News from category ‘Software’

9to5mac recently found new code files, related to the announced iOS5-wide voice-recognition app called Assistant. They allow to suggest that the app will be able to browse a user’s e-mail, address book, phone application, calendars and even to open links. However, this is only a suggestion since the code files may not be related to the final version of Assistant.

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Today Apple released two new builds for developers. First is the seventh beta version of the iCloud build for Mac and second is OS X Lion 10.7.2 Build 11C37. iCloud for Mac can easily make user’s Macs iCloud compatible, and it includes improved Find my Mac, Documents and Data in the Cloud and Back to my Mac services. Both builds can be downloaded via the iCloud developer portal.

Since a raid on Russian payment processing company ChronoPay two month ago, there was not much work for malware defense system of OS X , but a new trojan horse did emerged earlier this month. According to F-Secure, the trojan called "OSX.QHost.WB.A" disguises itself as a Flash Player installer and adds records to a file on the computer’s host to redirect users trying to visit some of Google sites. The server in Netherlands shows a fake webpage that is very similar to the real Google site.

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By the end of September Apple will have opened over 30 new retail stores, so the total number of stores will be over 360. On this Saturday Apple apparently set to open at least five new stores: two U.S. stores and three international locations covering Australia, Canada, and Italy.

• Anchorage 5th Avenue Mall (Anchorage, Alaska): The new store will be Apple's first location in Alaska.
• Fashion Place (Murray, Utah): Apple's second store in Utah.
• Southland (Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia): The new store is Apple's third location in the Melbourne area and its twelfth overall for Australia.
• Conestoga: (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada): Apple's 20th retail store in Canada, the new location is also notable for its placement in the hometown of smartphone competitor Research in Motion.
• I Gigli: (Florence, Italy): The new store is Apple's sixth location in Italy and first in the Florence area, filling a gap between the company's store in Rome and a series of stores in northern Italy across the Turin, Milan, and Bergamo.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Apple and 5 of the 6 major book publishers: Hachette, HarperCollins, MacMillan, Penguin, and Simon & Shuster. The lawsuit claims that they "colluded to increase prices for popular e-book titles to boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing."

From the lawsuit:

In November 2007, Amazon revolutionized the book publishing industry by releasing the Kindle, a handheld digital reader for electronic books or “eBooks.” A major economic advantage to eBook technology is its potential to massively reduce distribution costs historically associated with brick-and-mortar publishing. But publishers quickly realized that if market forces were allowed to prevail too quickly, these efficiency enhancing characteristics would rapidly lead to lower consumer prices, improved consumer welfare, and threaten the current business model and available surplus (profit margins). So, faced with disruptive eBook technology that threatened their inefficient and antiquated business model, several major book publishers, working with Apple Inc. (“Apple”), decided free market competition should not be allowed to work – together they coordinated their activities to fight back in an effort to restrain trade and retard innovation. The largest book publishers and Apple were successful.

This lawsuit alleges that as a "direct result of this anticompetitive conduct as intended by the conspiracy, the price of eBooks has soared" and "bring claims under federal and state antitrust laws to enjoin the illegal conduct and to obtain damages."

Facebook has just launched Messenger app that extends its Messages service. This app will allow sending Facebook messages to your Facebook contacts and text messages to your phone’s contacts. In addition to messages the app will allow you to send pictures as well.
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Boxee has launched a free application for iPad that enables users to stream virtually any video format from your Mac to your iPad. Apart streaming functions, this application can be very helpful in finding popular video or video shared by your friends to watch it online. Sharing is performed using Friends tab that is a queue of all content sharing by your friends through Boxee’s social service. Also there is a Popular tab that shows what currently is the most popular content on the globe.

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Google has released an update for its Google+ application for iOS devices, including iPod touch and iPad, which previously were unavailable in this app. Also this update includes improvements in huddle settings, aggregated circle add notifications and usual improvements in performance and stability.

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The iPhone Dev-Team released RedSn0w 0.9.8b5 that supports tethered jailbreak for the most recent iOS 5 beta 5:

redsn0w has been updated to 0.9.8b5, adding support for Apple's new iOS5 beta5 (point it directly at the beta5 IPSW). Please use this only if you're a jailbreak app developer with a legit Apple dev account, and remember it's a tethered jailbreak for now!

You can download RedSn0w 0.9.8b5 for Windows and Mac OS here.

iOS 5 beta 5 has been released recently. It is available only for Apple registered developers. But you can try it too. Remember that you do it at your own risk. Remember your UDID must be registered at Apple in order to activate your device after install.

You can download new iOS 5 beta 5 firmware and iTunes 10.5 beta 5 using the links below:

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Apple has just released iOS 5 Beta 5 to developers. Alongside the new firmware comes Xcode 4.2 Developer Preview 5 and iTunes 10.5 beta 5.

Developers can download it here or update via OTA (over the air). Prior OTA all content and settings on the device must be erased (Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings). The delta update is just 128MB.

After giving developers access to Find My iPhone feature in iCloud service, it became known that Apple has also turned on Find My Mac feature in this service. Now it is available to developers for beta testing of iCloud service. The service was officially offered in Developer Preview 4 although its addition to Lion was leaked earlier. The user can activate this function within iCloud control panel in system preferences and their Macs will be displayed on iCloud.com.

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Recently AppAdvice announced that Apple is going to launch a new service called iTunes Replay:

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TechCrunch recently wrote that Qualcomm not long ago had launched Augmented Reality Software Development Kit (SDK) for Apple’s iOS. Original SDK was available only for Android, but Qualcomm had announced that version for iOS would be released in July. The SDK is designed to facilitate integration of virtual content and real content such as images taken with cameras on many handheld devices.

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As Guardian reports, BBC iPlayer will be released in eleven European countries, and later this year it will become available in the United States, Canada and Australia. The global iPlayer service is available via iPad app in Austria, France, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain.

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