Open letters from the Apple CEO are few and far between, as are apologies. But from Tim Cook they come when he senses that public opinion is turning dangerously against the company — see also “Apple Maps.” Read more »
China’s top consumer watchdog group is the latest to attack Apple over issues of consumer protection. It’s the latest bout of criticism Apple has received in the Chinese media. Read more »
A “Facebook phone” is one of the longest-running rumors in the technology world, but a number of observers think such a beast is actually going to make an appearance next week. But do users actually want one? Read more »
What makes this 3D puzzle game truly amazing is the fact that you can create your own levels from photos in your library or ones you take in the game with the camera. Read more »
Recently Apple made a somewhat unexpected move in adding Audiobus support to its GarageBand software. After testing it out, we walk you through how to integrate GarageBand, Audiobus and Audiobus-supported apps. Read more »
There’s a lot of confusing noise out there about whether you can bring an unlocked iPhone 5 over to T-Mo’s network and get it to work properly. Here’s the low-down on what the GSM iPhone 5 can and can’t do. Read more »
Sorry, you can’t buy a $580 iPhone 5 from T-Mobile and then sign up with another carrier — you have to give T-Mo at least once month of service. Read more »
The iOS app is 99 cents and uses geo-location to help people keep grocery lists and be reminded of what items they need to buy when they’re in range of their most frequented markets. Read more »
Energy management startup People Power is back with a new remote monitoring app designed to reuse old iOS devices as security cameras. It’s a nice app and People Power’s gateway drug to the internet of things. Read more »
Set up by WebEx founder Subrah Iyar and launched in January, Moxtra offers an intriguing collaborative service for students and small businesses. Now it’s also available in 18 more languages. Read more »
Shanghai Zhi Zhen makes a product called Xiaoi, which the company calls a “chat robot system.” It says Siri violates a patent it holds on man-machine interaction. Read more »
Flipboard has become a leading player in the digital news-consumption field, and now it wants to hand the same filtering and curation tools employed by its editors over to users of the app, to create their own magazines. Read more »
GigaOM’s coverage of T-Mobile’s “uncarrier” event can be found here. Read more »
T-Mobile’s $99 unlocked iPhone 5 may be one way of putting an iPhone in the purses and pockets of more price-sensitive customers in the U.S. Read more »
A report out of India says that Apple plans to “triple its exclusive stores to around 200 by 2015″ in the country. Read more »
After building up its HSPA+ network for several years, T-Mobile has finally lit up its LTE network, with initial service offerings in 7 markets, along with several devices that can use it: Including the iPhone 5. Read more »
It took nearly six years, but T-Mobile is officially an iPhone carrier. T-Mobile won’t be selling the device like any old carrier, though. The iPhone 5 will be unsubsidized, but available over some of the cheapest service plans in the mobile industry. Read more »
Hype over T-Mobile’s “Uncarrier” event on Tuesday is building. There are no guarantees about what exactly T-Mo will announce tomorrow, but here’s what we expect — and hope — will come out of the NYC press extravaganza. Read more »
Apple’s presence in China and how its products and brand are portrayed are critical to its future. That’s why the recent run-ins with the country’s state-run media could become a concern for the company. Read more »
It’s not totally clear what Apple wants with WifiSlam, but Apple has several services that would benefit from indoor positioning and location tech like small startup has been working on. Read more »
Google+ announced Monday that it’s incorporating some photo editing and filtering features into its iOS app from the team at Snapseed, which Google acquired back in September 2012. At this point the “photo wars” seem to have died down slightly, but Google+ gets into the mix. Read more »
Apple is said to have paid around $20 million recently for the small, 2-year-old Silicon Valley company. Read more »
Riffstation is a fantastic tool to help musicians learn to play new songs, but be warned that it is a complement to your ears, not a replacement Read more »
Vector is a side-scrolling runner that mimics the street gymnastics of parkour. The opening cut scene looks like it’s take right out of Apple’s famous 1984 commercial. Read more »
The idea for the app came from the founder’s history running his own digital agency: his musician and creative friends wanted a way to share content online, but felt limited by some of the more popular social tools available. Read more »
French carriers have reportedly made an unofficial complaint to EU competition authorities over Apple’s iPhone sales quotas. The Commission is unlikely to see this as a matter for an antitrust investigation. Read more »
With the Podcasts 1.2 update released Thursday, Apple’s own app is now on par with other iOS podcasting apps. One area in which it really excels now is automatic downloads of new episodes. Read more »
Other apps that won’t make the cut: those that are not optimized for the iPhone 5 or Retina displays. Read more »
Improvements to the app are long overdue since the Podcasts feature was broken out from iTunes as a standalone app last fall. Read more »
The company introduced two-step authentication for Apple ID and iCloud accounts on Thursday. Read more »
Apple’s massive solar panel and fuel cell farm are now live and providing clean power for its huge data center in Maiden, North Carolina. By the end of the year 60 percent of the power for the data center will come from these sources. Read more »
At the Google Big Tent Summit in India, Eric Schmidt wouldn’t give a straight answer about whether his company’s well-received contextual search app for Android would be coming to iOS soon. Read more »
Do you remember Apple’s rounded rectangles patent? Well, this week Motorola obtained a patent for eight-sided smartphones. Read more »
Children’s ebook iPad app Bookboard is adding more content, like the Berenstain Bears and the Boxcar Children, to its streaming model. It also announced subscription pricing. Read more at paidContent »
Intertrust has 250 patents related to digital copy protection software security and has licensed them to plenty of Apple’s peers. Now it is using the iPhone maker for infringement. Read more »
The world’s largest retailer is expanding a new feature to more stores that enables customers to scan items as they shop with their iPhone and pay at a self-checkout station. Read more »
The move to Apple is tinged with a bit of irony considering the bad blood between the two companies. Read more »
Hulu’s Apple TV app has been given a major facelift to better highlight new content. The relaunch could set off a revamp of the service across various CE devices. Read more »
Apple says its latest iOS update should fix a security flaw discovered in February; it also includes an update to Apple Maps in Japan. Read more »
Apple’s warranty practices come under fire again in Europe as EU Justice Commissioner calls for better enforcement of current consumer protection laws. Read more »
