I'm not an organizational wizard. Neither is my wife. We've got busy schedules, artistic personalities, and cleaning is often the last thing on our minds. Worst of all, when we do finally find time to clean things have usually gotten so bad we' don't know where to start. Enter BrightNest.

BrightNest is a iOS app and website that makes organizing home improvement tasks a breeze. The app is offers users eight possible areas of home improvement to choose from.

• Handy for maintenance
• Healthy for keeping away germs
• Green for lessening environmental impact
• Savvy for saving money
• Curious for educational lessons
• Clean for keeping messes away
• Creative for DIY projects
• Hungry for meals and snacks

Each section features a list of articles that easily explain what your task is, how long it will take, and what...

One surprise is that the new spyware found on Oslo Freedom Forum members' systems has a valid Apple Developer ID.

Pebble, the popular bluetooth smartwatch that raised over $10M on Kickstarter before shipping to backers in January, today announced the release of an updated SDK and APIs that will allow iOS and Android developers to create apps for the platform. Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky had this to say about the updates:
“The tremendous response we received from Kickstarter backers validated our belief in the value of a smart watch as a wearable computer, but also in the value an open platform brings to truly personalizing the watch to their daily activities”, said Eric Migicovsky, Pebble’s founder. “This new investment will help us build out the Pebble development ecosystem and deliver on Pebble’s extraordinary potential.”
The updated Pebblekit SDK will now allow developers to create third-party apps that will be able to send and receive data to apps on...

When in doubt, offer some additional competition.
Per AppleInsider, Google on Wednesday introduced its long-anticipated Spotify competitor: Google Play Music All Access, a “uniquely Google approach” to subscription music service.
Google engineering director Chris Yerga announced the new music service during the keynote for the search giant’s annual Google I/O developer conference. As was previously rumored, the streaming service is similar to popular music service Spotify, but it also adds elements similar to Internet radio service Pandora.
“We set out to build a music service that didn’t just give you access to the world of music,” Yerga said, “but also helped guide you through...

In the race for third mobile platform, there’s a new favorite: Windows Phone.
According to new research from IDC, Microsoft’s mobile operating system accounted for 3.2 percent of global smartphone shipments in the first quarter. That’s a significant gain from the OS’s performance in the first quarter of 2012, which saw it capture a market share of 2 percent. And it was enough for Windows Phone to unseat BlackBerry from its third-place spot and claim the rank for its own.
Admittedly, ousting BlackBerry wasn’t exactly a difficult task. In the first quarter, the struggling handset maker saw its share of global smartphone shipments halved year over year. In Q1 of 2012, it claimed a 6.4 percent share. This year, BlackBerry managed to snag only 2.9 percent.
An unfortunate loss of momentum for BlackBerry, though one that’s not entirely attributable to the ascension of other platforms and...

JellyBus, the makers of popular iOS image editing software PicsPlayPro, recently launched a collage making app, Moldiv, and packed it full of features that'll appeal to creative types who are looking to throw together a beautiful collage.

The first thing you notice about Modiv is the large number of frames available at your fingertips. There are 80 free frames and 60 premiums that you can buy as a pack via a US$1.99. Moldiv's basic frames provide you with a variety of columnar and angular layouts that are sufficient for most users.

The next thing you notice about Modiv is how easy it is to use. Tap on your frame to select your photo layout and then tap on a section to add a photo. You can pull the photo from your photo gallery or take a new one using the camera. Once you add in your photos, you can spend a few minutes tweaking...

An iPhone-driven e-wallet service from Apple could simplify checking out at the store by presenting users with options based on data such as their location, current balance, or applicable rewards cards.  ...

There’s some cool stuff coming out of Google IO 2013 and this is no exception.
Per Android Central, Google has announced that new features will be coming to the Google Maps for iPhone later this summer and, what’s more, it’ll be getting an iPad-specific interface as well.
Albeit unconfirmed at this point, the new version could also incorporate Google’s new five-point rating system, integrated Google Offers, and more.
Also interesting, Google Maps in the browser will be using WebGL, which could be interesting depending on how it’s implemented.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Kinivo has released the BTH240 Bluetooth-connected headphones. The on-ear wireless headphones provide hands-free calling via a built-in noise canceling microphone.
read more

[Updated with the winner's name, the winning app and other details] The App Store has officially surpassed 50 billion downloads, Apple has announced. The company has now announced the winner of the associated contest. Brandon Ashmore of Mentor Ohio, who downloaded the 50 billionth app, will get a $10,000 App Store gift card; meanwhile, 50 runner-ups will each get a $500 card....  ...

Moving into Union Square is great for Apple.
∞ Read this on The Loop

Shipments of Windows Phone devices have overtaken those of BlackBerry phones for the first time, according to a report. Numbers from IDC places the Microsoft mobile operating system in third place, still a considerable away behind iOS and Android shipments, which are said to make up 92.3-percent of all shipments when combined....  ...

Having originally upgraded to 10.8 from 10.7, all of my applications' desktop assignments in (now) Mission Control were already set. I recently decided to wipe and install a fresh copy of OS X 10.8.3, and discovered that, for many of my apps, the option to "Assign to..." particular desktops or to all desktops was missing. After roaming through forum after forum I finally found a workaround for this bug.

Thankfully it's relatively simple. If you right-click on the Dock icon of a running application and you find that the "Assign to..." option is missing from the "Options" sub-menu (and of course you have multiple desktops setup in Mission Control first), if you launch the application from LaunchPad, the option to assign the application to a particular desktop will a) magically appear, and b) continue to use that assigned space regardless of how it is launched in the future.

Hope this is helpful. I spent a few good afternoons trying to fix this. Supposedly t ...

Apple CEO Tim Cook has apparently been scheduled to testify before the United States Senate next Tuesday in an investigation into corporations moving funds into offshore accounts to reduce their tax liability. Mr. Cook will be speaking before the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and while Apple has an estimated US$100 billion outside the United States, the hearing isn't being used to charge the company with any wrongdoing.
The Mac Observer Spin:
It's a safe bet that Apple made sure it isn't violating any tax laws before it started moving money outside of the United States, so the Senate subcommittee is most likely looking for information it can use to push for changes that make it easier for the government to take a cut of that cash.

Apple's San Francisco flagship retail store has been a particularly high-profile location for the company since it opened nine years ago, but the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Apple has submitted plans to move the store to a new location three blocks away. The new location at Stockton and Post streets will be directly adjacent to Union Square, the focal point of San Francisco's high-end shopping district.Supervisor David Chiu said he hoped the new silver box-shaped computer store and customer service center would “turbo-charge” the Union Square area, which has long been home to many of the city’s high-end retailers. The new outlet will occupy the space at Stockton and Post streets formerly occupied by Levi’s and be about 45 percent larger than the existing space, though it will include all the same features.Rendering of...

HTML Stripper is a new Apimac application for capturing and cleaning up from HTML code tags the text of any web page. To use you just drag and drop an .html file, portion of code or, even a web address from Safari on the application's window, and the app will serve up text without formatting and code tags.
Thanks to the Strip Clipboard function, text can be copied and automatically cleaned up and be ready to be pasted into your favorite application. HTML Stripper requires Mac OS X 10.6.6 or higher.
read more

Brandon Ashmore from Mentor, Ohio hit the App Store lottery yesterday by downloading the 50 billionth app to be served by Apple's App Store. Namely, it was Say The Same Thing by Space Inch that allowed Brandon to collect his prize, and what a prize it is: an App Store gift card with US$10,000 on it. Have fun spending that, Brandon!Apple announces 50 billionth app download, contest winner originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 May 2013 08:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds....

Google is pissed off that Microsoft made a YouTube app for Windows Phone, but excluded the advertising. Here is a section of Google’s letter:

“Unfortunately, by blocking advertising and allowing downloads of videos, your application cuts off a valuable ongoing revenue source for creators, and causes harm to the thriving content ecosystem on YouTube,” says Google’s letter, addressed to Microsoft’s Todd Brix.

Actually Google, Microsoft has it right — this sounds like a great YouTube app.
∞ Read this on The Loop

A new study by mobile advertising analysts Millennial Media finds that Apple's iOS is again the dominant platform for ad impressions, a measure of the effectiveness and engagement with in-app advertising. The report found growth in ad impressions across platforms and manufacturers, apart from BlackBerry which continued to shed users. Apple again swept the hardware results, taking the top manufacturer, top smartphone, and top tablet. Google's Android platform, however, continues to make great strides in growth.... ...

Much respect.

Apple's iPhone 5 is getting another battery-boosting accessory from mophie, as the company announced the availability of the juice pack plus, which boosts the battery life of Apple's newest handset by 120 percent.   ...

A teenage girl alone in a remote farmhouse; an absent father, a boyfriend off at college... and a locked door that conceals a tragic secret. These are the creepy, chilling tropes on display in Haunting Melissa, a serialized video horror story delivered in the form of an iOS app available today on the App Store. Watching the first episode is free, and then you'll wait -- and pay -- to keep going with the narrative.

Haunting Melissa, and the underlying Hooked Digital Media content management platform that drives the serialized episode releases, is the brainchild of Hollywood producer Neal Edelstein. Edelstein has some serious scares on his resume: he produced The Ring and The Ring 2. He describes the Haunting Melissa experience as "a ghost...

Apple has announced that customers have downloaded over 50 billion apps from the AppleApp Store (excluding re-downloads and updates). Customers are downloading more than 800 apps per second at a rate of over two billion apps per month, the company says.
The 50 billionth app was Say the Same Thing by Space Inch, which was downloaded by Brandon Ashmore from Mentor, Ohio. He received a $10,000 App Store Gift Card to commemorate this historic milestone.
read more

DODOcase just announced the perfect accompaniment to Victor's post earlier this week about when and how to use paper versus software. DODONotes (US$13.95) weds a high-quality paper notebook to your iPhone.

Gallery: DODONotes

It's a simple idea, really -- the DODONotes notebook has a cutout on the front of it that is just perfectly sized for an iPhone 5, 4S or 4. There's an elastic band that holds the notebook securely to the iPhone. With a quick pull, you take the notebook off of your iPhone...

Apple announced on Thursday that the application downloaded to reach the App Store's 50 billion milestone was "Say the Same Thing" by Space Inch, landing an Ohio man a $10,000 gift card.  ...

Apple wrapped up its latest iOS App Store promotion on Wednesday when the 50 billionth app was downloaded, and Thursday morning the company announced the app thathit the major milestone was the free word guessing game Say the Same Thing. According to the company, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users are downloading apps at more than 800 per second, or over 2 billion a month.
The Mac Observer Spin:
It took five years to hit 50 billion App Store downloads. At the current download rate, Apple will hit 100 billion in about two years.

Gains made by Google's Android platform chipped away at the smartphone market share of Apple's iOS in the first quarter of 2013, while Microsoft's slow-growing Windows Phone managed to surpass BlackBerry in the battle for third place.  ...

As if you needed any further reminding that phone and tablet games are where it’s at, take a look at the new portable gaming report that IDC and App Annie are releasing today.
The report, obtained in advance by AllThingsD, shows just how different the new generation of mobile games is from the gaming-only devices that previously reigned supreme. For context, back in Q4 2012, total consumer spending on games for iOS and Android devices surpassed spending on “gaming-optimized handhelds” (that is, Sony’s PSP and Vita, and Nintendo’s DS, DSi and 3DS).
But the real bombshell is in the new report, which covers Q1 2013: In that quarter, consumer spending on Sony’s and Nintendo’s handhelds declined significantly, while iOS and Google Play spending both increased, also significantly. Combined, the phone and tablet crowd spent nearly three times as much on games as...

Hot on the heels of iPhone 5 promotions from T-Mobile and Verizon, AT&T appears to have thrown its hat into the ring with reports that existing, upgrade-eligible customers are being targeted in a new email. The email offers special trade-in pricing for used iPhone 4S models, promising up to $200 in credit towards the cost of an iPhone 5 -- effectively cancelling out the up-front cost of moving up. Appleinsider reports that the email may be only a regional promotion instead of national.... ...

For the ninth year in a row, CEOs rate Texas as the #1 state in which to do business, according to Chief Executive Magazine's annual Best & Worst States Survey.
Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee and Indiana also made the top five. The states rated worst for business are California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
read more

At nearly three and a half hours, you’d think Google would have been able to get all the news into its I/O keynote address on Wednesday.

But there were actually a few announcements that missed the cut.
One of the more interesting was a commitment by Google to support advanced Bluetooth natively in its Android operating system. Google had supported basic Bluetooth for specific things like keyboards and headphones, but had yet to build-in support for the latest version of the wireless technology.
The new move opens up opportunities for a range of new accessories, including very-low-power devices.
“I think that opportunity is actually going to be huge,” said Steve Hegenderfer, director of developer relations for the group that oversees the Bluetooth specification. Hegenderfer said that Bluetooth...

An Apple patent filing discovered on Thursday describes a system in which a primary iOS device, such as an iPhone, remotely controls multiple secondary devices, which can also be iPhones, as slave flashes for the first handset's on-board camera.  ...

Larry Page, on stage at I/O today:

Every story I read about Google is ‘us versus some other company’
or some stupid thing, and I just don’t find that very interesting.
We should be building great things that don’t exist. Being
negative isn’t how we make progress. Most important things are not
zero sum, there is a lot of opportunity out there.

Google fans seem to eat this kumbaya stuff up, to really believe it. But Google is the company that built Android after the iPhone, Google Plus after Facebook, and now a subscription music service after Spotify. They entered the RSS reader market, wiped it out, and are now just walking away from it. Gmail? Webmail but better. Think about even web search: Google search wasn’t something new; it was something better. Way, way, way better, but still.

Consider maps. Google Maps entered a market where MapQuest and others had been...

FreeCiv is one of my favorite open source projects out there. Civilization is one of my favorite games, and FreeCiv is an open source version that you can download and play for free. The latest update of the game has added an HTML 5 version, which means that you can now load up and play FreeCiv right in any compatible browser. And that includes mobile Safari, which means you can now navigate to play.freeciv.org on one of your iOS devices, and play the game at will.

Pretty excellent. There is no version of FreeCiv in the App Store, unfortunately, though there has been a port to Android just recently. And Civilization Revolution has been available on both iPad and iPhone for a while now -- it's a simpler, more accessible...

America's number two wireless telecom and Apple partner carrier AT&T recently started sending out promotional emails to certain iPhone 4S owners on its network, saying that they can take advantage of special trade-in pricing that effectively negates the upfront cost of a 16-gigabyte iPhone 5.  ...

US Department of Justice filings in the e-book price-fixing case against Apple reveal an exchange between former Apple CEO Steve Jobs and News Corporation/HarperCollins' James Murdoch, notes AllThingsD. In the course of a Jobs-penned email, which dates back to January 2010, the CEO explains why Apple is proposing to tie e-book prices to hardcover ones. "We simply don't think the e-book market can be successful with pricing higher than $12.99 or $14.99," Jobs writes....  ...

Political is reporting that Tim Cook is set to testify at a Senate hearing next week that is investigating the offshore tax practices of American corporations:

Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to testify at the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation's hearing Tuesday, POLITICO has learned.

Apple has been under fire for its tax practices. The company recently avoided paying as much as $9.2 billion in taxes by buying back stock with debt instead of offshore cash, Bloomberg reported. Apple has a reported $100 billion in offshore funds.

The hearing is part of the panel's continued examination of how companies shift profits offshore and how that impacts the tax code. Representatives from Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard testified in September 2012 in a hearing on the same topic.

Tax avoidance by big corporations is (finally) become a hot topic in the US. Here in the...

From 9to5Toys.com:

Today, Mophie introduced a bigger, badder iPhone 5 battery case called the Juice Pack Plus ($120) which contains a 2100mAh battery pack. That’s 120% of the iPhone 5 battery’s size and can double its life. The cases come in White, Black and Product (Red). Mophie previously had a 2000mAh Juice Pack Plus for iPhone 4/4S (...

The DOJ wants to put Apple on ice for collusion on ebooks’ price. Elsewhere, if an iPhone button wiggles, is it more than just a niggle? And to get some relief, Siri asks you to please keep it brief. The remainders for Wednesday, May 15, 2013 like to rhyme all of the time.

U.S. Now Paints Apple as ‘Ringmaster’ in Its Lawsuit on ebook Price-Fixing (New York Times)

According to the Department of Justice, Apple masterminded the price-fixing scheme, cajoling and threatening the poor innocent publishers into its nefarious schemes. Supporting evidence includes emails from Apple execs to publishers, as well as a recording of ex-CEO Steve Jobs sitting in his office and laughing maniacally.

...

Google's YouTube on Wednesday sent a cease and desist letter to Microsoft requesting the company remove the made-for-Windows Phone YouTube client app from its store, citing a number of reasons for the takedown, one of which being an inability to garner advertising revenue.  ...

Accessory maker Newer Technology announced today the NewerTech GripBase Podium floor stand for securely elevating the Apple iPad 2, 3, 4 and iPad mini to provide for maximum user viewing comfort in any setting. The podium ranges from a viewing height of 38 inches to nearly five feet, and features 360 degree rotation....  ...

Rovio has announced, via tweet and then by news release, that it has lined up a deal and a date with Sony Pictures to distribute the upcoming Angry Birds movie. Rovio's been working on putting the frustrated fowl into a motion picture for a while, but this announcement makes it more or less a done deal -- all that needs to happen is that it gets made. Rovio says the movie will be out in theaters on July 1, 2016.

The film will be in 3D (and animated, of course). It'll be produced by "Despicable Me" producer John Cohen, along with David Maisel. There's no director or writer yet announced, but this isn't exactly rocket science: Odds are that there will be green pigs stealing the birds' eggs, and the birds will have to team up together in a heartwarming way to get revenge. In fact, Rovio, if you need a hand, I could punch out a...

Digital game marketplace Steam has added a new feature -- in-game Steam Trading Cards. Steam Trading Cards are virtual cards earned by playing games on Steam. Sets of cards can be turned into game badges and tradable Steam community items, including discounts on titles or downloadable content, profile graphics, and custom game-related emoticons....  ...

Google's long rumored music streaming service became a reality today with the announcement of Google Play Music All Access. The company has already cleared licensing deals with all three major labels left standing - Warner, Universal, and Sony - meaning they'll have millions of songs available upon launch.

Beyond the expected streaming service, All Access will also feature a Pandora-like radio service that allows each individual song to become a radio station with a simple button press. The service will also feature a component called Listen Now, which will highlight new releases and recommendations based on your listening habits. Music from your Google Music locker will also be included.

All Access will require a monthly fee of $9.99, with no free ad-supported option like competitor Spotify, though anyone who signs up before June 30th will get $2 off the...

Florida woman Debra Hilton filed a class action suit against Apple alleging that the power button on the iPhone 4 sports a manufacturing defect that Apple is well aware of and chose not to fix. The suit specifically claims that the iPhone 4's flex cable is defective and designed to cause the power button to malfunction shortly after the 1-year warranty on the device expires, thereby forcing users to either get it repaired for $149 or spring for an entirely new device.

The complaint reads in part:

The Apple iPhone 4 is plagued by a latent defect that causes its Power Button to fail, usually shortly after the 1 year warranty covering the device has expired, thereby rendering the phone unusable.

Apple knew when it manufactured, marketed, and sold the device that this defect existed, but failed to disclose it, instead touting the purported superior attributes of the...

The United States Department of Justice has described Apple’s defense against allegations that it conspired to illegally fix e-book prices “unconvincing” and “untethered from both precedent and logic.”
Evidently, Apple feels much the same way about the DOJ’s charges.
In an 81-page April 26 filing that was made public today, Apple pointedly denied federal prosecutors’ accusations, saying the discussions they’ve painted as collusion were simply tough business negotiations and that their end result — an “agency” e-book pricing model where publishers, not retailers, set prices — made the e-book market more competitive, not less.
“Apple did not conspire to fix e-book prices,” the company said in its filing. “The evidence proves that Apple acted independently, to further its own legitimate business goals, in negotiating agency agreements with the publishers to enter the e-book market.”
Apple...

A week following the previous build, Apple has released build 12E52 of the OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4 beta to developers. Apple, once again, asks developers to focus on WiFi, Graphics Drivers, and Safari.

//

We previously noted that 10.8.4 includes support for Mac computers with 802.11ac WiFi chips.
While 10.8.4 is a minor update to OS X Mountain Lion, Apple also has a major release launching in the next couple of months. We ...

Statement by Apple spokesman Steve Dowling:

“Apple is one of the largest taxpayers in the United States, having paid $6 billion in federal corporate income tax in fiscal 2012,” Dowling said in a statement. “We also help create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S. by keeping our R&D in California and creating category-defining products like the iPhone, iPad and the app store, which has generated billions of dollars in sales for software developers.”

If they are going to ask Apple about its offshore money, they should ask the politicians too.
∞ Read this on The Loop

Apple CEO Tim Cook will testify in front of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation next week, Politico is reporting. The subcommittee is attached to the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The hearing, titled "Offshore Profit Shifting and the U.S. Tax Code - Part 2" will occur at 9:30AM on Tuesday May 27th in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The Subcommittee will continue its examination of the structures and methods employed by multinational corporations to shift profits offshore and how such activities are affected by the Internal Revenue Code and related regulations. Witnesses will include representatives from the Department of the Treasury, the Internal...

Apple’s App Store today reached 50 billion downloads, as noted by the end of the official countdown. As the site says, “The grand prize winner will be announced soon. Stay tuned.” The person who downloaded the 50 billionth app will win…

Gizmodo:

On December 21st of last year, Commander Hadfield and his team (Expedition 35) docked with the ISS after a two-day flight in aboard a Soyuz TMA-07M, and began their mission.

Hadfield was the first to realize, on a large scale, that we don’t want a lecture, we just want to see cool stuff. So he told what amounts to the Good Parts version of living in space. He got results, too. His most popular video has 7 and a half million views, with several more in the millions or hundreds of thousands.

Commander Hadfield made all Canadians very
∞ Read this on The Loop

You can’t knock improved language support.
CrossOver, the popular virtualization program from CodeWeavers, has been updated to version 12.2.1. The new version, a 78.9 megabyte download, is available as a demo, offers the following fixes and changes:
- Updated Chinese support,
CrossOver 12.2.1 retails for US$59.95 and requires Mac OS X 10.6 and or later and an Intel-based Mac to install and run.
If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback to offer, please let us know in the comments.

Apple announced that its 50 billion download promotion is over, though the company has yet to announce the winner of the event. Announced on May 2nd, the App Store's home page now shows the simulator counter at 50 billion, and clicking through to that page offers the following image:

Politico reports today that it has learned Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to testify at a Senate hearing next week related to an investigation into the offshore tax practices of the company:
Apple has been under fire for its tax practices. The company recently avoided paying as much as $9.2 billion in taxes by buying back stock with debt instead of offshore cash, Bloomberg reported. Apple has a reported $100 billion in offshore funds.
The hearing is part of the panel’s continued examination of how companies shift profits offshore and how that impacts the tax code. Representatives from Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard testified in September 2012 in a hearing on the same topic.
Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling provided Politico with the following statement:
“Apple is one of the largest taxpayers in the United States, having paid $6 billion in federal corporate income tax in...

Apple's Stocks app on iOS isn't terribly exciting, but in typical Apple fashion, it does have a bit more functionality lurking beneath the surface.

Pictured below is what you typically see when you fire up the Stocks app.

The information is pretty basic. We see that Apple's current share price is $456, and to the right of that in green we see how much Apple's share price has gone up for the day, in this case $3.98.

If you tap the green rectangle, however, the display changes to reveal Apple's current market cap.

If you tap the green rectangle once more, the information changes yet again, this time displaying Apple's daily gain or loss as a percentage.

So with a few taps, one can quickly toggle through Apple's market cap and information as to how the stock is performing percentage wise or terms of dollars and cents.

But wait, there's more!

If we take another look at the default Stocks view, you'll note that there are three circles at...

Less than two weeks after Apple started counting down to 50 billion app downloads, the App Store on Wednesday reached the landmark number.    ...

Apple's App Store today reached 50 billion downloads since its inception in 2008, and along with the milestone comes the end of the company's "50 Billion App Countdown" promotion launched thirteen days ago. The winner of the promotion, who is yet to be announced, will be awarded a $10,000 gift card valid for App Store, Mac App Store, or any other iTunes Store content. Fifty additional winners will receive $500 gift cards. The milestone is being acknowledged on Apple's website with a graphic showing a "Thanks" message written using award-winning iPad app Paper by FiftyThree. The App Store took nearly 3 years, 8 months to reach 25 billion downloads, with the next...

Google announced on Wednesday that it would be offering customers a version of Samsung's new Galaxy S4 (GS4) that has been stripped of Samsung's layered-on-top interface and other added software. At Google I/O 2013, the company's annual developer conference, Google said that it was "Google's take on Android"*, and that it would sell the device for US$649 direct to consumers.

Google I/O is going down today (as you have probably noticed from all of the Google updates), and one of the new products announced there is a new version of the Google Maps app, due out to the App Store later on this summer. Google says the new Maps app will include integrated information from Zagat, and a redesigned routing process that will now take into account traffic incidents and push you around obstacles in real time. The new version will be targeted at more personal use, so it will combine those reviews with user ratings and even some Google Offers options as well.

Additionally, the app will boast a new tablet experience for the iPad. Google had a road bump with...

This morning at Google I/O the company announced that Google Play is coming to iOS. No, not the Android store, but Google Play Game Services -- a new group of application programming interfaces (APIs) the company is releasing to developers today. The APIs allows gamers to pick up their games across platforms, meaning if some is playing a game on an Android phone and it dies, their game state is uploaded to the cloud allowing them to pick up where they left off on an iPhone.

In addition to cloud save, the new API includes support for achievements and leaderboards. These features will also be worked into its Google+ social network, allowing players to compare stats with their friends. In addition Google+ users will be able to use their Circles in the social network to find friends for online gaming.

You can watch the announcement below.

...

Backblaze is an online backup service, available fo $5/month for unlimited storage. With half of the founding team heralding from Apple, Backblaze is deeply committed to the Mac platform. The service has been designed natively for the Mac platform, integrated into the Mac System Preferences, and developed for the Mac community. Backblaze is available today to help the 94% of users who do not regularly backup their computers. Backblaze offers a free 15‐day trial and is just $5 per month per computer. Effortless Setup Backblaze backs up all data, thereby not requiring the complicated process of deciding which files and folders to backup. The entire installation process is: Click download. Enter email address and password. Click Install. Automatic Backups All data is continuously backed up so users need not remember to start backups. As files are added or changed,they are automatically backed up over the Internet, automatically...

New research from F-Secure Labs on the prevalence of malware on smartphones, along with developer data on game app piracy rates paints a pretty clear -- and damning -- portrait of Android compared to other mobile platforms. The growth in mobile malware on Google's platform is increasing at such a pace that the malware threat is approaching the relative level of compromised Windows systems, while the rampant piracy is driving developers away and making paid apps scarce in favour of the "freemium" model....  ...

You can easily recover your iTunes Store account name if you have forgotten it.

TUAW readers know of my affinity for Belkin WeMo home automation tools, whether I'm using them to get Siri to turn on the Christmas tree or keep my cat cool in the summer. Today Belkin announced IFTTT multi-device control for WeMo switches.

What does that mean? It means that you can now control more than just one WeMo switch in your house with IFTTT recipes. Previously, you could only control one of those devices at a time through IFTTT. Now it's simple to write recipes for multiple switches as seen in the image at the top of this post.

Belkin announced that since the IFTTT.com WeMo Channels launched over 30,000 recipes have been created and over 400 shared recipes are available online. Now I just need to get one more WeMo switch...

In the midst of its Google I/O developer conference, the search giant showed off a redesigned version of its popular mapping app, one that will heighten the competition for Maps supremacy on Apple's iOS mobile platform.  ...

Google announced a new Hangouts app at its I/O conference, which will be available for iOS today. It's not out as I'm typing this, but the brief keynote demo showed a family of participants taking part in a long-running conversation of photos of text.

From what we saw, it looks like Messages with a whole lot more oomph. We'll have a look at it as soon as it has been released.Google announces new Hangout app to hit iOS today originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 15 May 2013 13:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | ...

It wasn’t that long ago that iPhone users were cheering about the release of Google Maps for iOS.

Now Google is readying its next update to the Maps mobile app, which will be rolled out for both Android and iOS devices sometime this summer. The app will be optimized for iPad and Android tablets, as well.
Shown off today at Google I/O by Brian McClendon, Google’s vice president of Maps, the upcoming app seems to take a page from both Foursquare Explore and Waze, improving local venue search as well as live rerouting recommendations.
McClendon showed how a smart search from Maps for “Burmese food” or “pizza” in San Francisco will turn up a bunch of local results that include friends’ ratings — the way Foursquare does — but also...

Google tossed its hat into the online streaming music market on Wednesday with the introduction of its Google Play Music All Access at its annual Google I/O conference. The Interent search giant promised All Access will be available through smartphones and tablets as well as Web browsers, and includes features for searching music, building playlists, and streaming music like radio stations, and is squarely targeted at competing with services such as Pandora, Spotify, Rdio, and Rhapsody.
The Mac Observer Spin:
Google may be the new kid in the streaming music game, but the company pulls a lot of weight. Pandora, Spotify, and every other online music subscription company's job just got a little harder, and if Apple is launching its own rumored service, the barrier for entry just got higher, too.
...

Jon Seff for Macworld:

Like Spotify and its ilk, All Access offers millions of tracks (although Google didn’t say how many millions, or which music labels for that matter) for streaming on Android phones and tablets, as well as from a Web browser. And in the process, Google has also taking a big swing at its Android app partners like Spotify, Rdio, and Rhapsody.

It seems suspicious to me that Google won’t tell us which music labels they have or how many songs they have. That immediately leads to the assumption that it’s not that good.

I’m not at all surprised that Google is taking a swing at its competitors. The third-party app developers and services are making money from Google’s operating system and users — it makes sense that Google would want to cash in on some of that.
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Although the Federal Communications Commission has asked the Federal Aviation Administration to allow more in-flight device use, a new report suggests that pilot reports and scientific studies suspect that passenger electronics are interfering with aviation equipment. More than a decade of reports show “dozens” of cases where electronics were…

Google has unveiled a new unified messaging service that is designed to work on Android, iOS, and the web. Called Hangouts, the app incorporates and unifies several different Google services, including Google Talk, Google+ Messenger, and the existing Google+ Hangouts.Today we're launching a stand-alone version of Hangouts that combines text, photos and live video across Android, iOS and your computer. Now that Hangouts spans modalities and devices, you can finally fuhgeddaboudit (the technology, that is), and focus on what really matters: creating lasting relationships. And that, we think, is a plus.Hangouts, which is similar to Facebook Messenger, places an emphasis on "conversations which last," saving chats between users in the cloud and allowing users to access...

Google today announced that it is revamping the Google voice search feature available in Chrome on the desktop. While users have always been able...

EA has announced that its Frostbite game engine, used to power popular game like "Need for Speed" and "Battlefield 4," is coming to iOS. Dubbed Frostbite Go, the game engine is set to give a big graphics and performance boost to cutting-edge iOS games. From the Frostbite website where the engine was officially announced for the first time:

One of our most exciting current projects is called Frostbite Go, a mobile division empowering EA game developers with Frostbite's proven excellent workflows and features to bring true Frostbite experiences to all major mobile platforms.

Currently there's no release dates for any games using Frostbite Go, but the site does mention that EA games using Frostbite Go are actively in development.EA's Frostbite engine could improve iOS games originally appeared on ...

"Bloomberg" (http://tinyurl.com/bzodlrd) reports that the Pentagon risks exposing itself to hackers by opening its communications networks to Apple and Samsung smartphones and tablets, according to cybersecurity officials.
The Pentagon plans to give employees the flexibility of connecting devices such as Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphones and Apple iPads to unclassified networks -- a market long dominated by BlackBerry. However, this will create more vulnerabilities to cybersecurity breaches, Pat McGarry, principal systems engineer at Ixia, a network security company, told "Bloomberg."
read more

Apple's iBooks app.

Apple

Apple was the "ringmaster" in a conspiracy to fix the prices of e-books at rates higher than those charged by Amazon, US officials said yesterday in court documents.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit last year against Apple and six e-book publishers: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, Pearson, and Simon & Schuster. The trial is scheduled to begin June 3 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Apple has denied being part of any conspiracy, but the government's proposed conclusions of law (PDF) include an e-mail Steve Jobs sent to James Murdoch of HarperCollins' owner News Corp., in which Jobs said HarperCollins should "[t]hrow in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this...

The science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, in his legendary novel, "Stranger in a Strange Land," introduced the concept of the "Fair Witness." A Fair Witness was an expert observer with a perfect memory whose testimony in court was unimpeachable. When you think about it, that's what Google Glass offers.

Google today officially announced its new music subscription service, Google Play Music All Access, at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. As reported yesterday afternoon, the service is designed to compete with Spotify, providing songs on demand that can be streamed to a computer or mobile device. The service, which is built on Google's existing Google Play Music Store, will cost $9.99 per month with a 30-day free trial available. Google is, however, offering a discount for early adopters. Those who begin the free trial by June 30 will pay just $7.99 per month. The Verge has a rundown on a few of the available features for music discovery and recommendations.A recommendation engine will guide...

On Wednesday, Google introduced its long-anticipated Spotify competitor: Google Play Music All Access, a "uniquely Google approach" to subscription music service.   ...

At today's Google I/O keynote, Google unveiled Google Play Game Services, which is designed to compete with Apple's Game Center. Like Game Center, Game Services features real-time multiplayer capabilities, leaderboards, cloud saves, and achievements. The service is not limited to Android developers as Google has developed it to link gaming across Android, iOS, and the web. Google will be providing the SDK for Game Services to both iOS and web developers in addition to Android developers. As noted by Engadget, Game Services more closely resembles the now-defunct OpenFeint social gaming platform than Game Center.Unlike Apple's Game Center application, what Google's offering is backend support for developers rather than a standalone application. Think of it more like OpenFeint than Game Center – you can sign in using your Google+ login in-game, and that login will track your identity (including...

DirecTV has launched a new version of its iPhone app that introduces new voice recognition functionality. Located in a new Voice tab, the voice recognition tool can be used to search for programs by speaking the title, channel, keyword, actors, and more. Also new to this release is a new TV mode that can be used to view dialogue and search results on a TV screen that is connected to an HD DVR running on the same network as the iOS device. Additionally, the TV mode also offers a few of personalize recommendations.... ...

Newer Technology has introduced the GripBase Podium ($45) for the iPad and iPad mini. A floor stand podium, GripBase Podium extends from a 38-inch height to nearly five feet, enabling users to view and interact with an elevated iPad or iPad mini. The podium twists and swivels to…

Hon Hai, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronics suffered their biggest decline in sales in its history, according to a new Bloomberg report. To give this a larger perspective, a new report out of Beijing yesterday stated that "Foxconn's net loss in 2012 was US $316 million, the biggest loss it had suffered since listing in Hong Kong in 2005." So Hon Hai's downward trend has been ongoing since 2012. In April we posted a report titled "Windows 8 is a Disaster Leading the PC Sector to its Worst Quarter in Roughly 20 Years." Bloomberg echoed this in their report by stating that the "failure of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 8 to drive PC growth pushed Hon Hai’s revenue down the most in at least 13 years." So Hon Hai's downward trend isn't caused by an "Apple slowdown" alone, but rather a number of problems with the tech industry at large and the company itself.

You can create a standalone OS X installation drive without having purchased OS X from the App Store.

From 9to5Google:
We knew from leaks in the weeks leading up to I/O that Google was planning some gaming related announcements and today the company has officially announced the service in a press release ahead of its Google I/O keynote taking place now. Not only will the service allow Android developers to build in real-time multiplayer, social features, achievements, and leaderboards while storing game saves and settings in the cloud, the SDK for Google Play game services will also be available to iOS and web developers.
Google noted a few titles for Android have already been updated with the feature including World of Goo, Super Stickman Golf 2, Beach Buggy Blitz, Kingdom Rush, Eternity Warriors 2, and Osmos.
Not surprisingly, the cross-platform gaming service will also build in Google+...

Belkin today announced that it is launching a new TV receiver for iPhone and iPad specifically designed to work with the Dyle Mobile TV service which provides live local broadcasts through a growing number of accessories for mobile devices. We’ve already seen some Dyle TV receivers for iPad,...

It has been busy in the App Store with a handful of new apps landing on iOS and OS X. Take a few minutes and check out our list of standout apps from the past few weeks!

iOS Apps

A Beautiful Mess [iOS Universal; Category: Productivity; $0.99] The photo app from A Beautiful Mess is the easiest way to make pretty photos and to share them with friends.Add new life to your favorite photos with custom filters, fun fonts, and hand-drawn doodles by Elsie and Emma, creators of the award-winning lifestyle blog, "A Beautiful Mess".

Limelight - Your Movie Library [iPhone; Category: Entertainment; $0.99] Limelight is a new way to browse and organize your movie library. Become a movie critic and share your library with friends.

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Google is set to kick off its I/O developer conference with an opening keynote. The company is widely expected to introduce a new Android build, potentially alongside new hardware. Check our live page beginning at 9am Pacific, 12pm Eastern, for updates from the event....   ...

Apple’s creation of the iBooks electronic book store and its agency pricing model was not an altruistic attempt to break Amazon’s grip on the nascent e-book market, but a conspiracy to eliminate price competition and raise e-book prices.
That’s the gist of a new U.S. Department of Justice filing against Apple in the agency’s upcoming lawsuit against the company. According to the DOJ, Apple was the “ringmaster” of a plan that raised mainstream e-book pricing well above the $9.99 price point Amazon had established by shifting the industry from a wholesale model, where retailers set prices, to an agency model where publishers set prices. Among the agency’s evidence supporting that allegation:

• ...

It’s a huge update file, but it might be helpful.
Late Tuesday, Apple released iMovie 9.0.9, the latest version of its consumer-level video editing application. The new version, a 1.08 gigabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:
- Addresses issues where iMovie does not recognize video cameras connected to your Mac.
- Improves compatibility with projects imported from iMovie for iOS.
- Includes stability improvements.
iMovie 9.0.8 requires Mac OS X 10.7.4 or later to install and run and can be snagged manually or via Mac OS X’s built-in Software Update feature.
If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback to offer, please let us know in the comments.

Geneva has announced its Model S Wireless ($300), an updated version of the company’s Model S speaker. The new Model S Wireless removes the 30-pin dock from the top of the speaker, replacing the Apple-specific connector with more broadly compatible Bluetooth streaming capability. It features two full-range 3”…

The launch of Facebook's Home layer on Android appears to have been a flop, with relatively low installation rates and even lower user ratings on Google Play thus far. Now, some observers are blaming an unlikely candidate: Apple's iPhone.  ...

Et tu, power button?

Casey Johnston

Apple has been hit with a class action lawsuit over the power button on its iPhone 4, per a report from GigaOm Wednesday. California resident Debra Hilton alleges that Apple knew about the defective power button in “thousands” of iPhone 4s sold to customers, but the company neglected to do anything about the defect.
The lawsuit describes a problem that begins with a “wiggly” power button, described on Apple’s discussion forums. After about a year of ownership (around when the phone’s warranty expires), the lawsuit states that eventually the button becomes unresponsive, failing to lock or turn off the phone when pressed.
Hilton claims that Apple knew that the source of the defect was in a flex cable connected to the button, but the company continued to sell the phones regardless. GigaOm reports that Hilton is suing...

A mobile version of EA's powerful Frostbite engine, used to create recent titles in series such as "Battlefield" and "Need for Speed," will be coming to Apple's iPhone and iPad.  ...

In response to a U.S. Justice Department court filing alleging that Apple engaged in a price-fixing scheme with book publishers, Apple claims that it acted legally, and negotiated different agreements with the publishing companies. A filing from Apple says that the publishers decided on their own to eliminate wholesale e-book…

Fixes issues recognizing connected video cameras and improves compatibility with iMovie for iOS($14.99 new, free update, 1.08 GB) Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Daniel Eran Dilger:

Malware targeting mobile devices is rapidly growing in both the number of variants found in the wild and in their complexity and sophistication, but the only platform being actively targeted is Google’s Android, which researchers now say is resembling Windows on the desktop PC.

Perfect.
∞ Read this on The Loop

In an interview with 60 Minutes, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates reflected on competing with Steve Jobs and visiting the Apple founder near the end of his life. Gates was uncharacteristically emotional, saying, “He and I, in a sense, grew up together.” Gates also shared a great story about Jobs bailing on a party due to illness, telling Gates’s secretary, “If he wants to know why, tell him I’m an a**hole.” Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Apple has released iMovie 9.0.9 for Mac OS X 10.7.4 or later. It addresses issues where iMovie does not recognize video cameras connected to your Mac.
iMovie 9.0.9 also improves compatibility with projects imported from iMovie for iOS and includes stability improvements. It's available at the Mac App Store or at http://tinyurl.com/aohgjqf .

Earlier this year, we noted that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was continuing to look at the use of personal electronic devices during the taxi, takeoff, and landing phases of commercial flights, hoping to take action by the end of the year to loosen restrictions currently requiring that all devices be powered down during these times. Bloomberg now provides another update on the situation, noting that the airline industry remains divided over whether restrictions should be relaxed as reports of possible interference between these devices and aircraft electronics continue to surface. The report leads with a brief anecdote involving an iPhone:The regional airliner was climbing past 9,000 feet when its compasses went haywire, leading...