Market analysis firm IDC has released its latest figures on smartphone share in China, and reports that Apple has achieved a nine percent share of the estimated 78 million smartphones sold in China during the first three months of 2013, a rise of 117 percent year-over year. While all of the top vendors did well, Apple -- led by its entry-level iPhone 4 -- grew at an annual rate of 211 percent. Another survey firm, Canalys, gave Apple an eight percent share but also ranked it in fifth place among manufacturers, about double the prevailing view on the company's marketshare in China.
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3 hours ago | Posted in: iPad apps
Video streaming service Vdio has exited its pre-release phase and is now open to users in the United States and the United Kingdom. The service, created by streaming music provider Rdio, will allow anyone in the two countries, including those not subscribed to Rdio, to access the service through the website and through its companion iPad app.
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Fabrication powerhouse Stratasys and startup 3D printer manufacturer MakerBot have merged. Under the terms of the deal, the pair of companies are merging in a stock-for-stock transaction worth $604 million, with two-thirds payable immediately as stock, with the remaining third depending on MakerBot performance following the merger. The deal is expected to close in the fall.
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Retailer Best Buy is recalling 5,100 third-party battery replacements for the black and white MacBooks, made by a company called ATG and sold through the retailer's Geek Squad service division or online between 2008 and mid-2012 due to the risk of overheating and fire. The US Product Safety Commission has collected 13 reports of incidents with the replacement batteries, including one where the buyer suffered a serious burn on their leg. The batteries are also sold through other retailers, but only Best Buy has initiated a recall at this point.
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Apple has begun seeding the first beta of OS X 10.8.5 to developers. The initial release is listed as build 12F9, and like v10.8.4 concentrates on bugfixes instead of new features. Developers are asked to test graphics, Wi-Fi, PDF viewing, and wake-from-sleep functions.
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A Texas company, Bluebonnet Telecommunications, is suing Apple for patent infringement in relation to call forwarding technology. Specifically Bluebonnet says that the iPhone 4S and 5 violate US Patent No. 5,485,511, a patent that previously belonged to Siemens Rolm Communications but was picked up by Bluebonnet in June 1996. The patent describes a phone communicating with a central switch to generate a list of options, which are then displayed for the phone's user.
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The auto-generated passwords for iOS Personal Hotspots can be cracked in under a minute, a group of German researchers claim. In a paper (PDF) out of the University of Erlangen, the people explain that iOS generates passwords based on word list of about 52,500 entries, but only relies on 1,842. The word selection process is moreover said to be insufficiently random, making it easy to brute-force an attack.
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Despite slightly late adoption of the 802.11g standard, which had more to do with the hardware refresh product cycle than anything else, Apple has been on the forefront of wireless home networking. From the first failure-prone Airport base station with an Orinoco Gold PCMCIA card to the newest equipment with custom chipsets built for Apple, Cupertino has seen the value of Internet access not tethered by a cord. The latest effort is the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule 802.11ac model, which brings some advances to the line. Join us with this first look at the new networking peripheral from Apple.
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8 hours ago | Posted in: software
Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac has been updated with support for the OS X Mavericks beta. The new Desktop build, 8.0.18494, lets users run Mavericks virtualized within another copy of OS X. Parallels classifies its Mavericks support as "experimental" however, and notes that since the OS is still unreleased, people must be registered Apple developers to make use of the feature.
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Apple has won a $30 million contract to provide iPads to every student in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the LA Times reports. The Board of Education voted 6-0 in favor after hearing senior staff claim that the iPad was both the best and least expensive option for meeting the District's specifications. The tablet "received the highest scoring by the students and the teachers," according to Deputy Superintendent Jaime Aquino. The vote authorizes deployment at 47 campuses; since Apple is the only authorized vendor though, the District will end up paying hundreds of millions to Apple over the course of two years.
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11 hours ago | Posted in: industry, Apple
Apple's most recent head of Patent Licensing & Strategy, Boris Teksler, has left the company to become president of the Technology Group at French media company Technicolor. The departure is confirmed by a Technicolor press release issued this week. At his new employer, Teksler will also serve on the company's executive committee, where he will help in the "exploitation of its IP assets."
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A new listing for a rare Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh has appeared on eBay. Recognized as the first major design project for Jonathan Ive, the TAM was introduced as a limited production in the spring of 1997. Only 12,000 machines were ever produced, and 399 of those were kept by apple to be used as spare parts. The system comes in all of its original packaging and includes all of the accessories that came with the system when it was shipped. Biding will remain open until June 23 with shipping limited to locations with the United States.
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11 hours ago | Posted in: gadgets
Cinema camera manufacturer Red has started shipping its 4K media player. Users of the Red User forum have started to receive their pre-orders of the Redray Player, which Red bills as a comprehensive media source for owners of Ultra HD televisions that is capable of playing back native 4K video, upscaled HD video, and the company's own 4K .Red file format.
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Apple has issued a v5.3 update for second- and third-generation Apple TVs. The new firmware adds support for several video services, most notably HBO Go, WatchESPN, and Sky News. Also included are Crunchyroll, which concentrates on anime and other Asian content, and Qello, which hosts concerts and music documentaries.
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12 hours ago | Posted in apps
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With EarthDesk users can replace their static desktop with an image of the Earth showing current sun, moon and city illumination, as well as real-time global cloud coverage. Version 6.2 includes updated NASA photography and better support for ISS tracking with some network configurations. Minor logging and performance changes are also included.
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Little Snitch is an internet traffic monitoring and management utility. The software informs a user when a program attempts to establish an outgoing internet connection and provides options for allowing or denying the connection. The default selection of hostname in connection alerts has been improved in this release. Additionally, an issue which cased the connection alert to display IP addresses in sated of hostnames under some VPN configurations has also been fixed.
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Hazel monitors a designated set of folders and automatically organizes files according to user created rules. The v3.1 update adds a new upload action for uploading files via FTP, SFTP or WebDAV, a well as a custom date token type. Users can also now use patterns to match against and extract a file's contents.
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Photomarks is a watermarking app that allows users to protect their copyrighted images with a personal watermark. The software offers batch photo processing with support for multi-core processors, and can be used to apply customized text and logo watermarks. Photomarks can also be used to edit images with various grunge and vintage photo effects.
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BackupLoupe allows users to browse Time Machine backups and find frequently copied items. The software shows users how many versions of a specific item are available within the backups, along with the date that each was created. A rare crash that could occur when mounting a new volume while the software initializes has been fixed. Endless indexing will also now be avoided when encountering directories with zero-length names.
Leaked schematics -- allegedly drawn by Apple, and now in the hands of a major accessory maker -- show the dimensions of the iPhone 5S and an "iPhone Lite/Light," according to AppleInsider. The 5S appears to maintain roughly the same design as its predecessor, but with a pill-shaped flash on the back that may fit dual LEDs. The iPhone Light plans match recent rumors and case production surrounding a low-cost iPhone. That includes details like a thicker body, and rounded edges.
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14 hours ago | Posted in: iPod, iPhone, iPad
Apple is considering LinkedIn integration for iOS 7, beta code references suggest. In particular the references hint that LinkedIn could be supported in the same manner as Facebook and Twitter, meaning single sign-in support, and the ability to quickly post content via a share sheet or hooks in iOS apps. Some essential code strings are missing though, preventing LinkedIn options from turning on in the current iOS 7 release.
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