| Cult of Mac

Court backs ex-Apple engineer who says he was left off inventors’ list

By

Find my iPhone
Inventor worked on "Find My iPhone," among other features.
Photo: Apple

The ex-Apple engineer who claims he helped invent “Find My iPhone” and other features has beaten Apple in a preliminary court hearing.

Apple lost its bid to dismiss the former employee’s lawsuit earlier this week. The suit claims Apple left him off a list of five patents on which he was a rightful co-inventor. Along with “Find My iPhone,” Darren Eastman also notably worked on Passbook, the electronic ticketing system.

iPhone 6 with new Passbook icon shown in likely fake leak

By

23_1410011169.jpg_600x600

Pictures of what is allegedly a working iPhone 6 have surfaced on the Chinese social network Weibo. While tons of parts have leaked up to this point, this is the first time we’ve seen what appears to be the device powered on and running iOS 8.

The 4.7-inch device looks legit, although it’s authenticity cannot obviously be confirmed. On the screen, there’s a new Passbook icon. This hints towards the mobile payments platform Apple is expected to unveil at next week’s event.

iTunes Pass offers sneak peek at Apple’s mobile payment service

By

itunes-pass

Apple has launched a new service called iTunes Pass in several countries, including Japan, Brazil and China.

The service lets customers buy iTunes Store credit from brick-and-mortar Apple retail stores — only using Passbook, rather than the physical gift cards most commonly used. The service appears to work by letting users add a new iTunes Pass inside the Passbook app, which they can then present at their local Apple Store. The user then states how much money they would like to turn into iTunes Store credit, and this is instantly transferred to their account.

Samsung’s Passbook Clone Is Now Available In Google Play

By

post-239698-image-774e696b0b80e2e1b788acbf7e24f909-jpg

 

Apple’s Passbook feature in iOS hasn’t really taken off as quickly as people thought it would, but that hasn’t prevented Samsung from throwing developers into making its own Passbook clone. We first got our first look at Samsung Wallet back in February at MWC, but the the app is finally ready for primetime and available on Google Play.

The app is only supported on the Galaxy S3, S4, Note 1 and Note 2, and you have to sign-in with one of those silly Samsung accounts, but if you’re already nose deep in S Health, S Beam, Samsung Link and all the other half-baked Samsung apps you’ll feel right at home.

Here are the release notes:

iOS 7 Passbook Ditches Forstall’s Dumb Paper Shredder Animation

By

Passbook Delete

 

Passbook’s virtual ticket-shredder was one of the little touches in iOS 6 that wreaked of ugly skeuomorphisism. Now that Jony Ive has declared war against all of Scott Forstall’s tacky skeuomorphic UI elements, the Passbook ticket-shredder is now a thing of the past.

When you delete a card in Passbook now it just zaps away into the digital ether, rather than sending your virtual card through a virtual paper shredder that virtually obliviates your ticket so you know it’s deleted and no one can rummage through your virtual trash and piece together all the shreddings to steal your identity.

Here’s a GIF of the new iOS 7 animation in action:

10 Awesome iOS 7 Features That Apple Didn’t Mention At WWDC

By

iOS-7-lock-screen

I’ve given iOS 7 a lot of hate this morning — just because I hate its icons — so I thought it was about time I showed it some love. It may not look the best, but the next-generation of iOS is packed full of awesome new features that should greatly improve the user experience.

A lot of those were detailed during Apple’s keynote at WWDC yesterday, but some got left out. So here’s ten awesome features in iOS 7 that didn’t get a mention at the event.

How To Add A Passbook Pass To Your iPhone From Your Mac [OS X Tips]

By

Screen Shot 2013-05-31 at 3.47.03 PM

Did you know that you can add Passbook passes to your iPhone from your Mac? It’s a feature Apple hasn’t really promoted, but iCloud syncs passes added from OS X to the iPhone with a click of a button.

Hat tip to David Chartier for pointing out this feature on his Finer Things in Tech blog. When viewing a Passbook pass from a source like Ticketmaster or Second Gear Software, simply click the “Add to Passbook” button. You’ll then see the above prompt, and the pass will be added to your iPhone via iCloud.

For more great Passbook tips, check out our handy roundup.

Source: Finer Things in Tech