Boost Mobile, a prepaid US carrier powered by Sprint’s network, will be the latest carrier to add the iPhone to their lineup, according to Twitter user @evleaks. The phone is claimed to launch in Q3, and will make Boost the fourth prepaid carrier in the United States to carry Apple’s smartphone.
Sprint’s other prepaid holding, Virgin Mobile, has carried the iPhone since June of 2012 and recently launched a bizarrely awesome ad campaign to lure customers away from other networks. A competing prepaid carrier, Cricket, has also carried the iPhone since June. Straight Talk became the third big prepaid iPhone carrier in January of 2013.
According to internal Apple documentation, the original iPhone, which first debuted in 2007, will soon enter “obsolete” status, with a few exceptions. The official switch will happen on June 11, 2013, when the iPhone, along with several other Macs and Xserve models will officially be classified as vintage and obsolete products by Apple. Thanks, G!
Earlier today Google officially pushed out an update to its existing Google Search app for iPhone enabling the Google Now service with weather and traffic conditions, updates on breaking news and sports, and more. Some users logging into Google Search through a Google Apps account might have noticed that using the features would prompt an error that “your administrator hasn’t enabled Google Now for your domain.” Hanselman.com shares instructions on enabling the feature which aren’t exactly obvious since the setting is buried in “Android settings”.
Google Apps for Business, Education, and Government: Google Now needs to be turned on by an administrator before it can be used.
If you are an administrator, you can enable Google Now for users in your organization by following these steps:
Happy Hour by 9to5Mac artwork by <a href="http://9to5mac.com/author/michaelsteeber/">Michael Steeber</a>
Introducing Happy Hour, a weekly 9to5Mac podcast that brings you an in-depth look at the top Apple scoops of the week. We’ll give you the insight behind the stories and our (potentially NSFW?) view of the wider Apple reporting world.
Host Scott Buscemi joins Seth Weintraub, Mark Gurman, and the rest of the 9to5Mac team. We’ll answer reader questions posted in comments to posts in the Happy Hour section. We’re even planning some special guests.
According to multiple people who have either seen or have been briefed on the upcoming iOS 7, the operating system sports a redesigned user-interface that will be attractive to new iOS users, but potentially unsettling for those who are long-accustomed to the platform…
Nokia and the Windows Phone team appear to be launching a new “Make the switch” campaign for the Nokia Lumia 920 that pits iPhone 5 up against Samsung’s new flagship Galaxy S4. The latest ad, above, ends with the tag line “Don’t Fight. Switch” and kicks off with iPhone and Galaxy S4 users arguing with one another before breaking out in a full on brawl at a wedding. The entire spot from the Windows Phone team is amusing and only lightly promotes the Nokia Lumia 320 towards the end. No features or benefits, but hey its Engadget reader’s choice award winner.
App-based messaging has overtaken SMS messaging for the first time, according to new figures released by research company Informa (via BBC News).
Informa said almost 19 billion messages were sent per day on chat apps in 2012, compared with 17.6 billion SMS texts … It has projected that nearly 50 billion messages will be sent per day using these apps by 2014, compared with just over 21 billion traditional SMSs. However, it said that despite the growing gap between the two, SMS will continue to remain a key player in the sector.
Chat apps like WhatsApp may be dominating on smartphones, but around half the global market still uses featurephones, and of course there are less tech-savvy smartphone users who remain oblivious to alternatives. Businesses remain keen on SMS too, said Informa spokesperson Pamela Clark-Dickson “as it can be used on all mobile phones and they do not need smartphones to use it.”
Informa thus predicts that SMS revenue will continue to grow, from $115bn in 2012 to $127bn by 2016.
Apple’s early decision to address privacy concerns about the collection of personalised data gives it a head-start in the new mobile ad race, argues marketeer Gregory Kennedy in a Gigacom blog.
Some background is probably useful here. Every iOS device sold has a unique ID code known as the UDID (Unique Device IDentifier). Many app developers used this 40-character code to identify you for various purposes, some of them perfectly legitimate, such as storing push notification settings and logging usage statistics … Expand Expanding Close
Get just the right information at just the right time with Google Now.
• weather and traffic conditions before you start your day
• updates on your favorite sports teams and breaking news stories as they happen
Find out more about all other ways Google Now can help at http://www.google.com/now
Google is also working to bring some voice functionality to its desktop website. While Google Now has a voice component that has been compared to Apple’s Siri on many occasions, the essence of the feature is truly to provide timely, location based information.
OS X 10.9, which is internally codenamed “Cabernet,” will focus on various “power-user” enhancements and take core features from iOS, according to our sources. Unlike operating system updates such as OS X Leopard and OS X Lion, OS X 10.9 will likely not be an overhauled approach to how the operating system feels and functions.
The new operating system includes major enhancements to the Finder application such as tags and tabbed browsing modes. Those additions are notable as many pro-users have relied on third-party solutions and hacks to enable these features. Additionally, the new operating system will include a new Safari web browser with a redesigned backend for improved page loading, speed, and efficiency…
The Square Register app was updated today with a number of new features for merchants on top of a redesigned UI for the iPhone app. Merchants running the Square Register POS app on their iPad will now have access to barcode scanning with the ability to sync a Bluetooth barcode scanner, new easy order modifiers, as well as customizable kitchen tickets.
iPhone users of the Square Register app are greeted today with an all new design that adds new features such as custom tipping, smarter payments with multiple custom amounts, and a customizable item library.
Square just posted the video above to coincide with the update showing off how owners of Piada in Midtown Manhattan are taking advantage of the Square Register solution.
A full list of of what’s new in version 3.0 of Square Register is below:
What’s New in Version 3.0
New on iPhone:
– Item library: Add items to a sale with a tap. Build your item library to simplify and speed up checkout. Customize items with photos, names, and prices.
– Smarter payment pad: Add multiple custom amounts to a sale, add notes to each amount, and view or edit all amounts in one place before charging.
– Custom Tipping: Allow customers to enter custom tip amounts.
– New look: Ring up customers and edit settings more easily than ever with an all-new design.
New on iPad:
– Easy order modifiers: Customize orders at the counter and send them to your kitchen while your line keeps moving.
– Customizable kitchen tickets: Include a custom name or number on each kitchen ticket.
– Barcode scanning: Sync your Bluetooth barcode scanner with Square Register to speed up your checkout.
Developers Objective Development just announced a nice update to its extremely popular network and application monitoring tool known as ‘Little Snitch’. For those of you unfamiliar, Little Snitch allows users to set up rules that control network access for specific apps and services, allowing you to control when and how apps on your machine talk to the internet. A previous update brought profiles to the app, offering users the ability to switch between different sets of rules for different workflows. Today’s update to version 3.1 enhances that feature by offering Automatic Profile Switching:
With the new Automatic Profile Switching these profiles now can be activated automatically when the computer starts using a specific network connection (e.g. the office, home or some public network) – thereby adapting your network security to the current environment…The first time you connect to a network, Little Snitch presents you the new Profile Switching Alert which lets you define the profile to be activated automatically the next time you join the same network. Of course, this also activates the profile right when you click the OK button.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has suggested that Apple will be introducing new models across the MacBook range at WorldWide Developers Conference in June (via MacRumors). Previously the analyst said he didn’t expect Apple to continue with non-Retina machines but now he does.
Kuo expects all the new models to be bumped up to Haswell processors, expected to give a modest performance bump in the 7-13 percent range, with likely a much better boost to battery-life, though we don’t expect this to be anywhere close to the 24-hour life theoretically achievable … Expand Expanding Close
The iPad was rated by consumers as the best tablet for the second time running in the JD Power customer satisfaction survey, with no competitor tablet rated above About average. Back in March, the iPhone was rated best phone for the 9th consecutive time, a fact Apple includes prominently on its Why iPhone webpage.
Tablet owners were asked to give an overall satisfaction rating, as well as rank their tablet on five specific factors, each given a weighting from most to least important … Expand Expanding Close
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