Category: I-phone

A group of researchers at MIT and Princeton University are testing to figure out how to best save fuel when stopping and re-starting cars at traffic lights, and they’re using the iPhone to do so. The smartphone is mounted on the car’s dashboard, and uses the camera and GPS information in a system called SignalGuru that tells the driver when it’s best to slow the car down in order to save fuel (so you’re not always revving up the engine and then having to put on the brakes when the next light pops up). The system works, apparently, and in Cambridge, MA testing, fuel consumption was cut down by 20 percent.

The system was also tested in Singapore, where most traffic lights change the length they’re displayed based on the traffic around them. In that area, as opposed to the US (where lights are generally on fixed schedules), the prediction mechanism didn’t work quite as well. It was off by up to two seconds, say the researchers.

It sounds like any indication can be helpful. It’s hard to see if this is something that could eventually make its way to the consumer market — more likely it would be used in commercial vehicles as a solution. But you never know — if the system works on an iPhone and there’s an in-car mount that’s standardized enough to work at the right angles, your phone could be telling you when to slow down on the road, and saving you money at the same time.

[via Engadget]

iPhone camera being used for traffic light testing originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s something about the weekend, apparently, that makes iOS games want to drop their prices right down to the bottom. There’s quite a few good deals out — this Bejeweled offer is especially one you shouldn’t refuse!

• Yes, Bejeweled 2 + Blitz by PopCap is completely free in the App Store this weekend. Hopefully this is in anticipation for an iOS release of Bejeweled 3 soon.
• Crescent Moon Games is having a sale, dropping its RPGs Aralon: Sword and Shadow, Rimelands, Hammer of Thor, and Ravensword: The Fallen King down to just 99 cents each. Word is that Pocket RPG is going on sale as well, but it hasn’t dropped yet.
• Neocell Fighters Evolution is a shooter that’s gone free.
• Street Fighter IV is on sale again, 99 cents until the end of August. Although at this point, that’s pretty much the usual price for it.
• And Chunfen.com has dropped the price on all of its apps, including the games Air Star and Air Cross and their HD versions, to completely free.

All solid deals for this weekend. Combine all of these games with the big releases from the week (Spy Mouse, Contre Jour, and others), and you should have plenty to play on iOS, all weekend long.

iOS sales this weekend: Bejeweled 2, Crescent Moon RPGs, SFIV originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steve Jobs has stepped down from his role as Apple’s CEO, and Tim Cook has stepped up to the plate. The web has gotten most of its reminiscing out of its system, so now it’s time for the wild-eyed and empty-headed analysis! Huzzah!

Tim Cook said nothing at Apple is going to change under his leadership, but that hasn’t stopped “analysts” from compiling wish lists for Apple’s future anyway. Today the tech sector is pretty much bursting at the seams with dunderheads whose advice for Apple ranges from merely misguided to downright tragic. I’ve singled out five whose advice for Apple’s future is so monumentally bad that it’s like telling your gullible cousin he should brush his teeth with dog food. I’ve arranged them in rough order of lunacy.

1. Apple should make a QWERTY iPhone

ZDNet’s Matthew Miller seems to think that Steve Jobs’s departure from Apple means the company will abandon the design philosophy behind its most successful product ever and tack on a physical keyboard. Why? “I think there are millions out there that would love to see an iPhone with a QWERTY keyboard and if Apple can design one as well as it designs the iPhone then it could be the best physical QWERTY keyboard ever and there would be a lot more people who would jump on an iPhone.” Umm, okay.

This is just a guess, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that “lacks physical keyboard” hasn’t been a big factor in the extremely low adoption rates of the iPhone so fa- hahaha, sorry, I couldn’t keep a straight face for the rest of that sentence. If you’re holding your breath waiting for Apple to slap a physical keyboard on the iPhone, well, I hope for your sake you’re not underwater.

Putting a physical keyboard on the iPhone would be a back-pedalling decision from a design perspective. Apple’s not known for slapping extra things onto its products if it doesn’t think most people will need that feature, and gumming up its flagship product with a physical keyboard would set a dangerous precedent. If you’re going to do that, why not put a “real” keyboard on the iPad, too? And how about five USB ports, and a 3D camera, and a built-in handle, and a cupholder, and some fuzzy dice?

Leave design decisions to the designers.

2. Scott Forstall should run Apple, not Tim Cook

From the Department of Insensitive Headlines comes Ed Oswald’s “It was time for Steve Jobs to go.” I’m not going to dwell on his analysis of the timing of Steve Jobs’s departure; instead, let’s look at Oswald’s plans for Apple’s future. “I’m not the biggest fan of Cook at the helm of Apple. I don’t really think he is the right person long term,” Oswald says. Well, you’re entitled to your opinion, I guess, but why not? Oswald says it’s because Tim Cook doesn’t take center stage the way Jobs did, and from there he decides that means Apple will be run by committee from now on and plunge into the same chaos that doomed it in the 1990s.

Who would make a “better” CEO according to Oswald? “If you ask me, I’ve always been a fan of iOS chief Scott Forstall. The man has impressed me in his increasing number of public appearances at Apple events: he has the charisma, and shares Job’s [sic] vision and knows how to express it well. Forstall is the next long-term CEO of Apple, and not Cook.”

So this is how we gauge a CEO’s potential performance: not on the real numbers he turns in, but by his stage presence? Oswald’s “analysis” would be a lot easier to swallow if fellow betanews writer Joe Wilcox, who’s wrong about Apple far more often than he’s right, hadn’t pointed out that Apple’s revenue has more than tripled in the past two and a half years under Tim Cook’s guidance as Chief Operating Officer. Cook has already been in charge of the day-to-day at Apple for a long time, and the company has been more profitable than ever.

If Steve Jobs thought Forstall was the better CEO long-term, why did the Apple board (and Steve) build a succession plan around Tim Cook instead? Maybe because Steve Jobs and Apple’s board knew far better than Ed Oswald who’d be able to successfully helm Apple once he stepped down? Apple also just awarded Tim Cook one million shares of Apple stock if he stays on until 2021, so there’s that.

Strap into your safety gear, because it only gets dumber from here.

3. Apple should become less secretive

Popular Mechanics’ take on the matter is the opening salvo in a trifecta of wooly-headed calls for more “openness” from Apple. According to Glenn Derene, the company “must be more open about upcoming products. And to be honest, it’s not even clear that Apple’s secrecy gives them any tangible business advantage.”

You’re absolutely right. I’m sure that pre-announcing products months in advance, then being forced to delay the shipping date later is a far better business strategy. I mean, look how well it’s worked for Microsoft! And given that companies like Samsung are already shamelessly aping Apple’s designs, I’m sure that problem won’t get worse at all if Apple lifts the veil of secrecy surrounding its future products.

Derene also advises that Apple should be less “vindictive” from here on out, and of all things, he cites Apple’s blacklisting of Gizmodo as an example of that vindictiveness. Gizmodo, the outlet that paid several thousand dollars for stolen property, dismantled it for the world to see, blackmailed Apple into admitting the device was real before returning it, and then had the gall to publicly humiliate the engineer who lost it in the first place. If enacting media sanctions and pursuing legal action against them is “vindictive,” Derene probably would’ve called me genocidal if I’d been in any position to pursue my own ideas for punitive actions against Gizmodo.

For an encore, Derene says Apple should “stop being so full of itself,” and basically attacks every facet of the company that gets people excited about its products. Sure, Apple could stop advertising itself and its products as “special” to its customers, but why should it? It is, and they are.

4. Apple needs to open up

Proving once again that she’s never met a free/open source (and legendarily consumer-hostile) operating system she didn’t like, PCWorld’s Katherine Noyes says “Rather than maintain its completely closed and locked-down approach to the technologies it makes, the time is right for Apple to open up.” I know to a Linux enthusiast every nail looks like it needs to be pounded with an open-source hammer, but does that really mean you have to cite MacDefender as evidence that Apple needs to be more “open” than it is?

You remember MacDefender, right? The harbinger of the end of Apple’s “free ride” when it comes to malware? I know my antivirus logger on my Mac has been going nuts since then — wait, no it hasn’t. And let’s not forget that the “open” mobile platform Android has been getting slammed with malware, while the “locked down” but equally popular platform iOS has — wait for it — absolutely none. Kind of kicks that “security through obscurity” argument right in the chestnuts, doesn’t it?

Noyes also argues that Apple’s vertical integration has worked against compatibility and interoperability. I apologize if you just did a spit-take all over your keyboard. I’m sure she can’t be talking about interoperability amongst Apple’s own products, because that’s unassailable even by the thickest of skulls. Instead, she’s probably talking about interoperability with PCs, which leads me to think she’s stuck in that late-90s world that so many pundits seem to be trapped in, where Macs can’t read .doc files and can’t network with PCs in any meaningful way — you know, the kinds of legacy issues that haven’t been actual, current problems for the better part of a decade.

She also argues that Apple’s “closed strategy just isn’t going to be sustainable over time” without providing a single number for evidence. I’ve got some numbers for you to go look up when you’ve got some free time: Linux’s profitability as an “open” platform versus Apple’s profitability with two “closed” platforms. Linux’s marketshare among non-server consumers versus Apple’s. The amount of money “open” Android has made for Google (not handset manufacturers) versus the amount iOS has made for Apple.

I don’t know where the Linux guys and gals picked up the idea that “free as in beer” would somehow translate into billions of dollars, or that “free as in speech” would mean greater platform security, but the past decade or so of evidence is not exactly on your side.

A drum roll now for the worst advice I’ve heard today, and possibly all year:

5. Apple should license iOS

I’ll let Ken Goldberg speak for himself before I beat him with a shovel refute his points:

Extending the reach of iOS beyond iPhones and iPads is a real opportunity to dominate the ecosystem of appliance devices. It would unleash the creative force of thousands of developers who meet secretly all over the world and perform monthly druid rituals hoping to influence the Spirits to open up iOS. The fire wardens are getting testy, Tim. Let’s just get this done! Make iOS even more pervasive, and make your mark!

You know that old saying, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it?” Do you remember what happened the last time Apple licensed its OS to third parties? It damned near killed the company. It’s arguably the worst decision Apple made in its entire history. Once Mac OS was available on cheap, crappy clones, guess what happened? People stopped buying Macs!

It’s been a while since I’ve heard the “Apple should license (x)” argument. It used to be a regular thing with Mac OS X, but that’s died down in the past couple years. Even in the early days of iOS, before Android started taking off, people were clamoring for Apple to license its mobile OS to third-party handset manufacturers. And really, why shouldn’t Apple undercut its own hardware business by allowing its OS to run on less expensive and inferior products? After all, it’s not as though Apple’s low PC marketshare is doing it any favors (other than being the most profitable company in that market), and it’s not like the iPhone is bringing in any money for Apple compared to what Android’s bringing in for Google. Right?

But for the sake of argument, let’s say Apple follows Goldberg’s advice and licenses iOS to third parties. Here’s what happens next:

1. Handset manufacturers initially say “no thanks” to iOS because Android is “free.”
2. Then they realize, wait, MONEY.
3. iOS runs on fifty disparate devices rather than less than a dozen.
4. Developing for iOS becomes a fresh hell thanks to device fragmentation.
5. Customers blame Apple when their $99 LG POS can’t run Infinity Blade. Predictably, a class action lawsuit ensues.
6. Half as many people — or less — pay $199 for an iPhone when they can pay $99 for an LG POS instead.
7. Apple’s profit share from iOS devices goes down the tubes.
8. Apple’s stock tanks.
9. Wired runs a cover story with an Apple surrounded by thorns and two words: “PRAY. AGAIN.”
10. Without Steve Jobs to save Apple again, the company really does die.

Apple is a hardware company. Unlike Microsoft’s software hegemony, Apple makes the overwhelming majority of its profits on selling tangible products: iPhones, iPads, and Macs, in roughly that order. How much money does Google make off of Android? Considering it doesn’t charge anything to license Android, virtually all of Google’s mobile platform profits come from advertising. In a year, those profits are roughly equal to what Apple makes in three months, just from the iPhone. Meanwhile, Google has recently paid $12.5 billion to acquire Motorola, probably in order to shield itself from patent attacks on Android. This means that as of today, Android is essentially a net loss for Google and will be for years to come.

That’s the company strategy Goldberg wants Apple to emulate. I’m gonna go with “No” on this one.

Here’s my advice for Apple and its new CEO: stick with what you’ve already said. Don’t change a thing, and for all our sakes, don’t listen to any of these people telling you what you “should” or “must” do, because it’s five slices of wrong in a dipstick sandwich.

5 armchair CEOs whose advice would destroy Apple originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zite is my favorite news discovery app on the iPad. I find myself using this free app several times a day as it crawls over thousands of websites looking for things I will be interested in.

It works by noting my interests, and finding more based on a complex personalization algorithm. I’m constantly finding compelling articles and sharing them with friends and colleagues.

Today, Zite shared some data about the terms users select to seed the app. They’ve broken it down by state, and the results are interesting. It’s clear the US is not homogeneous in interests — that’s obvious to most of us — but it’s really clear in the Zite data.

Click here for an interactive map and move your mouse over each state. You’ll see a variety of search terms over each state. It’s not a list of the top search terms by state, but rather how those states differ from other parts of the country.

For example, the term ‘code warriors’ comes up in California, Washington state, Colorado and Massachusetts. ‘Disney’ is a popular search term in California, Florida, Hawaii, New Jersey and Alabama. ‘Beer’ is on a lot of Zite users minds in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. ‘Aliens’ and ‘conspiracy’ searches in quantity is unique to Nevada. Area 51 anyone? In Alabama, ‘Bible Study’ slightly beats out ‘Lingerie’.

Of course if the survey was taken today I’d expect to find ‘hurricane’ and ‘Steve Jobs’ searches, but what Zite has done is more interesting, because the differing regional interests we know exist in the US are easy to see on the map.

You can read more about the methodology here. It’s an interesting stroll through some data that helps illuminate what is on American minds. Take a look at the map. Any surprises for you?

Zite searches show some fascinating regional differences originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For $8.99, Touch Studio‘s Finch app for OS X promises to to quietly track your computer usage as you work. With it, you should be able to monitor which apps and sites you spend the most time in, and adjust your workday accordingly.

Finch runs in your menu bar, keeping track of your usage by monitoring window title bars. It offers instant reports showing the duration of window use per app.

The problem is that Finch doesn’t do this very well.

Monitoring While The User is Absent

If you leave a window open when you’re rushing out to dinner, Finch records the entire time it’s there. There doesn’t seem to be any activity trigger beyond the fact that the window is on-screen. In my tests, that caused a lot of false-data which showed I spent more time at certain sites than I actually did. There really needs to be some kind of time-out on these.

Incorrect Multiple Results

What’s more, Finch sometimes had problems keeping track of staying on the same page. While writing up this post, it reported dozens of visits, all to the same page, the one I’m typing into right now. Nothing changed as far as I can tell in my title bar, even when I hit the “Save” button at regular intervals.

No Application-by-Application Results

Finch doesn’t group its results by application because it only looks at titles, I couldn’t build up usage stats for “How long was I in Email? How long in Firefox? In Safari? In Echofon?” You’d imagine that would be a big part of analyzing usage patterns, but it’s not part of the app.

No Sessions

Nor can you create regular sessions to automatically monitor your workday. I’m only interested in usage between 7:30 AM and 3:30 PM. Finch provides no support for this kind of regular monitoring and no way to do session-by-session trend analysis.

Stalking

Finally, there’s one more thing. And it’s totally not Finch’s fault. The app is creepy. It’s like an electronic stalker looking over your shoulder. Every window you visit. Every website, no matter how stupid or crazy or embarrassing is listed in the results. There’s no way to filter with Finch to only look at the usage patterns that are relevant to you. If you click a RickRoll link in your business e-mail, that site is going to be added to your Finch history.

Summary

All in all, I like the idea behind Finch better than the implementation. I hope Touch Studio continues developing the product but does so in a way that better lends itself to business use and “Getting Things Done” (GTD) analysis. As is, I cannot recommend it.

Finch usage tracker for OS X disappoints originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that Tim Cook is CEO of Apple, how do you ensure you keep him at the company’s helm? How about by awarding him one million shares of Apple’s stock. A form 8-K filed with the SEC gives the details:

In connection with Mr. Cook’s appointment as Chief Executive Officer, the Board awarded Mr. Cook 1,000,000 restricted stock units. Fifty percent of the restricted stock units are scheduled to vest on each of August 24, 2016 and August 24, 2021, subject to Mr. Cook’s continued employment with Apple through each such date.

Cook will receive half a million shares in five years, and the other half million in ten. That’s got to be a major incentive both for staying on with Apple and ensuring the company continues to run well. According to MacRumors, that stock is worth just over US$383 million today.

It looks like we’ll be saying “Apple CEO Tim Cook” for quite a while.

Apple awards CEO Tim Cook one million stock shares – if he stays until 2021 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has pulled all US$0.99 TV show rentals from the iTunes Store and Apple TV. As first noticed by AppleInsider, all mention of TV show rentals has also disappeared from Apple’s knowledge-base articles. One titled “iTunes Store: How to rent TV shows” has been completely removed, though you can view a cached version of it here. Apple’s Apple TV page has also been updated, removing all mention of TV rentals.

An Apple spokesperson confirmed to All Things D the reason:

iTunes customers have shown they overwhelmingly prefer buying TV shows. iTunes in the Cloud lets customers download and watch their past TV purchases from their iOS devices, Apple TV, Mac or PC allowing them to enjoy their programming whenever and however they choose.

When Apple announced TV rentals last year Fox, ABC, the Disney Channel and BBC America were the first to offer them. However other media companies including NBC, Time Warner, and CBS were reticent at the time.

I think $0.99 is a great price for TV shows, but not to rent — to own. A few days ago I tweeted that the day Apple and the studios start selling HD versions of TV shows through iTunes for $0.99 is the day I leave my cable company behind. Besides, it’s kind of ridiculous that I can buy a high definition season of a TV show on Blu-ray for $25, but the same season would cost me $50 to own through iTunes.

As my colleague Chris succinctly put it, “Dear media: what do you have against making money? Sell TV shows for $0.99, and people will buy five times as many as they do now at $1.99. My math may be a bit off, but this sounds a lot like MOAR REVENUE. Dipsticks.”

Whatever Apple and the networks choose to do in the future, the days of the $0.99 TV show rental on iTunes and the Apple TV is over, for now. And that leaves Apple’s “hobby” with one less feature. Rumors have been floating around for a while now about a new Apple TV this fall. Some think it will actually be an Apple-branded television set, some say it will be an Apple TV that supports 1080p. As usual, we won’t know for sure until they send out the invites.

Apple pulls 99-cent iTunes TV show rentals originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has dropped new builds in the mix to developers for OS X, including Lion 10.7.2, and new updates for iCloud and iPhoto. These are of course developer only builds that are designed for testing and usage before they had out to the public at large. The Lion build asks developers to look at the apps AirPort, AppKit, GraphicsDrivers, iCal, iChat, Mac App Store, Mail, Spotlight, and Time Machine, so that’s where most of the updates will come from.

All of those builds are available to developers right now through the developer hub site.

Apple pushes new OS X, iCloud, iPhoto builds to developers originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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More Mac 101, tips and tricks for novice Mac users.

After reading fellow TUAW blogger Dave Caolo’s post on Mac OS Lion and Mission Control, and then TUAW blogger Chris Rawson’s Additional Tips for OS X Lion’s Mission Control, I thought it pertinent to mention a few further words on Hot Corners.

With the advent of advanced multi-touch gestures in new Macs, it’s easier than ever to get around Mac OS X, and even more so in OS X Lion with Mission Control. But since I don’t have a newer Mac with advanced multi-touch gestures, I find Hot Corners invaluable in Lion, as I did in Snow Leopard and previous versions of Mac OS X before it. Even if I did have access to advanced multi-touch gestures, I’m certain I’d still make full use of Hot Corners.

Hot Corners are the assignment of certain features to the four corners of your desktop. A Hot Corner is activated by shoving your mouse pointer in the respective corner of your desktop screen. A Hot Corner can be assigned to turn your screen saver on, put your display to sleep, display all open windows or, as Dave mentioned in his post, open Mission Control — which is useful if you’re like me and don’t have a newer multi-touch trackpad like me.

Personally, I’ve assigned my bottom right Hot Corner to open Launch Pad, it’s a quick and easy way to access all my applications. I find using a Hot Corner much quicker than opening Launch Pad from the dock and then opening an application. My bottom left Hot Corner is assigned to show my desktop. Activating this Hot Corner shoves every open window on my desktop to the left, leaving me free to peruse files and documents on my desktop, and then by activating the Hot Corner again, all my open windows return to exactly the way they were before. My top right Hot Corner opens Mission Control and my top left Hot Corner puts my display to sleep. It couldn’t be simpler!

To assign a Hot Corner in OS X Lion, go to System Preferences and click on Mission Control. You’ll find the Hot Corners button at the bottom left of that window. For previous versions of OS X, go to System Preferences and click on Dashboard and Expose.

Mac 101: Don’t forget about Hot Corners originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fortune’s Apple 2.0 is reporting that the mid-2011 MacBook Air (launched just over a month ago in the US) is set to launch in China in the next week or so. According to analyst Brian White of Ticonderoga Securities, this week’s Hong Kong launch of the MacBook Air was met with, “long lines and stock outs of certain new MacBook Air models,” which is an indication of what’s to come when the MacBook Air launches in Greater China.

White says, “Our field checks indicate that several Apple authorized resellers in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are experiencing stock outs of the previous version of MacBook Air, which we believe is in preparation for the launch of the new MacBook Air.” White goes on to say that the MacBook Air could launch “as early as next week at some stores.”

Either way, with iPhone and Mac sales booming in Asia, fake Apple Stores and fake Steve Jobs biographies cropping up aplenty in China, and the ever increasing rumors surrounding the iPhone hitting China Telecom, it’s clear China is going to be a large market for Apple in the future.

Mid-2011 MacBook Air reportedly about to launch in China originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Solitaire is one of the enduring classics of computer gaming, keeping all the skill and entertainment of the real thing and ditching all the shuffling and laying out. Full Deck Solitaire is fantastic free solitaire game available from the Mac App Store.

Full Deck comes with 22 “deliciously delightful” solitaire games wrapped into one tight little package. You’ve got the old favorites like Klondike, Spider solitaire and Pyramid, combined with the less common likes of Thieves of Egypt and Tri Peaks solitaire — there’s something for almost everyone.

The card movements are all well animated, with appropriate optional sound effects, and you’ve even got the option of an animated “video background” of the sea lapping up on the shore on a moonlit night. You can of course use your own background image if the stock green ones don’t do it for you. You also have three decks to choose from antique, clean and large print, or if you hate all of them, you can define your own card backs from an image of your choice. You have three choices of card size too, meaning you can just about customise the whole card playing area to your liking, including playing full screen on Lion.

Each game has a nice load of statistics, that tell you how many games you failed to win, at least in my case, and of course there’s a full set of rules available should you have never played a particular game before.

So, if you’re looking for a decent solitaire game for your Mac on the cheap, you can’t get much cheaper and better than the free Full Deck Solitaire.

Daily Mac App: Full Deck Solitaire originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You’ll get all the top stories of the day in three to five minutes, which is perfect for a quick review of what’s happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today’s Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for listening through iTunes, click here.

Daily Update for August 26, 2011 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s a new phishing scam going around today involving MobileMe and iCloud. As noted by MacRumors, the scam involves an email that asks users to upgrade their MobileMe accounts to iCloud. The email reads:

Dear MobileMe member,

Please sign up for iCloud and click the submit botton [sic], you’ll be able to keep your old email address and move your mail, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks to the new service.

Your subscription will be automatically extended through July 31, 2012, at no additional charge. After that date, MobileMe will no longer be available.

Click here to update iCLOUD

Sincerely,

The Apple store Team

Clicking on the iCLOUD button takes the email recipient to a phishing page (an image of it is provided by MacRumors here). The page mimics elements of various Apple billing and shopping cart pages. As is the case with any email asking you to click on a link and enter your password or billing information its usually best to go directly to the company’s login page by manually typing in the company’s URL in your browser’s address field. If the email is legit, you’ll usually see the same message once you’ve logged into your account.

Don’t take the bait.

MobileMe, iCloud phishing scam making the rounds originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reserve the date, folks, and grab some popcorn. The biggest lawsuit of next year opens on July 30, 2012. That’s the day Apple’s Federal lawsuit against Samsung will go to trial, according to FOSS Patents.

The date of the trial is a big win for Apple as most lawsuits of similar complexity in the Northern District of California take 23 months to get to trial. Apple v. Samsung will go to trial in only 15.5 months.

The trial will involve an astounding 43 different claims by the two companies. It’s the number of claims that leads FOSS Patents to note that given the “complexity of Apple v. Samsung, this is really a pretty ambitious schedule and, therefore, a major win for Apple.”

FOSS Patents also notes that Apple’s Federal claim against Samsung over intellectual property violations of its iPhone and iPad is just one of the 19 lawsuits between the two companies in 9 countries around the world. Just yesterday a German court upheld an injunction against Samsung tablets following an EU-wide preliminary injunction against Samsung Galaxy smartphones by a Dutch court the day before. Earlier this month, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 launch was suspended in Australia due to similar litigation.

Apple wins expedited trial against Samsung in California originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Much of Apple’s advertising is as iconic as its devices and even people. But which is the most popular online? Research firm Visible Measures says it has the answer.

Many people remember 1984, the Ridley Scott-dircted TV ad that aired on January 22, 1984 during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII.

The Think Different campaign featured the “Crazy Ones” essay read by actor Richard Dreyfuss over footage of notable people like Amelia Earhart, Alfred Hitchcock, Martha Graham and Jim Henson, complete with Kermit the Frog.

Interestingly, Web tracking company Visible Measures (VM) reports, neither of these spots is the most popular online (based on number of views). Instead, it’s this six-minute video used to introduce the iPhone 4. VM claims that spot has garnered 17.3 million views across several outlets since it debuted in June, 2010.

By Visible Measures’ calculation, 1984 has pulled in 10.3 million views will Think Different ranks in with “nearly” 3 million. You can view the full list here and see where your favorite spot ranks.

[Via All Things D]

Apple’s most popular ad online isn’t “Think Different” or “1984” originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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