Bryan Chaffin's photo

Bryan Chaffin

Bryan Chaffin is the cofounder of The Mac Observer and currently serves as Afternoon Editor. He has contributed to MacAddict and MacFormat magazines, and co-authored the last two updates of iPad and iPad Pro for Dummies with Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus and Ed Baig. You can find out more about Bryan at his personal site, GeekTells, or find his Twitter link below.

Get In Touch:

Apple Improves iTunes Match with iTunes 10.5.2 Update

iTunes & iTunes Match The update is a 16.6MB download in Lion through Software Update. Apple has added the update to its Downloads site, but that currently resolves to the 10.5.1 download. The update is, however, available at the iTunes download page. iTunes for Windows was also updated to version 10.5.2.

iOS 5.1 Developer Beta Adds Photo Stream Deletion

Apple Releases iOS 5.1 beta 2 to Developers Photo Stream is Apple’s iCloud-powered service that puts your most recent 1,000 photos on all of your iOS devices and Macs. One of the criticisms of the service, however, is that while one can permanently save an image from the stream, there is no way to delete…

China iPad Trademark Holder Seeks $1.6 Billion from Apple

New details of the case have emerged since coverage of the verdict itself. For one thing, there’s the basis for why Apple thought it could sue its way into a trademark registered more then ten years ago in China. According to documents released by the court, Apple originally bought what it thought was the worldwide…

Rogue Amoeba’s Piezo Records Other (Sandboxed) Mac Apps

Piezo Interface Examples “Almost any app’s audio can be captured in Piezo, just by selecting it as the source,” the company said in a statement. “Piezo will grab web streams in Safari or music from services like Spotify and Rdio. If you need to capture sound bites from DVDs or even from movies in iTunes,…

Shaw Wu Lowers iPad Forecast, Bumps iPhone & Mac

The iPad decrease has been the subject of most of the attention Mr. Wu’s research note has garnered. The analyst told clients that he was lowering his forecast from 15 million iPads during the quarter down to 13.5 million units. Behind the decrease are two main factors. The first is that he believes Amazon’s Kindle…

Chinese Court Rejects Apple iPad Trademark Claims

According to Reuters, Apple brought the suit against a Shenzen company called Proview Technology in the Intermediate People’s Court in that district. Proview Technology had registered the mark for use in China, and the court found that its trademark was legal. What ramifications this will have for Apple remain to be seen, and the company…

Court Redaction Error Shows Apple Licensed Scroll Patent to Nokia

Most of Apple’s and Samsung’s legal filings and briefings have been filed under seal, but Judge Lucy Koh has released some of those documents with small and large passages redacted. What happened over the weekend is that a PDF of a document was released that contained a major flaw: Though the document appears redacted, viewers…

U.S. Senator Fires Open Letter to Carrier IQ

Artist Rendering of Al Franken’s Inquiry of CarrierIQ Senator Franken has been an outspoken advocate on privacy issues during his first term, and is the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. Earlier this year, he held a hearing (see TMO’s live coverage of that hearing for more) involving Apple and…

Apple Clarifies CarrierIQ in iOS, Promises Removal

CarrierIQ became a hot button issue this week as a demonstration of what the software was logging on HTC Android devices was published to YouTube. That demonstration found that CarrierIQ hid itself from the list of running apps, logged every keystroke (including text messages) and button push the user made, logged phone numbers dialed, and…

Carrier IQ Collects Everything on Android Phones [Update]

A piece of software called Carrier IQ has apparently been installed on more than 141 million phones from Samsung, HTC. While the same is true of a lot of software, CarrierIQ is loaded without the permission of users, always runs, doesn’t show up in the list of running apps on those devices, and—this is the…

UBS Dismisses iPad Concerns on Corning Glass Warning

At issue was a warning from Corning on Tuesday that the company was cutting its estimates for its Gorilla Glass business. The company said that rather than seeing a 15% decline quarter over quarter, it was now expecting a 25% decline. The firm blamed less-than-expected demand for tablet glass, a comment that lead many to…

HTC to “Reevaluate” S3 Purchase, Will Appeal ITC Ruling

An Artist’s Rendering of HTC’s Reevaluation Process The company made the announcement via a statement, that said: HTC is disappointed at the outcome of the recent ITC ruling that stated Apple did not infringe S3 Graphics’ patents. S3 Graphics will continue to appeal. HTC has made significant effort in preparing for these complicated legal proceedings,…

Apple Hiring More Cloud Execs, Report

Apple in the Cloud These efforts have included turning to headhunting firms and recruiters, something Apple has been known to do only recently. For instance, Apple tapped Egon Zehnder International, an international recruiter, to help find a replacement for retail star Ron Johnson, who left Apple to take over as CEO of retail stalwart J.C.…

Apple Adjusts Aussie Attorneys for April Adjudication

In the back and forth patent infringement battle between Apple and Samsung, both companies have sought injunctions against the other’s products. Apple successfully won a temporary injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android tablet in Australia in October (retailers have found ways to get around the ban), and in a counter claim, Samsung is seeking…

IHS Teardown: Amazon Kindle Fire Costs $202 to Make

Kindle Fire The company estimates the total cost of the Kindle Fire is currently US$201.70, slightly more than Amazon’s $199 price tag. The teardown resulted in a slightly lower cost to the $209 price tag IHS estimated before it had an actual unit to tear down, and it conflicts with another teardown by TechInsight that…

USPTO Reaffirms Powerful Apple Location Services Patent

  The patent was acquired from Xerox in 2009—it was originally filed in 1998 and issued to Xerox in 2000. According to CNet, Apple took ownership of the patent on December 17th, 2009. Apple refiled for the patent on September 1, 2010, and the U.S.P.T.O. reaffirmed it by reissuing it on November 15th, 2011. Not…

Apple Marches Inexorably Closer to iTunes Match Launch

iTunes MatchiTunes Match is Apple’s $24.99 per year service that matches all the music in your music library to songs on the company’s iCloud servers and then makes those songs available to all of your iTunes-enabled devices and computers. Similar to what the company already offers for iTunes purchases, iTunes Match will match songs gotten…

Steam Account Info Hacked, Credit Card Theft Possible

Steam is an online service that delivers Windows and Mac games through direct downloads. The service also offers player matching for head to head and multiplayer gaming, leader boards, achievements, and more. The original attack occurred on Sunday, November 6th, and was first thought to involve forum accounts only. Valve Software, which operates the Steam…

Amazon Buys Yap Speech Recognition Company

For instance, Amazon could be looking to add some form of Siri-like voice controls to its $199 tablet, the Kindle Fire, which ships on November 15th. On the other hand, the company could be looking at ways to enable voice-activated shopping for its enormous online retail operations. The company could conceivably do so through telephone,…