Apple

Motorola president says Apple charging ‘outrageous prices’

The smack talk between Apple and Motorola continues, as Motorola president Rick Osterloh called out Apple for "outrageous prices" in an interview published by the BBC on Wednesday.

"We do see a real dichotomy in this marketplace, where you've got people like Apple making so much money and charging such outrageous prices. We think that's not the future," Osterloh said. "We believe the future is in offering similar experiences and great consumer choice at accessible prices."

Former GM CEO: Apple shouldn’t make a car

Following rumors Apple plans to make its own car to compete with Tesla, former General Motors CEO Dan Akerson is weighing in on the matter. In an interview with Automotive News, Akerson said he doesn't think Apple has what it takes to make a car, mainly because of the manufacturing process. 

You can now open shared links in Dropbox for iOS

Popular cloud-storage service Dropbox today announced it's refreshed its mobile app for iOS and Android with the much-appreciated ability to open shared links on the iPhone, iPad or Android tablets and smartphones.

In the past, sending someone a link to a shared Dropbox document meant firing up the web interface, but not anymore. Starting today, tapping on a shared link from your iOS device opens the file in the Dropbox app.

Not only does this give you rich previews for shared documents and photos, but also the ability to instantly save shared content to your Dropbox account.

Can you tell the difference between Siri’s voice in iOS 8.1.1 and iOS 8.3?

Improved Siri voice is reportedly among the under-the-hood improvements in Apple's upcoming iOS 8.3 software update. Though a better-sounding Siri may not always be apparent to an untrained ear, Apple should be credited for consistently improving the voice assistant's speech synthesis capabilities.

Quick comparison of today's more natural-sounding Siri versus the original Siri from 2011 gives you a good indication of Apple's advances in this area.

And now with iOS 8.3 in tow, Apple's bound to boost Siri's speech synthesis further. Listen to the new and improved Siri voice in iOS 8.3 relative to iOS 8.1.1 and let us know what you think.

Apple rejects GIF Finder over Disney characters

Following its 2012 debut and 90,000 downloads later, GIF Finder for iOS is no more. As of now, the free app is no longer available in the App Store.

According to its UK-based developer Matt Cheetham, Apple took issue with the software, which takes the pain out of finding GIFs to reply with quickly on iOS, because it included “content or features that resemble various well-known, third-party marks, including Disney characters.”

USPTO denies Apple’s petitions for review of VirnetX patents

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today denied five petitions for so-called inter partes review filed by Apple, which sought to challenged the validity of certain claims of three of VirnetX's U.S. patents at stake.

The patent board has determined that the five petitions were not filed within the time limit imposed by the statute and therefore has declined to institute review of these claims between the parties involved.

OneNote for Mac gains enhanced OCR features and other goodies

After adding the ability search for words in images to OneNote for the iPhone, iPad and Mac last summer, Microsoft today refreshed the Mac client by enhancing the somewhat limited functionality of the optical character recognition (OCR) feature.

In addition, the software contains other perks such as the ability to hide author initials in shared notebooks from the View tab and close the OneNote window without quitting the app.

OneNote for the Mac, iPhone and iPad is available at no cost through the Mac App Store and App Store.

UK banks RBS and NatWest now allow account access via Touch ID fingerprint identification

As reported Wednesday by BBC News, two banks in the United Kingdom will soon allow their customers access their bank accounts using Touch ID-based fingerprint identification technology, a UK first.

“RBS and NatWest customers must activate the feature with their security information, but would only need to use Apple's Touch ID thereafter,” reports the BBC.

To protect their customers' sensitive financial information and mitigate risk, the banks have put a number of restrictions in place to augment Apple's existing Touch ID safeguards.

Turn your iPhone into a Batmobile or Delorean with these crazy light-up cases

Folks in the market for a distinctively different iPhone case who don't mind some bulk should check out a pair of crazy cases hailing from Japan.

As highlighted by TouchArcade, the cases turn your device into a near-perfect replica of Tim Burton's Batmobile or a Delorean from Back to the Future II, complete with blinking LEDs and sliding plastic doors to reveal the camera lens and the physical buttons.

Though impractical in terms of daily use, these cases will sure turn heads and make you the star of every party. Created by Bandai, they're available in Japan for 5,940 yen, which works out to approximately $50.

Apple meets with Mexican regulators ahead of Watch launch

Five executives from Apple met last Wednesday with Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute President Gabriel Contreras and other commissioners to “discuss advances in health-care devices”, according to an agenda published on the regulator’s website relayed yesterday by Bloomberg.

Not only does the meeting signal plans to make the Watch available internationally, but also highlights efforts to ensure the Watch's ability to collect health data complies with local regulations.

Apple Pay bringing new customers to Staples’ iOS app

Apple Pay isn't widely popular in Staples' stores, however the retail chain has noticed great success with Apple Pay integration on its iOS app, with it even bringing in new customers.

"Right now it's the number one payment method for us in our iOS apps," said Prat Vemana, VP of mobile commerce for Staples, speaking during a panel discussion in Seattle on Tuesday. Vemana said that 30 percent of purchases made in the Staples' iOS app use Apple Pay, reports FierceWireless.