First Look: OS X Mountain Lion

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Apple on Thursday unveiled OS X Mountain Lion, the next generation desktop operating system. I’ve been using Mountain Lion for about a week now and it’s packed with new features that existing Mac users and iOS users will enjoy.

Mountain Lion will be released this summer. Pricing isn’t currently available, but it should come as no surprise that Mountain Lion will only be available via the Mac App Store when it’s released. […]

Apple confirms lower iAd pricing

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Apple on Wednesday confirmed for The Loop that new pricing for developers and advertisers have been implemented on its iAd platform. The changes, according to one media agency executive, could help boost the platform into even more advertising budgets this year. […]

AT&T explains reasons for data throttling

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Zach Epstein:

In an effort to justify its policies surrounding data service throttling for subscribers with unlimited smartphone data plans, AT&T on Tuesday issued a brief report regarding data usage on its nationwide wireless network. Senior EVP of AT&T technology and network operations John Donovan wrote on a company blog that data traffic on AT&T’s network has grown a staggering 20,000% over the past five years. Usage has doubled between 2010 and 2011 according to the executive, due in large part to the proliferation of smartphones.

Oh, so it’s our fault.

Apple responds to contact data controversy

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“Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AllThingsD. “We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done … Continued

MacTech Boot Camp

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MacTech Boot Camp is specifically designed for those techs and consultants supporting home users, small office/home office, and small-to-medium sized businesses. This one-day, hotel-based, seminar is designed specifically to help you be the most successful consultant you can be. Learn. … Continued

Tim Cook on the Apple TV

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Tim Cook talking about the Apple TV: So, with Apple TV however, despite the barriers in that market, for those of us who use it, we’ve always thought there was something there. If we kept following our intuition and kept … Continued

Apple disabling Siri hacks

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Redmond Pie:

Unlike the many clones and pretenders looking to essentially copy the format, Spire simply installs the necessary files of Apple’s voice-recognition utility, requiring a server host and a legit iPhone 4S certificate to leave users with an all-singing, all-dancing port of Siri. In order to prevent such treachery, Apple seems to have added a “SetActivationToken” which stops Spire right in its tracks.

Samsung not worried about Apple making a TV

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Pocket-lint:

“TVs are ultimately about picture quality. Ultimately. How smart they are…great, but let’s face it that’s a secondary consideration. The ultimate is about picture quality and there is no way that anyone, new or old, can come along this year or next year and beat us on picture quality.“So, from that perspective, it’s not a great concern but it remains to be seen what they’re going to come out with, if anything.”

Seems a lot like what RIM said about the iPhone in 2007.

Protest against Apple nothing more than a publicity stunt

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I admit, I was a bit surprised when I received a press release on February 8 that a group of protesters were going to deliver a petition with 250,000 signatures to Apple demanding they respond to allegations of worker abuse in China.

I wondered if the group had done any homework at all. Do they not know that Apple is leading the industry in factory audits and its concerns for workers, not just in China, but all over the world?

This is not the iPad 3

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John Gruber talking about 8-inch iPad reported by WSJ: This is not the iPad 3, which I believe will have a same-sized (9.7 inches) double resolution display. This is a different iPad, which, last I heard, Apple was only considering, … Continued

Apple’s purchase of Nortel, Novell patents approved

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Josh Ong: The U.S. Department of Justice approved on Monday several patent purchases and acquisitions, including a collection of Nortel’s intellectual property to be acquired by Apple, Microsoft, Research in Motion and others and Novell patents that Apple has purchased. … Continued

Canada’s Lawful Access Bill

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Michael Geist: Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is expected to introduce lawful access legislation tomorrow in the House of Commons. An Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and others … Continued

iPad 3 event pegged for March 7

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Rene Ritchie:

According to sources who have been reliable in the past, Apple currently plans to hold their iPad 3 announcement on Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Yep.

RIM director scoffs at BlackBerry critics

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RIM director Roger Martin speaking to the Globe and Mail:

I laugh at the vast majority of critics when they say ‘Oh, you should have made this CEO transition, like, four years ago.’ Yeah, right – like, to who?

I guess the co-CEOs aren’t the only ones that need to go.

VLC 2.0 coming this week

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The design obviously boasts a fairly sizable departure from previous iterations of VLC, most obviously with 2.0 consolidating much of the UI into one window.

Using Gobbler

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Gobbler transfers files extraordinarily fast from one account to another, and is geared towards musicians. If you decide that you can’t live without it, you want all your stuff backed up to your Gobbler account, and you need to send out even more projects at lightning speed, starting at $8 a month it’s still a steal! And, it also works really well with SoundCloud.

I’ve had a Gobbler account for some time now, but haven’t really used it a lot. However, the more I share files, the more I’ll be using it.

SlotZ Racer for iPhone and iPad

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Many thanks to Strange Flavour for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed with SlotZ Racer, its free iPhone and iPad racing game. Strange Flavour are back with a new spin on their hit slot car racing game SlotZ Racer! SlotZ Racer … Continued

Trust

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Ben Brooks talking about the Path/Address Book kerfuffle:

If you live and play in the Apple world, you need only trust Apple. This is what Apple tells us — it’s a ‘feature’ of the Apple ecosystem.The fact is, that in this instance, Apple broke that trust.

I read that a couple of times and thought about what my reaction was to this whole mess. I don’t think Apple broke my trust though. If Apple told me my Address Book data was safe and this happened, then yeah, they would have broken my trust.

However, my reaction to this was that there’s obviously something that needs to be fixed.

Apple is worth 56 RIMs

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Using today’s market cap numbers, Apple is worth $459.2 billion and RIM is worth $8.2. And RIM said in 2007 that the iPhone wouldn’t impact their business. Good call RIM.

Apple retail growth

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Horace Dediu:

Apple’s retail stores increased sales by nearly 60% in Q4. This is a dramatic though not unprecedented change from Q3′s 1% growth rate. The growth rate faithfully tracks iPhone releases as demonstrated in a post last quarter.