Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on Twitter • Be a Facebook Fan • Tumble us!

27 Apr 2011 09:31

tags

Tech: Apple responds: We’re not tracking your location, just your cell tower

  • The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested.
  • A statement from Apple • Revealing exactly what we pointed out last week — that Apple isn’t tracking where you are, but trying to locate your cell tower quickly. The big thing, though, is that Apple will release a software update that addresses the part of this problem — which is the crux of what the whole issue was. The next major update will encrypt it. Non-story becomes non-story again. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Apr 2011 10:01

tags

Tech: Apple’s iPhone location-tracking fiasco: Not as bad as it looks

  • [Apple may] collect and transmit cell tower and Wi-Fi Access point information automatically [from your device]. This information is batched and then encrypted and transmitted to Apple over a secure Wi-Fi Internet connection every twelve hours.
  • A 2010 letter from Apple • Explaining why the whole “Apple spying on users” thing is a non-issue. Simply put: It’s not about you. It’s about cell towers. Want to read an explanation about what they’re doing? Read this letter they sent to Congressmen Ed Markey and Joe Barton way back in June of last year. PC World makes a good point about all this, though: “But the database on your computer is sitting there unencrypted in an easily discoverable location. This means the database is a potential target for malware or even law enforcement if the authorities should decide to seize and search your PC.” Even if Apple continues to do this (which you can turn off by snapping off “Location Services” on your phone’s settings), they should fix that part of the problem. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Apr 2011 22:20

tags

Tech: Apple’s amazing quarter: That Verizon iPhone really did the trick

  • 83% increase in Apple’s revenue for the quarter (showoffs)
  • 18.65
    million     number of iPhones the company sold in the quarter (credit the move to  Verizon, obviously)
  • 4.69
    million     number of iPads the company sold in  the quarter (credit the release of the iPad 2, obviously) source
  • » Supply and demand: That iPad number likely would’ve been even higher had Apple figured out a away to make even more of them available. The company’s COO and temporary replacement for Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, blames “the mother of all backlogs.” The iPad currently has a one-to-two-week delay on the Apple Web site. This company may print its own money, but they haven’t figured out how to print an iPad yet.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Apr 2011 11:14

tags

Tech: Dear Steve Jobs: Please reconsider your biography writer choice

  • So what Steve, are we chopped liver? We don’t know of any bigger Apple fanbois than us and … and … you didn’t even bother to call us to see if we were interested in doing an authorized biography? Who is this Walter Isaacson dude, anyway? Just some assclown with a name designed to be on the cover of a book? Just because he was the CEO of some two-bit operation named CNN doesn’t mean that he’s worth your time. We’re really upset about this. You should have called us, Steve. Now we’re going to write an unauthorized biography about you. It’s going to be called “iPusher: Steve Jobs and Apple’s legion of designer drug addicts.” Don’t like that title, Steve? Well, maybe you should’ve thought about that before working with Wal-TER. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 Mar 2011 13:09

tags

Biz: Once-powerful Kodak now raising money by patent trolling

  • $1 billion — the amount Kodak wants to shake out of RIM & Apple source
  • » Wait wait, how sad is this? Kodak, one of the great companies of the 20th century — and probably the one most deserving of a Paul Simon tune — has been relegated to patent troll status. Kodak claims that they hold the patent to an image-preview feature commonly used in cameraphones. The company has lost half of its market value in the past year.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Mar 2011 15:44

tags

Tech: Appocalypse Now: Controversial apps wither under scrutiny

  • drunks Four U.S. Senators (Schumer, Lautenberg, Reid, and Udall) have asked that app stores stop selling map apps designed to help drunk drivers avoid random sobriety checkpoints and police cars.
  • “cures” Answering not to elected officials, but to the pressure of public relations, Apple has pulled the religious “Gay Cure” app from its store, which supported “freedom from homosexuality.” source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Mar 2011 20:45

tags

Tech: iOS 4.3: Now unsuspecting Smurfs can’t drain your bank account

  • If you’ve ever prowled the iPad App Store, you may have noticed a game called “Smurfs’ Village.” It’s one of the top-grossing apps in the entire iPad ecosystem, but there’s a reason behind that – it’s very expensive to play. The app, which is free, encourages you to buy random Smurf crap while playing – something you can do without a password for fifteen minutes after you download. The combination of popular brand, cute format and expensive in-app purchases is straight up deadly for kids unknowingly draining their parents’ credit cards. It even led to congressmen complaining and sending letters to Apple. Which is where iOS version 4.3 comes in. Now you need a password to buy in-app. Why wasn’t this a feature before, Apple? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

04 Mar 2011 15:56

tags

Tech: Apple still doesn’t do streaming music yet, or why we miss Lala

  • issue Apple bought this really awesome company called Lala, then quickly killed it, making a few music fans (like us) start crying profusely. It killed a weekly music feature we had, quite sadly.
  • reason Well, Apple has a huge facility to allow this sort of streaming, but no streaming deals with the record labels – but they’re working on it. Note to Apple: Please make albums embeddable if this happens. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Mar 2011 14:42

tags

Tech: Apple’s iPad 2 unveiled: Thinner, faster, with sweet cases

  • The tale of the tech, complete with Steve Jobs! Jobs, who has been on medical leave (he’s been plagued by a number of health problems the past few years, and underwent a liver transplant in 2009), is a monolithic figure in the American technology business, and given his notorious work ethic and zeal for his products you’d imagine he wouldn’t want to miss this. source
  • Throwing down the gauntlet Jobs antagonized the competition, highlighting successes over Google, and iPad competition such as Tablet PC, which he said “crashed and burned.” iPad 2 also features a dual-core processor, equaling that of Motorola’s designs.
  • The nitty-gritty In addition to the new dual-core processor, the iPad 2 features a gyroscope (a familiar function for any iPhone user), cameras on both the front and back, 1080p support, an HDMI out line, and comes in 16, 32, and 64 gigabyte models.
  • » So, all in all, a successful debut. It’s easy to say this with some confidence because, frankly, Apple never really has unsuccessful debuts – even after the original iPad unveiling, which was probably the most hand-wringing seen over one of their new products, the thing took off like a damn rocket. And considering iPad 2 is basically the iPad on steroids, assuming the market isn’t over-saturated, we expect this to follow suit. This newest iteration will be selling for the same price as its forerunner, $499, and begins shipping domestically (U.S.) March 11th, internationally March 25th-26th. So, what y’all think? Will you be the first in line to snag one of these bad boys, or is this a luxury toy you simply don’t need?
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Feb 2011 10:56

tags

Tech: Apple’s new MacBook Pro makes us long for an upgrade

  • Admit it. They’re MacBook Pros. Of course you want to have sex with these machines. That said – the changes in the new MBP lineup appear to be under the hood rather than cosmetic in nature, with a way faster processor and graphics card, a much nicer camera, and something called ThunderBolt, a potential USB replacement that Apple says is 12 times faster than Firewire and 20 times faster than the ubiquitous port technology. It makes our current unibody Mac seem like a piece of crap we picked up from the scrap heap two years ago. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
<< newer 
top tags
older >>