Dana Franklin

Apple By Dana Franklin

Marine Corps aviators depend on iPad

Aviators for the United States Marine Corps (USMC) in Afghanistan have ejected heavy stacks of paper charts and grid reference graphics from their cockpits and replaced them with the iPad according to a report by Tony Osborne for The Shephard Group. The popularity of the iPad among marine flight crews took off last November when one Cobra pilot figured out how to load digital maps onto the device. In Afghanistan, identifying compounds and landmarks from the air can be difficult. To eliminate guesswork and better coordinate missions with international ground forces, USMC pilots arm themselves with a plethora of maps of the region. Prior to digitization, paper charts and grids would fill cramped cockpits and require additional training and attention to read correctly. The iPad saves space and allows pilots to search for locations with a few quick taps of their fingers, making it significantly easier for aviators to identify compounds and quickly offer air support. "It's a game changer," Capt. John Belsha told The Shephard Group. "It's all about sharing situational awareness and using the iPad is much better than using a paper chart." Work is reportedly underway to integrate the iPad into aircraft in the US to allow Marine aviators to receive flight training with digital maps. USMC pilots aren't the only group embracing iPads in the cockpit. Earlier this month, Alaska Airlines announced plans to replace various flight, systems, and performance manuals (and eventually paper aeronautical charts) with digital copies on the iPad. Apple's tablet would eliminate up to 50 pounds of paper that its pilots must lug onto every flight.

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News By Dana Franklin

Foxconn worker from Chengdu factory commits suicide

Sadly, a 20-year-old male employee at Foxconn (Apple's contract manufacturer for many products) committed suicide Thursday morning, according to a report from the Hong Kong China News Agency (HKCNA) cited by Bloomberg. The worker was reportedly employed at the company's new facility in Chengdu where an explosion killed three workers on May 20. Further details about Thursday morning's incident are sparse, and the reasons behind the factory worker's suicide are currently unknown. This is at least the 14th publicized death by suicide among Foxconn's workforce since the start of 2010. Foxconn chairman Terry Gou declined to comment about the incident saying he doesn't know the full details about the apparent suicide. However, last year, Gou said suicides by Foxconn employees were prompted by personal issues rather than tough working conditions in his company's facilities. Labor groups like China Labor Watch disagree. Foxconn's critics have slammed the Taipei-based company for operating facilities with a sweatshop atmosphere -- an accusation Gou vehemently denies. In response to last year's suicides and subsequent harsh criticism, Foxconn, which builds electronic products for several other recognizable brands including Sony and Dell, raised wages, slashed overtime, offered counseling, and tried to improve the work-life balance for its more than one million factory workers in China. Although Foxconn's suicide rate remains markedly lower than China's national average, Thursday morning's death, last Friday's explosion, and protests outside a Foxconn shareholder meeting earlier this month suggest the manufacturer has more work to do to improve employee safety and overall satisfaction. Our thoughts and condolences go out to the friends and family of the young man who died.

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Apps By Dana Franklin

Senator Al Franken asks iOS developers to provide "clear and understandable privacy policies"

Following up on requests he made to Apple and Google in his hearing on mobile privacy earlier this month, US Senator Al Franken wrote a letter to the companies' respective CEOs asking them to require all software sold through the App Store and Android App Market to provide consumers with "clear and understandable privacy policies." Franken conceded that most customers never read the legal notices packaged with apps or think to look for a privacy statement for each (or any) app they install. He added that privacy notices alone wouldn't address all of the senator's privacy concerns. Even so, he observed that Apple and Google are market leaders capable of taking this "simple first step towards protecting [their] users' privacy." Requiring each app to transparently disclose what information it collects, how the data is used and who it is shared with would help attentive consumers, privacy advocates and federal authorities better understand how mobile software accesses and uses personal information. The senator concluded by urging Apple and Google to, at a minimum, make privacy policies a strict requirement for all location aware applications, implying it would be more feasible to address his privacy concerns within a subset of all software offered through Apple and Google's app catalogs. After all, Franken's hearings followed a highly publicized bug in iOS that caused location data to be stored in an unencrypted file on the device. Apple fixed the bug in a recent software update. Finally, Franken reminded Apple and Google of their commitments to protecting the privacy of their customers. "Apple and Google have each said time and again that they are committed to protecting users' privacy," Franken wrote. "This is an easy opportunity for your companies to put that commitment into action." [via The Loop]

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Big Tech

Big Tech By Dana Franklin

China urges Foxconn to ensure worker safety

It's been another rough week for Foxconn, Apple's biggest manufacturing partner. After an explosion at a Foxconn factory killed three workers last Friday, the Chinese government urged the manufacturer and other Taiwanese companies to better ensure the safety of their employees. "We hope Foxconn and other Taiwanese firms can learn lessons from this, carry out safety responsibilities, step up internal oversight, stamp out potential safety risks in a timely manner, and ensure safe production," Fan Liqing, a spokeswoman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, said on Wednesday. Friday's deadly explosion rocked a Foxconn polishing workshop in Chengdu, a city in southwest China, where workers put the finishing touches on electronic products for many of the world's largest brands, including Apple. Immediately after the blast, the local government began rescue efforts and an investigation into its cause. So far, investigators believe the explosion was the result of a "production safety accident," according to Fan, who didn't go into further details about the cause of the incident. Previous reports suggest that combustible dust in the polishing workshop ignited to fuel the blast. In response to the incident, Foxconn has temporarily suspended operations at all of its workshops that polish electronics in China and, according to Fan, the manufacturer pledged to "make an all out effort" to treat the injured workers, reassure the families of their employees, and remove hidden safety risks "in accordance with relevant requirements."

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Apple By Dana Franklin

The two Apple engineers who created Hype

Jonathan Deutsch, co-founder of Tumult Inc., recently talked to The Startup Foundry about leaving a stable job at Apple to build Hype, the new HTML5 Animation Builder for Mac OS X. Despite some provocative headlines linking to the story, the reason the founders took on this challenge wasn't borne out of Apple's attitude towards Flash. Released last Friday exclusively through the Mac App Store for an introductory price of US$29.99, Hype embraces the HTML5 family of technologies -- including new HTML5 tags, CSS3, and the latest JavaScript technology -- to allow customers to create standards-based interactive websites that rival Flash. Over the weekend, Tumult's product became the top-grossing application on Apple's software marketplace, topping Pages, Aperture, iPhoto, Keynote, Numbers, and iMovie. Prior to opening shop for himself, Deutsch was the engineering manager for Mac OS X Mail's back end. He also worked on Mac OS X's software update mechanism, automation technology, and even Steve-note demonstrations. Despite a successful career at Apple, he always wanted to have his own company, saying it's "in the blood." He and his business partner Ryan Nielsen, another senior member of the Mac OS X team, both saw a new wave of "Web 3.0" technologies, more commonly referred to as "HTML5," hitting the market. "It was always in the back of my mind that for any technology shift you'd need tools to help out," Deutsch told The Startup Foundry. "I'm really a tools guy, though we tend to call them 'apps' nowadays." Deutsch said the idea for Hype came after a trip to Europe. He wanted to showcase photos from his travels on a website with animations and pizazz. Hand-coding the site he imagined in HTML5 would've been a "nightmare," and Flash wouldn't be appropriate for mobile access to the site. When he couldn't find a better way to easily build an interactive website for his photos, Deutsch recognized the opportunity to build a solution for himself and start a business around it. Walking away from an established career at Apple was bittersweet. Deutsch says he formed a deep social and professional network at the Cupertino company that was painful to say goodbye to, but if he had chosen to stay at Apple, Deutsch would've been left to wonder what if. "'Regret Minimization' is what should win out in life," he says, "so it did." [via Business Insider]

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News By Dana Franklin

Boinx offers Spring savings on its "Home" products

From now until Monday, May 23, Mac users with a craving to create can save a bundle on iStopMotion Home, FotoMagico Home, or BoinxTV Home when purchased through the Mac App Store. Each product is available for US$9.99 during the sale announced by the German software maker Boinx earlier this week. Boinx's iStopMotion Home transforms your Mac into an animation studio. With it, toys, clay, drawings, or other everyday items can become stars of your own animated hits. It's normally priced at $49. FotoMagico Home allows aspiring photographers to combine photos with music and transitions to create eye-catching slideshows. The non-sale price for this software package is $29. Lastly, BoinxTV Home turns your Mac into a personal TV studio. It's an affordable solution for adding spice to the YouTube videos and video podcasts you create at home. During the sale, BoinxTV Home is discounted from its retail price of $49.99. With prices discounted by up to 80%, this weekend's sale is a good opportunity to try some well-crafted, award-winning titles without devastating your wallet.

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Apps By Dana Franklin

EFF takes on Lodsys patent controversy

Julie Samuels, a Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said Apple should join forces with its developers to dispute patent infringement complaints Lodsys, LLC sent to several independent iOS app-makers last week. On May 13, a number of iOS developers reported being told their apps, by using the in-app purchase mechanism built into Apple's development kit, infringed on intellectual property owned by Lodsys, a patent holding company based in Texas. According to Lodsys, their patent specifically covers technology that allows end users to upgrade "light" editions of software to fully functional apps. Lodsys claims that Apple, Google, and Microsoft already pay to license the technology for themselves (possibly through investments in the patent portfolio of Intellectual Ventures), but licensing agreements with these tech giants do not extend to third party developers. Unfortunately, Apple requires developers to use the in-app purchase mechanism it provides, and the Cupertino company's developer agreement does nothing to protect app creators from patent infringement claims against technology it builds into iOS. Samuels argues this is a "misallocation of burden" onto individual developers who often don't have the resources needed to combat infringement suits. Even if a developer does explore the patent universe for possible pitfalls, it's unlikely he or she would look into any of Apple's technologies since most reasonable people (including lawyers) would expect the company to avoid exposing its app-makers to additional liability. App sellers already surrender 30% of the revenue from each sale to Apple; adding the threat of patent lawsuits or additional licensing fees may deter new and existing developers from choosing to create software for iOS. Last we heard, Apple was "actively investigating" the Lodsys patent infringement claims. It's still not clear what actions the company will take next, but Samuels says, "by putting the burden on those least able to shoulder it, both Apple and Lodsys are harming not just developers but also the consumers who will see fewer apps and less innovation." She hopes Apple will "do what's right and stand up for their developers and help teach the patent trolls a lesson."

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Streaming

Streaming By Dana Franklin

Xfinity TV on your iPod, iPhone but Wi-Fi only

Version 1.5 of Comcast's Xfinity TV app for iPhone and iPod touch arrived on the App Store yesterday. The updated software allows Comcast customers to watch movies and TV shows on their iPhones or iPod touches while connected to any Wi-Fi network. Comcast added on-demand video streaming functionality to the Xfinity TV app for iPad in February. Since then, Comcast's library of streaming content has grown to include over 6,000 hours of video from 25 networks. The app, which also allows customers to remote control their DVRs and schedule recordings, has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times since it launched in November last year. The newly updated Xfinity app for iPhone and iPod touch expands the cable provider's goal to bring entertainment to practically any gadget with a screen -- televisions, personal computers, tablets and mobile devices. The launch of the highly-requested video streaming feature for Apple's mobile devices didn't come without a couple of glitches. Some users reported trouble launching the app after downloading the update. Comcast recommends customers delete any existing copies of Xfinity TV before installing version 1.5. And CNET's Christopher MacManus reported some difficulties playing videos for more than 15 seconds, but attributed the issue to the massive number of people poking around the new on-demand streaming features at the same time. Lastly, like its iPad counterpart, on-demand video is only available through a Wi-Fi connection -- 3G streaming or downloading for later offline viewing is not available with this release. On the bright side, unlike competitors Cablevision and Time Warner, Comcast allows its customers to stream videos on any Wi-Fi network, not just the one you have at home. So, whether you're curled up in bed or sipping a coffee at your neighborhood Starbucks, you can still catch up on the latest comedy stylings of Conan O'Brien or squeeze in an episode of Seinfeld using your iPhone (3G, 3GS or 4) or iPod touch (2nd, 3rd or 4th generation) running iOS 4. [via Engadget]

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Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity By Dana Franklin

AppleCare rep tells Ed Bott Mac malware reports are up

An anonymous AppleCare support representative spoke to ZDNet's Ed Bott over the weekend, telling the reporter that complaints about malware infections on the Mac increased significantly in the first half of May. "This last week over 50% of our calls have been about [malware]," said the AppleCare staffer. "In two days last week I personally took 60 calls that referred to Mac Defender." Earlier this month, a new series of malicious software packages with names like "Mac Defender," "Mac Security" and "Mac Protector" began to assault Apple's computing platform. Websites would alert users their Macs were infected and persuade them to download and install "Mac Defender" to protect their computers from the alleged attack. Rather than eliminate malware, these trojans prompt users to provide credit card information to their authors. It's all a scam. Even so, the scam appears to be quite effective. The AppleCare staffer claims many callers believed the warnings from these malware packages were legitimate or came from Apple, and in the last week, call volume for the computer-maker's support lines was up to five times higher than normal. "I really wish I could say not many people will fall for this, but in this last week, we have had nothing but Mac Defender and similar calls," the AppleCare representative told Bott. It's unclear from Bott's interview how many callers had actually installed the phony "Mac Defender" software and how many were calling to verify the authenticity of an alert on a website claiming their computers were infected. The AppleCare staffer's facts and figures are notably anecdotal. It's difficult, for example, to reconcile a five-fold increase in call volume since the malware attacks began when only half the calls have to do with "Mac Defender." Although the AppleCare staffer's story sounds a lot like a surfer boasting about a tremendous wave, it's important to use common sense when installing software from the internet. Unlike a virus or worm that sneaks onto a computer without authorization, trojans like "Mac Defender" require an administrator to provide his or her password and knowingly install the malicious software. When TUAW first reported these malware attacks, we offered some helpful tips for avoiding these digital con games. Is this AppleCare representative capitalizing on the latest wave of Mac malware hype and exaggerating his or her story for attention? Or is the "Mac Defender" family of trojans really gaining traction among a community of unsuspecting Mac users? Let us know what you think in the comments.

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Apple By Dana Franklin

Apple retail partner Foxlink to double footprint in Asia

Apple's reach in Asia is about to grow bigger, according to a report from DigiTimes published earlier today. Foxlink, one of Apple's component suppliers and primary retail partners in Asia, revealed plans to expand its chain of Apple specialty shops in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea. The Taiwan-based company aims to double the number of stores it operates in the region from 50 locations to 100 by the end of the year. Similarly, Foxconn, another of Apple's biggest partners, also has plans to build more locations for its chain of Cybermart electronics outlets in China. One of Foxconn's new locations, in Changchun, China, will dedicate 200 square meters exclusively to Apple products. Other Cybermarts are expected to open in Xiamen, Zhengzhou, Taiyuan, Tianjin, Xinjiang, and Kunming. China represents a huge opportunity for growth for Apple. The Cupertino company operates four of its own stores in the nation that have become its most visited and highest revenue generating locations in the world. Even so, Apple relies heavily on third party resellers to promote its hardware and software in Asia. [via MacNN]

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Apps By Dana Franklin

Removing Flash from your Mac

Back in October, Apple shipped its first MacBook Air models without the Adobe Flash plug-in pre-installed. In the ensuing brouhaha, Ars Technica discovered Flash cut battery life by up to 33 percent on the MacBook Air and possibly other MacBook models. Personally, my MacBook often sounds like it's preparing for space flight when I visit pages that use Adobe's plug-in. Whether you wish to conserve electricity, silence overactive cooling fans, boost the security of your browsing experience or protest against the use of media plug-ins, you can easily remove Adobe Flash from your Mac. Most often, the Flash plug-in can be found in the "Internet Plug-Ins" folder on your system's hard drive. To get there, switch to the Finder and select "Go to Folder..." from the "Go" menu. When prompted, enter "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/" and click "Go" to switch to the appropriate location on your system. Once you are in the "Internet Plug-Ins" directory, make a new folder called "Disabled Plug-Ins." Move the "Flash Player.plugin," "flashplayer.xpt" and "NP-PPC-Dir-Shockwave" files into your new "Disabled Plug-Ins" folder. Or if you really want to kill Flash, toss these files into the Trash. (Note: if you don't find these three files in "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/" they may be hiding in "~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/".) The next time you relaunch Safari or Firefox, Flash will no longer be enabled. If you need to view a Flash-enabled page in a pinch, you can install and launch Chrome. This Safari-alternative ships with a Flash plug-in embedded in the browser. You can also install OmniWeb or iCab and copy the Flash plug-in into the browser's plug-in folder. For OmniWeb, right-click on the OmniWeb application and choose "Show Package Contents" to reveal the PlugIns folder. Copy the Flash plug-in to the folder, and you should be good to go. iCab does not contain a PlugIns folder, but you can create one yourself and copy over the Flash plug-in manually.

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Computing

Computing By Dana Franklin

Don't blame iPad for PC sales stagnation, says NPD

A new study released by the NPD Group on Tuesday suggests a recent decline in personal computer shipments can't be blamed on the iPad. NPD's results contradict conventional wisdom, which assumed shiny new gadgets like Apple's iPad were eroding the PC market. According to NPD's figures, a significant majority of iPad owners never had plans to buy a PC. Only 14 percent of the study's "early adopters," or customers who bought the iPad more than six months ago, chose the Apple tablet instead of a personal computer. For the 2010 holiday quarter, just 12 percent of the surveyed iPad owners ditched intentions to buy a PC. According to Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD, the iPad's cannibalization of the computer market continues to drop. Last month, reports from Gartner Inc. and International Data Corp. (IDC) revealed the first decline in PC sales in six quarters. Many analysts leaped to the conclusion that Apple's iPad was chewing into the PC market. Contrary to this popular belief, NPD's report suggests the iPad is simply adding billions of dollars in additional revenue for the technology sector. More than 75 percent of iPad owners told NPD they bought the device with no intention of buying anything else, dispelling the myth that Apple's tablet is significantly disrupting other technology markets. Instead, NPD suggests the PC market is seeing a cooling trend following a surge of sales related to the introduction of affordable netbooks and the release of Windows 7. "The conventional wisdom that says tablet sales are eating into low-priced notebooks is most assuredly incorrect," says Baker. "The explosion of computer sales when Windows 7 launched, as well as the huge increase in netbook sales at that time, are much more to blame for weak consumer PC sales growth than the iPad."

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Apple By Dana Franklin

A look at Apple's "all-star" executives

Tim Cook, Phil Schiller, Jony Ive, and Steve Jobs are big names at Apple. These top executives are known around the technology industry and around the world for their operational excellence, marketing know-how, design genius and powerful reality distortion fields. While these four men often get credit for much of Apple's success, the company boasts an enviable collection of talented "chiefs" and senior vice presidents who help carve its skyward path. A new gallery from CNN Money takes a brief look at eleven of Apple's all-stars. For avid fans of Apple, some of the names mentioned in CNN Money's gallery may be familiar. But if you don't recognize names like Craig Federighi, Scott Forstall, Bob Mansfield, Ron Johnson, Peter Oppenheimer, Bruce Sewell, Jeff Williams, Eddy Cue, Katie Cotton, Dr. Guy "Bud" Tribble, or Greg Joswiak, this may be a good opportunity to brush up on the men and women who help shape one of the world's most successful companies.

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Apps By Dana Franklin

Namco Bandai sale this weekend on the App Store

If you want to score a deal on some classic games for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, Namco Bandai is celebrating spring (and, coincidentally, Mother's Day) with a sale on some of its best-selling titles this weekend. From now through May 9, you can grab games like Star Trigon for US$0.99, Tamagotchi: 'Round the World for $0.99, Lost in Time: The Clockwork Tower for $2.99, and PAC-MAN for $1.99. According to 148Apps.com, which offers a complete list of all the discounted games, the sale may be limited to the US store only.

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Microsoft

Microsoft By Dana Franklin

Microsoft makes appeal to iOS developers

Microsoft hopes to lure iOS developers to Windows Phone 7. A new website published by the company earlier this year now offers guides and testimonials specifically designed to entice iOS developers to transform their iPhone apps into Windows Phone compatible software. Currently, Microsoft finds itself on the wrong side of the mobile application availability debate. Mac supporters are used to hearing about the thousands of additional software titles available for the Windows platform on the desktop. In fact, those numbers often influence a customer's purchase decision. Similarly, the nearly 400,000 apps for iOS and 300,000 titles for Android eclipse the mere 15,000 applications available for Microsoft's newest mobile platform. The massive app markets available to iOS and Android may influence customers to choose those devices instead of Microsoft's.

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Computing

Computing By Dana Franklin

Macworld publishes first round of benchmark results for new iMac

Macworld posted the results of its first benchmark tests for the newly updated family of iMacs this morning. The publication's tests found Apple's latest iMacs to be generally faster than previous iMacs, although certain build-to-order (BTO) models from 2010 still outperformed the new family of iMacs in some tests. The new top-of-the-line, quad-core 3.1 GHz i5 iMac bested the previous high-end model, a quad-core 2.8 GHz i5 iMac, in every test. Notably, the 3.1 GHz iMac performed 16% faster in the Speedmark 6.5 test and 22% faster in Macworld's iTunes encode test. The results were mixed when comparing the new iMac to powerfully configured BTO models from last year. When pitted against a quad-core 2.93 GHz Core i7 BTO iMac from 2010, the new 3.1 GHz iMac performed about equivalently in the Speedmark test but fell short in applications like Cinebench and MathematicaMark. The older, i7-based iMac offered Hyper Threading, a technology that virtually doubled the number of processor cores seen by the operating system; apps that took advantage of this technology worked better on the older machine. When compared to a dual-core 3.6 GHz i5 BTO iMac from 2010, the current 3.1 Ghz iMac edged out its older relative by 14% in overall performance and finished tasks in Mathematica, an app that makes use of multiple processing cores, up to 67% faster. In many cases, however, the faster clock speed of the older machine helped it complete certain tasks more quickly. Overall, the new iMacs seem to offer generally better performance in a more affordable package. But, if you frequently use software optimized for fast clock speeds or Hyper Threading technology and don't need any of the new gadgetry in the newest machines, it may be worth tracking down a 2010 BTO iMac with a 3.6 GHz i5 or 2.93 GHz i7 inside.

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News By Dana Franklin

Designer pitches concept for usable iOS notifications in video

Like many of us here in the TUAW compound, designer Andreas Hellqvist is dissatisfied with the intrusive and often downright annoying notifications system iOS 4 offers today. Like me, he expresses his distaste for iOS's notifications by turning them off in almost every app on his device. After exploring other concepts on the Web and finding most didn't adhere to existing iOS concepts, the Swedish designer took it upon himself to illustrate his own vision of what iOS notifications should be. Hellqvist begins by consolidating all notifications into a single system level app. Users could then position the notifications software -- on the launch bar, a page of apps, or hidden in a folder -- to suit her own personal desire to see incoming alerts. A single badge displaying a summed total of messages across all apps on the device would allow users to see how many unread notifications they had at-a-glance. Upon launching the app, Hellqvist suggests users could see a complete list of all notifications, filter messages by app, and perform some basic notification management. Tapping on a notification would launch the appropriate action on the device: opening an incoming text message or dialing the number from a missed call, for example. The new notifications concept also addresses incoming alerts on the lock screen. Users would see a short listing of recent messages here. To avoid embarrassing pocket dialing, Hellqvist employs a nifty "slide-to-read" concept (pictured above) that allows users to quickly respond to a notification by sliding app icons from left to right, much like the familiar "slide to unlock" interface currently available in iOS. Overall, the video succinctly summarizes what notifications in iOS could and should be. While some developers already offer software with similar capabilities to jailbroken devices, I would welcome many of the enhancements pictured in this video in an official iOS release. Hopefully, Apple is listening and will implement some of Hellqvist's ideas into a future version of iOS. Then, maybe I'd use notifications more. Keep reading to watch the concept video and tell us what you think in the comments.

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Smartphones

Smartphones By Dana Franklin

Verizon to put location warning sticker on iPhones

Expect to peel off one more warning sticker when you buy an iPhone from Verizon Wireless. In a letter dated April 19, 2011, and addressed to U.S. congressmen Ed Markey and Joe Barton, Verizon detailed the processes it uses to protect customer privacy and revealed plans to begin adhering the warning sticker pictured here to any new device capable of tracking its owner's location. In March, in response to a New York Times article describing how a German mobile phone company tracked one of its customers, Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, contacted the four major wireless carriers in the U.S. for explanations about how and why mobile location data would be tracked and used. The congressmen, co-Chairmen of the House Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, published the four companies' responses on April 28. Each carrier admitted to storing device location data for some amount of time -- from a few days to several years -- and all offered safeguards and disclosures detailing how personally identifying customer information is secured. However, the carriers could not guarantee the privacy of location data within third party applications, prompting Verizon to suggest its warning label. Mobile customer privacy concerns exploded into a hot topic about two weeks ago when researchers announced the existence of a file in iOS 4 containing a history of the device's approximate location over time -- which turned out, according to Apple, to merely represent WiFi hotspots and cell towers up to 100 miles from the actual phone location. Although Apple's "locationgate" began after Verizon designed its warning labels, the wireless carrier's letter and forthcoming sticker are a coincidentally timely response to the growing brouhaha about consumer privacy and mobile devices. [via CNN]

By Dana Franklin Read More

Smartphones

Smartphones By Dana Franklin

White iPhone shipping times grow in Europe

From coming soon, to coming eventually, to arrives tomorrow, to finally here, the white iPhone 4 landed on Thursday with a promising premiere. Only one day after it became available, wait times for the pale iPhone 4 reached five days in several of Apple's European online stores, including the U.K., Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Ireland. Currently, customers in the U.S. and Canada must wait a slightly more modest 3–5 days before their white iPhone 4s board a delivery vehicle. In contrast, the black iPhone 4 ships within a day or two. The iPhone 4 in white began shipping in 28 countries on April 28, delayed by about 10 months after the popular black version hit the market. The long delay for the alabaster phone, caused by various technical hurdles, created extra "mystique" and perceived "scarcity value" for the device, according to analyst Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities. The appropriately named White expects the new color to incrementally boost iPhone 4 sales by 1 million to 1.5 million units per quarter. The sellout crowds in Hong Kong and mainland China and expanding shipping times in Europe and North America certainly support the idea that consumers were holding out for their preferred color of iPhone 4. Did you wait patiently for the vanilla-flavored iPhone 4? Let us know why in the comments below.

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News By Dana Franklin

Internet braces for royal wedding

As the bride climbs into her dress, the groom adjusts his cufflinks, the 1,900 invited guests arrive, and chefs make final preparations for the festivities to follow the ceremony, popular websites like YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter will be tuning their systems for a surge of wedding watchers. In less than 24 hours, Prince William will marry Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London, England. It's the first British royal wedding in the age of the modern internet, and the monarchy promises to make it an internet-friendly event. Tomorrow's celebration will be streamed live via YouTube, and the official royal-wedding website will post status updates to Twitter and Facebook; so will about 400 million of the royal family's biggest fans, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. The anticipated increase in online traffic for tomorrow's royal wedding could bring the internet to a frustratingly slow crawl and may topple some of the web's premier destinations. Matt Graves, a spokesman for Twitter.com, said his site is ready for the deluge of wow-look-at-that-dress tweets that will inevitably arrive as Kate walks down the aisle. As seen above, Twitter posted a photo of its co-founder, Biz Stone, mounting a single Xserve labelled "Wills & Kate" in preparation for the big event. The picture prompted the not-actually-official TwitterGlobalPR account to snipe, "Rumours of Twitter needing extra servers for the Royal Wedding are greatly exaggerated. We only need one." Of course, the photo is intended as a joke -- everyone knows Twitter's infrastructure runs on the Mac mini. Historically, major news and events have caused trouble for popular websites. Twitter, for example, displayed a boatload of fail whales after Michael Jackson died in 2009 and during the World Cup and Wimbledon in 2010. The simultaneous sporting tournaments generated the highest traffic in the internet's history when over 10 million links were clicked per minute, according to Akamai. Will the internet survive Prince William and Kate Middleton's big day? We'll all find out at 11:00 am London time on Friday, April 29.

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Streaming

Streaming By Dana Franklin

YouTube seals deals with major studios to compete with iTunes

Google-owned YouTube plans to expand the premium on-demand video rental services offered through its website. Earlier this week, Google and YouTube reportedly closed deals with Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Brothers, Universal and Lionsgate to offer filmed content from these studios as streaming rentals -- including access to new releases the same day as competing movie-on-demand services. YouTube's new service is expected to compete with market leaders in the online video rental market: Apple and Amazon. In an effort to generate revenue with professionally produced content, YouTube began offering premium video rentals on its website about a year ago, starting with a limited number of films from the Sundance Film Festival, Weinstein Co. and MGM. But the Google subsidiary has struggled to transform its 130 million monthly users into a sizable audience for its paid and ad-supported feature films. This week's licensing agreements that expand YouTube's library of rental titles may help more customers see value in paying the website for access to Hollywood films and make it a more competitive rival to Apple's iTunes and Amazon's Instant Video services. Google isn't the only big brand making big moves in the streaming video business. According to The Hollywood Reporter, both DirecTV and Dish Network are exploring subscription streaming service businesses to challenge Netflix and iTunes. Meanwhile, cable television provider Comcast is trying to negotiate deals to offer premium video-on-demand options that would allow cable subscribers to enjoy new movies only 6–8 weeks after their theatrical release dates.

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Entertainment

Entertainment By Dana Franklin

Cast of Disney's "Lemonade Mouth" starts flash mob at Apple store

It was another quiet afternoon at the Apple retail store at The Grove in Los Angeles, CA -- or as quiet as an Apple store can be on a busy day -- when all of a sudden, a flash mob began singing and dancing the song "Determinate" from the Disney Channel production Lemonade Mouth over Easter weekend. Chris Brochu and Hayley Kiyoko, two of the film's stars, organized the surprise appearance with about 15 of their friends and captured their entire performance on video. The choreographed song and dance number drew a mix of befuddled and delighted looks from shoppers and ended when three unfortunate Apple employees were inclined to politely escort the mob out of the store.

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Tablets

Tablets By Dana Franklin

Michael Dell: Android tablets will overtake iPad

Michael Dell is bullish on Android tablets [registration required]. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published today, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Dell Inc. predicted Android tablets would one day overtake Apple's iPad as the leading platform in the tablet market. Dell cited Android's success in the smartphone market to support his theory. "If you look at 18 months ago, Android phones were like, 'What is that?' And now there are more Android phones than iPhones," Dell said. "I don't see any reason why the same won't occur with Android tablets." At the moment, Android faces the Herculean task of catching up to the device that defined a new class of consumer electronic. Unlike the iPhone, which entered an already healthy mobile phone marketplace with well-established rivals, the iPad set the benchmark for tablet computing. A recent report from IDC suggests the iPad represents 83 percent of the rapidly growing tablet market. IDC expects Apple to continue its dominance by winning up to 80 percent of tablet sales in 2011. The iPad's most well-reviewed rival, the Motorola Xoom, has done little to sink Apple's staggering dominance despite its flashy marketing campaign and tablet-specific flavor of Android. One estimate from Deutsche Bank suggests Motorola has sold only 100,000 units of its flagship tablet. Similarly, Samsung has been disappointed with sales of its Galaxy Tab and its sales of about 2 million units. Dell, of course, offers its own family of tablets called the Streak. The 5- and 7-inch tablets, powered by Android, were met with generally negative reviews and are widely considered flops. Dell is expected to release its 10-inch Streak Pro, in both Windows and Android varieties, later this year. Although Dell claims to be doubling down on Android, the CEO, who also expressed being surprised by the sudden rise of the iPad, may also be hedging his bets by releasing tablets on two competing software platforms. [via CNET]

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Computing

Computing By Dana Franklin

Survey reveals Mac and PC people think differently

According to the results of a massive survey by Hunch.com, Mac people are frequently young, vegetarian city-dwellers who like modern art, liberal politics, and independent films. Meanwhile, Windows supporters tend to be older, more conservative, and more likely to compare talking about computers to "struggling with a foreign language." Whether you're collecting evidence for the Mac vs. Windows debate you have planned for the weekend or preparing for an appearance on Family Feud, Hunch's results offer some fun and fascinating insights into the tastes and habits of Mac and PC users, from what TV shows they watch to what snacks will best satisfy their afternoon munchies. Started by Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, Hunch provides visitors with personalized recommendations for just about everything from books and movies to cars, vacation spots, and colleges. Between March 2009 and April 2011, Hunch asked 388,315 of its visitors about their preferred computing platforms. Among the respondents (typically tech-savvy early adopters who may not represent a true cross section of the general public), 52% identified themselves as PC people while 25% said they were Mac aficionados. The rest declined to answer the question or didn't consider themselves loyal to any computing platform. By combining this data with the results of over 80 million other responses to "Teach Hunch About You" questionnaires, Hunch found some interesting correlations between choice of operating system and a variety of other personal preferences. According to the overall results, Mac users tend to be hummus-gobbling vegetarian city-dwellers who enjoy fancy foods and art-house movies. Or perhaps hummus-gobbling vegetarian city-dwellers prefer Macs -- correlational data is tricky like that. What do think? Do these results accurately reflect reality? Or do they falsely endorse long-standing stereotypes for Mac and PC fans? Discuss in the comments.

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Apps By Dana Franklin

Twitterrific 4.1 for iOS released, includes username auto-complete and spam reporting

Here's something to write up to 140 characters about. The Iconfactory deployed version 4.1 of its award winning Twitter client, Twitterrific, to the App Store on Thursday. The new version offers users a smorgasbord of enhancements and bug fixes. Macworld's "Twitter Client of the Year" in 2010 and a favorite among many of us here at TUAW, Twitterrific is available for free as an ad-supported version. An in-app upgrade allows customers to ditch the advertisements and manage multiple Twitter accounts for US$4.99. The app is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad and requires iOS 4.0 or later. Continue reading to see a full listing of new features and bug fixes offered in Twitterrific version 4.1.

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