Innehållsförteckning för #143 från AppleMagazine

The Nokia X phones that Microsoft discontinued this week blend two rival operating systems, but leave out the best of each. As a result, the devices didn’t become a runaway hit as Nokia’s low-cost answer to serving emerging markets. Nokia X phones were devised to be a gateway to the company’s pricier Lumia phones. The operating system that runs the phones was to blend the core technology found in Google’s Android system with services and designs found in Microsoft’s own Windows Phone system. Nokia looked to Android as a way to sell phones with locally tailored apps unavailable on Windows. But Microsoft completed its deal to buy Nokia’s phone business in April, and Nokia X is gone less than three months later. “Nokia tried to bring the best of both…

Apple’s growth prospects are looking brighter as anticipation builds for the upcoming release of the next iPhone, a model that is expected to cater to consumers yearning for a bigger screen. The latest evidence of Apple’s mounting momentum emerged Tuesday with the release of the company’s fiscal third-quarter report. Earnings topped analysts’ projections for the period as Apple Inc. sold 35.2 million iPhones. That was a 13 percent increase from the same time last year, even though many people are believed to be holding off on new device purchases until the next version comes out this fall. “From an execution perspective, we did a really great job,” Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said in an interview with the Associated Press. “We have some things in the pipeline that we…

iOS #01 - Dino Hunter: Deadly Shores By Glu Games Inc. Category: Games Requires iOS 5.1 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #02 - Timberman By Pawel Jedrysiak Category: Games Requires iOS 4.3 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #03 - Kim Kardashian: Hollywood By Glu Games Inc. Category: Games Requires iOS 5.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #04 - Guess The Emoji : Emoji Pops By Conversion, LLC Category: Games Requires iOS 5.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #05 – No Brakes By Totebo Ltd Category: Games…

Netflix’s second-quarter earnings more than doubled as new episodes from a hit series helped the Internet video service surpass 50 million worldwide subscribers for the first time. The gains announced Monday include an additional 570,000 U.S. subscribers, slightly more than Netflix’s management predicted. The quarter is typically the company’s slowest of the year, as people spend more time outdoors instead of watching video. Investors applauded the second-quarter results, pushing Netflix’s stock up $4.05 to $456 in extended trading. The shares have surged by 23 percent this year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has increased 7 percent. The second quarter featured one of Netflix’s marquee attractions, “Orange Is The New Black,” which returned for its second season in early June. As with Netflix’s other original series, all 13 episodes…

Paint. Clay. Pastel. These are the traditional art mediums, the ones used to create the famous works hanging on museum walls and displayed front and center in halls and galleries. But the future is not in museums. It’s in pixels and vectors. It is is in drawing software programs and applications. The future of art is on our screens and beneath our fingertips. Jennifer Nicole is a working artist. She owns a small business called “Art in the Garage” in the state of New York, specializing in hand painted signs, windows, and repurposed furniture. Her painted worksare unique, rustic with a touch of whimsy. Her creations look as though they emerged from the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm. But Nicole’s style really shines in her graphics. Curvy girls, Disney homages,…

WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE CORPORATION... AND RIVALS When was the last time you even considered buying a Microsoft-powered mobile phone or tablet? Far too many of us would answer that question with “Never” or something close to it, which goes some way to explaining why the 39 year old corporation has just announced the loss of 18,000 jobs as it bids to make itself shipshape in the new technology era. It’s fair to say that Microsoft has struggled for relevance in certain sectors of the customer technology market for many years now. That may seem an absurd comment given the immense revenues that it still commands. But if you were to ask which companies have truly captured the Zeitgeist, your respondent would be producing such names as Google, Facebook,…

FACTORS POWERING THE MOBILE FITNESS REVOLUTION The summer is a tricky time for many of us. No, we aren’t referring to all of that money you blew on watching the United States’ admittedly impressive show at the soccer World Cup, or even the need to slap on the sun cream or duck for cover in the continuing heat waves. What we’re referring to, is the fact that this is the midpoint of the year and your New Year resolutions might not be working out as you’d have hoped. After all, what’s probably the trickiest New Year resolution of all? Something even tougher than getting that longed-for promotion or even patching up relations with the mother-in-law? We are, of course, talking about getting fit. If you’re like anyone else, you’ve probably…

iOS #01 – Minecraft – Pocket Edition By Mojang Category: Games / Price: $6.99 Requires iOS 5.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #02 – Heads Up! By Warner Bros. Category: Games / Price: $0.99 Requires iOS 5.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #03 – Monument Valley By ustwo™ Category: Games / Price: $1.99 Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #04 – Blek By Denis Mikan Category: Games / Price: $0.99 Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized…

Bad Words This subversive comedy is not only the feature directorial debut of Jason Bateman, but also sees him in the starring role, as 40-year-old Guy Trilby, who spots a loophole in - and duly hijacks - The Golden Quill national spelling bee. Needless to say that chaos ensues. Allison Janney, Rachael Harris and Philip Baker Hall also star. FIVE FACTS: 1. Bad Words premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. 2. Andrew Dodge’s screenplay for the film frst caught attention after making The Black List in 2011. 3. Jason Bateman has described the attraction of directing as “really the only reason I’ve been acting for the last 20 years of this career.” 4. Bateman has said that casting himself in the lead role gave him “a much stronger…

Before Ralf Groene helped devise the look and feel of Microsoft’s Surface tablet, he designed food - or “food concepts/’ he says, for people on the go. Among them: dried noodles that come wrapped around a pair of chopsticks; a tubular meal that can be pulled with two fingers from a car cup holder base; and a fork that squeezes out sauce. Though none of these ideas made it into production, the principles behind them can be applied to computing devices that fit into busy lives, says Groene, and they are just as varied as the ones Microsoft now uses to redesign all its software and devices. “In a way, we’ve designed Surface with very similar principles,” Groene said on a recent tour of the Surface lab on Microsoft’s sprawling…

Amazon is rolling out a new subscription service that will allow unlimited access to thousands of electronic books and audiobooks for $9.99 a month in the online giant’s latest effort to attract more users. The largest U.S. e-commerce site said Friday that the Kindle Unlimited service will give users the ability to read as much as they want from more than 600,000 Kindle titles such as “The Hunger Games” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” They can also listen as much as they like to thousands of Audible audiobooks, including “Water for Elephants.” The service will offer about 2,000 audiobooks from Audible with Whispersync for Voice, which lets users switch between reading and listening to books. Subscribers will get a free three-month membership to the broader Audible service, which has…

Verizon is boosting the upload speeds of nearly all its FiOS connections to match the download speeds, vastly shortening the time it takes for subscribers to send videos and back up their files online. Starting Monday, all new subscribers will get “symmetrical” connections. The cheapest plan will deliver 25 megabits per second up and down, an increase from 15 megabits down and 5 megabits up. Current subscribers will see their upload speeds raised over the coming months, product manager Fowler Abercrombie said. He expects that 95 percent of Verizon customers will see higher speeds. For the rest, fully symmetrical speeds may not be possible for technical reasons. With the speed increase, Verizon Communications Inc. is taking advantage of a technical ability that its all-fiber FiOS network has. Rival offerings from…

Yahoo is buying Flurry Inc., a startup that helps other programmers build better mobile applications and craft marketing campaigns for smartphones and tablets. The deal announced Monday is the latest in a wave of mostly small acquisitions that Yahoo Inc. has made during the two-year reign of CEO Marissa Mayer as the company’s tries to attract more traffic on mobile devices. The shopping spree hasn’t yet provided Yahoo with the means to boost its revenue growth at a time more advertising is moving to online services. The Sunnyvale, California, company last week disclosed another lackluster performance in the April-June period. Yahoo didn t disclose how much it is paying for Flurry, an indication that the price isn’t big enough to affect Yahoo’s finances. Flurry, based in San Francisco, says its…

The Black Market Rise Against The Black Market is a more introspective effort from the ethically-minded Chicago hardcore-punk stalwarts Rise Against, as demonstrated by lead single “I Don’t Want To Be Here Anymore” being about the end of a relationship, not expatriation as its title may suggest. It’s also the group’s seventh studio album. FIVE FACTS: 1. The band hails from Chicago, Illinois, where it was formed in summer 1999. 2. The current members of the group are Tim McIlrath, Zach Blair, Joe Principe and Brandon Barnes. 3. Rise Against is also known for its advocacy of progressive organizations, including Amnesty International and It Gets Better Project. 4. The Black Market has been described as the quartet’s “most musically adventurous and lyrically personal album yet.” 5. McIlrath has said of…

Target is introducing an app that lets users purchase items after scanning magazine ads with their smartphones. It’s the latest offering from retailers looking to boost sales with the use of improving image-recognition technology. Starting this month, the app, called “In a Snap,” will recognize images for Target’s Room Essentials products in 10 home decor magazines including Architecture and Real Simple. A user can simply scan an image and when it is recognized by the app, the item gets added to a shopping cart for potential purchase. Apps that scan codes, such as QSR codes and UPC symbols, are fairly common, but an app that consistently recognizes images or objects has proven more difficult. Retailers are anticipating competition from Firefly, a service Amazon is launching this week with the debut…