News - page 1958

Siri’s a smart little moppet, but she can’t do everything for you. You can’t ask her to find you a picture of a dog from Google Images, or see if the guy you have a blind date with that night is a registered sex offender, or really do anything that Siri and Wolfram Alpha aren’t already programmed to do.

The good news is that Siri hacker chpwn has teamed up with GitHub hacker Aman Gupta to figure out how to add custom Siri commands. The bad news is it’s quite complicated, and there’s no way to do it right now for yourself.

If you’ve been using a Mac for any real length of time, you probably know Retrospect. They’ve been releasing great backup tools to Mac users since the Metazoic age of MacOS 6, and despite coming under the thrall of various corporate overlords from time to time, Retrospect’s still hard at work making great software… and Retrospect 9 for Mac might be their best backup client yet.

What’s new? Growl notifications and AES-256 encryption, for one, making Prospect 9 a corporate level backup solution. Task workflows and WebDAV support are now in the mix, as well as a network backup option supporting all flavors of machines, including Mac, Linux and Windows, and the whole software package has gotten a shot in the arm to run even faster and prettier than ever before.

How much? $129 for five users, or $479 for a single-server, 20 seat license. Pay $1699 and use it on as many servers and as many users as you want. Or just download the free trial.

Walter Isaacson’s biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is catnip for Mac lovers, selling 379,000 copies during its first week. Although it doesn’t compare to the 4 million iPhone 4S handsets sold during its first weekend, the book’s sales were enough to leave best-selling fiction author John Grisham in the literary dust.

Remember that fantastic native Gmail app that Google was on the verge of releasing? They’ve done gone and released it, and it’s available now as a free download for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 4 or above.

Telefonica Czech Republic has rejected sales of the iPhone 4S and other versions of Apple’s smartphone due to a dispute over reported business terms. Two other carriers will offer the new handset instead, which has sold at a record pace since a mid-October introduction.

Are you being taunted by the sneering pigs? Does the Bluebird of Happiness never seem to come your way? Then you -like I – are an Angry Bird addict and responsible for the infuriating entertainment becoming the world’s most popular game, topping half a billion downloads.

Apple revolutionized retail shopping when it opened up its first brick and mortar store back in 2001, and it’s about to do it all over again — using an iOS app. The Cupertino company will reportedly issue a major update to its Apple Store app for iOS devices this Thursday that will change the way you buy Apple products forever.

You want to buy an iPad for Christmas. The problem: scammers know it too and are waiting in prey for you this holiday season. Here are some tips on how to safely shop for tablets online without falling victim to hoax high-tech Santas.

As the legal battles between Apple and Samsung continue, the Korean electronics giant is seeking depositions from a number of Apple designers behind the company’s revolutionary iPhone, including its Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, Jony Ive.

Despite a number of recent courtroom victories which have seen Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned in both Australia and Europe, one small Spanish firm has proven Apple doesn’t always get its own way in front of a judge.

The Cupertino computer giant just lost a case against NT-K, which makes Android tablets in Spain, after it pulled the company into court and claimed that NT-K’s device rips off the iPad.

UPDATE: Apple just sent us a statement saying Cano has not been named head of retail. A spokeswoman said: “The search is underway with lots of interest and we are carefully selecting Ron’s successor. We have nothing to announce today.”

Although an official announcement has yet to be made, Cult of Mac has learned that Apple has already replaced its outgoing head of retail, Ron Johnson.

Reports on Monday suggested Apple hasn’t found a replacement for Johnson, its highly-regarded Senior Vice President of Retail. But we’ve been told by a source that Apple has already promoted an internal candidate to Johnson’s job.

Apple’s new retail boss isn’t just some suit, though. He’s one of the first retail employees Apple ever hired, a California surfer dude who has climbed from the sales floor to the very top rung of Apple management.

It’s a real rags-to-riches story that should be inspiration to every stressed out Apple Store sales associate or overworked Genius: your work can be noticed, and you too can go to the very top.

Apple issued a press release yesterday in which it confirmed the new iPhone 4S will be launching in South Korea next Friday, November 11. In order to prepare for its arrival, the South Korean government has lifted a ban that prevented iOS users from downloading games onto their devices.

Siri is a tremendous addition to Apple’s latest iPhone. But if you’ve already had the pleasure of making it your own virtual assistant, you may have noticed that without a data connection, Siri goes quiet. That’s because the feature connects to Apple’s servers every time you make a request in order to retrieve your answers, or perform the task you have requested.

If you’re a regular Siri user, then, you may be worried about the dent it’s making in your monthly data allowance. But there’s no need to worry, because it’s hardly anything.

The response we’ve received for the Fall 2011 Mac SuperBundle has been enormous. We’re so glad that everyone has been enjoying this awesome deal. Unfortunately this deal is ending tonight at midnight, so get it while the gettin’s good. 10 best-selling apps for $49. Camtasia alone is a steal at $50 but we’ve managed to snag Fantasical, CleanMyMac, Houdah Spot, Mac Hider, Disc Label, En Soul, Audio Converter Pro, Font Explosion, and Enigmo 2 into this mega-pack of awesomeness.

Not familiar with all those cool apps? Here’s a quick run down of the goodies that are available. Deal ends tonight at Midnight PST.

Two iPhone apps tied for first place won the top two spots in a national challenge on safety and emergency for young adults.

There were a total of 33 entries in the “Apps Against Abuse Technology Challenge,” but the top two places went to iPhone apps. Both will be available for free download in early 2012.

An interesting report from Bloomberg takes a look at 5 million iPhone users on the largest and most valuable carrier in the world, China Mobile. What’s surprising about China Mobile’s iPhone user base is the fact that Apple’s smartphone isn’t officially offered on the carrier.

Millions of Chinese Apple lovers are using their iPhones on a network that can’t even offer 3G data speeds for the device due to frequency incompatibilities. If that’s the case, then why are so many people content to use the iPhone on China Mobile? The answer: Wi-Fi.

Apple has closed its original SoHo location in New York City to perform some renovations. The SoHo store on Prince Street is closed for a limited time, and Apple has opened a temporary store on Greene Street.

Described as “raw and “rustic,” Apple’s temporary SoHo store is bustling with activity and features all the aspects that customers would expect from an Apple Store. Apple sure knows how to throw a store together.

A recent report from The Wall Street Journal gives an inside look at Tim Cook’s influence as Apple’s new CEO during the past couple of weeks. Cook has been known as the mastermind behind Apple’s incredibly efficient operations for years.

In the wake of Steve Jobs’ death, Cook has already begun to do things differently than Jobs, and he is proving to be a very different type of Apple CEO.

WIRED magazine has collaborated with Gizmodo to release the “Wired App Guide” iPad application in the App Store. The app provides 400 detailed reviews of “essential tools for every type of smartphone user.”

With categorized app reviews and an index of the hottest apps in the App Store, WIRED’s new App Guide is a must-download for any Apple enthusiast.

So you get a shiny new iPhone 4S, and you want to make Siri do something cool. Cooler than Shit That Siri Says, anyway.

What do you do? You get Siri to pour you a beer, of course. And you call it Beeri. Hic.

Alongside the fifteen new countries that will get the iPhone 4S on November 11th, Apple’s latest and greatest handset will also come to its fourth US carrier: the little known regional carrier C-Spire Wireless. And for subscribers on a budget, the iPhone 4 will be coming to C-Spire too.

Do you remember Microsoft’s top secret Couriet tablet project? It was a dual screen, book-like tablet first leaked well before Apple unveiled the iPad, created by J. Allard, the mind behind Microsoft’s fantastic Xbox console.

It’s a concept that has aged well, mostly because it’s one of the only tablet designs around that isn’t just trying to rip off Apple’s idea of what a tablet should be wholesale. It’s still, in fact, brought up as an example of how Microsoft could have competed with Apple in the tablet market from the get go.

So what happened to the Courier? Why wasn’t it released? It all came down to the fact that Bill Gates had an “allergic reaction” to the project because it didn’t run Outlook.

GarageBand is one of the best apps you can show off on your iPad 2 to convince even the most ornery skeptic, and it just got even better: with the 1.1 update, GarageBand is now a $4.99 universal app, and can run on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

Today Apple announced that it will begin selling the iPhone 4S in 15 more countries starting on November 11th, including Hong Kong and South Korea. The news is part of an aggressive roll-out by the tech giant, which hopes to have the iconic smartphone in 70 countries by the end of December.

Apple has seemingly missed its iTunes Match launch date after promising at its ‘Let’s Talk iPhone’ event early last month that the new service would be up and running in the United States at the “end of October.” Developers who have been testing the service in beta are discovering today that the iTunes 10.5.1 beta has now ended, with no replacement in sight.