Apple’s system status page is showing that iCloud Mail is down for a small number of users. Apple says that the outage, which has lasted almost 18 hours, is currently affecting around 0.1 percent of users.
Users affected by the outage are seeing a ‘Cannot Get Mail: iCloud is currently unavailable’ message. There is as yet no word from Apple on when the service is expected to be restored.
Google today updated its Maps application for iPhone and iPad to version 3.2 introducing new features and improvements.
The latest version of Google Maps now supports viewing search results with descriptions directly on the map view. Gmail users will notice appointments and reservations with addresses will now appear the map view as well. The update supports changing between the map view of results and the list view of results and features an explore view for discovering new locations to try out.
Google Maps 3.2 for iPhone and iPad is out today on the App Store.
Following the publication of an NPR article detailing the security of major email services, Apple has informed the network that it is working on an update to its iCloud Mail service that encrypts emails in transit from other providers. As of right now, iCloud emails are solely encrypted in transit from one iCloud email account to another, but an email sent from iCloud to Gmail or Yahoo (as examples) or vice versa is not currently encrypted. This is what will change:
Apple encrypts e-mail from its customers to iCloud. However, Apple is one of the few global email providers based in the U.S. that is not encrypting any of its customers’ email in transit between providers. After we published, the company told us this would soon change. This affects users of me.com and mac.com email addresses.
The enhancement will come into effect “soon,” but Apple is not more specific than that on the timeframe. While the quote above oddly does not specify icloud.com addresses, that newer Apple email domain likely falls into the same category as me.com and mac.com. The lack of end-to-end iCloud Mail encryption with Gmail, for example, is shown on Google’s data protection transparency website:
We’re hearing that Google Play Music for iPad is getting close to release and a tipster has sent in a few videos showcasing what he/she claims is a pre-release of the new app. We’ve heard independently that Play Music for iPad was getting close to delivery and our tipster says this is a development build (see update below). The app will function similarly to the iPhone version, but redesigned for iPad.
We are still somewhat skeptical of the screenshots below, but the app’s functionality (shown in the videos) seems to be very similar to the iPhone version and it would make sense for Google to release it for iPad. Though we’re still unsure if the update will arrive as a universal build or if Google will have separate versions available in the App Store.
Dropbox announced today that Mailbox, the popular gesture-heavy email client it bought last year, will soon be launching a desktop version of its software.
The company also announced a set of new features like Dropbox account sign in and syncing and delete automation coming soon to the iPhone and iPad versions that will debut first in a version available for Android; this marks the first time the email software will be available on another platform aside from iOS as Mailbox is available on the Google Play Store today.
Users interested in using the beta version of Mailbox for OS X (screenshot preview below), which is said to be very minimal and rely on the trackpad for gesture-based interactions, can sign up on Mailbox’s website to learn more about the upcoming beta. Expand Expanding Close
Google announced today on its Google Commerce blog that it’s rolling out an update for the Google Wallet mobile apps that includes a new “Orders” feature for tracking online purchases. Google says the feature will let you stay on top of your online orders (including past purchases) as well as get notifications for status updates regarding deliveries. How will Google know what you’ve purchased? In order to track your recent online orders, the feature pulls receipts out of your Gmail account :
Once you activate Orders in Google Wallet, you’ll be able to see any receipts sent to your Gmail right in the Google Wallet app. We’ve also worked with primary package carriers in the US so that when your order status is updated, you’ll get notified of the update through Wallet. So whether your order is shipped, out for delivery, or delayed, you’ll never wonder about the status of your order.
The app also includes “products you’ve ordered, merchant contact information, and shipping details in the app” for your purchases and links to quickly contact retailers.
Google said the feature is rolling out to Android and iOS users in the US this week. You can activate Orders by tapping “Activate” under “Track your orders” or by tapping “Orders” in the app’s main menu.
Finally taking advantage of a rather useful technology in iOS 7, Google has released version 3.0 of its Gmail for iOS app with full support for background refresh allowing messages to download within the app as the push notification arrives. Expand Expanding Close
Nuance has just announced the next major version of its Mac dictation software, Dragon Dictate 4. The new version improves recognition accuracy as well as several new features, including the ability to machine transcribe from a pre-recorded audio file. You no longer have to be recording a voice live to get transcription.
We’ve had a quick play with the software and the accuracy is almost scary good compared to older versions of the software. Speaking in a normal voice gives you almost 100% accuracy and even mumbling seems to work. While Mavericks uses the same Nuance speech engine, Dictate 4 has a better interface for transcription and tons of extra features as outlined in the videos above and below.
Dragon Dictate software has also been updated for modern system architectures — it is a 64-bit app now. This results in better performance and better memory management over its predecessors. The company says it has drastically reduced latency when interpreting speech.
A number of Mac users in an Apple Support Communities thread are reporting that Apple’s 10.9.2 update to Mavericks has broken AirPlay Mirroring to Apple TV and the ability to extend desktops to external monitors.
I just updated to 10.9.2 and now when i try and airplay mirror to my Apple TV, it sends the audio but just shows a black screen and i can’t drag anything to it. It doesn’t show any of the options for external displays in the displays section of System Preferences … Expand Expanding Close
Since OS X Maverick’s launch last year, there have been complaints from users of the official Mac Mail app with Gmail accounts. Apple has fixed up many of the bugs in various patches, but one of the still recurring bugs prevents the Mail app from loading up new messages.
Instead of releasing another patch today, Apple has outlined a fix on its support website:
A Gmail bug affecting the iOS app, mobile browsers and the offline version of Gmail may have resulted in users deleting or spam-marking the wrong emails, says Google.
The bug may have affected emails received between 15th and 22nd January. Google is encouraging users to check their spam and trash folders for email that does not belong there.
9to5Mac readers know a thing or two. When I reviewed Postbox, after explaining that I had lost patience with the flakiness of late of Apple Mail, several of the commentators recommended Airmail, a lightweight email client based on the popular but discontinued Sparrow app. It’s also the only alternative to Apple Mail and (of course) Outlook for those who need Exchange support.
Since then, Apple released OS X 10.9.1 with Mail fixes. It’s definitely better, but those unread mail counts still don’t update promptly, and my jury is still out (to put it nicely) on Gmail integration and other issues. As I mentioned before, so long as you use IMAP, switching back-and-forth between email apps is trivial, so I decided to give Airmail a try …
Apple has released OS X 10.9.1 for Mac via the Mac App Store today. The update includes a number of Mail related fixes including improved support for Gmail as well as numerous bug fixes. The update also fixes a VoiceOver issue that prevented sentences with emoji characters from being read…
You would think a high profile app written by Apple specifically for OS X and supplied with every Mac sold would be as close to flawless as you can get. Sadly, this has not been the experience many of us have had with Apple Mail for quite some time – especially Gmail users.
While Apple Mail seems to have continued to work well for those with simple needs – a single email account, no filtering into folders – power users have experienced a whole succession of problems that Apple seems unable to fix.
Unread mail counts that take an age to update, deleted emails that reappear next time you click into an account, moves to folders that undo themselves, undo actions that don’t work and – most annoyingly of all – a mail list pane that remains blank when you switch account, sometimes for seconds, sometimes even for minutes at a time.
I finally lost patience with it and decided to look around at alternatives. I’d used Thunderbird before, so that was high on my list, and some googling pointed me to Postbox, an email client which uses Thunderbird as its engine but layers a prettier user-interface on top … Expand Expanding Close
Apple has released a Mail Update for Mavericks that is designed to resolve many of the bugs that users of the OS X Mavericks Mail application have experienced since launch.
Mail Update for Mavericks includes improvements to general stability and compatibility with Gmail, including the following:
Fixes an issue that prevents deleting, moving, and archiving messages for users with custom Gmail settings
Addresses an issue that may cause unread counts to be inaccurate
Includes additional fixes that improve the compatibility and stability of Mail
Last week, we reported that Apple had provided its employees with an update to the Mavericks Mail app that solves several issues relating to Gmail account compatibility. While this has seemed to stay under the radar, Apple has also provided the update to registered Mac Developers. Apple says that the update became available on October 31st, but we have not heard any sightings of this update until now. The update should be available for all users in the coming weeks.Thanks, Hunter!
In addition to the incoming OS X Mavericks Mail Update that we reported on previously, sources say that Apple is readying a slew of performance and bug fix updates for several other OS X Mavericks applications. According to the updates seeded today to Apple employees, Apple is preparing updates for iBooks, Safari, and the Remote Desktop Client apps:
Setting up your email in iOS 7 is just like setting it up in earlier versions of iOS. Just like before, you are able to have Gmail set up in the Mail app. To set up your email you would go to Settings, then tap on Mail, Contacts & Calendars, and then press Add Account. By default in iOS, Gmail is set to archive your emails as opposed to deleting them. Archiving email keeps the messages in an Archived folder, but Deleting moves them to the trash.
If you are viewing your inbox, and you swipe from right to left on the message, you do not get the option to delete the message. Rather, you get an Archive option or a More option. The More option gives you every other option except for deleting the message. You could always tap on More, then press Move Message, and then choose the Trash folder. That’s rather tedious for a simple task:
On top of the new icon, Version 2.4.1 of the app includes an “enhanced attachment experience,” which really means that a larger image attached to an email will now open in a new full screen viewing mode when tapping its thumbnail.
The update also includes improved integration with other Google apps:
Better integration with Google apps – Google Drive and Google+ links go directly to the app, if installed. You can turn this off using the in-app settings.
Google has updated its Gmail for iOS app to version 2.4, offering larger image thumbnails, better photo handling and better integration with both Google Drive and Google+.
You can now tap a photo to view it full-size, and both Google Drive and Google+ links now take you direct to the apps if you have them installed. Dealing with Google Docs attachments is now a much slicker experience.
If This Then That (IFTTT) today launched an iPhone app version of its popular service for automating simple actions/services. The video above is a nice tutorial/overview of the service if you aren’t familiar. Channels are the services (like Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, as well as devices like Philips Hue, Belkin WeMo, and UP by Jawbone) and Recipes are the directives in IFTTT lingo.
Download the app and unlock three new Channels for iPhone: Contacts, Photos, and Reminders (with more to come). Create and use Recipes around the things you do on the go: snapping screenshots, adding new contacts, completing reminders, and organizing your photo albums.
The IFTTT team notes that they are adding new features all the time.
When Google rolled out its new unified Hangouts messaging service, some users were disappointed that the new experience within Gmail removed the ability to place free calls within the US and Canada. Google previously confirmed that the feature would be returning and today it announced on its Gmail blog that it is rolling out the free calling feature to Gmail Hangouts and also adding some new features.
As expected, Google just started rolling out its brand new inbox to iOS users after first introducing us to the new category-based design last week. While its not a tabbed design like on the desktop, much like the Android app that just started rolling out iOS users can now access the new feature that groups emails into separate inboxes by selecting categories from the app’s side navigation bar.
Meet the new inbox: If you’ve enabled the new inbox, your mail is now grouped into categories so that you can see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when. Primary mail is shown first and it’s easy to access and keep track of email in other categories by opening the menu. Configure this feature by going to Gmail.com on your computer.
Today’s Gmail update also brings improved notifications allowing you to customize what emails you receive notifications for: Expand Expanding Close
