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There are few things lonelier than a bass player without a band. Guitar players can strum around a campfire, keyboard players are always sliding onto piano benches to entertain at parties (and what’s not to love about an instrument that doubles as a resting place for your drink?) And drummers — well, drummers look at…

Amazon announced an interesting and important program this week called Matchbook. This program allows customers who purchase some physical books to also download a Kindle Edition version of that book at a discount, or for free. This is the sort of thing I have long wanted physical book stores to offer to remain relevant in…

Samsung's new Galaxy Gear smartwatch may have had a longer life as a rumor than it will as a shipping product. Samsung jumped the gun to beat Apple to market with a serious contender in the smartwatch game, and the company made several compromised and a fatal flaw: the Galaxy Gear is a US$300 accessory.…

Samsung's Galaxy Gear, the smartwatch that has been rumored for about half as long as Apple's iWatch. The company announced it today, and the biggest thing I get from it is that it should have been called the Galaxy Fear. Samsung Galaxy Gear Smartwatch Specs and Features First, the low-down. It's a smartwatch. A ginormous…

A German Appeals Court has given back some of iCloud's functionality in the country by lifting an injunction blocking the email push delivery feature. The injunction was part of a Motorola patent infringement lawsuit that alleged the email push notification feature Apple offers iOS users relied on technologies that weren't properly licensed. Motorola Mail push…

The Earshots portable stereo speakers From Kubxlab, available in silver or red, are designed for use with mp3 players, mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. The speakers measure 1.4 x 1.3-in (35 x 33-mm) and connect to your devices via a standard 3.5mm stereo cable for stereo sound. A stereo cable is included in the…

Apple has added a new online chat option for AppleCare support, as noted by CNet. The option allows you to get one of Apple's support staff in a text conversation right in your browser. Here's how to find it. If you visit Apple's Support page, you'll find lots of options for manuals, videos, downloads, tech…

Our culture has been, for a long time, immersed in war, weaponry, and computer-aided death, both in reality and in our entertainment. In the midst of that, Apple has come out with ads that remind us what we ought to be doing with our fabulous technology. One reaction to that has been dismay and derision.…

Apple released an update for Find My iPhone on Thursday that updated the app's icon, but also temporarily blocked access to its features unless you had an Apple Developer Account. The issue was fixed relatively quickly, but it highlighted why the soon to be released iOS 7 needs a way for users to prevent some…

I've been asking a basic question about Android for quite a while: what the heck are they doing with all those Android devices? Thanks to a couple of recent studies from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), we're starting to get some color on that question. Lagging Usage At issue is the discrepancy between the gagillions…

Apple has hired a top executive from Levi Strauss and Co. to fill a position in its U.S. retail leadership ranks. Citing unnamed sources and a LinkedIn profile, 9to5Mac reported that Apple hired Enrique Atienza as a “top director” in its U.S. retail operations. His Facebook page also lists Apple as his employer. Mr. Atienza…

The Mac Observer's Chuck La Tournous and John F. Braun both hit the podcast circuit this week to talk about the controversy between open and closed tech ecosystems, how consumer apps fit in the iCloud world, the just released Steve Jobs biopic, and more. Chuck spent his time talking on The Mac Jury, and John…

We all know the story about how Apple disrupted the mobile phone market with the iPhone, but have you heard about the startup that wants to disrupt the bra industry using the iPhone? That's ThirdLove, a company using in-house imaging technology to turn two 2D, self-shot images of a woman's breasts to make a 3D…

If you aren't convinced yet—and really, you should be—The Wall Street Journal has added its journalistic weight behind the “Apple's gonna ship two new iPhones in September” narrative. Citing unspecific sources, the newspaper said that Apple's suppliers have been asked to ship both a high-end iPhone and a new low-cost iPhone model in September, a…

I haven't been too keen on the idea of Apple making a gold version of the iPhone and instead have been thinking that's a better option for the rumored iPhone 5C. Based on the word on the street, I'm flat-out wrong, and that instead of being garish, it'll be a product that Smaug would be…

Researchers at Georgia Tech have used a specific technique to sneak malware onto Apple's heavily curated App Store. The team wrote an app, submitted it to the App Store, and won approval even though the app had significant malware because of the way the malware code was hidden within the app. Code Gadgets & Jekyll…

Apple and Yahoo! have rolled out neighborhood-specific weather in their respective weather apps for iOS. This isn't just in iOS 7—where it was first noticed on reddit—but also for iOS 6 and iOS 5, and possibly others. The change appears to have been pushed by Yahoo!, whose data powers Apple's default Weather.app for iOS as…

Microsoft and Google are tussling over access to YouTube on Windows Phone devices. Microsoft has released not one, but two apps on its Windows Phone Apps+Games Store, and Google has blocked both of them. The Verge reported that Microsoft had reverse-engineered an API key for access to YouTube, a key that Google then deactivated. This,…

RBC Capital analyst Amit Daryanani raised his target price for Apple's stock on Thursday from US$475 to $525 based on the likelihood that new iPhone models will ship in September and that the company may expand its stock buyback program, too. Apple hasn't officially confirmed new iPhones are coming next month, but reliable sources have…

CBS had us going on Monday with a clip of Larry Ellison seemingly saying that Apple will crash and burn without the late Steve Jobs. The full interview offers a slightly different take, however, one in which Mr. Ellison calls Steve Jobs “irreplaceable” and says that Apple won't do as well without him. Mr. Ellison…

The iProp stand for iPads and other tablets is like your own personal, lightweight little beanbag. You can prop the iPad in numerous angles and it nicely balances on your lap when you want to be a couch potato. iProp in black The iProp is composed of a durable sports mesh that is made of…

Apple has run into trouble in Norway completing its 3D “Flyover” views in Apple Maps. The government of Norway is denying Apple permission to photograph the capitol of Oslo over security concerns, a problem not faced by competitors like Google that rely on satellite imagery. The image below compares Apple's Flyover imagery for Oslo and…

That Tri-tone Feeling Apple's marimba-based “Tri-tone” alert sound is ubiquitous. It's the default sound for incoming text messages on the iPhone, but it wasn't actually created inside Apple. A programmer and musician named Kelly Jacklin posted a blog entry that describes how he created the sound for the makers of SoundJam when they wanted an…

Judge Denise Cote is considering hitting Apple with some pretty stiff sanctions in the Department of Justice's ebook price fixing case against the company including restricting the types of contracts Apple can strike for five years and an additional five years of government oversight. She won't, however, grant the DOJ everything it wanted in its…