Apple Job Posting Suggests LTE for iOS Devices

As noted by 9to5mac, a new job listing on Apple’s website suggests support for LTE is being considered at Cupertino as a “specific duty” for iOS cellular protocol engineers. While LTE-related job listings have surfaced before, this is the first time LTE is mentioned among the “specific duties” for an applicant.

Specific Duties

- Implementation, Integration, customization, enhancement and maintenance of L1-3 Protocols for one or more of the following air interface: GSM/UMTS, CDMA (1x/EVDO), LTE etc.
- Carrier specific features implementation

Job listings shouldn’t be considered as the ultimate proof of a new feature Apple is working on, but they provide good indication of things to come sometime in the future, or that are at least being tested. LTE 4G connectivity seems pretty obvious at this point, considering that carriers in the US are updating their networks to support it and several European carriers have confirmed LTE will be launched during 2012 and 2013.

It is unclear whether the next-generation iPhone will feature LTE or not, but the rumors have been intensifying lately with China Mobile making the bold statement that “Apple will support LTE” and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak saying “LTE will come”.

Apple Releases iOS 4.2.6 For Verizon iPhone

It seems like Apple just released a new iOS firmware for the Verizon iPhone. The iOS version is 4.2.6 and it’s available for direct download here. Apple apparently did some subtle tweaks to the operating system for the CDMA iPhone, which was running iOS 4.2.5 at the Verizon media event where the iPhone was officially announced. iOS 4.2.6 is a modification to the original 4.2 OS that can run on Verizon’s CDMA network, and includes the Personal Hotspot feature that allows users to turn their devices into mobile hotspots capable of sharing a 3G connection with nearby phones.

The firmware posted online is for the “iPhone 3,3”, which is the model name of the Verizon unit. It’s a 642 MB download, build number 8E200.

Rumor has it Apple sent out review units to selected journalists and bloggers earlier today, and that’s probably why the firmware has been posted online.

PhotoToMac Is The Fastest Way To Transfer Photos to OS X

I share a lot of screenshots and photos between my iPhone and Mac every day. Up until today, I’ve relied on third-party apps like iFiles to import pictures into its library and get them on my Mac using Cyberduck, which can connect to iFiles’ built-in WebDAV server. PhotoToMac, a $1.99 app by Galarina, improved my workflow with a system that allows me to import photos and videos without using additional Mac apps. Files shared with PhotoToMac, in fact, end up directly in the Finder. Read more

Google’s OS X Software Deployment Solution Now Open Source

As noted by The Register, Google has open sourced its enterprise-class Mac OS X software deployment solution, Simian. The software can distribute applications and software updates across a network of a dozens or thousands of Macs, it can handle security patches and optional installations, it even provides a way to deal with updates issued by Apple. Simian is entirely based on OS X, as Google decided to move to Apple’s operating system after the vulnerabilities found in its previous Windows-based environment that allowed a Chinese hacker to enter Google’s internal secure network in 2009.

The tool uses a client based on Munki, a set of Mac deployment tools previously open sourced under an Apache 2.0 license. Munki lets you install software that uses not only the Apple package format but also Adobe CS3/CS4/CS5 Enterprise Deployment packages, and you can drag and drop disk images as installer sources. What’s more, it can be configured to install Apple Software Updates, either from Apple’s servers or your own.

Last, Simian is built on top of Google’s own App Engine, an infrastructure that allows to deploy and manage online applications. More information about Simian are available here.

Bump for iPhone Updated With App Sharing

Bump, a popular iPhone app to share data like music and contact information between devices, was updated earlier today to include support for app sharing. The app, which is a free download in the App Store and was listed among the most popular apps for iPhone, revolves around the simple concept of “bumping” your iPhone with another person to share various kinds of information, locally and within seconds.

The new app sharing functionality allows you to build a list of your most used iPhone apps and select the ones you want to recommend to a friend. Once the list is created, bump your iPhone and your friend will receive the apps you chose as direct links to the iTunes Store. Bump doesn’t of course share the actual application file, but it comes quite in handy if you have lots of interesting apps to share with someone and you don’t feel like sending him an email with all the apps’ names.

What’s really cool is that, unlike app recommendation services that plug into your Facebook or Twitter accounts, Bump does everything locally with people you really know are interested in what you’re sharing. You don’t have to “like” or “upvote” recommendations, you just share items you know the recipient will be interested in.

As the developers write on the company blog:

This has been our biggest feature request of late, and it makes sense as to why.  With more than 300,000 apps in the iTunes App Store, finding the best apps has become quite difficult.  Who wants to sort through the 100 weather apps just to find WeatherBug?  But what is the most common conversation among a group of iPhone users?  ”Hey, what cool apps do you have?”

You can download Bump for free here.

Apple’s Design Director Goes To Paypal

All Things Digital reports Paypal has hired former Apple Design Director Sarah Brody as VP of Global Design. The new position at eBay-owned Paypal will allow the former Apple designer to make “sure that its payment platform is easy to use”.

Sarah Brody worked on the original iPhone, the first iPod nano and a series of Apple’s professional applications like Logic and Final Cut.

From her LinkedIn profile page:

For almost a decade, Sarah has developed and designed numerous projects and products for the Apple developer ecosystem—as individual contributor, as creative director, as well as hiring manager.

At Apple, Sarah achieved a track record of consistently delivering ground breaking products that helped redefine the way Apple’s applications look and feel.
Her unique, hands-on design approach and ability to build and manage teams that execute consistently is widely respected at Apple. Under her design direction and cross-functional partnerships with company executives, product management, marketing, engineering, and quality assurance, Apple conceived and shipped more than a dozen different products including foundation software for Mac OS X/ ProKit, MobileMe, iPhone, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, Logic Pro and products still yet to be unveiled.

On many occasions Sarah played a key role in creating new projects from inception and prototyping, through formal proposal, executive review for funding, to development and launch.

Sarah Brody started working at Apple in July 2001.

Portal: A Revolutionary Browser for iPhone

Over the weekends, I usually spend a bit of my free time browsing the App Store and AppShopper, looking for new apps to try on my iPhone and iPad. Sometime I find interesting new things to test; sometimes I find great apps. Other times – but this is a very rare exception – I find really great apps I can’t stop using. This is the case with Portal Browser for iPhone.

I have been trying a lot of alternative browsers for iOS over the past months, as you may have noticed. Thanks to tweaks available in Cydia, I also installed several modifications to make Apple’s Safari a better, faster, more functional browser. Still, testing new browsers from third party developers has become one of my favorite “work hobbies”, as I believe there’s great room for experimentation and innovation in a mobile app to browse the Internet. I do believe we have only scratched the surface with mobile browsers on iOS and Android which, if you think about it, haven’t done much besides porting the desktop experience to a smaller screen. Portal for iPhone is the first step towards a much better approach to mobile browsing, entirely based on touch interactions, features and menus developed with the iPhone in mind. Don’t get me wrong: Safari is an excellent browser. But Portal, which is sold at $1.99 in the App Store, is more than the usual alternative: it’s a completely different take on mobile browsing. Read more

Due Gets An Update to 1.3.1: We Celebrate With A Giveaway

Popular reminder app Due has recently received a major update to 1.3.1: OTA sync is now available via your favorite online syncing tool, Dropbox. While the second version delivered intuitive new interactions and rescheduling, version three brings effortlessly sync, back up, restore, and undo reminders without the hassle of deleting unfinished or nonexistent tasks. With an iPad version in the works, our favorite fast reminder tool will soon receive a major league update to our favorite tablet device. We’ve been fans of Due since we first reviewed it in September, and now we’re giving away five copies so newcomers can start off with the latest and greatest quick reminder tool for the iPhone, normally $2.99 in the iTunes App Store.

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