Even as companies like T-Mobile try to loosen the restrictions and obligations you sign up for when you get an iPhone, Verizon is tightening them up. The nation’s largest wireless carrier has just announced that they are ending their early upgrade eligibility program, which allowed customers on a two-year contract to upgrade their devices every twenty months. Instead, you’ll have to wait until your contract expires.

Here’s some fantastic analysis on what ex-Apple retail chief Ron Johnson did wrong at JC Penney written by legendary Apple ad man Ken Segall, who completely rejects the idea that Ron Johnson didn’t understand JC Penney’s brand identity, and even wandered around quoting the company’s founder, who detested sales gimmicks. So what was the problem?

Nope, it’s not just you: iMessage and FaceTime are experiencing issues this morning, with loads of users on Twitter (and, for that matter, my girlfriend) reporting problems. Yesterday, iMessage and Facetime also reported a number of issues. Jeez, Apple, get it together.

Source: Apple

Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets has been making some zany predictions lately, perhaps best exemplified by his recent claim that Apple’s forthcoming HDTV will be controlled using a Green Lantern like power ring called the iRing.

Almost as if to apologize for releasing a report written so clearly after an all-night bender, White is now making a more sensible prediction that falls in line with other reports: that his sources in the Asian supply chain have told him the iPhone 5S’s killer feature will be a fingerprint scanner.

Apple could introduce a redesigned backlighting system to the fifth-generation iPad to help make the device thinner and lighter, according to NDP DisplaySearch. The Cupertino company will have to make significant changes if it is to bring the iPad mini’s sleek and slim form factor to its bigger brother, and this is one of the areas in which it could reduce bulk.

I recently switched to a MacBook Air for writing, and it is easily the best Mac I’ve owned in terms of speed and comfort. But, like the sports car your friends assume you’ll sell now that you have kids on the way, the Air is also lacking in space1.

Now, I’m using this 128GB (with 4GB RAM) 13-inch MacBook Air primarily for work, but that doesn’t mean I want to ditch my music, TV shows and photos altogether. Luckily, with modern Internet™ Technology™ I don’t have to. I can use cloud services and a little judicious tidying to make my New York walkup-sized MacBook Air feels like a mansion.

Only T-Mobile lets your iPhone 5 be as great as an iPhone 5. That’s according to the carrier’s new commercial, which has begun airing today to celebrate the launch of the iPhone on T-Mobile. It’s taken almost six years, but Apple’s popular smartphone is finally available on America’s fourth largest carrier. Watch the new ad below.

In the 1984 rite-of-passage classic The Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso is taught agility and patience by his sensei, Keisuke Miyagi, by catching flies with chopsticks.

What kind of agility do you think it would take, then, to steal an iPhone using chopsticks? From a passing bicyclist, no less?

The Chinese gentleman above apparently pulled off the incredible feat in downtown Zhengzhou. A journalist happened to snap his nimble pickpocketing in action, which led to Wang turning himself in.

Via: Kotaku

We’ve heard tell that Twitter would soon be launching a music-discovery app, but it now appears that we might see it as early as today.

Nuff said.

Source: Twitter

This post is brought to you by Detox My Mac.

Prudent Mac users often “clean” their machines to keep them running in tip-top shape. Those in the know repair permissions with Disk Utility, empty caches, delete unused applications and transfer large media files onto external drives on a regular basis so as to clear up space and optimize running speeds. But while all these actions are sensible routine maintenance, they probably won’t make much difference to a heavily used machine running loads of applications whose performance becomes noticeably compromised. Such systems don’t need just a clean but a detox. Detox My Mac selects, scans and deep-cleans your Mac’s system for a thorough detox.

Detox My Mac does not simply offer what the regular OS X disk utilities do but much, much more.

iTunes links mysteriously began disappearing from Google search results earlier this month, and Google was quick to confirm that a technical issue was the cause — and not that it was pulling them intentionally. As it turns out, the problem may have actually been Apple’s fault.

According to a report from search engine experts SISTRIX, Apple may have been blocking Google’s crawlers accidentally.

When Apple hired former Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch — yes, the same guy who watched and lamely whined while Apple basically killed Flash by declaring it a wholly unnecessary and archaic web technology that had no place in the mobile age of computing — there was a lot of head scratching. What would Kevin Lynch be doing at Apple?

Well, here’s one theory: he’s heading a team made up largely of former iPod employees, and he’s working on the iWatch.

Remember that tip we gave you about showing more than seven days in a week in iCal? It’s been a while (and the app is now called Calendar), but there used to be a way to enable a Debug menu in iCal to allow you to open multiple windows, change the number of weeks that appear before and after the start date in Day View, and even show more than just seven days in a week.

Well, that debug menu has gone the way of Mac OS X Lion, but there is a cool Terminal command that does the same thing.

Apple has agreed to pay $53 million to settle a class action lawsuit that accuses the Cupertino company of failing to honor warranties on iPhones and iPod touches. The settlement could see hundreds of thousands of Apple customers receiving a payout after being refused repairs or replacements on faulty devices still under warranty.

The U.K.’s Office of Fair Trading is investigating children’s games that charge in-app purchases for additional content and virtual items. The watchdog will look at games on mobile and on the web, and it’s calling for parents to report titles that “aggressively push” in-app purchases to children.

LinkedIn has officially announced that it will acquire the popular mobile newsreader Pulse in a deal worth $90 million, following rumors that began circulating back in March. The company is hoping that the move will help it become the “definitive professional publishing platform,” expanding its business beyond the professional network it already provides.

Yeah, that’s a bit of sarcasm up there in the hed; there’s obviously no lack of choice regarding Bluetooth speakers. This year’s CES exploded with Bluetooth, and it doesn’t seem a day goes by that a manufacturer doesn’t release another model.

iHome is more about, well, more; so instead of releasing one, they’ve released four.

I’m sitting here bobbin’ my head to these fresh playlists, straight outta Liberty City, Chinatown, Vice City, and other locations in Rockstar’s flagship series of games, Grand Theft Auto.

I’m not playing the games through, either. All the songs are set up in Spotify and iTunes by Rockstar itself, from the radio stations in the GTA series, including Grand Theft Auto IV, Episodes from Liberty City, San Andreas, Vice City and more.

Looks like this whiteout winter may finally be waning. Time to soak up a little sunshine; so grab your bike, backpack, rod, oars, harness and a Pocket Ranger official State Park Guide app for Android or iOS and get yourself outside. Why a Pocket Ranger app? Because it’s stuffed full of info about anything and everything related to state parks in your area — for free.

Apparently, junior minister for digital economy Fluer Pellerin thinks that Apple shouldn’t have rejected AppGratis from the App Store last week. Her remarks to the French media make it clear that she feels the tech company isn’t behaving ethically in its dealings with AppGratis, a French startup, or others like it, calling the move “an issue of fairness,” and “extremely brutal.”

Not only that, but Pellerin feels that European regulators might want to think about taking action against Apple for the rejection.

Apple may be signing its first licensing deal with Universal Music Group (UMG) as soon as next week, according to several sources with knowledge of the matter, says The Verge. UMG and Apple are in the final stages of negotiations, and Warner Music is close behind, say those sources. All Apple needs now to complete the licensing for what the media has dubbed iRadio is an agreement with Sony Music Entertainment and other music publishers.

Apple is widely expected to launch a streaming music service later this year, perhaps this summer, with features similar to Pandora, assuming it can get all the licensing squared away for such a service.

At one point in time, Dom had a beautiful MacBook and iPad that he loved very very much. Then one day, when Dom was out having some fun, thieves broke into his London flat and stole his MacBook and iPad. Assholes.

After calling the police and trying to recover his stolen MacBook and iPad, Dom remembered he had Hidden App installed on the MacBook. And one month later, when the MacBook finally got connected to the Internet again, it started broadcasting all the thieves secrets, from its new home in Iran.

Unfortunately, Iran is a bit out of the police’s jurisdiction, but at least Dom gets to know who his adversary is, incase they ever cross paths at an airport. On top of that, Dom’s created an awesome Tumblr so everyone can know what the thieves are up to.

Here are some of the pictures Dom’s MacBook thieves have taken:

Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs has kept herself busy with a number of different projects since the passing of her late husband. Yet, despite hanging out with the Clintons, one thing Jobs hasn’t done is offer an interview to a major news outlet.

Friday, April 12th on Rock Center with Brian Williams, Laurene Powell Jobs is set to be interviewed, for the first time since Steve’s passing, to advocate for young undocumented immigrants.

You know how when you use the iOS Calendar app, you can tap on the little arrows to the right or left of the Day or the Month? This will move you one unit per tap, so when you’re in Month view, you’ll move forward one month if you tap on the right arrow, and one month back if you tap on the left arrow. Same thing with the Day view: tap on the left arrow to move back one day, the right arrow to move forward one day. Simple, right?

Turns out that you can move through the calendar even faster in either Day or Month view.