Today, we’ve been informed that Apple has removed Airfoil Speakers Touch from the iOS App Store.1 We first heard from Apple about this decision two days ago, and we’ve been discussing the pending removal with them since then. However, we still do not yet have a clear answer on why Apple has chosen to remove Airfoil Speakers Touch.

The stylus with haptic feedback, comes with a built-in haptic actuator and a short-range wireless receiver. The vibration commands are sent via tiny wireless transmitters built into the bezel of your iPad.

Smartphones powered by the Android and iOS mobile operating systems accounted for more than eight out of ten smartphones shipped in the first quarter of 2012 (1Q12). According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, the mobile operating systems held shares of 59.0% and 23.0% respectively of the 152.3 million smartphones shipped in 1Q12. During the first quarter of 2011, the two operating systems held a combined share of 54.4%. The share gains mean that Android and iOS have successfully distanced themselves from previous market leaders Symbian and BlackBerry, as well as Linux and Windows Phone 7/Windows Mobile.

When Apple shipped Mac OS X Lion 10.7, the “Library” folder located within every user’s home folder, which had previously been visible to users in the Finder, was made invisible. To access the Library folder, users must now hold down the option key while selecting the “Go” menu in the Finder.<p>

This is probably a good move for the vast majority of Mac users, but for folks with even a small amount of interest in tinkering with the configuration files and caches of various applications, it’s an outright nuisance.

Apple Inc. is defending its voice-recognition software Siri - she of the iPhone 4S - against claims that it doesn't perform as advertised.</p>
<p><a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/03/12/so-sirious-iphone-user-sues-apple-over-voice-activated-assistant/">A cluster of lawsuits</a> seeking class action status in Oakland, Calif., allege that iPhone 4S commercials and company statements about the phone were false and misleading. Siri, they say, is brilliant on TV, but she's dim in reality…<p>The plaintiffs don’t say how the advertisements are misleading, or how their personal experiences relate to those advertisements, Apple said. And if Siri so disappointed them, they could have — but did not, apparently — avail themselves of Apple’s 30-day return policy, the company said.

When Microsoft announced at the launch of Windows Phone Tango handsets in China that passing the iPhone in China was just an interim goal on the way to overtaking Android, it did seem rather grandiose.<p>

It seems Microsoft was right however, with Michel van der Bel, COO Greater China Region at Microsoft saying that a mere 2 months after the launch Windows Phone 7 handsets already had a 7% market share in China, ahead of the 6% of the iPhone there.

[Kaspersky CTO Nikolay] Grebennikov originally stated that Apple had invited Kaspersky Lab to work with the company on improving its security, but has since issued a clarification. The company has now said that its analysis of OS X was "conducted independently" but that "Apple is open to collaborating with [Kaspersky] regarding new OS X vulnerabilities."</p><p>

In Computing's original interview, Grebennikov was specifically asked three times if Apple had requested Kaspersky Lab's assistance.

Here’s a bit of conspiracy theory: What if Apple wanted to replace Google Maps from a very early point and the company was biding its time until it could acquire and build the core assets and expertise to do so? Maybe that early point was when former CEO Steve Jobs’ attitude toward Google changed, when he began to feel that Android was “a stolen product”?</p><p>

To continue with my conjecture, maybe Apple thought it would be harder to wean iPhone users off a stronger Google-powered mapping product than the comparatively weak one that exists today. I know this seems very contrary to Apple’s culture and corporate ethos. Yet replacing a weaker product with a stronger one is a lot easier than taking away a strong product from users who’ve come to depend on it.

The delay in the vote had been due largely to Nokia's vocal displeasure in Apple's design, saying in March that Apple explicitly violated ETSI's design guidelines for 4FF — guidelines that specified that a nano-SIM should be shaped in such a way that it would be difficult or impossible for a customer to accidentally jam it into a micro-SIM slot. G&D noted to us that Apple's design has now been modified: a small amount of plastic has been added around the edges of the electrical contacts, making the new nano-SIM just long enough so that it can't be forced lengthwise into an incompatible socket. (The tradeoff, of course, is that the revised design is even less different than the micro-SIM it's designed to replace, saving relatively little room inside the phone for other components.)

Do you work for Apple? If so, please suggest - to the highest authority in the company you dare to email directly - that your employer tweaks its update publishing system. Make sure that [security article] HT1222 is updated at the same time as any security-related product update is published, not hours or days later. This will have a positive outcome: your users will apply security fixes more promptly.

At my previous company I had some interaction with the [manufacturer redacted] Android team. I found it very strange that there were several mobile teams at [manufacturer redacted], each building Android devices as part of different market segments. They had one team working on a phone for the low-end of the market, another working on a phone for business users, and so on. Product managers inside of [manufacturer redacted] were responsible for creating product requirements for each handset, then delivering it within a certain budget. There were separate marketing and rollout schedules for each device. The one detail that blew me away was that these different devices were going to ship with different versions of Android. I seem to recall the low end phone was still on 1.5, and the others were 1.6. Holy sh*t. [sic]</p><p>

In contrast, when a new iPhone model is released Apple doesn't shut down the line and liquidate inventory. Rather, Apple keeps some percentage of manufacturing capacity devoted to this legacy model.

There's work and there's your life's work.</p><p>
The kind of work that has your fingerprints all over it. The kind of work that you'd never compromise on. That you'd sacrifice a weekend for. You can do that kind of work at Apple. People don't come here to play it safe. They come here to swim in the deep end.</p><p>
They want their work to add up to something.</p><p>
Something big. Something that couldn't happen anywhere else.</p><p>
Welcome to Apple.

“The thing that made Apple successful was betting against the web,” [venture capital investor Roger McNamee] said on stage at Mashable Connect Friday.</p><p>

While Google adopted the cultural norms of open source software by making its mobile operating system free and commoditizing content, Apple changed the game by keeping a closed system, focusing on brands and enabling paid apps.</p><p>

Apple differentiated web content for a price. By doing so, McNamee believes, it created a fundamentally different model than succeeded on the wired web.</p><p>

“Most of all what Apple did was they charged $400 to $1,000 for the hardware that was necessary to get a differentiated user experience on data that 100% of their customers could get for free off a desktop device,” he said. “Every Apple customer has consciously voted with $400 to $1,000 against the world wide web.”

Last November, not long after an airplane landed at Sydney Airport, crew members discovered a passenger with an iPhone that was literally smoking — and it turns out the problem was a bad repair job. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has finally released the results of its investigation — which included initial testing in Australia before the phone was shipped to specialists in the US — and concluded that a stray screw was the cause of the problem. The screw managed to puncture the battery casing, causing the phone to overheat and start smoking.

Apple has finally given a public nod to OpenStreetMap, almost two months after it began using OSM's mapping data within iPhoto for iOS. The OpenStreetMap team tweeted about the change on Thursday evening, noting that the app, which was updated earlier this week with relatively minor fixes, quietly gained an OSM mention in the credits.

The Galaxy S III is... well... it's ugly. There's really no other way to put it. But why? Why is it ugly? I don't mean aesthetically, why is it ugly, I mean, "How did something like this ever make it out of Samsung's design studio?" I'll tell you how, it was never in the design studio. This phone design was born down the hall, in a room where the door sign reads "Samsung Legal."</p><p>
It was designed by lawyers.

Is Apple blanket-rejecting iOS apps that make use of Dropbox because of an evil plan to push developers toward iCloud? If you asked this question five days ago, the answer from the Internet at large might have been a resounding "yes!" But days later, as is often the case, details have come out that reveal the answer is probably "no."</p><p>

As it turns out, Dropbox inadvertently put other developers using its SDK in violation of one of Apple's app guidelines, resulting in a string of rejections that looked as if apps using Dropbox were being banned. The Web flew into a fury over what is essentially an annoying but long-standing clause in Apple's guidelines. The problem has now been remedied and the fury has died down.

Citing economic conditions, [JP Morgan's] research “does not indicated any looming TV-related product launch”. [Mark] Moskowitz noted that the television market is on shaky ground, it would be a risky move for the Cupertino-based giant to throw itself in the ring unless there was a major pull factor.</p><p>

Apple needs “a radical change of the user interface, integration of the TV programming and data content, and use of gesture or voice control,” Moskowitz noted. Besides a plethora of reasons, the J.P. Morgan analyst doesn’t think Apple would generate a decent profit from the product. “We are not sure that the Apple premium could prevail in the TV market.”

If you don't have time to read the full interview, here's what you need to know:
Liquidmetal looks great, yet is incredibly strong and durable; Apple has exclusive rights to use Liquidmetal in gadgets; It could be a few more years before Apple can make a Liquidmetal MacBook;
Apple will likely wait to use Liquidmetal in a "breakthrough product."

Dr. Web, the Russian security firm that firm discovered the massive Flashback botnet last month, has provided new data on the number of Macs still infected with the software. The results show that while close to 460,000 machines remain infected, the botnet is shrinking at a rate of close to a hundred thousand machines a week as Mac users get around to downloading Apple’s tool for disinfecting their machines or installing antivirus.</p><p>

“It’s going very slowly, and there’s still a ways to go, but I think in a month it will be over,” says Boris Sharov, Dr. Web’s chief executive.

Of the Macs that have been infected by the Flashback malware, nearly two-thirds are running OS X 10.6, better known as Snow Leopard, a Russian antivirus company said Friday.</p><p>

Doctor Web, which earlier this month was the first to report the largest-ever malware attack against Apple Macs, mined data it's intercepted from compromised computers to come up with its findings.

I can already imagine the comments of the libertarians and anti-tax advocates in the comments on this post. "Avoiding taxes is just keeping more of the hard-earned wealth you've created by being productive and successful."</p><p>

But I'd like to suggest a thought experiment. Imagine that you and a large group of friends, or an extended family, decide to hold a reunion or big party that requires renting a space and some real expenses. You agree to share the expenses equally. Then one of you says, "I'm getting us a discount on the hotel from my friend, so I shouldn't have to pay my share." Another two or three say, "I'm helping with the catering, so I shouldn't have to pay." Another: "I'm willing to act as designated driver, so I shouldn't have to pay." Each time, you think, "Yeah, that's reasonable."</p><p>

But before long, things get dicey.

Apple has conducted all of its business with the highest of ethical standards, complying with applicable laws and accounting rules. We are incredibly proud of all of Apple’s contributions.

Apple isn’t a silo-ed conglomerate. One reason Apple won’t be Sony is because the organizational structure is completely different. Sony’s business units break down like this: Content (movies and music), games, TVs, consumer electronics, smartphones and financial services. Sony’s problems largely stem from a lack of coordination between its units. Apple is vertically integrated. Colony’s argument would have more merit to me if Apple suddenly started developing movies.

Based on the Q1 financial reports from Sprint, Verizon and AT&T, Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt estimates that Apple had 59% of the U.S. smartphone market from the country’s top three carriers in the quarter. That was up from 36% a year ago, although down a bit from 63% in the December quarter, a period in which Apple launched the iPhone 4S.</p><p>

McCourt writes that non-iPhone smartphone sell-through appeared to drop 38% year-over-year, while iPhone sell-through grew 55%.

Without knowing them personally, I would look to Apple executives Jon Ive or Scott Forstall to be CEO. From on far they appear to have some of the charisma and outspoken design sense to legitimately lead the company.</p><p>

When Steve Jobs departed, he took three things with him: 1) singular charismatic leadership that bound the company together and elicited extraordinary performance from its people; 2) the ability to take big risks, and 3) an unparalleled ability to envision and design products.  Apple's momentum will carry it for 24-48 months. But without the arrival of a new charismatic leader it will move from being a great company to being a good company, with a commensurate step down in revenue growth and product innovation.

<a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/19522/apples_hot_itravel_plan_for_the_nfc_iphone_5">Apple's patented solution is an app called 'iTravel</a>'. It's an integrated iPhone app which will let you reserve types of transport, including flights and hotels; acts as a boarding pass; at baggage reclaim and delivers local information for where you end up. It even - at least, the patent filing describes - allows for personal identification. In other words, your iPhone won't just be your wallet, but your passport, too.

It's time for Mac users to wake up and smell the coffee. Mac malware is becoming a genuine issue, and cannot be ignored any longer.</p><p>

Sophos products, including our free Mac anti-virus for home users, detect the Trojan horse as OSX/Sabpab-A.</p><p>

Of course, those users who had already protected their computers with Sophos products were already defended against the Java vulnerability.

A cover story in Men’s Journal, called “<a href="http://www.mensjournal.com/nathan-myhrvold">How a Geek Grills a Burger</a>,” casts the former Microsoft chief technology officer as a “mad scientist” living out a “nerd fantasy.”</p><p>
He has a bestselling six-volume cookbook, he studied astrophysics with Stephen Hawking, and his giant Tyrannasaurus rex skeleton has turned his waterfront home into a tourist attraction.</p><p>
And yes, by the way, he tried to convince Microsoft to make the iPhone, basically, more than two decades ago.

This Java security update removes the most common variants of the Flashback malware.</p><p>

This update also configures the Java web plug-in to disable the automatic execution of Java applets. Users may re-enable automatic execution of Java applets using the Java Preferences application. If the Java web plug-in detects that no applets have been run for an extended period of time it will again disable Java applets.

I wish the app developer community luck as far as Lodsys is concerned. I saw that some of the smaller defendants, <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/gedeon/status/190541152125059073">including Iconfactory</a>, settled the dispute on undisclosed terms, presumably because they couldn't afford the cost and deal with risk of protracted litigation. I wish the remaining defendants as well as all those facing the threat of being sued that Apple's intervention will help to get his troll defeated. I also hope that <a href="http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/08/googles-reexamination-requests-against.html">Google's reexamination requests</a> will be successful. I still believe that those large players should do a whole lot more for app developers than what they are doing at this stage (for example, I believe they should give them blanket coverage against litigation costs)

Although Apple is listed as the first defendant, the bulk of the case is really about the publishers involved: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster. According to the government, these publishers greatly feared Amazon's $9.99 Kindle book prices, which they called "wretched," and worked for years on a scheme to raise prices and limit competition. They also feared that consumers would get used to paying $9.99 for bestsellers and ultimately decrease publishing profits.
Apple was more than willing to help; it wanted favorable deals as it entered the ebook market combined with higher margins on more-expensive products.

This is anecdotal, and I don’t have survey numbers to back it up, but I’ve been probably the most prominent writer on Mac security for the past 5 years, and talk to a ton of people in person and over email. Nearly universally Mac users are and have been, concerned about security and malware.</p><p>

So where does this myth come from? I think it’s 3 sources.

Toshiba’s new Excite line, which the Japanese electronics maker is officially announcing today, will include 7.7-inch, 10-inch and 13-inch models. All three Wi-Fi-only tablets are running Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system; they are aluminum-encased, have Gorilla Glass displays, come with a five-megapixel rear camera and a two-megapixel front-facing camera, and include new Nvidia TegraTM 3 processors.</p><p>
The Excite 7.7 also has an AMOLED display, a micro-USB port and a micro-SD card slot; while the Excite 10 has an LED-backlit display, micro-USB and micro-HDMI ports, and a full-sized SD card slot. At 1.32 pounds, the new 10-inch weighs just slightly less than Toshiba’s last tablet.

In addition to very broad popularity, Google and Apple share vast exposure. Just 10% of Americans haven’t formed a basic opinion of Google (rising to 29% of less tech-savvy seniors), and 14% have no opinion of Apple and Facebook alike. Twitter is less well known, with 31% unready to express an opinion of it, jumping to 51% of seniors.

Those competing with Apple have to advertise every new device and computer as being substantially different enough to justify a quicker upgrade cycle. If Apple makes $400 from a low-end MacBook Air that might be in use for five years, and Dell makes $50 (after paying Microsoft for Windows) for a low-end laptop, how quickly does Dell need to sell that person another device? During those five years, Apple might get $29 two or three times for updates to Mac OS X; Dell gets nothing from any Windows upgrades. Apple may also now reap additional dollars from Mac App Store purchases, too. Dell? Nothing.

Which brings us to the other aspect of Microsoft's renaissance: good timing. The once-hipper than Microsoft foes, Google and Apple haven't looked so good these days. Google, the once beloved search company, has users uneasy with its <a href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/03/even-googlers-are-losing-faith-google/50247/">Google+ integration</a>, privacy issues and anti-trust concerns. Even Googlers <a href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/03/yahooization-google/48338/">aren't too sure</a> of Google's mission, these days. Apple still produces insane-popular gadgets, but no longer wows reviewers like it once did. The new iPad is still the best tablet out there, but it&#39;s not a must-have. Plus, it too has gotten itself into its own <a href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/02/theres-easy-fix-apples-latest-iphone-privacy-problem/48732/">privacy messes</a>. It also had the misfortune of acting as the face of the last few months of <a href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/topics/foxconn/">Foxconn scandal</a>. Though the Foxconn protesters that threatened mass suicide back in January made Microsoft's XBox, thanks to Mike Daisey and Apple's financial successes, Apple not Microsoft absorbed most of the bad PR.

Over the last few months, Microsoft has turned its video-game console into your TV’s best friend. Late last year, the company revamped the Xbox’s interface, adding a wonderful voice-search feature through the Kinect motion-gaming add-on. Microsoft also added dozens of entertainment services to its Xbox Live online plan, including Netflix, Hulu, ESPN, and on-demand video from cable and satellite services around the world. This week, the company is <a href="http://majornelson.com/2012/03/27/comcast-xfinity-tv-hbo-go-mlb-tv-now-available-on-xbox-live/">adding access</a> to Comcast’s Xfinity on-demand service, as well as apps for HBO and MLB.TV.

So here’s how things work: Apple does, in fact, display the iPad (and iPhone and iPod Touch) as 100% charged just before a device reaches a completely charged state. At that point, it will continue charging to 100%, then discharge a bit and charge back up to 100%, repeating that process until the device is unplugged.

Doing so allows devices to maintain an optimum charge, Apple VP Michael Tchao told AllThingsD today.

Two weeks ago, a Samsung executive with inside knowledge of Apple’s affairs repeated the all-but-forgotten 7.85-inch iPad mini rumor, and same-day (re)reports of contracted display manufacturers added considerable volume to the mini mania.

Still, rumors are just rumors, and they aren’t particularly convincing in and of themselves. It doesn’t matter how many sources echo some generic sentiment. What does matter is a rumor’s singular specificity. In this case, it’s that pesky 7.85 inches.

And what makes everything even more convincing is that the leaky sources never sought to explain why that number’s so darned significant!

So, allow me.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will be making an application to the Federal Court in Melbourne tomorrow at 9:30am for orders against Apple Pty Limited and Apple Inc (Apple) for alleged contraventions of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).

The ACCC alleges that Apple's recent promotion of the new "iPad with WiFi + 4G" is misleading because it represents to Australian consumers that the product "iPad with WiFi + 4G" can, with a SIM card, connect to a 4G mobile data network in Australia, when this is not the case.

I'm incredibly conflicted, because as much as I love the do-anything computer …

I'm not sure that many people in the world truly need a general purpose computer that can do anything and install any kind of software. Simply meeting the core needs of browsing the web and email and maybe a few other basic things covers a lot of people.

I believe the kitchen-sink-itis baked into the general purpose computing foundations of PCs, Macs, and Unix make them fundamentally incompatible with our brave new Post PC world. Updates. Toolbars. Service Packs. Settings. Anti-virus. Filesystems. Control panels. All the stuff you hate when your Mom calls you for tech support? It's deeply embedded into of the culture and design of every single general purpose computer. Doing potentially "anything" comes at a steep cost in complexity.

Very, very small PCs – the kind you could fit in your pocket – are starting to have the same amount of computing grunt as a high end desktop PC of, say, 5 years ago. And that was plenty, even back then, for a relatively inefficient general purpose operating system.

In our reporting, as “Inside Foxconn” detailed, we found a group of workers who have complaints, but complaints not starkly different from those of workers in any other company. The biggest gripe, which surprised us somewhat, is that they don’t get enough overtime. They wanted to work more, to get more money.
Less than a year later, I went back again with another colleague.

We went inside the same Longhua campus in Shenzhen, which required Foxconn’s approval, and chatted with workers. We stood outside the gates (possibly the same gates where Daisey claimed he found underage workers), with Foxconn unaware we were there. We wandered farther into the local neighborhood shopping strip, among the bubble-tea stands and food vendors, where the young workers went on dates and caught up with friends. These weren’t Daisey-esque scenes of woe and horror.

Rather than forced labor and sweatshop conditions, workers told of homesickness and the desire to earn more money-two impulses that seemed to drive each other for workers planning to go home once they’d earned enough.

In an effort to make touchscreens less static, Apple has proposed that future iPhones and iPads could feature actuators that would provide haptic feedback to users, and also include sensors that would measure the force at which a user touches the screen.

The concept was unveiled this week in a <a href="http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2012/0068957.html">patent application</a> discovered by <em>AppleInsider</em> entitled "Touch-Based User Interface with Haptic Feedback." The use of actuators underneath a touchscreen could allow users to actually feel elements on the screen, such as buttons or controls.

So, when plugged in, the back of the new iPad became as much as 12 degrees [Fahrenheit] hotter than the iPad 2 did in the same tests; while unplugged the difference was 13 degrees [Fahrenheit].

During our tests, I held the new iPad in my hands. When it was at its hottest, it felt very warm but not especially uncomfortable if held for a brief period.

Why Twitter?

Apple does software and hardware really well; they do the integration between the two outstandingly. But they haven’t really done Social particularly well. In fact, Apple may be the only Tech company without a Twitter account. Go ahead, check out <a href="http://twitter.com/apple">@Apple</a> – 0 Tweets / 0 Following / 6067 Followers. Sure, iTunes software is terrific, but the “Ping” social network simply never caught on. Twitter automagically makes Apple a defacto player in social.

Apple’s biggest competitors over the next decade are not HP or Dell or even Microsoft – they are more likely to be Google and Facebook. Which leads us back to Social Networking and that leads to Twitter.

After more than a week with no response I emailed again, on Oct. 4:

"I've spoken with a labor rights activist who cast doubt on some of the facts presented in 'The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,' and wanted to clear some things up with you." Daisey quickly responded and suggested we meet in person at Soho's Think Coffee. What followed was an hour of rehearsed bullshit that left me as dazzled as a member of Daisey's audience... Daisey's explanation as to why he was able to find child laborers when SACOM couldn't was laughable, in retrospect. He said maybe workers had been more open to him because he was a storyteller.

Following the <a href="http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/12/28/145201/apple-fined-by-italy-for-misleading-customers-about-warranty-terms">recent Italian case</a>. Apple is now being sued by the Belgian consumer association <a href="http://www.test-achats.be/pratiques-du-commerce/apple-viole-la-loi-sur-la-garantie-s757113.htm">Test-Achats</a> (french/dutch website) for not applying the EU consumer protection laws by <a href="http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/03/19/apple-under-fire-from-11-eu-consumer-organisations-over-misleading-applecare-warranties/">only giving 1 year warranty on its products</a>. At the same time, Apple is not only refusing to give the mandatory 2 years warranty but is also selling the additional year of warranty with its Applecare products. If the consumer association wins its case, Apple could be <a href="http://www.europolitics.info/sectorial-policies/beuc-denounces-apple-s-practices-art329284-12.html">forced to refund Applecare contracts to its Belgian customers</a> while providing the additional year of warranty for free."

Did you hear? This past weekend set all kinds of iPad sales records. Tim Cook said it! AT&T said it! And while I'm sure the new iPad was a huge part of that, let's temper our applause. There are two generations of iPad on shelves, and AT&T has confirmed that its "record numbers" from Friday include both of them.

Apple today announced it has sold three million of its incredible new iPad, since its launch on Friday, March 16…

“The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold – the strongest iPad launch yet,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Customers are loving the incredible new features of iPad, including the stunning Retina display, and we can't wait to get it into the hands of even more customers around the world this Friday.”

Before Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2, Mac apps could access your contacts at any time, without asking for permission. You wouldn't even know it was happening. This policy is the same as the one on iOS, which recently <a href="http://dcurt.is/stealing-your-address-book">got a lot of attention</a>. Today's release of DP 2 removes that ability by default.

Many customers whose store credit was stolen noted that the purchases centered on a handful of apps from specific developers. One of those developers was “gao jing,” the name behind apps like Expert Guide for Black Ops, Cheats Guide for Black Ops, Weapons Guide for Black Ops, and Game Guide for New Vegas. Notably, none of those apps remain in the App Store as of this writing; however, Apple declined to comment on the reason for their removal from the store. Other customers noted that the purchased apps on their accounts were all from other developers, including “Hongbin Suo,” “lane ma,” “Yang Yun,” “KAMAGAMES,” and “Lakoo.” Many of the purchased apps, or the companies behind them, appeared to be Chinese in origin.

The new iPad shares nearly nothing with the iPad 2 hardware, according to Apple executives I spoke with. Its retina display has 1 million more pixels than a large-screen HDTV. The new A5X chip has, according to Apple, four times the processing power of Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chip. Compared with iPad 2, it has a nicer camera, a video camera, dictation input, and 4G, while still squeezing out 10 hours of (Wi-Fi) battery life. It’s a wee bit thicker and an ounce heavier. And yet, in my conversations with numerous reporters over the past few days, the theme they kept bringing up was “incremental innovation”: Will the next iPad be innovative enough to maintain Apple’s momentum?

If the iPhone 4S is a case study, the answer for consumers is a resounding “yes.”

It was May or June of 2010 (I can’t remember exactly) and we were loving our brand new iPads … except for the web browser, Safari. While advancements had been made in terms of its speed, we felt it still lacked in features and experience implementation – or UI. So we had the brilliant idea to make a new browser for the iPad.

According to the lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in California:

[I]n many of Apple’s television advertisements, individuals are shown using Siri to make appointments, find restaurants, and even learn the guitar chords to classic rock songs or how to tie a tie. In the commercials, all of these tasks are done with ease with the assistance of the iPhone 4S’s Siri feature, a represented functionality contrary to the actual operating results and performance of Siri.

Currently <a href='http://jokru.tumblr.com/post/18929681613'>there is speculation</a> that Apple is using OpenStreetMap data for coverage outside of the United States, and the US Census's <a href='http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/'>TIGER data</a> within. If this is the case, it's a strong vote for the use of OpenStreetMap data in mission-critical scenarios, much like <a href='http://mapbox.com/blog/foursquare-switches-mapbox-streets-openstreetmap'>Foursquare's recent move</a>.

OpenStreetMap contributors have found telling similarities between Apple's maps and OpenStreetMap. Here are some examples from <a href='http://jokru.tumblr.com/post/18929681613'>Germany</a>, <a href='http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2012-March/062212.html'>Italy</a> and <a href='http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2012-March/062213.html'>Austria</a>. However, the data Apple may be using here seems to be from around 2010, as <a href='https://twitter.com/#!/druidsmith/status/177574145981292545'>some people have commented on Twitter</a> or have <a href='https://twitter.com/#!/synack/status/177544571411111936'>hypothesized based on reverse engineering</a>.

Neither Apple's website nor the <a href='http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewEula?id=497786065'>legal terms of the iPhoto application</a> include mention of OpenStreetMap data though, leaving Apple's data sources officially unconfirmed.
Neither Apple’s website nor the legal terms of the iPhoto application include mention of OpenStreetMap data though, leaving Apple’s data sources officially unconfirmed.

Apple has unveiled iOS 5.1, the latest version of its mobile operating system, with fixes for over 80 vulnerabilities.

Most of the plugged vulnerabilities involve the WebKit framework used to render web pages in Safari and other applications. Apple warned that visiting a malicious website could lead to a “cross-site scripting attack”, an “unexpected application termination”, or “arbitrary code execution”, according to a <a href="http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5192">security advisory

Apple now has the top-selling cellphone of any kind in Japan, IDC Japan determined late Thursday. The iPhone 4S launch helped Apple claim 26.6% of all cellphone shipments in the country this fall. It may have been the first non-Japanese company to top local ranks, ending a longstanding emphasis on local makers.
The Fujitsu-Toshiba alliance was next closest at 18.3% courtesy of its Arrows smartphones, while Sharp (15.7%), Kyocera (9.8), and Panasonic (8.8%) were next. Year-long, the spike was enough to give Apple 14.2% of the country's cellphone sales. Sharp (20.1%) and Fujitsu-Toshiba (18.8%) were still larger, but it did see Apple eclipse Panasonic (10%) and Kyocera (9.7%).

So, just how big is the battery?  The new iPad clocks in at 42.5 watt-hours, which works out to 11,666 mAh. That is a solid 70% boost to capacity over the iPad 2′s 25 watt-hour,  6,944 mAh battery.  The new iPad maintains the established 10-hour lifespan standard, and even if you’re active over LTE rather than Wi-Fi, you’re still getting a very respectable 9 hours of life. 

To put that in context, an iPad 2 with with this new battery, if such a device existed, would probably last close to 17 hours on Wi-Fi.

How does this shape up versus other LTE tablets? Well, Samsung claims the LTE-enabled Galaxy Tab 10.1 has 12 hours of continuous usage with a 7000 mAh battery, while AT&T claims just as much with HTC Jetstream and its 7,300 mAh battery. Of course, these are dealing 1280 x 800 screens, which are bound to be way less taxing on lifetime, but it’s still a considerable difference.

But with falling profits and plummeting stock, and having hastened the end of the desktop PC era, Steve Jobs has put Apple again in a precarious position. When the end does come, the big companies will have the necessary capital to transition into the multitude of new industries that will evolve out of the PC. The products of these new markets will be, thanks to Apple, stylish and beautiful. What an irony it will be if Apple, cranking out ever-less profitable commodity iMacs, its stock depressed, cannot afford to follow.

If Apple is made in Steve Jobs’ Image, then Steve Ballmer is made in Microsoft’s image. The large, blustering, bumbling exterior belies a very smart, capable core that is struggling to weather two storms: (1) the shift in power from from client to cloud and (2) the return to dominance of a vertical industry structure in the fastest growth area of computing: mobile.

Steve Ballmer can’t take many lessons from the way Steve Jobs weathered the horizontal storm. Microsoft’s remarkable profitability means that it will not hit bottom for a long, long time. It can’t easily do the iMac trick and retreat into a niche, because horizontal platforms need market share and scale in order to succeed. And it can’t do the iPod trick of finding a nascent category to dominate, because horizontal platforms don’t do well in the early stages of a market when consumers need clarity and simplicity more than anything else about the value proposition.

I spoke at a conference near Cardiff recently and in Q&A, I got The Question. I love getting the question.

What's the question? This: "What's wrong with Android?"

I realised, giving my answer, that I've never written down my objections to Android. Before we get into this, let's understand that I'm primarily talking about "what's wrong with Android from the perspective of someone planning a long-term 1:1 deployment in a school".