You hear more criticism of Safari than you do of any other browser on OS X -- but you would. It's the one that comes on your Mac and if nobody criticised it, you'd never think to try Chrome or Firefox's latest build that will likely be incremented before you finish this paragraph. There are things that rival browsers do better but by far the biggest difference between them all is your personal taste. So if you can't be bothered downloading Firefox 37 and haven't yet bothered to download Chrome, you're fine. Have a look sometime, Firefox 38 might be perfect for you and Chrome has its fans too, but the Safari you've already got is good -- sufficiently good that if you have skipped straight to Firefox 39 or Chrome and haven't even looked at Safari, that's not fine at all. Bailing on Safari means you're missing out on excellent features and most especially so in the very latest release. Here are ten fast and short Pointers for getting more out of Safari on your Mac.
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Microsoft has made its Office apps available to all Android users, following the limited preview release and the iOS version. The apps, including Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, are accompanied by a new preview of another Office app, with a rebranded version of email app Acompli as Outlook downloadable from both Google Play and the iTunes App Store.
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1 hour ago | Posted in: iPad apps
There are a lot of reasons to make the leap to digital formats when buying comics. For one, it's a lot easier to carry a digital collection of comics around, and for another, it's a lot harder to bend the pages of a digital comic book. Whatever your reasons are, Comic Zeal Comic Reader by Bitolithic Pty is a great digital comic book reader.
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Samsung released its Q4 and FY 2014 results today, and as expected, the news was not good. The past three years have resulted in growth for the company, but fiscal 2014 shows an annual earnings decline, in spite of strong performance by the company's chip division. The earnings from smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices fell to 1.96 trillion Korean won ($1.8 billion), a 64.2 percent decline from the year-ago quarter. The news comes on the heels of a record-shattering report from its main rival, Apple.
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8 hours ago | Posted in: Investor, Apple
Although the iPhone now makes up some 69 percent of Apple's revenues, it will not always do so -- and thus the company is undoubtedly working on at least one product that is destined to be the successor (in terms of revenue) to the iPhone, which itself displaced the iPod as the company's top money-maker. Barely mentioned in the conference call with analysts but noted in the breakdown of expenses, Apple has significantly increased spending on research and development (R&D).
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At the end of last year, the Chinese government approved a 22-page set of regulations for the sale of computer equipment to Chinese banks, but that will ostensibly apply to all enterprise sales. The rules require foreign companies to turn over source code, submit to audits, and build "back doors" into hardware and software so that the government can monitor devices. The new rules are expected to be the first in a series to be introduced across the next few months.
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Trying to find the perfect projector for a home theater can be tricky, as there are bountiful options on the market from a large number of manufacturers. Name brand aside, trying to find the right options for the based on room size, necessary features and functions can still leave consumers scratching their heads. Epson is attempting to give buyers a one-shot option to build their home theaters around, with the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 3500 projector. But does the projector keep up with the needs of film, television shows, and gaming, or would consumers be better served elsewhere? Find out in our review.
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In addition to being the best quarter in the company's history, Apple's Q1 results also blew away quarterly revenue and profit figures for any company ever, according to credit rating analysts Standard & Poor's. Even more remarkably, CFO Luca Maestri noted repeatedly that fluctuations in major currencies (such as the Russian ruble and the unusually-strong US dollar) actually cost the company a potential five percent -- or $3.73 billion -- in additional revenue.
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A carrier has settled with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over complaints it offered mobile phone contracts that claim to have "unlimited" data, but turn out do not. TracFone was accused by the FTC of capping and throttling customers on the "unlimited" plans, with the carrier agreeing to pay out $40 million in refunds to consumers as part of its settlement.
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On Wednesday, Apple updated its Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) server/administrator software to version 3.8, the first major upgrade in well over a year. The new version primarily spruces up the app for OS X Yosemite compatibility, including an updated interface. The program was last upgraded in October of 2013, largely for the same reason, but for Mavericks (though two minor updates were issued later). In addition to an interface overhaul to match Yosemite's design language, a number of enhancements and fixes are included.
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20 hours ago | Posted in: Investor, Apple
Apple paid about A$80.3 million in taxes to the Australian government last year, despite pulling in A$6 billion in revenues in that country, according to documents filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. While the company's actual tax bill must legally be kept confidential, an expense figure has to be produced for the sake of annual accounts. The A$80.3 million sum is over twice the A$36.4 million Apple paid in 2013, when it actually took in more revenue, A$6.1 billion.
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21 hours ago | Posted in: Apple
Universal Studios has published the complete cast list for its upcoming Steve Jobs biopic, tentatively titled just Steve Jobs. Michael Fassbender has been confirmed as Jobs, while Seth Rogen will play Steve Wozniak. Jeff Daniels will assume the role of former Apple CEO John Sculley; Kate Winslet will be former Mac marketing head Joanna Hoffman, while Katherine Waterston will play Jobs' one-time girlfriend Chrisann Brennan. Michael Stuhlbarg will portray Mac programmer Andy Hertzfeld.
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22 hours ago | Posted in apps
Alfred is a quick launch utility that can help users search their computer and the internet. Version 2.6 adds support for the company’s new Alfred Remote iOS app. The update also includes some new Script Filter runtime behaviour options, support for sending attachments in Airmail 2, and has enhanced the workflow preferences search to include external trigger and remote trigger ids.
Duet, when pair with the $15 iOS companion app, allows an iOS device to be used as an external display when connected with either a Lightning or 30-pin cable. The latest release includes a number of stability and sleep/wake fixes, as well as better overall performance. New dark-mode icons have also been added, and the software should now make use of the integrated GPU.
RapidWeaver is a web design tool that allows users to create web pages with little to no coding knowledge. The software automatically fills in XHTML and CSS coding based on a user's design. A number of problems that would prevent publishing from completing have been resolved with this update. Inconsistencies when referencing Resources in site-wide code have also been addressed, and Smart Quotes are now turned of by defaults.
Drive Genius is a storage management utility that features a number of tools for optimizing and repairing hard drives. The latest release addresses a potential issue where a drive name would be doubled in the drive list. BootWell errors should also now be properly shown, and a few stability problems have been patched.
Deliveries is a tool that allows users to keep track of all their deliveries in one location. Version 1.0.2 offers improved map location accuracy, support for copying a delivery to the clipboard, and improved Junecloud syncing. In addition to a range of bug fixes, the Add Delivery screen is also now better at finding common tracking number formats in a pasted bloc of text.
Yesterday's iOS 8.1.3 update sabotages the TaiG jailbreak tool, users say. The hack was functional through iOS 8.1.2, outdoing Pangu, which stopped working as of v8.1.1. Although the TaiG team itself hasn't confirmed the problem, Apple's notes for v8.1.3 actually credit the group with finding four security vulnerabilities.
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Apple's official online shipping times for the iPod shuffle have improved in the UK, France, Germany, and several other European countries, reports say. Earlier this month, shipping times deteriorated to between seven to 10 days worldwide, prompting fears that Apple might be discontinuing the product. Sources claimed that Apple was just going through component supplier changes, however, and this may be borne out by the European Apple online stores, which is now seeing the media player ship in five to seven days. Delays have yet to improve in the US or Canada, but may follow suit in the near future.
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A petition by Marriott, Hilton, and an association of hotel owners asking for permission to block guests from creating their own Wi-Fi hotspots has been resolved today in a public notice by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Specifically, the blocking of personal Wi-Fi hotspots is prohibited, and will be "aggressively" investigated and acted against, according to the agency.
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If you are making a contactless mobile payment in the US based on a Visa, MasterCard or American Express account, odds are that you're doing it from an iPhone 6 model. During the conference call with analysts, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that the company's Apple Pay mobile payments system -- only in its fourth month -- now accounts for more than $2 of every $3 of money paid in that manner. In addition, CFO Luca Maestri updated analysts on the still-growing (but more slowly) cash stockpile Apple has, now at $178 billion.
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