Apr 03
Unofficial Apple spokesman John Gruber has written a short post on Daring Fireball suggesting that iOS 7 is running well behind schedule—and that as a result Apple is hauling man power from its OS X development team. More »
Apr 02
Windows QuickStart Kit gives Mac developers a $25 testbed for IE and Windows 8
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Microsoft knows that many Mac-based developers still have to test in a Windows environment, whether it’s to check web rendering in Internet Explorer 10 or to port an iOS or Mac app to competing environments. The firm doesn’t want anyone hemming and hawing over how they cross that digital divide, so it’s launching a Windows QuickStart Kit in late April to make Windows testing a trivial affair. The USB drive bundle includes a full copy of Windows 8 Pro, virtual machine support through Parallels Desktop 8 and a set of porting labs to help with any app conversions. The lure may may as much about the cost as the convenience: outside of shipping, Microsoft is only asking for a $25 donation to Code.org, the Kahn Academy or Watsi.org. While code builders have to verify their credentials and race to buy from limited stock, the kit could still be one of the easiest (and most charitable) ways to go cross-platform.
Filed under: Software, Microsoft
Via: TechCrunch
Apr 02
Word on the street is that an update will be hitting the iPhone 5 on April 5th that will turn on access to T-Mobile’s LTE network on unlocked GSM models. While you’ll have to wait until April 12th to pick up the iOS handset direct from the magenta-hued carrier, those who have been running rogue with unlocked devices from AT&T or purchased direct from Apple should soon be able to run at full, blistering 4G speeds. (Where the fledgling network has been fired up, at least.) The internal notice obtained by TmoNews (which you can see after the break) reads:
“The T-Mobile Carrier Update is a minor iOS software update that enables official iPhone support by T-Mobile. When installed, the software update enables a handful of capabilities like Visual Voicemail, MMS Settings and Network/Device optimizations that customers do not have access to today. On April 5, the software update will begin being pushed via OTA to all iPhone devices on the T-Mobile network with iOS 6.1.x or higher.”
So it’s not just LTE, but also some of the basic features that make the iPhone such a compelling product, which will suddenly turn on for T-Mo customers. We’ll know soon enough if there’s truth to these rumblings, but we’d imagine the iOS update would need to be pushed out ahead of the official T-Mobile iPhone launch.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Apple, T-Mobile
Source: TmoNews
Apr 02
No matter how you feel about wrestling, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is probably a name you recognize. The Rock has been in some cool movies over the years and has a new mobile video game available for Android and Apple devices. The video game is called Rockpocalypse in is available to download now.
The setup for the game is that The Rock is on a movie set filming his latest blockbuster when things go wrong. People on the lot start changing as they become infected with some sort of contagion that turns them into violent angry beasts. It sounds like a take on the zombie genre to me.
The game has the player playing as The Rock as he fights through different soundstages seeking the source of the infection. The game is a fighting game where players will punch, kick, and slam the way through the infected to reach the mastermind and stop the infection. The game offers four different environments and 18 progressively harder levels.
Along the way, players will find clues to help figure out exactly what happened. As players progress they can get upgrades to health, stamina, attack, and slam stats. Players can also select and upgrade five different combat skills to customize their fighting ability. Players also earn coins in the game allowing them to purchase weapons and clothing to improve their statistics. The game does rely on in-app purchases and is a freemium title.
[via Google Play]
Rockpocalypse mobile game launches for Android and iOS is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Apr 01
There’s a newcomer to the world of mobile messaging apps, and one with a standout feature that sets it apart from services like Whatsapp, or Kik Messenger. The newcomer is called Chorus.im and it allows mobile users to access its service directly from their mobile web browsers without needing to download their app. The messaging service features a uniform design throughout its stand-alone app, desktop browser version, and mobile browser version.
Chorus.im is very simple to get started with. You can sign up using your email, or you can just link your Facebook or Google account to the service. To start a chat message, all you need to do is invite a contact via phone number or email to initiate a conversation. The contact can join in by clicking the “join” button sent to their emails. This will be efficient for contacting buyers or sellers from Craigslist or eBay. You are able to have an instant chat with the person without needing to divulge your phone numbers. This allows users to use what Chorus.im says are “disposable chats”.
When using Chorus.im on your desktop’s web browser, you will receive notifications on the bottom right of your screen. Push notifications have yet to make it to the mobile browser version of Chorus.im, which is why the startup has launched stand-alone apps. They’re hoping to incorporate mobile browser push notifications within the next few years. While using the Android app, I noticed that there are still many bugs that need to be worked on, but that’s not surprising considering this service is still new. Android users may experience screen blackouts from time to time.
In the future, Chorus.im will start advancing more towards being a browser app. Eventually, the service will get rid of its stand-alone mobile apps. Chorus.im will have a difficult time prying users away from Whatsapp, or convincing users that it’s different from Facebook Messenger, which allows users to message via their desktop or mobile device. Nonetheless, having “disposable chats” will be a major selling point for Chorus.im, and when it is able to enable push notifications through mobile browsers, it’ll be a major contender in the messenger market.
[via Forbes]
Chorus.im brings mobile messaging to your browser is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Apr 01
Feedly Mobile revamp caters to Reader escapees with fast search, Must Reads
Posted in: Today's Chili 
The phaseout of Google Reader is quickly becoming a boon for developers still carrying the torch for newsreader apps — just ask Feedly, which now says it took on 3 million new users in the two weeks since Google’s decision. Rather than simply wait for more customers to roll in on their own, though, the company is taking matters into its own hands with a major refresh of Feedly Mobile for Android and iOS. The update brings a reworked search engine that’s both extra-quick and makes topic suggestions based on the collective subscriptions of the Feedly user base, getting better as more readers join the ranks. Other updates also serve those who want to keep things moving quickly. A new Must Reads section prioritizes feeds, a title-only view maximizes screen space and an updated sharing panel both allows a customizable shortcut as well as (slightly ironic) sharing to Google+. Once you’ve gotten over the sting of another Google spring cleaning, Feedly’s potential solutions await at the source links.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile
Source: App Store, Google Play, Feedly
Apr 01
This week the folks at the United States Patent and Trademark Office have denied Apple’s first application for trademarking the term “iPad mini“. As it’s noted in the letter that was originally sent out back near the end of January, made public this week, the USPTO has re-stated that the “i” as well as the “Pad” bits of the application are fine, while the “mini” bit of the show needs to be a bit more descriptive. And the April Fools Jokes commence.
One of the more amazing takes on this situation comes from AppAdvice where they’ve falsified a couple of quotes from Apple, saying they’ll be moving forward with the name “iNewton” instead of iPad mini from this point forward. Sound like a reasonable action to you? This situation is odd for more than its subsequent jokes, mind you – while generally Apple has been granted trademarks such as these without fail here in the USA.
As noted by Patently Apple, the original submission of this patent application and the time between then and now, when the documents have been made public, is a real oddity. Also odd is the time between the denial, made on March 27th, and the time it was made public – several days later. That said, it’s certainly not the end of the iPad mini as we know it – Apple has the opportunity to re-submit its application to the USPTO without penalty.
Without a successful application by Apple to the USPTO, they’ll continue to only have a trademark on the name “iPad.” As the USPTO notes, the letter “i” before the name does successfully indicate that Apple is showing the device to work with the internet in their own unique way, much like the iPhone. Their current denial comes in the form of the “mini” which they say only says that the original iPad is being shown in a smaller size – effectively suggesting that Apple’s name isn’t something they can claim as their own naming convention.
No Joke: Apple must resubmit “iPad mini” trademark application is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Apr 01
Android And Windows Phone Gain, BlackBerry Loses In Smartphone OS Share According To Kantar
Posted in: Today's Chili
The big winners in the three-month period ending in February in terms of smartphone share globally and in the U.S. were Android and Windows Phone, according to Kantar Worldpanel, with BlackBerry experiencing significant declines in consumer interest and iOS remaining fairly level in most markets. The bad news for BlackBerry is that it saw its smartphone OS share decline even in the U.K., where it launched BB10 and its new hardware at the end of January.
Windows Phone isn’t really posing a threat to iOS or Android, which continue to dominate smartphone share is all markets, but it is starting to pull away from BlackBerry and Symbian when it comes to making a strong showing as a third place contender. In the U.S., Windows accounted for 4.1 percent of smartphone sales in the three-month period ending February 2013, up from 2.7 percent for the year-ago quarter. BlackBerry, by contrast, represented only 0.7 percent of smartphone sales in the U.S. according to Kantar, down from 3.6 percent during the same time in 2012.
In the U.K., BlackBerry slid from 16.8 percent of all smartphone sales in the three-month period ending in February last year, to just 5.1 percent of sales for the same span in 2013. That’s a drop of 11.u7 percentage points, during a period that included a full month of BB10 device sales. BlackBerry itself claimed 1 million devices shipped for its most recent fiscal quarter, which included BB10 launches in Canada and the U.K., but when pressed about how much of that represented actual sales, execs hedged and noted that it was “sort of” closer to between two-thirds and three-quarters of that 1 million figure on its investor conference call.
Android’s performance has likewise been strong, with big increases in many markets, including Great Britain, Germany, and Mexico. And while iOS remains relatively stable, with either small slides or gains across the board, it isn’t losing significant ground to the competition in any market: Android is eating space given up by legacy players like Symbian, which in most cases is dropping share quicker than BlackBerry. BlackBerry has the most to lose, however, since Symbian is no longer being actively developed. We’ll see if the gradual worldwide rollout of BB10 can reverse some of the losses being reported by Kantar in the coming months.
Apr 01
Denial of Service, or DDoS, attacks have been used for decades now, but they’ve become more popular in recent years that were aimed at popular software companies, video game networks, and a number of government agencies to name a few. Up until now, these DDoS attacks have been aimed at organizations, but now they seem to be aimed at individuals.
A DDoS attacker has taken aim at Apple’s iMessage program as a way of completely messing with an individual. iMessages can be sent to either a person’s iOS device or Apple computer as long as the attacker knows the person’s email address or phone number associated with the account. The string of characters are sent at such a high rate that it forces iMessages to crash, which makes it nearly impossible to use the service while the attacks are ongoing.
Unfortunately, there’s currently no way of blocking an iMessage user nor is there a setting to change the frequency the user receives messages. At this point in time, the only solution would be to not use iMessage, although we’re sure a number of you probably won’t find that as an acceptable option. Hopefully Apple catches wind of this method of DDoS attacks and will issue something to block it.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: ITC rules that Apple did not violate Motorola’s patent, remands case back to judge, Messages to be exclusive to OS X Mountain Lion, 
Mar 31
Recently, several iOS developers became victims to an iMessage DDoS attack that crashed their app and inhibited their devices. The attacks were executed using a simple AppleScript, where the attackers are able to send out an unlimited, fast-pace amount of messages to the recipient. Depending on the content of the message, the app would either crash, or would shell out notifications at an annoyingly, alarming rate.
The good news for right now is that the attacks only seem to be limited to a small group of people, and only to devices that have been jailbroken. However, the bad news is that anybody, jailbroken iPhone or not, can become a victim to these attacks. One of the victims, Grant Paul, stated, “What’s happening is a simple flood: Apple doesn’t seem to limit how fast messages can be sent, so the attacker is able to send thousands of messages very quickly.” It also looks like the hackers are using throwaway emails, so simply blocking their email will not solve the issue.
Another victim, iH8sn0w, stated that he was attacked on Wednesday night. He received a blast of messages saying “Hello Human” and “We are Anonymous…” He was able to track down the sender’s email. The developers have discovered that the attacks originated from a Twitter account that sells UDIDs, and that the account was also responsible for facilitating the installation of pirated apps.
While these attacks are small now, they have the potential of becoming widespread. All the attacker needs is your email address. These attacks are able to stall your device because you would need to clear you iMessage queue in order to perform any other actions. Another version of the attack involves mass sending of unicode characters and/or large messages, which ends up crashing your iMessage app and prevents you from re-opening it. Right now, there are no real solutions to the problem besides disabling your iMessage app. Hopefully Apple is able to come up with an effective solution soon.
[via The Next Web]
iMessage DDoS attacks foreshadow a bigger threat is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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