After refreshing its iPad lineup in the fall last year, rather than summer, Apple set itself up to go through a June quarter without a new iPad launch for the first time since it was introduced in 2010. Analysts are expecting Apple to announce that year-over-year iPad sales last quarter were down, but one thing that’s still up is iPad usage.

According to the latest stats from the Chitika ad network, iPads now account for 84.3% of all web traffic from tablets in June. That’s just a slight bump up from the 82.4% Apple hit in May, but it’s the iPad’s highest share of tablet web use this year.

As Apple begins to line up suppliers for the production of the iPad mini 2 – that may or may not have a retina display – ET Newsmac reports that AUO has been dropped by Apple as a display supplier for the iPad mini 2.

AUO provided displays for the original iPad mini, but according the to report, the Taiwanese display supplier could not secure any orders from Apple for the iPad mini 2 because it failed to meet the supply deadlines or to develop an LCD with high penetration rate.

One of Apple’s biggest antagonist regarding smartphone theft says that he’s pretty happy with the improved security features of iOS 7.

After announcing his efforts last week to test Apple’s new security lock, San Francisco District Attorney, George Gascón says that Apple’s Activation Lock is a “clear improvement” over previous solutions aimed at deterring thieves from stealing smartphones. 

The new, space-age Mac Pro is the smallest, most compact Mac Pro yet. The reason it’s so small, though, is it heavily leverages Thunderbolt and USB 3 for expandability, instead of letting people crack open the case and install any new cards or devices they want. This cutting image gets to the heart of the problem with this approach: is the new Mac Pro really smaller and more compact than the old one, when all is said and done?

Via: Giga.de

Flipboard is no longer a service that you can only enjoy on mobile devices. From today, more than 2 million magazines on every topic imaginable are available to read in your web browser. Each one boasts Flipboard’s signature look and feel, but they’re been optimized for the larger screen on your desktop.

If you’ve been looking for flexible, comprehensive server monitoring then look no further – this Cult of Mac Deals offer is what you’ve been searching for.

For administrators who need to keep track of multiple sites, servers, and applications, Simon is the tool to do it. With a beautiful and intuitive interface, the app displays everything you’re tracking with key stats on uptime, time until next check, time since last change and failures – and even displays this info with graphs and lists when you drill down.

After you’ve set your test parameters, Simon can notify you via Growl, speech, Twitter, email, and even text message whenever an update is available or a server goes down. Advanced users will enjoy extras like session capturing and multipage reports, but even less experienced users can quickly get up to speed with this flexible, reliable utility.

And you can get the “bronze edition” of Simon right now for the low price of only $25 courtesy of Cult of Mac Deals.

In the sphere of Apple, most analysts are generally full of it. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is one of the exceptions; when he says something’s happening, there’s a pretty good chance it actually is.

Now, Kuo’s supply chain checks have indicated that the end of the year might be a rough one for Apple: not only is Kuo not anticipating a new iPad mini this year, but he’s forecasting serious supply issues at the launch of the iPhone 5S.

After playing Steve Jobs in the upcoming bio-pic, Jobs, what’s next for Ashton Kutcher? Betraying the very spirit of the icon he just portrayed by shilling Windows PCs, of course.

Earlier this month, Best Buy kicked off a two-day promotion that offered up a $200 gift card when you traded in your old iPad for a brand new model. It was obviously a big success, because just two weeks later, the promotion is running for a second time.

Realmac Software, the creators of Clear and Analog Camera, just launched Ember, a digital scrapbook for your Mac. You can use it to collect all of the things that inspire you, including websites, photos, apps, and more — which you can then organize into separate collections dedicated to all of your ongoing projects.

My ten year old son has gotten significantly into Civilization V lately, and we bought him his own copy on sale at Steam yesterday. So, he was at his mom’s house, and I was at my house, and he wanted me to invite him to a private match.

In order to do so, I had to enable Assistive Devices, just like Steam has always asked players to do to help enable the overlays and multiplayer invite system. So I headed to the System Preferences, to the Accessibility preference pane, like always. Alas, there is no place there to click the familiar “Enable access for assistive devices” button. I looked high, I looked low. No dice. No enabling access for assistive devices, either.

So then I turned to Google.

Path has updated its iOS app today to introduce the ability to hide the Friend Progress Bar from your feed. The release also brings the ability to edit your email address and password within the settings drawer, and new stickers and filters.

Juice Up is a super-smart concept design with one big flaw: it relies on the kindness of strangers to actually work. Still, with a little modification it could be just about the best bumper you could buy.

It’s likely that your reactionary knee-jerk hatred of iOS7’s sweet new look has worn off by now, just like you’re still using Instagram and you haven’t yet actually quit Facebook (although you totally will any day now). But if you’re like our own Killian Bell, who just this second described iOS7 as “looking like the walls of a crack house after a drug-fueled makeover,” then you might want to take a look at this web app, which lets you redesign iOS7 yourself.

AT&T’s new early upgrade program is “calculating, sneaky, underhanded,” according to a new print ad from T-Mobile that will be published in USA Today.

AT&T Next is designed to let customers upgrade their smartphone more often — once every 12 months — and it is a direct competitor to T-Mobile’s new Jump plan. But T-Mobile has been quick to make its feelings about Next clear, accusing AT&T of trying to take more money from its customers.

It might be hard to remember during this absurdly hot summer, but there’s this thing called rain. And rain hates gadgets. Or rather, it seems to love gadgets, but they hate it. The obvious answer is an umbrella, but then you have to kind of squeeze its shaft between your shoulder and your ear so you can use both hands to operate your camera/iPhone/iPad.

What you need is the Brolly umbrella.

USB thumb drives are fast becoming useless, simply because we have nothing to plug them into. I used to get excited when PR folks gave me a 1GB stick instead of a DVD containing their press info, but how am I supposed to stick it into my iPad?

SanDisk’s new Connect Wireless Flash Drive fixes that. It’s a 16GB or 32GB thumb drive, only it has a Wi-Fi radio inside

The Filip is a smart watch for kids, complete with a built-in cellphone, a tracker so you can keep an eye on them wherever they are, and messaging so you can continue to harass and berate them even as they try to build their own sense of independence.

I kind of hate it.

Apparently, the hot new thing is to stick your iPad to the kitchen wall and then immediately start chopping red peppers. Luckily for those new to this emerging fashion, there is both a product and an instructional video available to help out. The product is the MagBak, and it consists of a pair of rubbery, magnetized pads that stick onto the back of the iPad.

How many people do you know that have an expensive home security system that they never turn on? Maybe that person is you. Security systems can cost a lot, and unless you’re protecting a million dollar home or your drug money (or both), most of us don’t need something so fancy.

Canary is a new product that calls itself “the world’s first smart home security device for everyone.”

While some radio stations started sending out recordings of broadcasts in 2001, podcasts came onto the scene in 2004, got onto iTunes in 2005, and have since “transformed the media landscape,” according to Apple’s new iTunes splash page celebrating a milestone one billion podcast subscriptions.

Those billion subscriptions are held up by 250,000 unique podcasts across over 100 languages. More than eight million episodes have been published on the iTunes Store, according to Apple.

Auroch Digital just announced the development of a digital version of a classic Games Workshop board game from 1987, Chainsaw Warrior, coming to iPad and Android soon.

The original board game is one of the only single-player board games I know of, putting you in the role of the only hope for humanity as scary creatures come flooding through a dimensional rift in the heart of Manhattan, circa 2032. Of course, you’re the guy that must come out of retirement to battle the evil monsters, which have already destroyed the world’s bravest and brightest. It’s up to you to chainsaw your way through wave after wave the evil hordes. Wait, that sounds like a video game, doesn’t it?

Last Thursday, Apple’s online Developer Center went down for maintenance. While the regular outage typically lasts a few hours, it wasn’t until Sunday night that Apple acknowledged the issue. In a message to its developer community and the press, Apple explained that an “intruder” had breached the Dev Center’s database. Apple claimed that no personal data was stolen from its users, but the threat was great enough to warrant a complete rebuilding of the site’s backend.

A Turkish security researcher by the name of Ibrahim Balic has come forward as the person responsible for the hack, although he claims no foul play and has submitted his bugs to Apple. More information has been revealed regarding how Balic got past Apple’s security.

Apple’s Dev Center has been down since Thursday, but that isn’t stopping the company from releasing new beta software to developers.

Earlier today, we cautioned that the hacking of the Dev Center could result in delayed updates to the iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks betas. But Apple has still pushed out the fourth developer preview of Mavericks today.

Until the Dev Center comes back online, developers won’t be able to login and directly download the new version of Mavericks. The update is only currently available in the Mac App Store for those already on a previous version of the beta operating system.

The third developer preview Mavericks came out two weeks ago. We’ll let you know if there’s anything of note in today’s version.

Have you ever wished you could record your iPhone’s screen activity? Short of a tool on the Mac like Reflector, it’s hard to capture video of iOS in action. Apple doesn’t allow apps in the App Store that can record video of anything on the screen… until now.

A new app called xRec has managed to slip into the App Store, and it can fully record the iPhone’s screen, including any audio.