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Two iOS apps, Twitterific and 1Password, have today received significant updates. Twitterific 5.2.2 adds support for bookmarking service Readability and image service Droplr. A number of smaller improvements have also been made, such as automatic flipping of the read/unread state of tweets as users scroll, and similar updating of indicators in timeline tabs. Yfrog images should appear in the in-app browser instead of the photo viewer.
The newest national carrier of the iPhone, T-Mobile, has ended a promotional "introductory price" period for the iPhone 5, raising the down payment from $99 to $149 for the 16GB model -- with similar $50 increases for the 32GB and 64GB models. Though it is still one of the cheapest ways to buy an iPhone 5 rather than buying a no-contract phone or going through a contract with one of the other carriers, the price difference with a T-Mobile plan is now down to about $20 less than buying the iPhone outright.
Apple has posted a free streaming preview version of the upcoming Daft Punk album on the iTunes Store. Random Access Memories is 74 minutes in length, and due to be released May 21st for $12. At the moment, at least, the preview is only available to US shoppers.
Google today announced a combination of cloud data storage limits. Rolling out over the next couple of weeks to all users, the search engine is allocating a total of 15GB to users, shared across Gmail, Google+, and Google Drive. Business customers are offered 30GB of unified storage shared between the Google Drive and Gmail services.
Flipboard has launched a new version of its popular news aggregating app for the iPhone and iPad. Following March's update which introduced user-created magazines, the v2.0.2 release adds a new Friends category in the Content Guide that can be used to quickly find magazines created by friends. Flipboard has also added new profile pages that provide details on readership and curation activities, as well as the ability to share content via SMS and to save images to the Camera Roll.
French President Francoise Hollande is considering a new tax on tech products, the money from which would fund cultural projects. The move, which would be decided this summer and has been described as "minimal and widely distributed," may increase tensions between tech companies and the government of France -- along with other EU countries, many of which have complained that firms such as Apple and Google are gaming the system in order to avoid paying taxes that would normally be due.
An unaired portion of a 60 Minutes interview with Bill Gates saw the founder of Microsoft in an unusually reflective state when questioned by interviewer Charlie Rose on the topic of the late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, his friend and rival. Jobs met with Gates for an extended period very near the end of his life, an unusual concession to a colleague he had had a tumultuous relationship with over the decades. Gates said the two men had "grown up together," each building the computer industry in their own image.
Broadcaster ABC is said to be updating its iOS app to offer live streams of shows from local ABC stations later this week. New options for a "Live" button in the Watch ABC app for iPhone and iPad will mark it as the first major US broadcaster that provides live streams of its channels to app users, with the first markets to gain the service being New York and Philadelphia.
An altered carrier update that has been modified by two hackers successfully increases the bandwidth available for iPhone 5 units on T-Mobile's US network, tests have found. The patch to the carrier update file, which was originally distributed to add LTE signal to the iPhone 5 using T-Mobile's 1900MHz band, works on both unlocked AT&T units as well as "native" T-Mobile iPhone 5 devices without requiring a jailbreak, though instructions vary for customers using jailbroken iPhones.
In tandem with the launch of the Sony Xperia ZR, Sony has rolled out a iPod shuffle inspired pair of stereo Bluetooth earphones. The new SBH20 uses a small shuffle-like case to enclose a Bluetooth 3.0 receiver and rechargeable battery, while also function as a remote control for a connected smartphone or other Bluetooth-enabled device. The SBH20 incorporates a clip that users can use to pin to their clothing, minimizing the amount of cabling while allowing the connected device to remain stored in a backpack or handbag.
A spokesperson for the Pentagon has told Bloomberg that mobile devices using Apple's iOS 6 as well as Samsung devices supplemented with the company's Knox security lockdown as well as BlackBerry devices running BB10 are expected to be allowed onto the Defense Department's high-security data networks early next week, barring final approvals. The news comes on the heels of iOS's FIPS 140-2 certification for the CoreCrypto kernel module, which was added in the iOS 6 release.
Amazon has launched an iOS version of its Cloud Drive Photos app (free), which gives users 5GB in free storage space for backing up or offloading photos taking up too much room on their own devices. Depending on the format of the pictures, the Amazon Cloud Drive Photos storage locker can hold up to thousands of photos, and the company offers additional storage space for a fee starting with 20GB of additional space for $10 per year. The iPhone-oriented app also allows sharing of photos to Facebook, Twitter and email.
According to leaked reports from an Apple "town hall" meeting, some significant changes are coming to AppleCare and AppleCare+ policies starting this fall -- however, unlike most news of this nature, the changes should benefit consumers while still cutting some costs. Among the bigger changes will be a new policy to repair, rather than replace, damaged iPhones when possible; an extension of telephone support; more remote hardware fault diagnosis, and a change to tie an AppleCare policy to a customer rather than a specific device.
Investor Carl Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management have proposed a new offer to Dell shareholders, who are considering a proposal by founder Michael Dell's group of investors, including Microsoft, to purchase existing shares at $13.65 each in order to take the company private. In a letter to Dell's board of directors, Icahn and Southeastern are counter-proposing a deal to give all Dell shareholders the option to retain shares in the company, plus take an additional $12 a share in cash or stock.
The US Patent and Trademark Office has issued a preliminary rejection of some claims in an Apple patent, Method and apparatus for providing translucent images on a computer display, says FOSS Patents. Claims 29-30 and 33-35 have been rejected. The USPTO says that aspects of the patent were obvious or anticipated in light of another patent, Method and apparatus for displaying simulated keyboards on touch-sensitive displays, as well as prior art.
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