News from category ‘Official’

The U.S. Army seems to indent to equip its soldiers with a smartphone making it a standard piece of soldier’s equipment. Soldiers will be given opportunity to choose between Apple's iPhone or one running Google Android. The Army is even going to pay the soldier's monthly phone bill. Army – issued smartphones are already used for different purposes but now it id interested in deploying handsets in war zones. The idea is to make it easier for soldiers to access data and receive updates on the go, no matter where they are.

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Apple has reportedly disabled its jailbreak detection API through iOS 4.2 software update. The API helped third-party mobile device management (MDM) applications to check for unauthorized modifications of system files. Apple's jailbreak detection API provided MDM applications direct access to iOS system information and was able to ask the operating system directly if it had been jailbroken. Jailbreak exploits typically change a number of operating system files, and exploit one or another low-level OS features to let users directly load their own or third-party applications.

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Five years ago, Apple was selling the iBook G4 which evolved from the original iMac. The iBook released mid 2005 got 1.33 or 1.42 GHz PowerPC G4 processors, 12.1 inch or 14.1 inch display, weighted 4.9 lbs (2.2 kg) (smaller version) or 5.9 lbs (2.7 kg) (larger version). Both models had 1024x768 screen resolution and were 1.35 inches (3.4 cm) thick.

Apple's latest laptop, the 11.6 inch MacBook Air, is equipped with  1.4 or 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, weighs just 2.3 lbs (1.04 kg) and is only 0.68 inches (1.7 cm) at its thickest.

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Apple finally deployed a new short URL for Ping tweets, itun.es. The itun.es domain was purchased by Apple years ago. Since Apple announced Twitter integration for Ping many thought itun.es would be a great option for tweeted items. The itun.es links are now ready to go. Links are show up in the iTunes Store when sharing a song / album on Twitter. Third party clients like Tweetie for Mac and Weet for iPhone don’t use itun.es. The itun.es links are visible to everyone in iTunes and Twitter.com.

Recently Jay Freeman, better known as Saurik, creator of popular alternative store Cydia for jailbroken devices, claimed during the 360|MacDev conference that Cydia is coming to the Mac. Not surprising! Cydia is used by more than 10 million devices (about 10% of all iPhone users) and provides access to some amazing tweaks, apps and extensions of iOS. There are well over 30,000 packages available for iOS. The Cydia’s creator refers to that Cydia as a store for things that are not apps, but extensions of what iOS devices can do. Saurik feels like the same type of store would be useful for Mac OS X devices. That is why he created Mac Cydia, which will be available in some weeks. We don’t know exactly what kind of tweaks and apps could be sold into Cydia for Mac. Perhaps Cydia will be aimed at offering easy installation of themes, system mods and tweaks.

Today Apple has announced its year-end top lists for iTunes called "iTunes Rewind", which span music, TV shows, movies, podcasts, etc. The most interesting list in our sight is a list of apps.

So here are the four "award winners" for 2010:

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On Wednesday Apple released a MacBook Air EFI firmware update 2.0 to resolve issue with display. The update is recommended for all new 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air models and requires Mac OS X 10.6.5. It addresses problems where the MacBook Air is unresponsive or displays just a black screen after booting or waking. Despite scattered reports of issues with the MacBook Air, the laptop has continued to sell well, especially the 11-inch model. Analysts tracking retail activity on Black Friday found that the 11-inch MacBook Air was "flying off the shelves" and a "customer favorite."

Download the MacBook Air EFI firmware update 2.0

Today Apple has begun offering 90-second previews of songs in the iTunes Store. All songs longer than 2 minutes 30 seconds will now have a 90-second preview available. Songs shorter than this length will continue to offer only 30 second previews. Good news for us, consumers! But Apple literally forced labels to accept new terms. Any labels who do not wish to agree with the terms must withdraw their music from the iTunes Store.

MobileMe users report about multiply bugs in the service. Some of them do not satisfy with service's email, photo/file hosting, and syncing capabilities and experience performance and access issues while others believe that the $99 annual price is too high. It’s reasonableб because the "Find My iPhone" service that had previously required a MobileMe subscription is free for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch users running iOS 4.2.

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DisplaySearch has published results of their research, which reveals that Apple is the number one mobile PC manufacturer in North America and third overall in the world. But these results are given for all Apple’s mobile computers, so the iPad alone gets 8% of mobile computer shipments in the third quarter alone. Of course, that percentage will be increased, because Apple pushes their device into other markets, such as Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Hewlett-Packard’s mobile PCs remained number one with 17.3 percent of the market share. Acer came in second with 16.5 percent. Apple finished third with 12.4 percent. Noteworthy that HP and Acer market shares are only getting smaller.

Some new promo materials appeared in Apple Stores around the United State. They have an interesting signage which claims that the white iPhone 4 will be available Spring 2011. That confirms an earlier report.  Though, we may hear rumors about the fifth-generation iPhone handset, which also is expected to be released spring 2011. Steve Jobs will most likely announce the device at WWDC ’11. Many believe that Apple sooner will simply release a modified version of the iPhone 4 or a white version of its fifth-generation handset than the white iPhone 4.

Graviboard is an upcoming interesting iOS jailbreak application, which will be soon available in the Cydia Store for $2.99. The application allows iDevice owners to set their icons free by abolishing the gravity that holds them on their places on the Springboard. You may drag these “floating” icons around the screen, and there still might open the apps by touching.

Everybody knows that the iPhone Springboard can’t be turned in landscape mode. Apple wants you to hold the device in portrait mode only. But some apps, like Mail, support the horizontal orientation. So, Cydia developers offer us the alternative solution, a new hack available in Cydia called “SBRotator” ($1.99). If you change your iPhone’s orientation, using the app, the Springboard will just follow it. But Springboard orientation change requires a proper layout change too. SBRotator puts an extra tab which enables you find the configuration that best suits your needs. Moreover, the program allows you to resize icons for landscape mode.

Apple added 12 more patents to their lawsuit against Motorola. So, the total number of patents that Apple accuses Motorola of violating reached 24. Motorola claims that Apple infringed on 18 of its patents that include 3G, GPRS, 802.11 wireless and antenna design and accused Apple in refusing to pay a license. Apple’s motion to add 12 more patents to the lawsuit is just counter-suit against preemptive request filed by Motorola in October, which reference 11 patents 11 patents that Apple used in its suit against HTC but not Motorola.

Apple was called the "world's most-sued tech company" since 2008. For example, in 2009 27 patent infringement lawsuits were filed against Apple. Of course, responding to those claims takes lots of time and money.

Michael Katz, the 60 years old Florida man, believes that he was subjects of discrimination. He was denied to be promoted when he worked at an Apple’s retail store because of his age. Now he is seeking back pay and damages in excess of $15,000 from the Cupertino, California, company. He began working in Apple in 2006 when he was 60. Although he expressed his desire to be promoted and there were available positions, each time he was denied. His younger colleagues were selected. They were at least 15 years younger than him. As lawsuit claims, Katz was not given any explanation for his repeated denial of promotion opportunities.