Year: 2014

Apple shares drop 4% amidst iCloud security concerns

Shares of Apple dropped 4% today, closing this afternoon at $98.94. That's the stock's worst percentage slump since late January, and its worst value since it began its march towards its highest price ever in early August.

The news comes amidst the recent iCloud scandal, in which Apple's cloud security was blamed for the leaking of several revealing celebrity photos, and ahead of the company's highly anticipated iPhone event next week.

People begin lining up for the iPhone 6 ahead of next week’s announcement

The iPhone 6, or whatever Apple is going to call it, has yet to be announced, but there are already people lining up for the device. CNBC notes that at least 5 customers have already set up camp outside of Apple's flagship 5th Avenue Apple Store in New York City.

It's not uncommon to see folks lining up outside of Apple retailers ahead of a major product launch—last year folks began forming lines around September 6th. But this year, campers have taken it to a new level, with some showing up before the month even began.

Iconic brings minimalist pictograms to the iPhone in this fun puzzle game

If you are over the age of 21, or maybe even under, you have probably seen those entertaining beer bottle caps with pictograms. My friends and I love trying to figure out what they are. The hardest part is identifying the illustration. Is that a horse, or a dog?

Iconic is a fun pictogram puzzle game that uses minimalist graphics so it isn’t hard to figure out what the illustration is. However, the puzzles might give you a run for your money. We’ve got a hands-on game review of Iconic for you today.

Wink adds an on-demand Status Bar to your iPhone

The Status Bar provides a great deal of information such as the time, carrier, and much more which can be viewed from anywhere within iOS. Wink is a jailbreak tweak that's been available for a long time on Cydia but didn't receive the attention needed, solely because it is available on the developer's own repo rather than on one of the major repos.

Wink brings an on-demand Status Bar to your iOS device allowing you to view it only when needed. This means that the Status Bar will remain hidden giving you more screen estate.

Sunrise for iOS gains push for Google Calendar, search and Todoist integration

Sunrise, the popular alternative to Apple’s stock iOS Calendar, today refreshed its nicely done iPhone and iPad application with push for Google Calendars, the search feature and Todoist integration, the company noted in a blog post Wednesday.

A long-overdue feature, search is finally available in Sunrise to let you sift through your past or future events by title, location and attendees.

Push is now available for Google Calendars and fans of Todoist will appreciate Sunrise's integration with this popular task manager for personal productivity.

Sunrise is available free in the App Store and Mac App Store. Against all odds, Sunrise the company has raised over a whopping $8 million in funding thus far. Not too shabby for a calendar app, wouldn't you say?

VMware Fusion 7 now available with OS X Yosemite and Windows 8.1 support

Following the recent release of Yosemite-enabled Parallels Desktop 10, rival WMware on Wednesday announced immediate availability of VMware Fusion 7 and VMware Fusion 7 Pro, major new versions of its virtualization software which now includes built-in support for OS X Yosemite, OS X Yosemite Server and Windows 8.1, along with a bunch of other perks.

Also compatible with OS X Mavericks and OS X Mountain Lion and available in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese and Japanese, WMware Fusion 7 and VMware Fusion 7 Pro take virtualization on the Mac to the next level with a speedier performance, a redesigned appearance, improved connectivity, support for Macs with Retina displays and more.

Nokia tries maps again, confirms free iOS navigation app coming based on Here Maps

Nokia executive Sean Fernback told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the Finnish telecommunications company will be releasing a brand new cross-platform mobile navigation app for the iOS and Android platforms later this year.

Nokia, which sold off its handset division to Microsoft, kept its Here mapping service. The forthcoming GPS navigation app would be unique in that both the maps themselves and searches would work without an Internet connection.

Suppliers ramping up component production for ‘thinner, faster’ iPad Air 2 with Touch ID

According to DigiTimes, a hit-and-miss Taiwanese trade publication, Apple's suppliers are ramping up production of components for a second-generation iPad Air, which sources describe as being thinner, faster and incorporating the widely expected Touch ID fingerprint scanning feature.

The report Tuesday doesn't shed more light on the matter beyond stating the obvious, that the device will run the upcoming A8 processor and be thinner than the current-generation iPad Air, which itself is 7.5mm (about 0.29 inch) thick.

Celeb hacking tapped law enforcement tools to gain access to data inside device backups

The alleged iCloud hacking, which has resulted in a massive leak of hundreds of revealing celebrity photos, has most likely been made possible because attackers reportedly used a piece of software that law enforcement officials rely on to siphon data from iOS device backups, Wired reported last night.

Rather than obtain a user’s iCloud username and password with brute-force attacks, the article points to web forum reports describing using specialized software called Elcomsoft Phone Password Breaker (EPPB) to impersonate the user’s device in order to obtain the full device backup which holds data like photos, videos, application data, contacts, text messages and more.

China Mobile begins taking iPhone 6 preorders

Apple's next-generation smartphone hasn't been announced yet, but that didn't stop China Mobile from putting it up for sale. China Daily is reporting that the carrier, which is the largest in the world, has opened up preorders for the so-called iPhone 6.

Since early yesterday, CM subscribers in Beijing have been able to reserve both a 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone model. Details, such as prices and storage capacities are unknown, and customers are not being offered images of the handsets or release dates.

Apple updates App Store guidelines with new rules for HealthKit and more

Apple posted an update this evening for its App Store review guidelines—a set of instructions for third-party developers on what iOS apps may or may not contain. Tonight's refresh adds rules for upcoming iOS 8 features such as extensions, HealthKit and HomeKit.

Most of the changes are only pertinent to developers, but there are a few things worth mentioning. Perhaps the most important item, in light of recent events, is that Apple says apps using the HealthKit framework that store user health data in iCloud will be rejected.