Apple

Readdle’s Printer Pro for iPhone is free today only

AirPrint, Apple's wireless printing technology is great except when it is not. The problem with AirPrint: limited vendor support. Unless you own a printer that works with AirPrint, you're out of luck.

But things don't have to be this way and thanks to a myriad of printer-related apps on the App Store, you can easily send images, documents and other content in select iOS apps to non-AirPrint printers.

One of the best printer apps on the App Store, Printer Pro for iPhone by Ukrainian developer Readdle has gone free for the next 24 hours. This nicely done and powerful productivity app normally retails for five bucks a pop so now's a good time to grab Printer Pro for iPhone free of charge if you haven't already...

Apple adds CEO of branding agency Wolff Olins to marketing team

Ad Age reports this afternoon that Apple has hired Karl Heiselman, the global CEO of branding agency Wolff Olins. The news comes as the iPad-maker looks to double its in-house creative talent to better combat marketing from Samsung and others.

Interestingly enough, Heiselman used to be a design contractor for Apple in the early 1990s, before Steve Jobs made his triumphant return. He says back then the company was still trying to find itself, and he believes it's once again at a crossroads...

Warhammer Quest goes free as Apple’s new App of the Week

Like every Thursday, Apple yesterday refreshed the App Store's ongoing Free App of the Week promotion.

The company's been running this promotion for months now and we've seen both must-have and mediocre apps and games go free in Apple's continuing mission to boost downloads by giving cherry-picked titles additional exposure. Warhammer Quest by Rodeo Games and Games Workshop is the latest title to go free for a week.

Previously costing five bucks and now available free of charge until next Thursday, this dungeon-based game will win you over with its addictive mix of role-playing and strategy elements.

Released ten months ago, this iOS adaptation is set in the Warhammer world and stays true to the original in looks and design. The game involves hundreds of weapons, armors and items and - yes - challenges you to battle through the legions of orcs, goblins, skavens and other creatures...

Apple bans UK’s iTunes Radio competitor from iAd

Bloom.fm, a London-based music streaming service, on Friday made it known on Twitter that Apple's blocked it from advertising on its iAd platform, citing competitive reasons.

"Apple just banned our ads because we're 'a competitive service to iTunes Radio and it is against Apple policy'", reads the tweet.

The service has a catalog of 22 million tracks that can be streamed for as low as £1 a month (about $1.67).

It's easy to see why Apple has taken a stance against the service: its own iTunes Store sells individual song downloads for the price of a month's worth of unlimited streaming on Bloom.fm. The development has prompted Bloom.fm to boast that "We must be big time now", adding the team was surprised to learn that Apple even noticed what such a small company was doing...

Samsung caught lying about tablet sales

Samsung, the South Korean chaebol, has an established history of stealing, cheating and lying. It's not just the conviction of stealing patented iPhone technology that dealt it a massive PR blow, Samsung was also publicly shamed over the discovery it had paid people to spam message boards with negative comments about rival products.

And as if that weren't enough, its shady marketing tactics has come to light yet again in an internal document proving Samsung intentionally misled Wall Street investors, analysts and market watchers by flatly lying about sales of its Galaxy tablets, thereby creating a perception that the iPad was losing massive market share to cheaper Android competitors...

Apple will no longer invest in patent troll Intellectual Ventures

Apple has chosen to pass on the opportunity to pour fresh money into Intellectual Ventures, a patent buying and assertion company founded and led by its chief executive officer Nathan Myhrvold. Following in Apple's footsteps, chip giant Intel has distanced itself too from the controversial patent holding firm and declined further investment

Intellectual Ventures was one of the top-five owners of U.S. patents in 2011. The patent assertion entity, however, has managed to persuade the Japanese consumer electronics maker Sony and the Windows maker Microsoft to invest in its latest acquisition fund, a move that will create a fresh war chest for Intellectual Ventures to buy new patents...

Deluxe Edition of Sim City 4 launches as $19.99 Mac App Store exclusive

The Mac edition of Sim City, an open-ended city-building video game which debuted on the PC back in 2003, was released in August of last year.

Previously available as a boxed product, Aspyr Media on Friday announced that SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition has made a triumphant return to the Mac. The game's available in the Mac App Store as a digital download that'll join Steam and other Mac digital outlets in coming weeks.

Deluxe edition of Sim City includes both SimCity 4 and the Rush Hour expansion pack, which gives you more control over your city’s transportation options and challenges you to build out a region of cities. And, you get two bonus disasters: UFO attack and Autosaurus Wrecks.

On top of all the goodies you've come to love about Sim City, Deluxe edition includes a nice Mac-exclusive feature allowing your iTunes library to be played in the game.

The $19.99 game can be found exclusively in the Mac App Store...

Minimalist iPad weather app, Morning, now available for iPhone

Morning by Tamper, the beautiful weather app for the iPad and one of Apple's App Store Best of 2013 apps, has been updated with native support for the iPhone. Now available in the App Store free to those who've purchased it, Morning version 1.5 brings its sleek, minimalist interface to the iPhone and iPod touch.

On the iPhone, Morning includes all the features of the iPad version, including more than two dozen UI themes.

On the iPad, this new version of Morning has also introduced a few new nice-to-haves, detailed after the jump...

Apple looking to beef up its iTunes team amid ‘overhaul’ rumors

According to recent reports, Apple is looking at various ways to remedy declining music sales, and better combat the competition. Billboard says the company is considering everything from launching an on-demand streaming music service, to giving its iTunes Store a dramatic overhaul.

And it certainly appears Apple is working on something big in regards to the media manager. A number of iTunes team-job listings have popped up on its website this week calling for iTunes Software Engineers, Senior Software Engineers, and an iTunes Recommendation Platform engineer...

Apple said to be considering adding high-resolution music to iTunes soon

Rumor has it that Apple is considering taking drastic measures to reverse declining music sales. Billboard says the company is looking into several options, including giving its iTunes store a 'drastic' overhaul, opening up iTunes to Android users, and launching an on-demand streaming music service.

Apple may also be planning to add high-resolution audio to its digital library soon as part of its turnaround efforts, according to music blogger Robert Hutton. Citing sources familiar with the company's plans, Hutton says the iPhone-maker could launch new hi-res music downloads as early as WWDC...

Apple updates iMovie for Mac with new title options, speed effects and more

Apple pushed out a notable update for the Mac version of its iMovie software this afternoon. The release, which brings the app to version 10.0.3, includes a handful of new features—like new title customization options—and various other improvements.

iMovie users can now sort events in the app's side bar by date, and change the font, size and color of new titles. Additionally, you can crop and rotate clips in events and add speed effects to clips using the Adjustments Bar. We have the full change log below...

iOS, OS X and key iCloud services not affected by Heartbleed, Apple confirms

If you've as much as glanced at what's your inbox lately, chances are you've encountered messages in which your favorite apps and services announce emergency password resets in the wake of Heartbleed, a nasty bug that's attacking millions of websites. And unless you've been sleeping under a rock for the past week, you must be aware by now that a shockingly high number of websites are at risk.

The latest security scare stems from a devastating flaw in the OpenSSL software many websites use to authorize login sessions and encrypt and transmit user data. Long story short, the exploit allows attackers to easily scoop up the website’s encryption keys, passwords and user content, prompting tons of emergency password resets by some of the Internet's most popular services.

But what about your Apple ID? Have the keys to your account in the Apple cloud been compromised? How about iCloud or the App Store? According to an Apple spokesperson, its iOS and OS X platforms are protected against Heartbleed. Do I hear a collective sigh of relief?