Year: 2016

How to fix TinyUmbrella v9.3.4 crashing on launch

Joaquim Barbosa ∙ Updated April 8, 2017

Many jailbreakers will be familiar with the program TinyUmbrella, which has traditionally been one of the best ways to save SHSH blobs for their iOS devices onto their Macs for safekeeping. What SHSH blobs are, their function, and how to save them is outside the scope of this article, (I will put something together soon on this), but suffice to say that saving these blobs is of some importance to many jailbreakers and that TinyUmbrella has been the go-to application for doing so for a long while.

Whilst the application was updated as recently as August by its creator Semaphore, many Mac users (myself included) have noted that the new version, 9.3.4, gives an error on launch and cannot be used at all. This guide will walk you through the fix to get your umbrella back up again on Mac, so you can carry on wishfully saving those blobs.

Single Sign-On now available on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV

Cody Lee ∙ December 6, 2016

The much talked-about feature called Single Sign-On now appears to be live and available to the public. You can access it by navigating to Settings > TV Provider on iPhone and Settings > Accounts > TV Provider > Sign In on Apple TV.

While you should see the new feature, not everyone will be able to take advantage of it at this time. Support is currently limited to 8 providers: CenturyLink Prism, DirecTV, Dish, GTA, Hotwire, Hawaiian Telecom, MetroCast, and Sling TV.

Four new video providers join Single Sign-On ahead of iOS 10.2 release

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 6, 2016

Single Sign-On, a feature that allows supported video apps to use your saved cable credentials, is launching some time next week alongside iOS 10.2 for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and tvOS 10.1 for the fourth-generation Apple TV. Ahead of these software updates, an additional four providers have pledged to support Single Sign-On at launch.

Apple seeds tvOS 10.1 beta 5 to developers

Cody Lee ∙ December 6, 2016

Apple on Tuesday seeded the fifth beta of tvOS 10.1 to developers, and it's available as an OTA download on Apple TVs with the appropriate configuration profile. The release comes just a week after beta 4, with only a slightly updated build number (14U593), suggesting that the software may be close to ready for public release.

Apple’s machine learning researchers are now free to publish their findings

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 22, 2017

Apple demands that its machine learning (ML) experts and artificial intelligence (AI) researchers do no publish their findings in research papers or share results of their work with fellow ML/AI experts, which scientists think is preventing the company from recruiting the brightest minds in the field. Realizing its mistake, Apple is changing its stance.

As announced by Russ Salakhutd, Apple's director of AI research, the company’s machine-learning researchers are now free to publish some of their breakthroughs in and confer with colleagues.

Upcoming Instagram update will let you turn off comments on a per-post basis & more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 8, 2017

In its never-ending fight to curb abuse on its service, Instagram today said an upcoming new tool will let you completely turn off comments on individual posts.

As reported by The New York Times this morning and confirmed by Instagram itself, in addition to being able to turn off comments on individual posts users will be also permitted to remove followers on private accounts and like other people's comments as well.

Back in September, Instagram launched keyword-based comment moderation as another measure to fight spammers and abusers who have been harassing honest users with unwanted comments and marketing messages.

Galaxy S8 rumored to drop 3.5mm audio jack, adopt USB-C & use in-screen Home button

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 6, 2016

SamMobile is reporting today that Samsung's next-generation Galaxy S8 smartphone will replace the physical Home button with a non-moving variant embedded right behind its AMOLED screen. The firm is also said to adopt USB-C for charging and data transfer and ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack to make the phone thinner and lighter.

The Galaxy S8 should be unveiled in February 2017 and could beat Apple's rumored iPhone 8 to the virtual Home button.

Some new MacBook Pros are shutting down repeatedly and unexpectedly

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 6, 2016

Some proud owners of the new MacBook Pro with TouchBar are reportedly seeing their notebooks shut down repeatedly and unexpectedly. According to a report from Jeff Porten of TidBits, the problem might be related to external hard drives connected to the notebook through its Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports.

Apple declined comment. This is yet another in a series of teething issues that have been plaguing early adopters of the new MacBook Pro. Just a few days ago, for example, some MacBook Pro owners reported an annoying graphics glitching issue.

AMC and The Hallmark Channel added to Apple TV universal search

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 6, 2016

As first reported by MacRumors, Apple on Tuesday added AMC and The Hallmark Channel to its growing list of video apps supporting tvOS's universal search function, which lets owners of the fourth-generation Apple TV in the U.S. use Siri voice search to find TV shows and movies across participating channels.

Other video apps have gained support for tvOS's universal search feature this fall, including Australian streaming service Stan, popular Spanish network Telemundo Now, The CW, Viacom-owned Comedy Central, and music networks MTV and VH1.

Netflix becomes top-grossing iOS app following offline playback introduction

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 6, 2016

After gaining the long overdue offline playback feature last week, Netflix's mobile app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch has emerged as the top iOS app on the App Store's Top Grossing charts for the first time ever, overtaking apps like Spotify and Candy Crush Saga, according to stats from app tracking firm SensorTower. By comparison, just last month Netflix was the #7 top-grossing iPhone and iPad software overall in the United States.

At the time of this writing, Netflix's iPhone and iPad app was the top-grossing item on App Stores in the United States, India, Mexico and Colombia.

Apple: more iPhone 6s units suffering from random shutdowns, software update may fix it

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 6, 2016

Apple has clarified in a new support document on its Chinese website that random shutdowns that have been plaguing some customers may affect more iPhone 6s models than previously thought, saying a software update may fix the issue on units outside of iPhone 6s devices which were manufactured between September and October 2015 and for which it's offering a free battery replacement program.

As first noted by Gizmodo, Apple wrote it needed additional diagnostic data to determine the exact cause of the problem.

MacPaw unveils Setapp, the Netflix of high-quality Mac apps

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 22, 2017

The way you get apps is about to change: Setapp from MacPaw is one of the best things to happen to third-party Mac development in years. Think of Setapp as the Netflix of quality software or an “unstore” alternative to Apple’s store. But unlike the Mac App Store which continues to disappoint with sandboxing requirements, lack of paid upgrades and other missing features, Setapp unlocks dozens of high-quality, cherry-picked Mac apps in exchange for a flat-fee monthly subscription of $9.99.

You won't find subpar software in Setapp and all of the apps are fully functional and available without trials or In-App Purchases, including ones like Screens, Ulysses, RapidWeaver 7, Reveal and Eltima Player.

After testing Setapp for approximately two weeks, I've come to the conclusion that it is the best source of premium Mac apps that you can get for a fraction of their combined price, all at once.