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Natalia Nowak, Mac 360
Karl Hodge, Macworld UK
Dave Winer, Scripting News
Miguel Helft, New York Times
In recent years, the company’s Macintosh line of computers has enjoyed a remarkable revival that has been vital to Apple’s emergence as the most valued technology company on Wall Street.
In the latest sign of that comeback, Autodesk plans to announce on Tuesday that it is bringing its flagship AutoCAD design and engineering software to the Mac for the first time in nearly two decades.
Jay Nelson, Macsimum News
InDesign CS5 from Adobe represents a major step forward in usability and adds substantial new features for creating and exporting interactive documents and eBooks.
http://www.cio.de/news/cio_worldnews/2245531/?qle=rssfeed_, CIO
David Pogue, New York Times
Because both Amazon and Barnes & Noble offer excellent e-book reading apps for the iPad (for their own proprietary e-books), the size of Apple’s e-book library is essentially irrelevant.
Marco Arment
AppleInsider
Apple and its fledgling iAds mobile advertising service are the target of a new lawsuit from a company that owns a patent related to location-based ads.
Christopher Breen, Macworld
Ramu Nagappan, Macworld
If you’re looking for another way to hang your iPad prominently on the wall, the newly announced PadTab might be worth a look. It works on any flat surface, and lets you easily mount and remove your iPad.
Matt Hamblen, Computerworld
Apple’s iPad tablet is being used by doctors, lawyers and businesspeople to ease their workloads, but many believe the popular touchscreen device can’t yet replace a laptop for functions such as writing long documents.
David Carnoy, CNET
Perhaps signaling that it's getting more serious about selling e-books, Apple is in the process of hiring a U.S. marketing manager for its iBookstore.
Roman Loyola, Macworld
Coding Robots’ Video Mémoires 1.0 is a journal program with a basic set of features to helps track your video entries on a daily basis.
John Gruber, Daring Fireball
Consider: is there more pressure on Apple to add Flash support to iOS, or on websites with Flash-only content to produce iOS-compatible alternatives? Such pressure — both on Apple and website publishers — is best measured not by complaints on the web, but by sales of iPhones, iPods, and iPads.
James T. Areddy, Wall Street Journal
The tubular glass entranceway to Shanghai’s new Apple Inc. shop may be its most high-tech feature, considering the iPad hasn’t officially arrived in China.
The atrium foyer is also a crystalline sign of the times: It was made entirely in China, establishing a fresh benchmark on workmanship for the world’s largest glass industry.
Eric Jhonsa, Motley Fool
In the hype-filled world of the tech sector, there are lies, damned lies, and market share statistics.
MG Siegler, TechCrunch
Google, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon — when you hear these names, you usually think about how these tech giants all compete with one another. But what if they all teamed up for one cause? They’d be unstoppable, right? We’re about to find out.
All of these companies are currently sitting in the same boat about to storm the beaches. Which beaches? Those belonging to the the cable television providers in the U.S. It has only just begun, but the assault is underway.
Ziggy Switkowski, The Australian
Daily News And Analysis
Joe White, App Advice
Rina Chandran, Reuters
A master storyteller and self-confessed Apple fan hardly makes for a compelling advocate for social change. But Mike Daisey, whose new monologue focuses on what he calls the dark side of Apple's iconic gadgets, hopes he can pressure Chief Executive Steve Jobs to push for better labour conditions at factories in China, where most Apple gadgets are assembled.
ifoAppleStore
San Jose Mercury News
Apple, which upended consumer behavior with the iPhone and iPad tablet, may have met its match in the living room, where it faces enormous challenges and fierce competition on what many say is consumer tech's new frontier -- the television.
Radio Taiwan International
AppleInsider
Victor Agreda, Jr., TUAW
Karen Haslam, Macworld UK
According to one developer, Apple's iAd advertising platform doesn’t work as well as AdMob.
Roman Loyola, Macworld
David Dahlquist, Macworld
Indaba Music, a Website that lets musicians collaborate and make music online, has revamped its site to include a number of new services and features, including the ability for artists to sell their music on iTunes.
Ted Landau, Macworld
Dionne Searcey, Wall Street Journal
The 57-year-old software guru on Friday sued much of Silicon Valley, claiming Internet giants such as Google Inc., Facebook Inc. and eBay Inc. have built their businesses around what he says is his technology.
Katherine Murray, Macworld
With the vast array of changes in iScrapbook 3.0.4 and the expanded constellation of Smart Templates, iScrapKits, and page and album designs geared toward helping you create amazing pages easily, the $50 single user edition of the software is definitely worth the price.
James Galbraith, Macworld
Looking at individual test results, we see that the eight-core system is much faster at the those higher-end applications that take full advantage of multiple cores. MathematicaMark, for example, scored nearly 44 percent higher on the eight-core system than the new four-core system. Cinebench was 28 percent faster on the eight-core system.
Lex Friedman, Macworld
Nick Spence, Macworld UK
Apple has posted a note on its iPhone Dev Center Website promising to pay developers sooner and more frequently in future.
Roman Loyola, Macworld
Decipher VoiceMail is a program made specifically for voicemail retrieval from your iPhone backup. When you launch the program, it automatically finds your iPhone backup and voicemail files. It then displays a window that lists the voicemail files.
Paul McDougall, InformationWeek
Not a company to shy away from hype, Apple has signaled next week's event at the Yerba Buena Center for The Arts by wrapping the San Francisco facility in a giant banner, Christo style, that reflects the musical theme behind the press conference.
David Goldman, CNNMoney.com
The mobile advertising business is puny. But don't tell that to Google and Apple.
Miguel Helft, New York Times
Apple severed ties with a small Silicon Valley design firm that for nearly a decade had helped with the development of some of its products, after the firm showcased its own prototype tablet computer.
Jonathan Rougeot and Matt Safford, Computer Shopper
This new line starts at $2,499, which is $300 cheaper than its predecessor, and even in the low-end base model we tested, it handled our tough labs testing with ease. Even better: It's designed to be easily upgradable, so you're not stuck with your point-of-purchase setup.
Von
Jim Dalrymple, CNET
While all of the applications in the iWork suite were updated, the most significant change comes in Pages 4.0.4. The word-processing app now includes compatibility with the ePub format, which Apple uses for iBooks.
David Chartier, Macworld
Chris Rawson, TUAW
MPEG LA has announced that H.264 will be royalty-free forever so long as video encoded with the standard is free to end users. This means sites like YouTube and vimeo will never be charged licensing fees to serve video on the web; presumably, it also means that Apple will continue to pay licensing fees to sell videos in the iTunes Store.
John Brandon, Macworld
Eon is an iCal program that runs in the background on your Mac. You can access it using a Finder menu or a hotkey. The app will dim your Mac to show only calendar and task items. The app also provides several “skin” widgets that make the calendar look a bit more appealing.
Joel Mathis, Macworld
Universities and schools around the nation—and even the world—are distributing iPads to students and faculty to start the new school year. Some are using the device to lure talented freshmen; others hope faculty and students will merely experiment with the tablet as a learning tool. But a few educators are betting the iPad will herald a revolution in the classroom, once-and-for-all displacing musty textbooks in favor of a mobile multimedia device that can engage students in new and innovative ways.
Mel Martin, TUAW
Here's some great news for Netflix subscribers. The free Netflix app has finally made it to the iPhone and iPod touch. Netflix members on plans as low as US$8.99 a month can instantly watch movies and TV shows streamed from the Netflix servers.
IT.Enquirer
Dennis Sellers, Macsimum News
Dan Raywood, SC Magazine
Courthouse News Service
Apple Inc. has again accused Eastman Kodak of swiping its digital camera architecture. A similar lawsuit was filed against Kodak in April, while Kodak accused Apple in January of violating its patent on cell phone camera technology.
MacNN
China Unicom profits fell 54 percent in the second quarter, in spite of benefits from being the only official iPhone carrier in China, Bloomberg notes.
MacNN
Apple, Adobe, Tivo, HP and Xerox are among 23 companies being sued by an Allen, Texas business, Ganas, in a new patent infringement lawsuit. Although four patents in total are said to be at stake, the key one is 7,136,913. This describes "a system for communication over the internet and through a firewall utilizing a single communications protocol," using a simple object access communications protocol, or SOAP.
Electronista
The rebuttal claims that the four patents violate rules regarding prior art as well as those for non-obviousness, originality and usefulness. Much of Apple's lawsuit is also targeting technology that HTC contracts out to third parties rather than anything created in-house.
Joel Santo Domingo, PC Magazine
Compared with the competition, the Mac Pro (Xeon E5620) excels on the ease of expandability, looks, 3D rendering (CineBench R10), and some performance tests. If you have a task that will exercise the Mac Pro's multi-threaded, multi-core power, then it's a worthy addition to your artist or engineer's life.
Neuromarketing
901am
Although the iPhone is too big for Google to ignore, we may not see much attention paid to the iDevice in the future, with Google choosing instead to give its best features to Android all the while giving web app scraps to the iOS.
Nick Bilton, New York Times
Invites like these show up two or three times a year, and it’s always a puzzle wrapped in a cryptic bow of noninformation. Such is the case with the most recent one, which shows a picture of an Apple-branded guitar.
Ron McElfresh, Mac 360
If you want ease of use, peace of mind, and a central location to check on various Mac functions and invoke a few features, CheckUp will do that and look pretty.
Hexus
Mobile Industry Review
The Register
Dan Moren, Macworld
Apple on Wednesday announced that it would be holding a special invitation-only event on Wednesday, September 1, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
As usual, the invitation itself is a terse affair, listing only the time and place and showing a picture of a guitar with an Apple-logo-shaped sound hole. In past years, Apple has used September events to showcase music- and media-related products, such as new iPods.
Roman Loyola, Macworld
Earth Addresser is a fun little program that works with Google Earth and the Mac’s Address Book. It takes your contacts and maps them out on the Google Earth globe.
Jay J. Nelson, Macworld
If you work with multilingual or technical documents, or if you frequently use dingbat fonts, PopChar X 5 will quickly pay for itself. Graphic designers will appreciate PopChar's ability to display the same character across multiple fonts, and Photoshop users will appreciate being able to visually find and choose special characters.
Desire Athow, IT Pro Portal
Fiction writer J.A Konrath revealed how poor sales of his novels were doing on the Apple iBooks platform compared to Amazon's Kindle Store in a post on his personal website.
Jack Clark, ZDNet UK
IDC has played down reports of Apple's growth within the government and enterprise sectors, following articles trumpeting a major growth in shipments.
David Chartier, Macworld
Detailed in Apple’s support document, this update contains a variety of fixes for both the client and server versions of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard. Among the vulnerabilities squashed in the patch include one where maliciously crafted fonts that could be embedded in documents, a potential man-in-the-middle data interception attack, possible code execution due to maliciously crafted PDF documents, vulnerabilities in the ClamAV antivirus program, a weakness in the Samba system that could allow denial of service attacks, and a number of security holes in Mac OS X’s pre-installed version of PHP.
David Chartier, Macworld
Codality has updated Simplenote, its note-taking and -sharing service for iPhone, iPad, and desktop computers, with nearly two dozen new features and fixes spread between its mobile app and its Web version.
Jeffery Battersby, Macworld
If you’re fanatical about Mac maintenance MacKeeper offers tools to clean out errant files, backup your data, and even find your Mac if it’s lost or stolen. MacKeeper’s developer, Zeobit, also provides 24/7 tech support.
David Chartier, Macworld
The new NTI Shadow 5 introduces Volume Cloning, encroaching on turf occupied by competitors like ChronoSync and Carbon Copy Cloner. You can now schedule periodic backups of your entire system drive and all personal data, creating a bootable backup that’s ready to go in case your Mac’s internal hard drive ever gets a case of the Mondays.
Brian Palmer, Slate Magazine
The environmental credentials of the iPad and Kindle.
Erik Larkin, PC World
Apple's new iOS 4 operating system for iPhone 3G and above pays close attention to your location, in good and maybe not-so-good ways.
Darlene Storm, Computerworld
When you personally buy a new technological toy, then it's yours to do with as you please. Right? Wrong! What if your new device were activated on the sly and used against you? That's a step beyond spyware. In fact, the EFF coined a new term, "traitorware."
Unless you've been cut off from technology, then you have probably heard about Apple's patent, "Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device." It appears that Apple is taking steps to enable locking out unauthorized iOS users. What's new is that privacy watchdog EFF has posted their reaction to this Apple patent application. I love the EFF, so I listen when they talk.
The Old New Thing
Gene Steinberg, TechNightOwl
Bambi Brannan, Mac 360
Simply put, Yum is a kitchen companion for Mac users intent on putting some digital discipline into your cooking routine. Yum manages recipes and shopping lists using two very familiar screen metaphors.
Karl Hodge, Macworld UK
Yoko Kubota, Reuters
Japan's ancient sport of sumo is embracing the latest high-tech, with its governing body set to distribute Apple's iPad to wrestlers who often struggle with smaller cellphone keypads due to their giant hands.
Christopher Breen, Macworld
Apple’s built-in automation tool, Automator (in /Applications), is capable of performing wondrous feats, yet far too many people ignore it—believing their work wouldn’t benefit from automation or that Automator is too difficult to use. Neither is the case, as evidenced by these tips for the Snow Leopard version.
John Oates, The Register
Andrew Nusca, ZDNet
Apple on Tuesday announced that its iTunes U digital education catalog has surpassed 300 million downloads.
The feat took just over three years to accomplish. The catalog now counts more than 800 universities as participants, with about half of them making content available to the public through Apple’s iTunes Store.
Jonny Evans, Computerworld
Joe Aimonetti, CNET
According to a growing thread in the Apple Support Discussions forums, the Apple bumper case, made specifically for the iPhone 4 (and a major part of the "Antennagate" solution), is scratching the steel antenna band.
Ben Worthen, Wall Street Journal
When Apple Inc.'s first iPhone came out in 2007, many companies told their employees that the device wasn't appropriate for the workplace. The iPad is a different story.
The company's tablet-style device seems to be sidestepping the resistance that the iPhone and other consumer-oriented devices have faced in the corporate environment. Indeed, many businesses have raced to snap up iPads.
Sydney Morning Herald
Zooming, scrolling, rotating and flipping through pages in a browser with simple movements of your fingers soon becomes second-nature.
Alexander Vaughn, App Advice
A growing number of Chinese users are experiencing loss of warranty on their iPhone because as you can see in the graph above, the humidity level is often above what the iPhone can support.
Charles Moore, Low End Mac
David Chartier, Macworld
Freeway Express and Pro aren’t quite your father’s iWeb (OK, fine, your father didn’t have iWeb growing up—just go with it); instead, they’re taking on the likes of RapidWeaver, Coda, and Dreamweaver, with lots of drag-and-drop features but also flexible CSS layout tools, pre-built templates, support for mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad, advanced control over HTML output, and other perks.
Dan Frakes, Macworld
Shoo Apps’ straightforward settings window lets you choose a general “hide after” time that applies, by default, to all programs. Any program that hasn’t been used in this amount of time—say, two minutes, is hidden using Mac OS X’s standard Hide command. But each running program also appears separately in Shoo Apps, letting you set program-specific times.
AppleInsider
As noted by analyst Charlie Wolf of Needham & Company Monday, Mac government sales grew 200.8 percent year over year in the June quarter, well beyond the 12.1 percent growth seen by the rest of the PC market.
John Siracusa, Macworld
I’m anxious to see what Apple has in store for us in 10.7, whenever the company gets around to releasing it. Because Mac OS X is far from finished, in any sense of the word.
MG Siegler, TechCrunch
What’s interesting is that Google is using Apple’s Push Notifications servers to enable this service. All of these Push Notifications are served up by Apple Push Notification Service (APNS). So yes, Google is using Apple to overcome their own shortcoming (which may or may not be Apple’s fault, who knows what is going on between the two at this point).
Perhaps even stranger is that you can actually set up Gmail to do proper push — but you have to use Microsoft Exchange to make that happen. Or you’ve been able to use a number of third-party apps like Boxcar for some time now that allow you to get Gmail push notifications — this new Google app simply cuts out this middle man, but works the same way.
Nick Bilton, New York Times
A new company called Inkling hopes to break the standard textbook model and help textbooks enter the interactive age by letting students share and comment on the texts and interact with fellow students.
John Paczkowski, Wall Street Journal
There’s no security hole in iTunes, and if you’ve been unfortunate enough to have hundreds of dollars in unauthorized purchases charged to your iTunes account, it’s likely because you’ve fallen victim to a phishing scam–a variation on the one that’s been around for years now. Sources close to Apple tell me iTunes has not been compromised and the company isn’t aware of any sudden increase in fraudulent transactions.
Franklin Pride, Inside Mac Games
It may not be the perfect gem of a game that pretty much everyone expected it to be, but it's definitely an excellent strategy game with a giant community and hundreds of hours of gameplay just waiting to be experienced.
Dan Ablan, Macworld
If you’re a 2D illustrator looking to enhance your imagery and create unique 3D renders quickly, Poser Pro 2010 is the answer. If you’re a 3D artist tired of the traditional process of modeling, rigging, and animation of characters, Poser Pro 2010 can save you frustration by using a pre-built inverse kinematics system, with a wide collection of well-made 3D models.
Jeff Smykil, Ars Technica
As more and more iPads are sold, developing for the platform has a greater potential to pay off. Figures from various developers seem to show that universal apps can bring in a revenue increase of anywhere from five to 20 percent over an application written solely for the iPhone. Whether those numbers are enticing enough for developers to do so, though, will remain to be seen.
Gus G. Sentementes, The Baltimore Sun
On college campuses across the country this fall semester, some students are getting iPads upon admission while professors and administrators are trying to determine if this latest digital gadget will have a place in the world of academia, with its dusty libraries and lecture halls.
Drew Thomas, iBreak.info
Jobs calls the Genius Bar the “heart and soul” of every Apple Store. He understands that customer service is of paramount importance to the success of any company.
Read It Later
I think it would be very unlikely that Apple is going to start preventing apps like Facebook from requiring logins. That’s why I think something else happened here.
John Brandon, Macworld
Dave Winer, Scripting News
Here's how it was explained to me by someone who says they understand what I saw at the 5th Ave Apple store this morning.
Daniel Jalkut, Macworld
Let’s face it: The iPad, iPhone, and iPod really are pretty great. But as a long-time Mac developer, I have to admit that I’m disappointed that they’ve overshadowed my beloved desktop computer.
David Chartier, Macworld
As it turns out, the new graphics drivers in these updates—co-developed by Apple and ATI—were more about “enabling unimplemented optimizations” than fixing bugs.
Scott Adams, Dilbert.com Blog
Let me say it again: World, I'll pay extra if you will please give me less.
Joe White, App Advice
Adam C. Engst, TidBITS
If you find yourself changing Spotlight's Search bar settings every time you look for a file, perhaps these settings will make your life just a little bit easier.
Chris Foresman, Ars Technica
We spoke to a source familiar with the deal, who explained that the new option wasn't previously limited by technology. "It was an Apple policy question," the source told Ars. "So far, they've rejected publishers' efforts to launch digital subscription products on the App Store unless they already have a digital business."
"What magazine publishers want: let us take the subscriber to our own servers, get their credit card numbers, and fulfill" the subscription, the source said. "Apple has denied that request so far."
Jeff Carlson, Macworld
Reyhan Harmanci, New York Times
Publishers were not the only ones drooling when Apple unveiled its iPad to great fanfare in the spring. Digital artists also marveled at the device’s potential.
AppleInsider
Michael Rose, TUAW
It's not a done deal by any means, but the Australian government's Classification Board is taking a hard look at games for mobile devices, which up until now have skated by the country's regulatory requirements that mandate a pass for content and age-appropriateness -- at a cost to developers of hundreds or thousands of A$.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune
This week's People app is free to subscribers. Time, SI and Fortune are expected to follow.
One Thing Well
David Chartier, Macworld
For all the break-neck technological advancements over the last decade, it can still often be surprisingly difficult to share a file, picture, or just some text on the Internet. E-mail services sometimes eat links and code or bounce messages with the smallest of photo attachments. Heck, even Twitter doesn’t natively support sharing anything but 140 characters of plain text. Enter Culturezoo’s Droplr, a dead-simple app and Web service for sharing just about anything.
Julio Ojeda-Zapata, TidBITS
As I've worked on this article, I have become increasingly amazed at how Elgato products (I must have used a dozen or more different EyeTV tuners over the years) have permeated my digital existence. It's one of the reasons I feel so lucky to be a Mac user. TiVo does have its fanatics, but given a choice, I'll go with a Mac and EyeTV tuner every time.
Mike Schramm, TUAW
If you, like me, were a big scifi/fantasy reader at a young age, you probably remember the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series. It was a series of books in which, every chapter or so, you could make a choice that affected the story, and you were then prompted to turn to a certain page to continue the story after that choice. Edward Packard was the original author of that series, and he's now teamed up with an iPhone app company to create U-Ventures, a throwback iPhone application that works as an interactive, e-book style Choose You Own Adventure.
The Almanac
Gaurav Raghuvanshi, Wall Street Journal
Singapore's JLJ Holdings Ltd., the parent of a supplier of components to Apple Inc., said Thursday its executive chairman Chua Kim Guan has voluntarily stepped down.
"In order to facilitate the impartial review of all activities relating to the Apple claim that may involve the company and its subsidiaries, the company's executive chairman has voluntarily relinquished all executive duties ... for the time being," JLJ said in a statement.
Sydney Morning Herald
Phillip Shoemaker, the director of Apple's app store, sells his own iPhone apps under the company name Gray Noodle, including Animal Farts and the urination simulator iWiz.
Apple employees are forbidden from selling their own apps on the app store.
Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal
Although electronic book sales have exploded, digital college textbooks have been slow to get off the ground, in part because of high prices and hardware concerns. Now, a former Apple Inc. employee, Matt Mac Innis, is trying to shake up the market with a new approach that taps into the iPad's strengths.
Yukari Iwatani Kane, Wall Street Journal
Apple Inc. will shut down the Quattro Wireless advertising network it acquired earlier this year and will support its new iAd network exclusively as of Sept. 30, according to a letter Apple sent to Quattro clients Thursday.
TCGeeks
Jeffrey Mincey, Mac 360
When you get a Dock crowded with apps and folders and documents, all the Dock icons squish down real small. That makes it tough to see what’s what on a smaller Mac notebook’s screen. Solution? Add a few more Docks, or more features.
Ina Fried, CNET
Microsoft said Wednesday the next version of Office for Mac will get two key features that were part of the latest Windows version: photo editing and mini charts in Excel, known as Sparklines.
Adam C. Engst, TidBITS
David Chernicoff, ZDNet
Had I not proposed my solution this would have been an ongoing problem that would have simply led to a very frustrated customer. And the irony of the proposed solution being a Windows-esque wipe and reinstall would have gone unnoticed.
AppleInsider
Actor Justin Long, who played the role of "Mac" in Apple's long-running "Get a Mac" commercials, this week showed off a series of humorous text messages on network TV, aided by an application available only on jailbroken iPhones.
Philip Michaels, Macworld
SmileOnMyMac is getting a new name, though it’s keeping its smile. The developer of Mac productivity tools announced that it’s changing its name to Smile.
AppleInsider
Premium cable network HBO has announced its intentions to offer a new iPad application that will allow subscribers to stream the network's content on the go.
My Paper
Alexander Vaughn, App Advice
Apple launched last night a great brand new iPad commercial called “iPad is delicious”. After its last ad “What is iPad”, an homage to the Newton, this one focuses once again on some of the amazing things you can do with your iPad.
Rick Aristotle Munarriz, Motley Fool
It's true that Apple hasn't had much of an acquisitive appetite in the past. It's also true that Apple is unlikely to come into a greenback-slurping funk in the near term. However, you never know when an arms race is going to kick off.
AppleInsider
Video sharing site Vimeo has launched a new embedable HTML5 video player aimed at Apple's iPhone and iPad.
John Boudreau, San Jose Mercury News
Charges that a former Apple manager and an associate collected more than $2.5 million in kickbacks from six Asian suppliers underscore the challenges Silicon Valley companies face in monitoring the behavior of employees cutting deals far from headquarters, experts say.
Stephen Shankland, CNET
Apple recently issued software that lets iPhoto and Aperture handle raw photos from a range of new compact, higher-end cameras from several manufacturers.
IntoMobile
All you bookworms are going to get some digital love, as the Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader software is now ready to go for the Apple iPhone, iPod and iPad. This app enters an increasingly-crowded market for digital book buying.
Nicholas Kolakowski, eWeek
Two of Apple’s Asian suppliers have launched their own investigation into an Apple manager’s alleged kickback scheme, according to Reuters, while another protested its innocence in the matter.
Adam Jackson, The Apple Blog
What rubs me the wrong way is that Apple decided to sell batteries for these devices with claims that its product is better than any other.
David Chartier, Macworld
Elements is quite simple, really. It lets you create and edit text files that are automatically saved to your Dropbox account. While working on a file, Elements automatically saves your work every 60 seconds. If you don’t have a Wi-Fi or 3G connection, Elements lets you work offline and will upload all your changes once you get connected.
John Brandon, Macworld
It’s rare when a free app (one with no strings attached) provides the features you need to get the job done. Although DrawBerry is not exactly a substitute for Adobe Illustrator, it works well in a pinch for creating a basic vector drawing image, such as a brochure or a garage sale sign.
Ryan Faas, Computerworld
A lot has changed for the iPhone, its operating system and the smartphone industry as a whole in three years. For people who want to use the iPhone at work and the IT departments that support them, the changes have been good. In fact, some of the major updates in each new iteration of the iPhone operating system (now called iOS) were the ones that made it easier to manage and secure Apple’s mobile platform.
John Fuller, Macworld
The marquee feature of Firefox Home is the ability to access tabs opened on a desktop computer from an iOS device. The app ties in to Mozilla’s Firefox Sync add-on, which promises to automatically sync open tabs, browsing history, and bookmarks from all computers registered under the same account. It’s important to note, however, that the app itself does not update automatically, but the desktop browser sends data almost instantaneously. Setting up Firefox Home is a bit of a workaround, but Mozilla does an excellent job of making it as far from cumbersome as possible.
Ron McElfresh, Mac 360
Switché is a simple, elegant Mac app that only works on Macs running Snow Leopard but you’ll be impressed with what Command+Tab can really do. It’s an old dog that learns new tricks.
AFP
China Unicom plans to launch Apple's latest iPhone next month in the world's largest mobile market, state-run media said Tuesday.
Whitson Gordon, Macworld
Symbolic links are similar to aliases, in the sense that they are shortcuts that link to a specific file or folder. But symbolic links are often more useful than aliases: For example, if you put an alias in your Dropbox folder, it will sync just the alias file; put a sym link in that folder, and Dropbox will sync the original file that link points to. And aliases won't work in OS X's Unix-based tools, including Terminal; sym links will.
Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle
Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle
At $699, Photoshop CS5 is expensive and not for everyone. But if you need to perform magic on digital images, nothing else even comes close.
Ting-I Tsai, Wall Street Journal
The parent of Kaedar Electronics Co., one of the six companies named in an indictment of an Apple Inc. employee as having paid kickbacks to land Apple orders, acknowledged Monday that Kaedar did pay brokerage commission to an intermediate trading company for its business with Apple between 2005 and 2008. But it said it is not sure if the arrested Apple employee is behind the intermediate trading company.
Dan Levine and Gabriel Madway, Reuters
Mike Schramm, TUAW
Code in the latest iOS release shows that Apple is currently working on "unreleased hardware."
Chris Foresman, Ars Technica
Apple is planning to change its current Apple Discussions support forums to adopt more of a social network vibe, according to several recent posts by Apple staff. The new service will be called Apple Support Communities and will include new options for custom landing pages, new profiles, and a focus on building a "reputation" for offering the best advice on solving support issues.
Ian Paul, PC World
Steven Sande, TUAW
For those of us who were followers of Apple back in the 80s and 90s, there was no single person who defined the enthusiasm and overall attitude of the company more than Guy Kawasaki. Guy was part of the team responsible for the original marketing of the Mac, and is credited with the use of evangelism in tech marketing to create a passionate following for a product.
Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet
Many people choose to launch iPhoto or Aperture when connecting the iPhones to Macs for the ritualistic “sync” operation — but if you don’t actually do it, or worse, disable the launch of a photo app you can leave your iPhone’s photos in great peril.
Derik DeLong, Macworld
CloudApp is both a Web service and a small application with a single minded goal: share your files with others with shortened URLs (in the form of http://cl.ly/xxxxxx). Any types of file can be uploaded, up to 50MB (making this service restrictive in regards to sharing video and podcasts).
Marco Tabini, Macworld
Within the isolated context of the app, the feature may well make sense and be a great addition—but, then again, the app doesn’t run in isolation. At any given moment, the user might be playing music or be on a phone call, in which case pushing the volume button will affect something other than Camera+. Chances are that, even if the function is off by default and must be activated by the user, most people will eventually forget that they have enabled it, and blame the resulting odd behavior on their device.
Lex Friedman, Macworld
In general, if users press the volume button, they should know just what’s going to happen. So I don’t think Apple should simply allow developers to repurpose the button at whim. Rather, I think that the rule should be this: To repurpose the volume button, an app must get opt-in permission from the user. In Camera+, that might come in the form of a setting phrased thusly: “Use the volume buttons to snap photos.”
Jeffery Battersby, Macworld
Ecto 3.0.2 is an great blog editing application and one that in many ways is more convenient than the Web-interface for your blog. While the program's missing Tumblr support is a disappointment, it’s not an uncommon problem—only Blogo and MarsEdit handle Tumblr well—and with more than 25 blogging platforms to choose from, ecto is likely to support the platform that you’re using.
IT.Enquirer
Satsuki Then, Slashgear
Apple and Adobe may not be the best of friends right now, but Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen doesn’t seem too worried. Describing the Cupertino company’s aversion to Flash on iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad as Apple “wanting to control the environment”, Narayen says his company would “rather work with partners who are interested in working with us” and that “they’ve made their choice. We’ve made ours and we’ve moved on.”
Nick Bilton, New York Times
Apple recently hired Benjamin Vigier, an expert in the mobile payments industry who works with a technology called near field communication.
Jeffrey Mincey, Mac 360
GyazMail probably balances simplicity (truly easy to set up and use) with basic features we need, but with a slightly different look and feel. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Apple’s Mail, but sometimes we have a need-to-be-different itch that needs scratching.
Megabest
Buyers in Hong Kong are the lucky ones as they can get an unlocked iPhone 4 16GB unit at HK$4,988 ($642) while an iPhone 4 32GB model is available for HK$5,888 ($758). Singapore buyers, on the other hand, can buy a unit at S$888 (US$657) for the 16GB at and S$1,048 (US$775) for the 32GB model.
Inside Mac Games
Benjamin Shatil, Reuters
An overheating Apple iPod music player forced delays to a busy Tokyo commuter train during the Friday morning rush hour after passengers complained of a strong burning smell, the rail line operator said on Monday.
Korea IT Times
CIO.de
Electronics component suppliers that allegedly paid kickbacks to gain business from Apple declined to comment on the allegations when contacted on Monday.
CRN
Apple heads to Sydney's north-west.
Yukari Iwatani Kane And Emily Steel, Wall Street Journal
Apple Inc. is facing some early challenges in its closely watched mobile advertising foray, with some ad campaigns experiencing delays as agencies attempt to learn the new system amid Apple's tight control over the creative process, according to ad executives.
Part of the reason some marketers are experiencing delays in getting their iAds to market is that Apple has kept tight control on the creative aspects of ad-making, something advertisers aren't used to, according to several ad executives involved with creating iAds.
Auro
Alastair Jamieson, Telegraph
The firm charges £139 for even the simplest work on a handset, such as replacing a cracked screen, but dozens of companies offer similar repairs for as little as £39.
Martin Lewis, the founder of the Money Saving Expert website, claimed the charges were "a rip-off" but said users were partly to blame for being "seduced by the power of the Apple brand".
Roman Loyola, Macworld
For $5, Decipher TextMessage is an easy-to-use program dedicated to the task of saving your iPhone’s text messages on your Mac.
Benjamin Shatil, Reuters
Japan's trade ministry said on Thursday that Apple Inc's Japan unit has satisfied its demands for improved safety notifications about overheating iPod nano portable music players.
Pete Carey, San Jose Mercury News
A midlevel Apple manager was arrested and accused of accepting more than $1 million in kickbacks from half a dozen Asian suppliers of iPhone and iPod accessories, according to a federal indictment unsealed Friday and a separate civil suit.
Paul Shin Devine, a global supply manager, and Andrew Ang, of Singapore, were named in a 23-count federal grand jury indictment for wire fraud, money laundering and kickbacks.
Sam Schechner, Wall Street Journal
More TV shows and movies may be coming to tablet computers like Apple Inc.'s iPad—for those who pay to watch.
At least seven of the ten largest subscription-TV providers in the U.S. are building new tablet-computer applications that offer select TV shows and movies to their existing subscribers, often for little or no additional fee.
David Chartier, Macworld
This remote desktop and network tool now lets you stream your home iTunes library over the Internet.
Jonathan Seff, Macworld
Although I use it for many different purposes—checking e-mail, ordering from Amazon, catching up on Twitter, controlling one of the Macs in the other room—what I’ve really noticed is how the iPad has changed how and what I read.
Nathan Alderman, Macworld
Mail 4.3 offers no earth-shattering upgrades, just the same dependable, well-crafted, easy-to-use experience it always has. Considering that it was and still is the best mail client for the Mac, that lack of radical change is definitely a good thing.
Nick Spence, Macworld UK
Adobe Photoshop Express, which lets users quickly edit and share photos from Apple’s mobile devices, adds support for the iPad in the 1.3 update now available from the App Store.
John Brandon, Macworld
Erin Durkin, New York Daily News
Brooklyn boosters trying to lure an Apple store to the borough have set their sights on the Municipal Building, the Daily News has learned.
New renderings produced by local officials show a glass-walled store on the first two floors of the building on Joralemon St. across from Borough Hall.
Desire Athow, ITProPortal
Matthew Moore, Telegraph
Anyone forking out £3.20 for the digital version of the magazine will have to do without the explicit photo spreads that titillated generations of teenage boys.
Playboy agreed to censor its content in order to secure a place in the App Store, from which any software which Apple considers “obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory” is banned.
Jason Perlow, ZDNet
The Apple iOS platform is a thing of beauty, but for Windows users, iTunes is pure and utter hell.
Andy Zaky, Seeking Alpha
Cody Fink, MacStories
If you manage multiple PCs and need the ability to sync with your other smartphone, it might just be the utility you’ve been looking for.
Michael Burns, Macworld UK
David Chartier, Macworld
Kiwi is a great option for improving your Twitter experience, whether you run a dozen accounts between your personal, business, and celebrity spoofing, or you’ve just outgrowing the limitations of using a Web service in a Web browser.
Susan Decker, Bloomberg
VirnetX Holding Corp., which reached a $200 million settlement with Microsoft Corp. over patents for ways to communicate privately over the Internet, sued Apple Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. over the same technology.
Dave Caolo, Minimal Mac
Serenity Caldwell, Macworld
Has your new 21.5-inch iMac been having display brightness issues? Well, then, you may want to check out the iMac (Mid 2010) Display Brightness Update 1.0 from Apple, released Thursday afternoon.
Apple
Left behind in Los Angeles, and charged with assembling and shaping the footage, was first-time feature film editor Bradley Buecker. Rarely is an editor with no feature experience hired onto such a high-profile production, but Buecker had edited several seasons of television for Murphy for the hit shows Nip/Tuck and Glee. “Ryan and I had a bond,” says Buecker. “So when the movie came along, he said, ‘I really want you to do this.’”
Buecker decided to edit the film using nearly the same Final Cut Pro-based editorial workflow that had worked so well for the TV series, equipping himself and each of his two assistant editors with mirrored Mac Pro and MacBook Pro computers running Final Cut Studio. “Both Nip/Tuck and Glee were Final Cut shows, and Final Cut Pro has proven to be a great editing system,” says Buecker. “It’s my system of choice.”
AppleInsider
Though Apple's new rechargeable batteries do not offer any indication of who manufactured them, a new analysis and disassembly has found evidence that they are rebranded Sanyo Eneloops.
Benj Edwards, Macworld
Looking back today, it seems that the Cube was simply ahead of its time. It was an ingenious and striking design that missed the mark by about five years—and $1,000.
Benj Edwards, Macworld
Why didn’t people buy the G4 Cube? With 10 year’s worth of perspective at our disposal, I can think of four key reasons the Cube never took off.
Stuart Gripman, Macworld
FileMaker Go is a very solid 1.0 release. It’s a true FileMaker client with support for almost every major feature of its bigger brother, FileMaker Pro. Nomadic data jockeys will find the few compromises are a small price to pay for true FileMaker mobility.
Mac Slocum, O'Reilly
John Gruber, Daring Fireball
The whole point of expanding to Verizon is to gain market share in the U.S. It’s about high-volume iPhone sales, coast to coast.
David Pogue, New York Times
Enough time has passed, and enough millions of people have been playing with their iPhones, that a critical mass of tricks and tips have started to pile up. Here’s a look at three cool iOS 4 features that nobody, including Apple, seems to be talking about.
Therese Poletti, MarketWatch
Bryan Gardiner, Gizmodo Australia
If you ranked the things in life that Jobs seems perfectly content to ignore, licence plates would be up there with disabled parking spaces, three-piece suits and customer demands. The proof, as it were, is all over Flickr.
Stephen Shankland, CNET
In an open letter to Apple's board of directors, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi urged Apple to either return some cash to shareholders as a dividend or increase the value of Apple stock by repurchasing its own shares.
Gregg Keizer, Macworld
Minutes after Apple issued a security update Wednesday, the maker of a 10-day-old jailbreak exploit released code that others could put to use hijacking iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads.
Rob Lee, ZDNet
AT&T confirmed that sending a text to 100 people (via Group Messaging) only counts as one message sent.
Chris Rawson, TUAW
From the "It Was Only a Matter of Time Department" comes news that Camera+, the top-rated photography app from developer tap tap tap, has been pulled from the App Store, most likely for violating Apple's developer agreement.
Sharon Gaudin, Computerworld
Jeffrey Mincey, Mac 360
Barely a month into Safari 5 and official Safari Browser Extensions, there is a growing list of extensions (as expected) and a relative dearth of extensions with usefulness beyond interesting. Also, I’ve noticed that after installing a dozen extensions Safari begins to drag in performance.
Pavel Alpeyev, Bloomberg
Apple Inc. has until the end of this month to report to Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency on its efforts to warn users that some iPod Nano music players may overheat and catch fire.
Ashley Harrell, SF Weekly
Since the iPad's unveiling in April, autism experts and parents have brought it into countless homes and classrooms around the world. Developers have begun pumping out applications specifically designed for users with special needs, and initial studies are already measuring the effectiveness of the iPod Touch and the iPad as learning tools for children with autism. Through the devices, some of these children have been able to communicate their thoughts to adults for the first time. Others have learned life skills that had eluded them for years.
Though there are other computers designed for children with autism, a growing number of experts say that the iPad is better. It's cheaper, faster, more versatile, more user-friendly, more portable, more engaging, and infinitely cooler for young people.
Scott Grizzle, App Advice
Schools were quick to realize the cost savings made possible by replacing books with iPads. It appears that government agencies may also be able to see similar cost savings.
Seekingalpha.com
From the iPod to the iPad, Apple understands the most vital ingredients necessary to deliver new product innovation to consumers. That is why to date Apple still cannot satisfy demand for the iPad.
Topher Kessler, CNET
Apple has quickly released a patch for the recently uncovered security flaw with how Mobile Safari handles PDF files in iOS 4.0.1 and earlier for the iPod Touch and iPhone, and iOS 3.2.1 and earlier for the iPad.
Charlie Sorrel, Wired
Camera+, the iPhone camera app of choice for many people, has snuck a rather handy feature into the latest version, 1.2.1. You’d better grab it while you can, as it uses a hack to add back in a feature that Apple rejected.
Serenity Caldwell, Macworld
Using 256-bit AES encryption, the program can store passwords, credit cards, bank accounts, memberships, and more—and can even remember security questions tied to the respective account, as well.
Brooke Crothers, CNET
While Wall Street analysts have turned bearish on PC and chip demand, they're still bullish on forecasts for Apple's iPad. Does this tell us something about the future of the PC industry?
Ortwin Gentz, The FutureBlog
So the use of the Where To? screenshot is not an offense in any way but merely an illustration that apps such as Where To? could make use of the invention. We feel honored over this mention and appreciate that Apple is looking into a proper attribution of the screenshot. In retrospective, I can say we wouldn‘t ever have considered the story alarming had the screenshot included a short attribution notice.
Bob Evans, InformationWeek
Benjamin Shatil, Reuters
Apple Inc's Japan unit will replace any iPod nano portable music players that overheat, it said in an online statement, improving an earlier offer to replace only their faulty batteries.
John C. Welch, Macworld
The Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server is an outstanding small utility server for the lower end of the SMB market, able to handle a couple hundred users for almost any single service, (Mail, Chat, Open Directory, etc.) with aplomb. It’s also a good “do it all” server for smaller networks with up to 25 users or so. It does all this without needing a lot of power, cooling, or being overly noisy.
Kirk McElhearn, Macworld
You probably know that you can rent movies from the iTunes Store. But there are a number of conditions that affect what you can and can’t do with rentals. Here’s an overview of how you can watch them, on which devices you can view them, and how to move them from one device to another.
James Holland, Electricpig.co.uk
The Apple Store Covent Garden is popular would be an understatement. The response to our sneak peek video tour and world’s first photos has been astounding, and four days later there are still queues outside Apple’s biggest store yet.
Rick LePage, Macworld UK
The image-processing enhancements in Lightroom 3 are impressive, solidifying the program’s position as one of the best tools for managing, editing, and publishing photos. This isn’t a blockbuster update, but offers enough to make it well worth the upgrade fee.
Marianna Nash, CNN
Gonzalez and others say the $4.99 iMovie app -- even with some flaws -- has the potential to open new doors for artists who have great ideas but no money. Gonzalez believes the user's ability to shoot and edit video on the phone and upload it to the web may prove particularly useful to independent musicians.
Charles Moore, The Apple Blog
Harry McCracken, Technologizer
All in all, Microsoft’s arguments are strongest in areas where Windows does have a clear advantage, such as all the features that are available as standard equipment with Windows PCs but not with Macs. They’re weakest in the areas where Windows is weakest: “Windows is easier because you’re already familiar with earlier versions” is a far less compelling argument than “Windows is easier because it’s better designed.”
Josh Kosman, New York Post
European regulators have teamed with the Federal Trade Commission in probing Apple's policies for mobile software developers, The Post has learned.
Sara Yirrell, CRN
It will be interesting to see how Apple treats its partners if times ever get tough.
Jonny Evans, Computerworld
Microsoft's current campaign focuses on Apple's Macs because Redmond has nothing else to offer. It doesn't even compete.
Stuart Fox, MSNBC
In a move that promises a future of higher performance, cheaper and more elegant iPhone, Macbook and desktop casings, Apple has signed an exclusive deal with Liquidmetal Technologies, a company that makes a special metallic glass.
Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
David Dahlquist, Macworld
The Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.2.6 update contains improvements to stability and compatibility. It also fixes vulnerabilities than would allow attackers to overwrite your Mac's memory with malicious code.
Chris Foresman, Ars Technica
The new Volume Purchase Program is definitely a step in the right direction to better position iPads for higher education environments. But Apple still needs to do more to address the needs of K-12 institutions. Tying each iPad to an individual iTunes Store account generally works for private users, but that won't cut it in a school environment. Educational IT staff needs to be able to easily and remotely manage the devices for use by multiple students.
Dan Moren, Macworld
Lex Friedman, Macworld
Stay lives in your menu bar. When you position and resize your windows just the way you want them, you use the menulet to save their locations—whether for all open windows, or just the windows from a specific application. Then, if you need to move things around, you can always restore your windows to their last-saved position.
Dan Frakes, Macworld
AppleInsider
Apple this week announced the App Store Volume Purchase program for iOS devices, allowing educational institutions to purchase mobile software in volume at a discounted price for devices like the iPad.
Ben Long, Macworld
Pixelmator has a tremendous amount of charm, both for its well-defined feature set, beautiful interface, fantastically fast performance, and low price. That said, with Photoshop Elements priced at $89, it’s hard to see choosing Pixelmator over Elements, which packs more editing tools, Adjustment Layers, Bridge, and more. If low price is absolutely essential, though, then Pixelmator 1.6 is a great option.
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land
If I can have a choice between a WiFi and a WiFi/3G iPad, why can’t I have a choice between a carrier-specific versus a carrier-independent iPhone?
Dan Frakes, Macworld
Now that we’ve logged a few months of browsing with Safari 5, it’s time for a closer look at this feature: how to turn it on (if it isn't already), how to install and use extensions, how to update extensions, and how to troubleshoot issues with misbehaving extensions.
Dan Frakes, Macworld
Alexander Vaughn, App Advice
Moreover Technologies - Apple news - 30 of 16121 returned
Security issues again hit smartphones as the German government has asked its ministers and senior civil servants to avoid using Apples iPhone and Research in Motion(RIM)s Blackberry smartphones, said an AFP report.The move came in the light of warning by
Brent Simmons, Inessential.com
I’m incredibly excited for the future of Mac software. I don’t expect we’ll make software that looks and feels like iOS apps (we shouldn’t), but I do expect we’ll learn from iOS apps how power is the real goal, and that flexibility is just a tool to use exceedingly sparingly, only when it substantially increases power.
Tom Negrino, Backup Brain
I'm sold on the usefulness of the iPad as a laptop replacement for writing. For quick to medium-length trips (up to about two weeks, for me), I think I wouldn't miss the laptop at all.
Juro Osawa, Wall Street Journal
That means Japanese consumers will have the option of using the iPhone 4 without signing up with Softbank, as long as they can get hold of SIM-unlocked handsets overseas, or via online stores.
James Kendrick, jkOnTheRun
The Magic Trackpad has handled all aspects of my work very well. I can use it all day and never miss the old mouse; my wrist is happier with the mouse in the drawer.
Dana Blankenhorn, ZDNet
The company perceived as most threatening is always the one that is growing bigger most rapidly. Reading comments here, Apple is often joined on the “public enemies” list by Google, whose record on the issue is rather benign.
Glenn Fleishman, TidBITS
It's a strange notion, that encrypting your backup might actually make your data less secure. But it's not really a security hole, nor does Elcomsoft see it that way.
Ron McElfresh, Mac 360
Dan Moren, Macworld
Apple Developer Connection members have long had access to the company’s compatibility labs, which allow them to test their software on a variety of Apple hardware configurations. But on Monday, Apple added a new option: a $99 Single Lab Day Pass for members of its Mac Developer Program.
Ramu Nagappan, Macworld
Christopher Breen, Macworld
Jeffery Battersby, Macworld
Cashculator offers a interesting, different, and most importantly, useful twist on personal finance applications, giving you better insight into your spending patterns and a fuller grasp of your future financial well-being.
Peter Kirn, Macworld
Djay 3.1.1 has a few rough edges with all of its ambitious additions; Auto-Cut Scratching is a mixed bag, and MIDI and AU plug-in support could use some refinement. But as an "iTunes Pro," djay is stronger than ever. Automix queuing and auto-gain alone could make it a must-buy, and having custom MIDI support, beat-matched looping, and additional effects mean it's still more versatile. It's the DJ app missing from iLife, but also a tool many serious musicians and DJs might add to their Mac for situations that call for features like quick, automatic mixes or network streaming.
Yukari Iwatani Kane And Ian Sherr, Wall Street Journal
Mr. Papermaster had lost the confidence of Mr. Jobs months ago and hasn't been part of the decision-making process for some time, these people said. They added that Mr. Papermaster didn't appear to have the type of creative thinking expected at Apple and wasn't used to Apple's corporate culture, where even senior executives are expected to keep on top of the smallest details of their areas of responsibility and often have to handle many tasks directly, as opposed to delegating them.
One of these people also said Mr. Papermaster had difficulty maneuvering Apple's internal politics.
David Chartier, Macworld
Eric A. Taub, New York Times
Eric Bleeker, The Motley Fool
Think iPhone fever has peaked in the U.S.? While the iPhone commands 23% of US smartphone market share according to Nielsen's recent survey, in Japan the number is closer to 72%. The iPhone might be a smash hit in America, but in other countries where Apple has pursued a multicarrier strategy, its numbers are even more staggering.
Larry Magid, San Jose Mercury News
Just because you can be copied doesn't mean you shouldn't innovate. As Apple has proved, you don't have to dominate to do well.
James Savage, Macworld
Juliet Ye, Wall Street Journal
Shenzhen-based Yosion has unveiled a product called the Apple Peel 520, a hack which can turn any iPod Touch into a cell phone. The Apple Peel attaches to an iPod Touch like any protective case, but functions as a dock, an extended battery and most intriguingly, a SIM card slot.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune
In five years, Apple has switched places with Dell as the student laptop of choice.
Dan Frakes, Macworld
Cram lets you create tests and browse them using a Mail-like window with a list of folders on the left, the list of tests in the selected folder to the right, and a preview and summary of the selected test at the bottom.
Miguel Helft, New York Times
Mark Papermaster, the Apple executive in charge of hardware for the company’s flagship iPhone, has left the company in the wake of widely reported problems with the antenna of the recently introduced iPhone 4.
It is not clear if Mr. Papermaster was ousted or left on his own accord.
Eric Slivka, MacRumors.com
A new option in the iOS "Contacts" application allows users to make FaceTime calls using either a phone number or an email address. This would allow FaceTime compatibility with devices not associated with a phone number such as future camera-enabled iPads and iPod touches.
Lex Friedman, Macworld
Christopher Breen, Macworld
Kelvin Soh, Reuters
Apple Inc is in talks to buy Chinese software maker Handseeing, an executive at the Chinese company said on Friday, a deal that would mark the iPhone maker's first acquisition in the country. Handseeing is a little-known gaming company headquartered in southwest China's Sichuan province. It designs online games based on popular Chinese folklore.
Jonathan Seff, Macworld
The Turbo.264 HD Software Edition performs the same functions as the standard, hardware-enabled version, but at half the price. But that price difference also buys you much faster encoding and the ability to use the Turbo.264 HD hardware with other video apps that support its acceleration.
The larger question is whether $50 is worth it for an application whose feature set can largely be replicated by other options that cost less or, in some cases, nothing at all.
Mark Gurman, 9 To 5 Mac
Today Apple added a new section dedicated to promoting free applications on the App Store. One of the subsections of this new feature is "Try Before You Buy." This section features many of the popular "free" or "lite" editions of apps, but the section title is what makes this all interesting.
Nick Spence, MacWorld UK
As Apple celebrates the opening of its latest Apple Store tomorrow, right in the heart of Covent Garden, London, the Mac maker is offering a special deal.
Mac owners can buy a One to One membership, normally available only with the purchase of a new Mac.
Dean Goodman, Reuters
Don't hold your breath waiting for Beatles songs to go on sale at iTunes or other online retailers, Yoko Ono said on Thursday.
Ottoabasi Abasiekong, Businessday
Gabriel Madway, Reuters
Apple Inc chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer faces a dilemma that perhaps every finance chief wishes to have: obscene amounts of cash and nowhere to put it.
Elinor Mills, CNET
Now researchers are coming up with different ways to get an iOS device user to visit a Web page hosting the exploit, which is vital for an attack to succeed and not necessarily easy to do if trying to attack a stranger.
Dan Whitworth, BBC
Apple say the Covent Garden store is their largest ever - spread over three floors it's the 28th in the UK.
Apple's senior vice president of Retail Ron Johnson wouldn't give any details about how much it cost to renovate the 19th century building, simply saying the company had "paid what we think is the right price."
John Siracusa, Ars Technica
There's only one thing for it. Apple needs to get the iPhone on more carriers as soon as possible. Nowhere is this more important than in the US, where the iPhone is available on just a single carrier—one that's decidedly not the market leader. The only way for Apple to eliminate the distribution and marketing advantage currently enjoyed by Android is to make sure that everywhere an Android phone is for sale, there's an iPhone sitting right next to it that will work on the same network. Only then will Apple get a fair shot at selling based on the things it can actually control: the hardware and software of the phone itself.
John Paczkowski , Wall Street Journal
The engine driving those rising revenues? The iPad, whose launch generated a 38.7 percent increase in visitors per store, a 52.9 percent increase in same-store revenues, and a stunning 106.3 percent increase in non-Mac revenues.
Mark Hulbert, Barron's Online
There is a significant possibility that Apple's rapid ascent up the market-cap ladder is being fueled by more than just the company's underlying fundamentals, with investor euphoria also playing no small part. If so, Apple's stock will have a hard time living up to investors' expectations.
The Japan Times
Apple Japan Inc. has failed to report 34 minor accidents involving older models of its iPod nano portable music player, the government said Thursday.
MacNN
The Magic Trackpad has enhanced my user experience and that is not something I have ever genuinely said about an Apple mouse. It is accurate and doubles as a great control surface for programs like GarageBand.
Gene Steinberg, TechNightOwl
As history has shown, however, Apple can live long and prosper with a small market share, so long as sales continue to grow and financials continue to beat Wall Street estimates.
Trevor Sheridan, App Advice
Sim City Deluxe is thankfully redesigned, and gives a much more enjoyable experience. Sim City is a classic game that didn’t feel right on the iPhone in its first incarnation, but it feels right at home in this version. The game is designed well in most regards, and gives you tons to do in a streamlined form.
Sang Tang, TUAW
According to the University of Virginia's Information Technology and Communication (ITC), which services the IT needs for most of the campus, 43 percent of first-year students at its residence halls during 2009 were using a Mac. The figure represents a continuation of a five-year trend that's seeing increased Mac penetration on the campus amongst first year students.
AppleInsider
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has denied a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to a complaint filed by Adobe against Apple, stating that the release of the information would impede the commission's "law enforcement" duties.
Pavel Alpeyev and Yoshinori Eki, Bloomberg
Yasuda and his peers, looking for easier ways to browse the Web and send e-mails, are a potentially lucrative demographic for Apple as the proportion of people aged 65 and over climbs to records each year in countries including the U.S., China and France. Japan has the world’s oldest society, with the elderly accounting for an estimated 22 percent of the population, almost triple the global average.
Serenity Caldwell, Macworld
First developed as Anarchie for the Mac OS back in 1993, the FTP client has seen numerous changes, additions, and even a new name since that initial release. Interarchy 10 adds support for a plug-in architecture, allowing developers to create and design commands to be executed directly onto the server.
Jeffery Battersby, Macworld
Cruz is a Web browser designed for the ADHD crowd, especially if your ADHD tends to all things socially networkable.
Mike Schramm, TUAW
There's bad news for those of you with old iPhones. Apple has confirmed that the latest beta of Game Center is a no-go for anything older than an iPhone 4. That means that iPhone 3Gs and second generation iPod touches are out for Apple's social gaming app.
Whitson Gordon, Macworld
Michael Kan, IDG News Service
Although iPhones have been officially sold in China since last year, the devices have come without Wi-Fi support in order to comply with Chinese laws. But now that is set to change as China Unicom is preparing to sell iPhones with Wi-Fi capabilities later this month.
Derrick Story, Macworld
iPhoto includes most of the image editing tools that casual photographers need to spruce up their photos. In fact, it may have more powers than even seasoned iPhoto users realize. Here is a handful of my favorite iPhoto image editing tips.
Stephen Williams, New York Times
Matt Neuburg, TidBITS
So we live in a great time - an age of cool freeware tools. And thanks to these two, my switch to iCal has been made a lot less painful than it otherwise might have been.
Associated Press
Several versions of Apple's iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch have potentially serious security problems, a German government agency said in an official warning Wednesday. Apple's iOS operating system has "two critical weak points for which no patch exists," the Federal Office for Information Security said.
John Moore, Washington Technology
No one is suggesting that people will put their old desktop PCs in permanent storage and replace them with shiny new iPads anytime soon. The real issue comes down to gaining share in that market otherwise known as personal preference and habit. Could the tablet computer become the platform of choice for more everyday tasks, such as checking e-mail, sharing documents and accessing the Web, thereby further cutting into the time we used to spend slavishly glued to our desktop computers?
Erica Ogg, CNET
On Wednesday an Apple spokeswoman said in a statement, "We're aware of this reported issue, we have already developed a fix and it will be available to customers in an upcoming software update."
Roman Loyola, Macworld
The iMac continues to be an attractive all-in-one computer for the family, home offices, and business. If you’re looking for a new Mac or you’re thinking about upgrading a desktop Mac that’s at least a couple of years old, you’ll be satisfied with the features and performance, as long as you’re willing to deal with the glossy display.
Lex Friedman, TidBITS
Cars use LoJack. For iPads and iPhones, there's MobileMe's Find My iPhone feature. But how do you find your MacBook or MacBook Pro if someone steals it? GadgetTrak Laptop may be the perfect solution.
Steven Sande, TUAW
If there's anything we love to hear about here at TUAW, it's great customer service. Reader Cristina made our morning with a story of how the team at Griffin Technology went out of their way to turn a bad situation into a happy one for everybody involved.
Michael Kan, IDG News
Apple's iPad has received a safety certification mark from Chinese regulators, putting it on a path that could see the future release of the popular tablet computer in China.
Joe Kissell, Macworld
Tucked away in Apple’s Mail are a number of useful capabilities that aren’t entirely obvious. By taking advantage of these oft-overlooked features, you can save time and effort, and improve the chances that you and your correspondents will connect in a timely way.
Kim Hyung-eun, JoongAng Daily
The Korea Communications Commission announced yesterday that it has given regulatory approval for Apple’s iPhone 4, five days after the U.S. company applied for permission to sell its latest smartphone model here.
John Boudreau, San Jose Mercury News
While medical reference information has long been available through the Internet on computers, physicians like Corby say the ability to instantly access data in any situation and through one-touch technology is changing the way they practice medicine. Asked to choose between having a stethoscope or a smartphone, some doctors say they would choose the latter.
Kristena Hansen, Los Angeles Times
Apple Inc.'s support forum is piling up with user complaints that their iPhone 3GS, which rolled out last year, is also experiencing slowness, drained battery life, intermittent crashes, rebooting during phone calls and other odd glitches after updating to the new operating system.
Katherine Boehret, Wall Street Journal
If you can afford it, or if touch gestures simply make you a more productive computer user, the Magic Trackpad is a real asset. It can co-exist with a mouse or totally replace it, if you want. After just minutes of use, I stopped using my mouse altogether.
Jamie Lendino, PC Magazine
If it survives the potential wrath of content owners, Flipboard could be the birth of the personal newspaper.
Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet
PA Consulting Group conducted tests that indicate that Apple’s iPhone 4 suffers from more connectivity problems compared to other smartphones.
Jeffery Battersby, Macworld
Vitamin-R is an unusual application that works on the assumption (true in my case) that procrastination is really nothing more than the combination of vague objectives and limited focus. You can get more stuff done if you define specific, small goals that have a dedicated, specific amount of distraction-free time for completion.
Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet
So I came up with a pet theory: how long did voice and the solid connection need to be cut off before it could be registered as a “dropped call?”
Chris Foresman, Ars Technica
VUPEN Security today identified an issue in PDF handling as the flaw being exploited. A "memory corruption error" can occur when processing font data stored within a PDF file. The memory corruption can then trigger a kernel error that allows elevated privileges, bypassing the sandbox within which iPhone apps typically run. The vulnerability "could be exploited by attackers to execute arbitrary code by tricking a user into visiting a specially crafted web page using Mobile Safari," which is exactly what jailbreakme.com does.
Nick Bilton, New York Times
After a few days of use, the trackpad started to feel like a natural transition for computers as they enter a new era of multitouch, but it did take some getting used to.
Brooke Crothers, CNET
The unstoppable sales juggernaut that is the iPad has pushed Apple past Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba into the No. 3 slot for laptop shipments, according to a Deutsche Bank analyst.
Rob Griffiths, Macworld
So to fully license my five-Mac household—even though I’m the only user of Office—I’m looking at either $298 for two copies of the three-install Home and Student versions, or (gasp!) $757 for the Home and Office version (a single-install version at $199, and two two-install versions at $279 each). It feels like Microsoft is penalizing those who own multiple Macs simple because they own multiple Macs.
David Dahlquist, Macworld
Version 3.3 is a minor update that extends RAW image format compatibility to Aperture 3 and iPhoto ’09 for eight new cameras: Canon PowerShot SX1 IS, Olympus E-PL1, Panasonic Lumix DMC-G2, Panasonic Lumix DMC-G10, Samsung NX10, Sony Alpha DSLR-A390, Sony Alpha NEX-3, and Sony Alpha NEX-5.
David Chartier, Macworld
SafeGuard uses AES 256-bit encryption to encrypt Mac volumes, including the boot drive and any separate data drives. The encryption and decryption processes are transparent to the user, and SafeGuard allows for secure multi-user power-on authentication (POA), which requires a valid login in order to boot the system.
Nick Spence, MacWorld UK
The BBC are investing in Apple's iPad as a mobile device that may eventually replace both the desktop and laptop.
"We're seeding the organisation with the devices. We put some iPads into production and some into management and other roles to see if people would be able to give up their desktop," said the BBC's chief information officer John Linwood.
Robert Lemos, Technology Review
Lookout researchers scanned more than 300,000 mobile applications and performed a deeper analysis of about a third of them. The project revealed that many developers do not disclose an app's data-harvesting behavior in their descriptions. But this may not be deliberate--developers often include third-party software components in their apps without vetting that component's behavior, the researchers say.
Josh Lowonsohn, CNET
iPhone developers looking for an exit have a new place to sell their creation: iPhone Application List's "App Exchange."
AppleInsider
A new review of e-book contracts between publishers and content providers like Apple and Amazon aims to determine whether the deals are anticompetitive.
Philip Michaels, Macworld
Microsoft Office 2011 will come in two editions—a Mac Home and Student version and a Mac Home and Business offering—when it ships at the end of October. Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 includes the Word word-processing, PowerPoint presentation, Excel spreadsheet, and Messenger IM applications. It will cost $119 for a single license and $149 for a family pack that allows for installs on three Macs.
Nik Rawlinson, Mac User
How many more of those 18 million people who have bought an iPod or iPhone in the past three months could the company encourage to do the same with a little careful marketing, and introducing some truly compelling Mac-only features to each product?
Robert Cyran, New York Times
While Apple and its suppliers are celebrating, many other companies will suffer. Breakingviews has compiled a list of the potential losers, from the obvious to the indirect.
Al Fasoldt, Syracuse.com
Matt Blake, MacTalk Australia
In short, MarsEdit is a mature and trusted app used by many a blogger, including MacTalk favourite John Gruber. And there’s good reason for its popularity. It has a few clear opportunities for future enhancement in terms of rich text formatting, but it already puts the power back in the hands of the blogger and alleviates the worries and risks of working in a browser. It has a lean, fast and intuitive interface and shows an accurate live preview as you go. And it has a really nice dock icon.
Alison Flood, The Guardian
Childhood days of cheating on the Choose Your Own Adventure books by jumping back 10 pages after being eaten by a monster or falling down a chasm may be over, after the series was launched as an iTunes app last week.
Tom Kaneshige, CIO
Earlier this summer, D7 Consulting employees tore the wrappings from the shiny iPads, signaling the beginning of a two-phase rollout. D7 Consulting is now in the middle of the process, with half of the 20 iPads in the field today and the other half set to go there soon.
Here’s what D7 Consulting has learned so far.
Brooke Crothers, CNET
Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune
Gillian Shaw, The Vancouver Sun
Hundreds of people lined up outside the downtown Vancouver Apple store on Friday morning to be among the first to buy the iPhone 4 in Canada..
Bryan Wolfe, App Advice
According to Tableu Software, U.S. consumers pay $12.50 for each GB of data that is downloaded. The company looked at costs in 18 different countries. The cost of downloads in the United States are the fifth most expensive on the list.
David Murphy, PC Magazine
Apple appears to have killed off its "antenna campaign" as of late – the Web page that previously highlighted alleged signal degradation issues affecting rival companies' devices is now free of such claims.
Gone are the videos of Apple folk holding smartphones and counting down signal bars; in its place is a general description of how antennas deal with obstructions and, perhaps more importantly, how Apple tests for these issues.
Dan Frakes, Macworld
You may think that since you've got home insurance, you're covered in case of theft, fire, or other disaster. But unless you've got a comprehensive record of your home's contents, filing an insurance claim will be an exercise in frustration. Compartments aims to make such an inventory painless—or at least a whole lot easier.
Joshua Topolsky, Engadget
It's an excellent device for those who prefer touch input to mouse or trackball, and it's a solidly built piece of gear that will compliment the uncluttered workspaces of lots of geeks out there. But it's not a game changer or the death knell for our modern day method of interacting with our PCs as some have speculated.
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