vodka.

What iPhone fan could disagree with that metaphor?

[via Apple 2.0]

Today mark’s the 35th anniversary of the iconic Apple IIe, the first PC that can really be said to have achieved true mainstream success, but between the Apple IIe and the Mac, there was another computer: the venerable Apple Lisa, which Steve Jobs named after his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs.

The Lisa was a first for Apple in many ways: the first Apple computer to have a GUI, and the first Apple computer to ship with a mouse… both ideas that were borrowed by Steve Jobs from his historic visit to Xerox’s PARC labs. Unfortunately, due to both its price ($10,000 new) and the repeated delays, the Lisa never took off, and was in fact almost immediately replaced by the less expensive Lisa 2.

If you’ve got a 25K bill deep wad of Washingtons, though, you can now pick up a rare Lisa 1 computer system in original box on eBay, courtesy of the same seller who put that $100K 128K Mac prototype on sale earlier this week.

Last week, the Department of Justice filed its lawsuit against Apple and several large publishing companies alleging a complex conspiracy to fix e-book prices and to limit competition among e-book retailers. It didn’t take long for Apple to fire back in a public statement, claiming that the allegations set forth in the DOJ’s complaint “were simply not true” and that Apple’s actions actually served to break “Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry” and to encourage — not hamper — competition. Who’s telling the real story?

Thursby last week released ADmitMac PKI 4. The release is a specialized version of the company’s ADMit Mac software that focuses two factor authentication. The solution is largely aimed at government customers and regulated industries like healthcare where data security is paramount.

Thursby’s ADMitMac is an Active Directory integration solution that offers several features beyond the built-in Active Directory support that Apple provides in OS X. It offers Mac management capabilities, improved browsing of Windows network resources including Microsoft’s distribute file system, and a number of other administrative tools.

As spotted by the beautiful souls over at Reddit, someone in Apple’s patent filing department seems to have taken a shortcut in illustrating an application for way to make a touchscreen iMac useable by tracing the hands of of the divine Renaissance artist, painter and sculptor, Michelangelo.

Hey, you know what they say. Good artists borrow, great artists steal. And trust me, you don’t Apple’s patent clerks drawing their own hands if you value your sanity.

If you’ve ever wanted to own a rare piece of Apple history that looks like totally rad then this new eBay listing for a Prototype Apple eMate 300 might be the perfect. The only eMates Apple produced had a solid dark green casing rather than the clear casing you see above. The seller estimates only 6 or so of these clear eMate 300s were produced and it looks quite similar to the first generation iBook that derived a lot of inspiration from the eMate series.

If you got fat stacks of cash that you’re just looking to throw around, you can buy this bad boy on eBay right now for a whopping $8,499.00. Take a peak after the jump for even more pictures of Apple’s crazy touchscreen eMate prototype.

Visual editing software Smoke may now be in the clear for prosumer or indie filmmakers.

Autodesk’s latest version of Smoke will cost $3,495 and you can run it on your MacBook Pro. While that same wad of cash may still be enough to get you a cruddy used car, that’s about one-third the $15,000 price the California-based multinational was asking for the previous version of the software released just last year. The more affordable price may put cool effects like green screens and 3D within reach.

Despite the fact that competitors like Rdio have had one for ages, It’s taken Spotify frickin’ forever to release an official iPad app. That may be about to end though, as a Swedish technology journalist has just posted the above screenshot of what appears to be Spotify’s official iPad app… perhaps not-so-coincidentally ahead of a special announcement Spotify has planned for Wednesday.

Let’s hope it is the official app: it’s far past time, and applying a Twitter-like pane approach to the app is actually pretty brilliant. This app actually looks worth the wait.

[via The Verge, iDB]

Recently, we’ve been highlighting some of the major partnerships that are beginning to form between mobile management and mobile/cloud services vendors. These partnerships are strategic and aim to enable IT workflows that better secure, support, and monitor iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices than what any one company could offer. So far, these partnerships and the integration of solutions that they offer haven’t included Apple or the basic management tools that Apple makes available for free – until now.

Mac and iOS management provider JAMF has posted a guide to integrating the company’s signature solution with Apple’s free Configurator tool to streamline iOS deployment.

Apple is set to expand its environmental concern by teaming up with China’s Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs to audit its Chinese supply chain for pollution. Joint investigations are expected to start “in the next few weeks,” according to one report, with “a maker of printed circuit boards” the first of Apple’s suppliers to enter the spotlight.

Apple is reportedly gearing up to launch its much-anticipated “iPad mini” during the third quarter of 2012 in an effort to “counter attack” the upcoming Windows 8 tablets. The 7.85-inch device is expected to cost between $249 and $299, which will also allow it to compete with cheaper Android devices from the likes of Amazon.