It’s the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You’ll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what’s happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today’s Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here . No Flash? Click here to listen . Subscribe via RSS Daily Update for April 23, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Daily Update for April 23, 2013
Time magazine’s annual list of the top 100 most influential people in the world is out and Apple design guru Jony Ive made the list. Ive’s write-up in the magazine was penned by none other than U2 frontman Bono, who you might remember had a particularly close relationship with Steve Jobs and a long-standing working relationship with Apple with respect to Bono’s Project Red initiative. Bono writes of Ive: Jony Ive is himself classic Apple. Brushed-steel, polished-glass hardware, complicated software honed to simplicity. His genius is not just his ability to see what others cannot, but also how he applies it. To watch him with his workmates in the holy of holies, Apple’s design lab, or on a night out is to observe a very rare esprit de corps. They love their boss, and he loves them. What the competitors don’t seem to understand is you cannot get people this smart to work this hard just for money. Jony is Obi-Wan. Ive’s inclusion on the list shouldn’t be all that surprising when you consider that there are currently hundreds of millions of Apple products in use worldwide that bear the design influence and sensibilities of Ive. What’s more, Ive’s influence on the products we use is only bound to increase in the years to come. While Ive has historically been a driving force in the industrial design of Apple’s products, his design taste will soon be apparent in Apple’s software as well. Remember that Ive, following the unceremonious departure of Scott Forstall, was put in charge of Apple’s Human Interface design this past October. We should get a first glimpse of Ive’s software aesthetic when Apple unveils iOS 7 at WWDC this year. That is, of course, if Apple can get it finished on time. Recent reports have suggested that Apple’s next-gen mobile OS is running a tad behind schedule , so much so that Apple was reportedly forced to pull engineers working on OS X 10.9 to help out with iOS 7 development efforts. Returning to Time’s list of 100 influential figures for a second, there are two other points of interest worth mentioning. First, Samsung CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon made the cut, and his write-up was, oddly enough, penned by former Apple CEO John Sculley. Second, Greenlight Capital hedge fund manager David Einhorn also made the list. You might remember that Einhorn caused a small stir in financial circles earlier this year when he sued Apple for not returning enough of its cash to shareholders. Einhorn subsequently dropped the suit in March. Jony Ive named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments 
After reviewing a cubic buttload of Bluetooth speakers over the last few years, it takes a lot to get me excited. Fortunately, I recently received a Bēm Mobile Speaker (US$69.99) to test and it restored my faith in accessory manufacturers being able to create things I’d like to buy. Design The Bēm (pronounced “beam”) Mobile Speaker is small; a cube 2.5 inches on a side weighing a scant 8.6 ounces. I somehow think that Steve Jobs would have approved of the cube design… Don’t think that because it’s tiny that it can’t pump out the sound. My first test with the speaker came when my wife was on a phone call downstairs, and she was wondering why I was blasting music. When I showed her how small the speaker was, she was as impressed as I am. Gallery: Bēm Mobile Speaker The review Bēm was flat black; it also comes in purple, red, green, orange and white. The surface is made of a soft touch plastic material that gives it a good feel when you’re handling it. There’s a gray base of the same material on the bottom that keeps the Bēm from sliding on slick surfaces. There are minimal buttons on the Bēm; just volume up/down buttons and a play/pause button on the front and a power/pair button on the base. On the back of the unit are aux in/out audio ports, a mini-USB port for charging, and two tiny LEDs; one to indicate Bluetooth connectivity, the other to indicate charging status. Functionality Like I mentioned, I just can’t believe the sound that comes out of this diminutive box. It’s not stereo, of course, being a single speaker, but Bēm makes up for it with sheer volume. It’s surprisingly good sound, with very little distortion even with the volume all the way up. The buttons didn’t work too well for me; I’m not sure if the device has gone through a bunch of reviewers or if I had a unit that was slightly defective, but the touch buttons seemed to be a little flaky in operation. A few taps on the up volume would work fine, but then unexpectedly the volume would be at maximum. Strange… I love the fact that Bēm chose to use a nice small AC adapter for charging instead of one of the huge bricks that some other manufacturers have included with speakers. The fact that they even included an AC adapter is a good thing; many manufacturers now are just including a USB cable. Pairing was a cinch and quite fast; no special buttons or codes were required, it just paired. I was pretty happy with that process. I was unable to test the battery life of the Bēm Mobile Speaker; the company says that it will last for about six hours on each charge. Conclusion The Bēm Mobile Speaker is an extremely portable and surprisingly loud Bluetooth speaker that is a perfect companion for your iOS device. Pros Reasonably priced for a quality Bluetooth speaker Simple pairing process Very loud volume, good sound quality Attractive and simple design Includes small AC adapter Cons Buttons on review device were a little flaky Who is it for? Anyone who wants a powerful speaker that takes up very little space. Bēm Mobile Speaker will have you beaming originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments 
What could be more helpful during baseball season than a weather app aimed at conditions around your local ballpark? Ballpark Weather comes to the rescue with all sorts of helpful information to make game day more enjoyable and help you prepare when Mother Nature throws you a curve. Ballpark Weather is based on information from the highly regarded Rain Aware app . There’s a wealth of information within the app. You can look around the National and American Leagues and see where it’s raining and when it will stop. There’s also radar images, wind and sunset times, extended forecasts and more. Y ou can even save your favorite teams for quick access. Gallery: Ballpark Weather This is the kind of app a baseball fan will love. Everything loads quickly, and I didn’t have any unpleasant surprises using it. Ballpark Weather is very worthwhile for $0.99. While you can get some of the weather information from other apps, the targeted baseball information is extremely useful. Ballpark Weather is an iPhone app, but it looks OK enlarged on the iPad. The app is optimized for the iPhone 5 and requires iOS 4.3 or later. Ballpark Weather for iPhone is handy and timely originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments 
Great. Now I have that ” Lions and Tigers and Bears… ” meme running through my head. Well, fortunately that will disappear in a few minutes when TUAW TV Live starts up with another week of chat and discussion of the news. So what’s all this about printers? Well, after 10 years of faithful service, my old HP printer finally turned over and died, so I ended up getting a new printer. That got me thinking about how amazing these things are now, and how they’re really nothing more than a cheap come-on to sell expensive printer cartridges. Below, you’ll find a Ustream livestream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to participate by asking questions or making comments. You’ll be watching the show in glorious HD! You can also join in on the chat by pointing your favorite IRC client towards server chat1.ustream.tv, chat room #tuaw-tv. If you’re driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you’re stuck in traffic, please don’t — keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone and join the chat by downloading the free Ustream App . It’s a universal app and is wonderful on an iPad, both for viewing and participating in the chat. In addition, the live stream and chat will be available through our Facebook page . Just point your browser here to watch the show and chat with other viewers while you’re on Facebook. We’ll start at about 5 PM ET, so if you’re seeing a prerecorded show, be sure to refresh your browser until you see the live stream. For those of you who are not able to join us for the live edition, you’ll be able to view it later this evening on our TUAW Video YouTube channel and as part of the TUAW TV Live podcast viewable in iTunes or on any of your Apple devices. TUAW TV Live: Printers and share prices and stuff, oh my! originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments 
The winners of the 2013 Pulitzer Prizes were announced Monday, with the New York Times winning this year’s prize for explanatory reporting . The award was for the paper’s “iEconomy” series investigating the way business has adapted to the changing global economy, largely focusing on Apple. The reporting lead to changes in the Chinese factories where Apple products are made. Criticism was leveled at the reports for focusing too much on Apple, without addressing the other tech companies who also use cheap Chinese labor for production. The Pulitzer Prize is a annual series of awards given to recognize excellence in journalism and the arts. NYT wins Pulitzer for Apple ‘iEconomy’ investigations originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments 
Apple decided to push a lot of updates this afternoon, most of them related to a Java update that disables the Java SE 6 applet plug-in. By disabling the plug-in, Apple is allowing consumers to re-enable it on a case-by-case basis. Apple has provided a full guide to the new plug-in options. We have the full rundown of updates below: Java for OS X 2013-002 Java for OS X 2013-002 delivers improved security, reliability and compatibility by updating Java SE 6 to 1.6.0_43. On systems that have not already installed Java for OS X 2012-006, this update disables the Java SE 6 applet plug-in. To use applets on a web page, click on the region labeled “Missing plug-in” to download the latest version of the Java applet plug-in from Oracle. Safari 6.0.4 and 5.1.9 Safari 6.0.4 and 5.1.9 (for those on Snow Leopard) allow you to enable the Java web plug-in on a website-by-website basis. Aperture 3.4.4 The Aperture update largely centers around a bug that could cause the program to quit during image importing and spamming users with warning dialog boxes after their Macs have been asleep. The full list of changes include : Addresses an issue that could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly during image import. Nikon P7700 RAW images are now displayed correctly in the Import window. Thumbnails with version names longer than 250 characters are now displayed correctly. Fixes an issue that could cause multiple warning dialogs to appear when web albums are synced after waking from sleep. Addresses an issue that could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly when uploading photos to Photo Stream. Shared Photo Stream invitation lists now scroll correctly. Includes stability and performance improvements. iPhoto 9.4.3 A hefty iPhoto update, clocking in at 730.91 MB, focuses on OS X Mountain Lion compatibility. The full list of changes include: Photos can now be deleted from My Photo Stream by dragging to the Trash. Photos can now be exported from Photo Stream using the Export command in the File menu. RAW images manually imported from My Photo Stream are now editable. Fixes a bug that could cause manually rotated photos to appear unrotated when shared to Photo Stream. Addresses an issue that could cause iPhoto to quit unexpectedly while syncing to Facebook. Resolves an issue that could cause calendar text to appear at the wrong font size, resulting in order cancellation. Fixes an issue that could cause books to have an incorrect number of pages after rearranging two-page spreads. Includes stability improvements. Then, there are the usual plethora of printer software updates, including Canon laser printers , Epson printers and HP printer drivers . All of these updates are available through Software Update or via the Mac support page . Slew of updates include Java, Safari, iPhoto and Aperture originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments