MacUpdate just launched their Winter Mac app bundle this morning. This bundle contains 10 apps + 2 bonus apps for early buyers. Together, the 12 apps are worth nearly $400 (or about $360 without the 2 bonus titles), but the bundle is priced at just $39.99.
Microsoft has previously aired commercials that targeted the iPad comparing multitasking and mocked Siri. Microsoft airs new commercials in time for the holidays that pits the Surface 2 against Apple’s iPad Air. These three new ads demonstrate that Windows 8 can handle hands free mode, multiple accounts and has a USB port.
Microsoft’s first ad (above) shows the Surface 2 being propped up with the kickstand, using Bing’s Food and Drink app to demonstrate hands free mode. While cooking you can turn the pages by swiping them in the air, as opposed to touching the display and getting it messy. We admit it, that’s a nice (if niche) feature – though most recipes fit on one page, of course.
The second shows the Surface 2 being used in family scenarios, with multiple user accounts on the same device. These user accounts can have different apps, games, background – with parents able to monitor what their children are using. I’m not sure too many families bother to set up different accounts on PCs, let alone tablets.
The third shows how the Surface 2 has a standard USB 3.0 port, allowing users to easily connect to an external display. Because having to use a lead is so much better than Air Play …
Alongside Windows 8.1, Microsoft released a rather useful app for iOS as well today. Microsoft Remote Desktop allows you to access and control your Windows PC from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. It looks like a rather decent utility, especially for business users, as plenty of similar apps have tried to pull off the same function with less simplicity.
With the Microsoft Remote Desktop app, you can connect to a remote PC and your work resources from almost anywhere. Experience the power of Windows with RemoteFX in a Remote Desktop client designed to help you get your work done wherever you are.
Features •Access to remote resources through the Remote Desktop Gateway •Rich multi-touch experience with remote desktop protocol (RDP) and RemoteFX supporting Windows gestures •Secure connection to your data and applications with breakthrough Network Layer Authentication (NLA) technology •Simple management of all remote connections from the connection center •High quality video and sound streaming with improved compression and bandwidth usage •Easy connection to external monitors or projectors for presentations
Microsoft Remote Desktop is a free for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users in the App Store.
Update: Microsoft introduced a version for Mac as well for OS X users to control Windows remotely.
We knew that Apple’s attempt to expand Safari’s reach into the Windows population was at an end when the company stopped updating the Windows version a year ago, but the browser has now been erased from history as Apple’s bookmark sync tool drops support for it. iCloud Control Panel 3.0 for Windows, released yesterday, supports only Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome.
iCloud keeps mail, contacts, and calendars up to date between your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and Windows PC, and lets you share calendars and task lists.
iCloud also keeps your Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Google Chrome bookmarks on Windows in sync with your Safari bookmarks on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac.
On OS X, however, Apple is keep to ensure we don’t use anything else. The iCloud Bookmarks extension for Chrome, allowing bookmark syncing with Safari, works only on the Windows version of Chrome. C’mon, Apple, make us want to use your software by making it better than anyone else’s, not by this kind of move …
Specials.9to5Toys.com this month has a “Name Yor own Price Bundle” which is a bit of a misnomer since you’ll need to pay above the average which is currently below $10. You’ll get Camtasia which allows you to “Easily Create Stunning Screen Captures & Video Recordings” and well as CrossOver which allows you to run Windows programs on your Mac for the sub $10 price. Then there are 8 more great Mac Apps. At below $10, you can’t miss.
Microsoft’s latest television commercial for Windows 8 tablets uses a Siri voice-over to mock the iPad’s pricing and capabilities. The ad appears to frame Windows 8 tablets as more capable for productivity and more valuable for the price (via The Verge). What’s somewhat comical here is that one of the few advantages Microsoft touts for its tablets is the ability to run PowerPoint, something Microsoft has clearly been holding back from the iPad for some time now. Would it surprise anyone to see another couple of ads in this series focusing on Word and Excel?
Oh, and how much of that 64GB of space on the Windows tablet at the end is free for media? You’re lucky to get half of the space.
Microsoft’s ad is in similar style to Apple’s late 2012 advertisement to introduce the iPad mini. Apple’s ad below:
“It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell”
That’s what Steve Jobs said of iTunes for Windows when asked why Apple made its software for competing Microsoft users in 2007.
But times have changed. Apple continues to make/support iTunes for Windows desktop computing environments, but it doesn’t need Microsoft’s outlier tablet users who now represent the third largest share of tablet OS behind iOS and Android (by the way, don’t expect iTunes for Android any time soon either).
In fact, the iTunes ecosystem is a competitive advantage as Apple sells its iOS tablets, smartphones and TVs against Android and now Windows 8 devices. Where Windows dominated the userbase in the early 2000s, Apple now is the leader in the current ecosystem race.
That’s why it comes as no surprise that Microsoft’s Windows division CFO Tami Reller is telling folks not to expect a Windows 8 ‘Metro’ iTunes app:
“You shouldn’t expect an iTunes app on Windows 8 any time soon,” said Tami Reller, chief financial officer of Microsoft’s Windows division. “ITunes is in high demand. The welcome mat has been laid out. It’s not for lack of trying.”
It should be noted that Microsoft has been dragging its feet in delivering the once ubiquitous Office Suite of applications for iOS which is now letting competitors (Like Pages/Numbers/Keynote and Google Apps) thrive on the now dominant iOS and Android touch platforms. Expand Expanding Close
Research firm Canalys is out today with its latest report tracking worldwide smart mobile device shipments for Q1 with Android accounting for almost 60% of smart mobile devices shipped by OS. That’s compared to a 19.3% share for Apple and approximately 18.1% for Microsoft. Keep in mind Canalys’s report also includes notebooks, in addition to tablets and smartphones, which account for the majority of Microsoft’s share. When looking at tablets alone, Apple continued its lead with 46.4% share in the quarter, although Canalys warned Apple “lost share to its Android-based rivals for the third consecutive quarter.”
Though Apple continues to lead in the tablet space with a 46.4% share, it lost share to its Android-based rivals for the third consecutive quarter. ‘Spearheaded by Google and Amazon, the commoditization of the tablet market has happened far quicker than that of the wider PC market,’ said Canalys Senior Analyst, Tim Coulling. ‘Profit margins are being squeezed and vendors without a low cost structure will find it hard to compete. A solid range of must-have accessories and a software and services strategy are vital as vendors will increasingly need to make revenue around their devices.’
When it comes to smartphones, the report has Android at roughly 75.6% of shipments with around 32% of those shipments coming from Samsung. We know Apple sold around 37 million iPhones in the quarter but, as always, we warn that the stats from Canalys don’t include shipped vs sold data. Expand Expanding Close
As we reported last week, AT&T today launched its new pre-paid wireless MVNO called Aio Wireless with the iPhone 5 on offer, front and center. Currently, the service is only available in Houston, Orlando and Tampa but it is expected to roll out nationally over the coming months.
The company will offer 4 plans: Aio Basic, Smart and Pro phone plans at $35-40 for 250MB, $55 for 2GB and $70/month for 7GB data respectively. Each plan will shift to lower speed data after data is used up and also offers unlimited calls and text on AT&T’s network. They will also offer a tablet plan that starts at $15/month for 250MB.
The MVNO will carry Android, Windows and Apple smartphones including iPhone 4S for $499 and iPhone 5 for $649 without subsidy. They also cap 4G data at 4Mb/s so LTE speeds shouldn’t be expected.
New data from tech analysts Canalys (via TechCrunch) shows Google leading downloads, with Google Play accounting for 51 percent of the market against Apple’s 40 percent, but Apple well ahead in monetisation, taking 74 percent against “close to 20 percent” for Google. Expand Expanding Close
Research firm IDC is out with an updated 2013 forecast for worldwide tablet shipments today and, on top of increasing its prediction from 172.4 million units to 190.9 million for the year, claimed Android tablets would continue to grow and cut into Apple’s market share. IDC said Android will capture 48.8-percent of the tablet market by operating system by the end of the year, while Apple is estimated to take home 46 percent. That’s down from 51 percent of the market for Apple in 2012 and just 41.5-percent for Android in IDC’s previous forecast. IDC estimated tablets in the 8 inches and below category will continue to grow and expects Windows tablets to increase from 1 percent to 7.4-percent by 2017 at the expense of iOS and Android:
As noted by ArsTechnica, Adobe just released an unscheduled patch to address two vulnerabilities that could be the source of malware attacks on both OS X and Windows. Apple has also issued a KB urging users to update. According to the advisory posted by Adobe, the attacks targeted Firefox or Safari users on Mac:
Adobe is also aware of reports that CVE-2013-0634 is being exploited in the wild in attacks delivered via malicious Flash (SWF) content hosted on websites that target Flash Player in Firefox or Safari on the Macintosh platform, as well as attacks designed to trick Windows users into opening a Microsoft Word document delivered as an email attachment which contains malicious Flash (SWF) content.
The update is available through Adobe’s website here.
According to a job listing from game developer DICE, EA might be looking to bring its popular Battlefield 3 franchise to OS X. The Battlefield3Blog pointed us to the job listing seeking a Mac OS X engineer to be”part of a team focusing on bringing Frostbite to Mac.”
Frostbite is looking for developers who want to join us in taking our engine to the next level. You will be part of a team focusing on bringing Frostbite to Mac and work closely with game team customers and the Frostbite team to deliver an engine as great on OS X as it is on Windows and traditional console platforms.
With plans to bring the Frostbite game engine to Mac, it could also mean EA plans to bring Frostbite-powered titles previously only available on Windows, Xbox, and PS3 to the Mac. There is no mention of specific games, but on top of the Battlefield series, Frostbite has been used for Need for Speed and Medal of Honor titles. We’re assuming this is for Frostbite 2, but there’s also a possibility it could be a next generation of the engine.
If you haven’t heard, those who purchased a new Mac with Apple’s built-to-order 3TB hard drive option found themselves unable to utilize Boot Camp assistant to install Windows. Boot Camp Assistant is currently limited to drives up to 2.2TB. Apple hinted that support might come at a later date, but TwoCanoes shares a step-by-step guide for getting the job done in Boot Camp until then:
Since it is not possible to get around the 2.2 TB limitation with booting Windows, it is possible to organize the partitions so that Windows is the last of the first four partitons and is within the first 2.2 TBs of space on the drive. Since the Mac can see the remaining space above the 2.2 TB limit, this space can be used for addtional storage space for OS X.
In order for Windows to boot successfully and still be able to utilize all of the available space on a 3 TB (or larger) hard drive, Windows must be installed on the fourth partition. You can use Disk Utility to create the partition, but since Disk Utility does not show hidden partitions, it can be difficult to see what is going on if some partitions are hidden. To have Disk Utility show hidden partitions, open Terminal and run the following command:
As customers begin receiving the new iMac this month, business-end users and gamers may find one issue when booting up their new machine. As reader Michael Verde first shared with us, the built-to-order 27-inch iMac configuration with a 3TB Fusion Drive (an extra $400) will not allow any Boot Camp use. This essentially cuts off access to a full Windows experience that some Mac users may want to benefit from. Many might consider this a bummer, as a sizable amount of users turn to Boot Camp to access necessary Windows programs or just simply enjoy Windows paired with Mac hardware.
Apple highlighted the issue on both its iMac configuration and Fusion Drive explanation page. “Boot Camp Assistant is not supported at this time on 3TB hard drive configurations,” Apple said in buried text. “At this time,” could mean the feature is enabled down the road in a software update, but it is non-existent as of now.
There are virtualization solutions, such as Parelles and VM Ware, that provide a Windows experience, but they do not offer a full experience that many may want. Boot Camp users include gamers who want to run games at full settings and business users looking to use specific business apps in a full Windows environment.
Right now it is not clear what the cause is, or if it has anything to do with Apple’s new Fusion Drive technology, but it seems that Boot Camp is limited to hard drive with less than 2TB of space (PC World has a good explanation for this). Announced in October and shipping in the new Mac Mini and iMacs, the top Fusion Drive configuration provides 128GB of flash storage coupled with 3TB of HDD space. The cheaper configuration, 128GB Flash Storage + 1TB HDD, supports Boot Camp. So, we have to wonder: what is holding back the more expensive configuration? We reached out to Apple for comment.
Mac bundle season continues with a big one from StackSocial. Dubbed the Mac Utility Bundle, they’ve managed to knock $20 off the price of Parallels ($79 regular price) alone and added 4 more helpful utilities to boot. Great way to start off any Mac purchase you may be doing this holiday season.
Internet software firm Avast conducted a USAToday survey of Windows users to determine the number of people willing to upgrade to the latest Microsoft operating system, and the findings churned out some surprising responses.
According to USAToday, which noted the survey polled users of Avast’s anti-virus PC software on Oct. 25, the day before Windows 8 launched, nearly half of Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP users intend to switch to an Apple product rather than upgrade to Windows 8.
“Many households already have multiple PCs, and people are keeping their computers longer,” explained Avast’s Director of Strategy Jonathan Penn. “More people are going to the iPad as their second or third computing device.”
Parallels introduced a big update today for Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac. It includes new features for Windows 8 users, full USB 3.0 support, and improved Retina display settings. On top of support for Windows 8 tablet gestures, Parallels is including a Windows 8 tile that allows users to access shared Mac apps. According to Parallels, the update also includes faster USB 3.0 performance, an increased limit for virtual machines running large apps, and “Smooth transitions when entering and exiting Coherence mode”:
Now Mac users can enjoy new features including Windows 8 tablet gestures and use a Windows 8 interface tile to access shared Mac apps. These updates, plus the already deep Parallels Desktop 8 integration of Mac OS X and Windows 8, enable people to also use Mountain Lion’s Dictation feature in Windows applications, add Windows apps to Launchpad and the Mac Dock, enjoy brilliant Retina display resolution for Windows apps and more – making Parallels Desktop 8 an ideal way to run Windows 8 on a Mac without rebooting. Expand Expanding Close
A working exploit for Sophos 8.0.6 on Mac is available, however the
techniques used in the exploit easily transfer to Windows and Linux,
due to multiple critical implementation flaws described in the paper.
Testcases for the other flaws described in the paper are available on
request.
Sophos responded with a post on the multiple vulnerabilities, and it responded over and over that “Sophos has seen no evidence of this vulnerability being exploited in the wild.” But, is that really good enough? How about issuing a fix in the two plus months that they’ve known about these issues? It only takes one wild exploit.
Sophos gave 9to5Mac the following comment:
Some were fixed last month, and for others we started rolling out patches to our users today. :-)
Users of Sophos products should be automatically updated, but if anyone wants to be sure they can initiate a manual update. Expand Expanding Close
Parallels for Mac virtualization software has been getting major updates this year with the recent release of version 8, making it even easier to run Mac and Windows apps side by side. In version 7, it made it a lot easier to upgrade and buy copies of Windows directly from within the app, and we even had a Windows 8 developer preview up and running. Unfortunately, with today’s launch of Microsoft’s Windows 8, Parallel’s is warning Mac users that the app is not ready to update to the new OS.
In a support document on the company’s website, it issued a “critical and urgent Windows 8 service advisory” telling customers it should wait before upgrading from an existing installation of Windows to Windows 8: Expand Expanding Close
Apple acquired Authentec in July. It is a company that held the rights to fingerprint-reading technology since 2010, but the tech was originally developed by a company called UPEK. According to a report from ArsTechnica, citing several security researchers, a product that uses the fingerprint technology now owned by Apple, UPEK Protector Suite, has been exposed as a serious security threat for Windows users:
Security consultants have independently confirmed a serious security weakness that makes it trivial for hackers with physical control of many computers sold by Dell, Acer, and at least 14 other manufacturers to quickly recover Windows account passwords…The weakness came to light no later than September, but Apple has yet to acknowledge it or warn end users how to work around it. No one has accused Apple of being responsible for the underlying design of fingerprint-reading software.
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