App Store (iOS)

Apple is having trouble retaining top talent in its Maps division.

We’re told that a notable number of exits have occurred on the Maps team over the last several months with a large portion of those engineers heading to ride-sharing startup Uber. The most notable Apple employee to recently depart is Brad Moore, who exited in October to become a manager at Uber. As “Senior Engineering Manager, Maps Apps & Community” at Apple, Moore “built and managed the application and community teams responsible for Maps on iPhone, iPad, CarPlay, OS X, and Apple Watch,” according to LinkedIn.

Since Moore was in charge of such a critical application across all of Apple’s major hardware and software platforms, his departure marks a significant loss for Apple and a huge gain for Uber. Apple is said to also be overhauling its public transportation team following the group’s inability to launch the planned directions service for iOS 8 last year. Sources say that Apple’s Maps team is also progressing on its testing in major districts like New York City of a new indoor mapping service. Chris Blumenberg, another former top Apple Maps manager at Apple, left for Uber in July.

Expand
Expanding
Close

From 9to5Toys.com:

Starting this evening and running through Black Friday weekend, Parallels is running a special bundle of Mac apps for free when you upgrade to Parallels 10 for $49.99 or buy it new for $79.99. The bundled apps 1Password password manager, Camtasia screen recorder, CleanMyMac 2 file organizer/remover, Gemini file de-duplicator, Acronis True Image backup and restore software and a 2 year subscription to Parallels Access which allows you to run parallels VMs remotely on iOS and Android devices. Not a bad deal at all of you need any of these other apps.

Parallels 10 was announced in August and we reviewed it shortly thereafter noting it was the best way to run Windows and Linux VMs on a Mac.

Not sure you are into Parallels? Grab a 14 day free trial here. Just want Parallels in a shiny box? Amazon has it for $62. More info on the bundled apps below:

Expand
Expanding
Close

The rivalry between Apple and Samsung looks set to enter a new field as Samsung has announced a direct competitor to iBeacon, called Proximity.

Samsung Proximity is a mobile marketing platform that connects consumers with places via cutting-edge Samsung location and context-aware technology.

With Samsung Proximity, visitors are able to experience rich content related to their location, and marketers can better engage with customers for increased sales and brand awareness.

The applications Samsung describes for the service are identical to those already in use with Apple’s iBeacon partners … 
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple today seeded the second beta of the upcoming OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 update to registered developers and participants in the AppleSeed program. The update is available for these users in the Software Update tab of the Mac App Store.

As with the first beta, Apple asks developers to focus their testing on WiFi-connectvitiy, Exchange accounts in the Mail app, and Notification Center. Apple has not indicated when OS X 10.10.1 will be released to the public, but the first point updates to OS X typically arrive within a month of the original version.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Good Technology is out with its latest report examining share of mobile platforms in the enterprise and in it noted that iOS was able to grow its market share following the introduction of the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The increase from 67% last quarter to 69% during Q3 isn’t a huge one, but it’s notable given it comes at the expense of Android OS just over a month into sales of the new Apple devices.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple has now blocked the launching of Mac apps infected with WireLurker malware, after earlier revoking security certificates to prevent them being installed on new devices. WireLurker was capable of infecting non-jailbroken iOS devices when connected to a Mac running one of the compromised apps. Over 400 Mac apps in a third-party Chinese app store were affected.

In a written statement, an Apple spokesperson said:

We are aware of malicious software available from a download site aimed at users in China, and we’ve blocked the identified apps to prevent them from launching. As always, we recommend that users download and install software from trusted sources.

However, a security researcher says that it would be easy for other attackers to exploit the exact same weakness … 
Expand
Expanding
Close

Ahead of its annual MAX Conference kicking off today, Adobe has launched an entirely new suite of apps that are now available on the iPhone and iPad App Store. This year, Adobe is focusing on simplifying its mobile software lineup into four categories that sync with desktop counterparts: Illustration, Imaging, Video, and a new platform called Creative Cloud Capture Apps. Each of the apps within the four categories are either brand new or have been enhanced.

Expand
Expanding
Close

As you doubtless gathered from my recent Scrivener review, I’m a massive fan of the best Mac app I’ve ever used for creative writing. The TL;DR version is that I wouldn’t dream of attempting to write a novel in anything else. My only real grumble is that we’ve as yet seen no sign of the long-promised iPad version of the app.

I’ve used PlainText with a Dropbox sync as a way of working on Scrivener projects on my iPad, and that works well enough at the writing stage. At the planning, stage, though, I love the corkboard interface. I was thus really interested to see an iOS app that not only provides a very similar corkboard view, but which can export and import to and from Scrivener … 
Expand
Expanding
Close

For the first time, Apple has released an Apple Store app optimised for the iPad, via TechCrunch.  The app uses the now-standard iOS 7 colour scheme and design elements, focusing on white space and text. The app is a separate download to the iPhone app, but offers all the same functionality you would expect, although some of the location-based features for retail are absent due to the different use cases of the devices.

Imagery is the focus — Apple is trading heavily on its beautiful Retina-display equipped iPads to show of its store products.

Expand
Expanding
Close