In putting together the various features of Mountain Lion, Apple may end up encouraging business and enterprise customers to actually make their Macs less secure instead of ratcheting up security as some key Mountain Lion capabilities are intended to do.
There are a handful of technologies involved, but they center around iCloud and Apple’s requirement that apps sold in the Mac App Store support Apple’s application sandboxing technique.
When we first saw the promo vide for Checkmark, Cult of Mac reviews editor Charlie Sorrel called it the “reminders app Apple should have made.” Today the app makers at Snowman released Checkmark for iPhone in the App store. Available for $0.99, Checkmark aims to replace Apple’s own Reminders app with a smarter workflow and much smarter location-based reminders.
Even though the iPhone 4S didn’t come with a radical new design and a few features customers were hoping for, it was still Apple’s most popular iPhone ever. During the first quarter of its availability, Apple sold over 37 million iPhone 4S units, but analyst Gene Munster says Apple is going to murder than number and sell at least 80 million iPhone 5’s.
This morning a story started circulating about a Russian hacker who had hijacked Apple’s in-app purchasing system in iOS. Alexey Borodin had figured out how to intercept in-app purchases within App Store apps to get free access to content. The most disturbing part of the “hack” was that it is actually fairly simple to replicate on any (non-jailbroken) iOS device.
Apple has now responded with an official statement saying that it is looking into the issue.
This replica is probably the closest you’ll ever get to having a real Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver. What does it have to do with Apple, you ask? After all, this is the Cult of Mac.
The Screwdriver is also a universal remote, which means that it will not only control your TV and VHS VCR, but also you Apple TV and – via the Universal Dock – your iPhone or iPod.
Although a new iPhone didn’t show its face during Apple’s WWDC keynote back in June, the Cupertino company did release a number of new products, including refreshed MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, and Mac Pros; a new “next generation” MacBook Pro, and more. But according to one analyst, the Cupertino company’s fall event will be even bigger, with a new iPhone, a new iPad, and a new Apple TV all on their way.
We’ve all been waiting with bated breath for Apple to take the mobile payment industry by storm and bring it to the mass consumer market. For years, there have been whispers that Apple is working on its own approach to reinventing mobile payments, including the possibility of a NFC-equipped iPhone. When Apple unveiled Passbook in iOS 6 last month, the company announced its first real foray into mobile payments by partnering with select companies for handling virtual goods like coupons and airline tickets.
According to a new report on The Wall Street Journal, Apple’s Passbook is only a shadow of things to come. The company is “deliberately” working on its own mobile payment system, and while the rest of its competitors scramble to test the waters, Apple is sitting back and developing the right strategy.
Although Apple quietly fixed the problem on their end that led to numerous corrupt app updates being sent out to customers, the after effects continued to plague app developers who had been bitten by the bug in the form of one-star App Store reviews from outraged customers. Now Apple’s done the right thing, and obscured these one-star reviews from influencing afflicted apps’ ratings.
Amazon has taken the next great leap in competition with Apple. Jeff Bezos and company, not resting with their Kindle Fire bargain tablet, has apparently been working on its own smartphone device, reportedly with Focxonn International, the phone maker based in China that Apple has had some press about lately.
Citing “people with knowledge of the matter,” Bloomberg reports that Amazon is also acquiring wireless technology patents to help it get a leg up on the current patent infringement lawsuit frenzy. If the rumors are true, could Amazon bring a third horse to the race?
In its first year, the Mac sold just 372,000 units. PC clones were reaching two million units, or six times the amount of sales of the Mac. And things got worse from there, climbing to a vertiginous 60x by 2004.
Now, though, according to everybody’s favorite Apple analyst and Christopher Walken soundalike Horace Dediu, the gap has dropped to just 2:1 – if you count iOS in with OS X.