1Password 4 launched last year to much fanfare as a major redesign of the most powerful password management software available. Today the app has been updated to version 4.5, which brings the biggest update to the app’s design since the 4.0 release.
With this update, the entire app has once again been redesigned completely, this time for compliance with iOS 7’s new look. You’ll still find the layout familiar, though some tweaks have been made to a few areas.
A new set of leaked tech specs for the third-generation version of Intel’s Thunderbolt technology appearing on VRZone today indicate that “Alpine Ridge” controller will allow double the bandwidth (up to 40 Gbps, versus the current 20), cut the system’s power consumption in half, and even feature a new type of connector that would enable the charging the host computer through the Thunderbolt port at up to 100 watts—enough to easily handle the 85W required for the 15″ MacBook Pro (via MacRumors).
Of course, as we saw with Apple’s switch to the Lightning plug on iOS devices, changing the connector that operates a large number of accessories isn’t exactly a popular idea with the general public, despite the benefits of doing so. As with any such change, adapters will allow existing products to maintain compatibilty with the new connection.
DiCaprio and Boyle on the set of the 2000 film “The Beach”
With David Fincher recently rejected to direct the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic written by Aaron Sorkin, Sony may have found its replacement in Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle, according to The Hollywood Reporter. And with the lead role still not cast, Sony is reportedly considering tapping Leonardo DiCaprio to play Steve Jobs.
The film was first announced by Sony in mid-2012. Screenwriter Sorkin later revealed that the movie would focus on Jobs’ preparations in the thirty minutes leading up to three key Apple keynotes—a much different approach last year’s Jobs, which starred Ashton Kutcher. There have not been many updates on the project’s progress until recently, with the announcement that Fincher (and his choice for lead actor, Christian Bale) would not be part of the production going forward.
Some users of the first version of Apple’s set-top box are reporting that their devices are suddenly unable to connect to the iTunes Store, according to a 19-page discussion thread (via MacRumors) on Apple’s support website. A backend change is likely responsible for this problem, though Apple hasn’t yet clarified whether this is a permanent change or a temporary glitch.
The issue was first reported three days ago, with new reports coming in every day since. Thus far no one has been able to find a remedy. At least one user in the thread notes that his Apple TV is working fine while connected to the internet via an Ethernet cable, but it seems such successes are few and far between.
Second- and third-generation devices (the small block “hockey puck” models) seem to be unaffected. This outage follows a similarly mysterious drop in FaceTime connectivity for users of iOS 6.
Beats Music for iOS was updated today to version 1.0.7, but don’t let the minor version number bump fool you: this update has a lot of new stuff, including an entirely new subscription model, packed in.
The biggest news in this update is the option to purchase a subscription directly from the iTunes Store through an in-app purchase. Previously users had to add the Beats Music service to their carrier phone bill in order to enjoy the full feature set, such as on-demand streaming music and downloads.
Nike has decided to get out of the wearable technology market entirely, according to a brand-new report from CNET. The company is said to have come to the conclusion that fitness software has a more stable future at the company, leading to the discontinuation of the FuelBand and other wearable fitness products and the firing of most of the 70 employees currently working in that division.
The move is interesting timing. Just a week ago, Nike launched Nike+Fuel Lab in San Francisco, a “new program to develop partnerships and products with NikeFuel” hundreds of miles south of its current location at its Oregon HQ.
This announcement comes only weeks before Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where the company is expected to show off its upcoming Healthbook application as part of the next generation of iPhone software in anticipation of iWatch hardware coming later this year. Nike’s new strategy will put it more in line to compete with Healthbook as an application rather than the actual iWatch device.
If you didn’t get a chance to buy a WWDC ticket in the lottery last week, you might just get another chance soon. Developers who won were given until April 14 to buy a slot at the conference, but not all of them took advantage of the opportunity.
Now Apple is reportedly reaching out to developers who didn’t win the lottery and offering them a chance to buy unclaimed tickets. Some developers are starting to get phone calls from the company informing them that they have been randomly selected to buy one of the tickets that winners failed to claim before the 14th.
Facebook has pushed out version 9.0 of its iPhone application today, adding new features to the commenting system among a few smaller changes. The biggest change in this minor update allows users to reply to comments on pages that have enabled that specific feature.
Aside from that, administrators will now be able to review and approve posts by group members, and everyone will see posts related to the site’s trending topics highlighted in the iPad version’s News Feed. This update follows the news from earlier today that the company is launching a “friends near me” feature within the app, similar to Apple’s “Find My Friends” service.
Facebook 9.0 is available on the iOS App Store. The full change log is below:
What’s New in Version 9.0
• Reply directly to comments on stories by Pages that have this feature turned on
• Group admins can easily review and approve pending posts by group members
• See posts about trending topics highlighted in News Feed on iPad
Chase updated its iPhone app today with a new design for iOS 7—nearly a year after the operating system was first shown to the public—and a few new features. The update also includes the ability to see and reply to secure messages from the bank, as well as the ability to view limits on your mobile desposits.
Other updates to the app include Spanish localization, improved accessibility features, and a revised frequently asked questions page about the app’s security.
You can grab the updated Chase app for free on the iOS App Store.
What’s New in Version 2.331
•User interface optimized for iOS7
•See & reply to secure messages
•See current Chase QuickDepositSM limits
•Spanish version available when you change your phone’s language setting to Spanish
•Improved accessibility for visually-impaired users
•Updated FAQs for mobile security
Our take? We’re in full agreement with the below:
https://twitter.com/chronic/status/457505589342392321
RadioShack is planning a new iPhone promotion starting tomorrow that will let new or upgrading users get an iPhone 5s at a significant discount. The 16 GB model of Apple’s latest smartphone will be available for $99, down from the usual price of $199 for all customers on AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon.
Customers who bring in a “eligible” iPhone 4s (which usually just means “in pretty good shape”), will also get a $100 credit towards their iPhone 5s purchase, which knocks the price down to a very manageable $0.
Apple and Shazam are teaming up to build a music identification feature natively into iOS, according to a Bloomberg report. The feature will allow users to find the name and artist of a song that’s playing, likely with the option to download the song from the iTunes Store or create an new iTunes Radio station.
Unlike some of Apple’s other music-releated features (such as Podcasts and iTunes U), the system will be built into the OS directly rather than require a separate download. So far there isn’t any confirmation of whether this feature will appear in iOS 8 or a later version, but with WWDC right around the corner, Apple will need to work quickly to secure the deal if the feature is to be announced with the next-gen software update.
Jony Ive and Marissa Mayer (right) eat pizza with other industry executives
Re/code reports that Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer is planning an attempt at persuading Apple to switch its default iOS search engine from Google to her company’s own offering. According to Re/code’s sources, Mayer has built what she hopes will be a convincing arguement in favor of the change.
Yahoo! current powers the weather and stocks apps and Notification Center widgets found in iOS 7 as well as a few Siri functions, such as sports, but lost out on the chance to power Siri’s web search to Microsoft’s Bing. Both Yahoo! and Bing are included as optional search engines in the Safari browser, but the default selection is Google.
Apple has agreed to back a new initiative along with a host of Android manufacturers and all of the major U.S. cellular carriers that would require all smartphones manufactured after July 2015 to come with specific anti-theft features. The program is the latest attempt to prevent theft of smartphones, which some have blamed for increasing crime rates.
To this end, Apple introduced a first-of-its-kind system in iOS 7 that blocks freshly-restored iPhones from being used until the original owner logs in with the Apple ID associated with the device. Today’s agreement between the carriers and handset manufacturers essentially states that all parties will ship this exact type of system on new phones.
Specifically, the required anti-theft measures are broken into four kinds:
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Screens, the popular and powerful VNC client for OS X (with an iOS counterpart), has been updated to version 3.0, introducing a host of new features. But the update is more than just a few new features crammed into old software. The entire app has been completely rewritten with an all-new interface, big speed enhancements, and other optimizations for OS X Mavericks.
For the full details on what’s new, keep reading:
A new batch of photos appearing on the Weibo social network claim to show new production schematics and die for manufacturing the body of the iPhone 6 inside a Foxoconn facility, as noted by GforGames. A few of the photos (below) definitely show some sort of technical design documents, though we can’t be sure what they show as they are both incredibly technical and written in Chinese.
The molds, as seen above, definitely appear to be designed to produce a smartphone, but there is no confirmation that these will be used for the iPhone 6 as opposed to a phone from some other manufacturer. Apple is rumored to be working on two different models of the iPhone 6 with different screen sizes. If they are designed for the next iPhone, these molds could be for the 4.7″ or 5.5″ models.
Following this week’s revelations that Apple SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller is unhappy with the direction of the company’s advertising and agency, and that Apple is considering hiring as many as four new digital agencies to further enhance its advertising efforts, it seems the company has added a formidable new member to its marketing team.
Ad Age reports that Apple has hired Karl Heiselman, who is currently the CEO of the Wolff Olins branding agency. Heiselman will take on an undisclosed role in the company’s marketing arm next month, he confirmed. This won’t be the executive’s first time in Cupertino. Heiselman previously worked for Apple in the ’90s as a design contractor.
At Wolff Olins, Heiselman headed up numerous high tech and high profile branding efforts including Product (RED) for Bono, the 2012 Olympics for London (right) and numerous Microsoft campaigns including the ill-fated Kin. The company also churned out “re-invention” for brands such as Aol, Sony, Skype, Belkin and Firefox…
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Remember the good ol’ days when FaceTime wasn’t included with each Mac? Back then, you had to download a bit of software from the Mac App Store in order to make video calls to iPhone owners (though iChat could still do Mac-to-Mac calls). Even today, that standalone app is still available on the Mac App Store for $.99—and for some reason it’s still the #5 paid app on the entire store.
Given its apparent popularity three years after its launch, it makes at least a little sense that Apple updated the app today to fix a bug that could prevent users from connecting to FaceTime calls. Of course, if you’re on anything newer than Snow Leopard, you don’t need this update, but anyone still running OS X 10.6 who already purchased the app can get the free update to resolve the problem.
For Snow Leopard users who haven’t already made the purchase, the app is $.99 on the Mac App Store.
Apple software designer Greg Christie testifies during the Samsung trial
Apple has made its case against Samsung in the patent lawsuit that never ends, and the company’s attorneys rested today after an expert witness testified that Samsung should pay the full $2.191 billion in damages. As CNET reports, Quantitative Economic Solutions economist Christopher Vellturo told the court today that Apple’s claim to over $2 billion is valid based on estimated profits lost to Samsung’s infringing devices as well as royalties owed to Apple for use of its protected software designs.
John Hauser, another of Apple’s expert witnesses, testified earlier this week that Samsung’s mobile phones would have been much less appealing to the public if they had lacked features that Apple created, such as the ubiquitous “slide to unlock” gesture. Together the two experts weaved a tale of desperation in which Samsung is depicted as having ripped off Apple’s design when it failed to create a compelling product that could stand its own against the juggernaut of the iPhone.
This case is really only halfway over, though. Samsung’s attorneys will now have a chance to defend against this narrative, providing testimony and evidence to support its own view and argue against the legitimacy of Apple’s software patents. Of course, it’s likely that once this case is over the two rivals will just find another reason to sue each other.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon is planning to announce its first entry to the smartphone market in June. The possibility of an Amazon phone has been a long-running rumor, but recently sources claimed that the company had partnered with HTC to finally produce the device.
Following the launch of the Fire TV earlier this month, the Amazon phone will mark the second of Apple’s product categories the online retailer hopes to invade in 2014. With its Kindle Fire tablets, Amazon has been attempting to position itself to compete with the iPad for a few years.
The Amazon device will reportedly feature a display capable of creating 3D images without the need for glasses, according to the WSJ report:
Apple has just published its third update to the revamped Mac version of iMovie launched last year. The update, version 10.0.3, makes changes to the default font in the new titles first added to last year’s release. It also includes the ability to sort events by date to quickly find clips by when they were recorded.
Other improvements include the ability to rotate and crop clips within events rather than projects, an easier method of accessing transition duration settings, faster access to clip speed controls, improvements to how speed changes are handled, and various bugs that could cause the app to crash or not do what was expected.
You can grab the update for free in the Updates tab of the Mac App Store if you already own iMovie 10. Users on previous versions of iMovie can buy the current version for $14.99. The full change log is below:
With an estimated half a million sites vulnerable to the “Heartbleed” vulnerability revealed earlier this week, which allows an attacker to access user details of websites previously believed to be secured by industry-standard SSL/TLS, your favorite social networks, stores, and other services around the web could potentially be handing out your password or other personal information to anyone who exploits the issue.
The bug exists in a library called OpenSSL, which is an open-source SSL implementation that many—but not all—web services use to secure sensitive traffic. If a website you use is affected by the bug, your personal data could be given to just about anyone. Unfortunately, changing your password on an unsecure site won’t even help unless the site’s owners have installed a fix (because the attackers can simply exploit the bug again to get your new password).
This serious issue affects a number of high-profile sites, but it seems your Apple ID is safe. Today, Apple gave the following statement to Re/code:
KGI Research analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has released a timeline indicating that Apple is planning a massive rollout for multiple new products in Q3 2014. According to the Kuo, the only thing we can expect to see in the first half of the year is a small iMac update. Starting at the end of the third quarter and continuing into the beginning of the fourth, however, Apple will update most of its product lineup: iPad Air and mini, the Apple TV, and the MacBook family.
Two new products reportedly planned for this timeframe are the iWatch, which Kuo says will be available in two different sizes, and the long-rumored 4.7-inch iPhone. The 5.5-inch iPhone that was reportedly delayed due to manufacturing issues with the display is said to be coming near the end of Q4, making it the last release for this year.
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Ad Age reports that Apple is planning to hire as many as four new digital ad agencies. Evidence presented in the latest Samsung-Apple lawsuit earlier this week revealed that Phil Schiller, the Cupertino company’s SVP of marketing, was shaken up by Samsung’s recent ad campaign and furious with Media Arts Lab, Apple’s current advertising company, to the point that he considered finding a new ad firm.
The four companies being considered for addition to the company’s lineup include Huge, AKQA, Area 17, and Kettle, according to the report. Apple already works with several smaller digital agencies, so adding four more doesn’t necessarily mean that Media Arts Lab is going anywhere anytime soon.
Apple has suffered from a string of less-than-stellar online promotional material recently with its “isee5c” line of ads. Hiring a new digital agency could help turn things around for the company in that arena. If the above statements from Schiller are any indication, Apple is taking a long, hard look at revamping its current advertising plans in order to better stack up against competitors like Samsung.
Photo: mashable.com
Suing Apple seems to be the thing to do these days. While the company is locked into a furious, seemingly-unending battle with Samsung, another suit has been announced today by two Swiss sister companies called OpenTV and Nagravision.
According to a press release by the The Kudelski Group, the parent company of the two filing suit, OpenTV focuses on software that includes “advanced program guides, video-on-demand, personal video recording, interactive and addressable advertising and a variety of enhanced television applications,” while Nagravision “provides security and multiscreen user experience solutions for the monetization of digital media.”
While the five patents in question aren’t specifically named in the press release, it’s safe to assume that they are related to video playback technologies included in OS X and iOS (both of which are named as infringing in the press release). iAds, iTunes, the App Store, and the Apple TV are also listed.