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Hex  often produces a line of bags and that is the case with the Tribute. The Cloak Backpack is one of several items designed to mix and match. Hex Tribute Cloak Backpack The outside is water resistant, “fine wale” navy blue corduroy. The bottom three inches of the backpack are covered with an imitation leather that…

Apple has been hit with yet another lawsuit, although this time it's over the EarPods trademark and comes from hearing aid maker Randolph Divisions. The lawsuit alleged that Apple's EarPods headphones that ship with the iPhone 5 infringe on the HearPod trademark and product. Hearing aid maker sues Apple over EarPods name Randolph Divisions claimed…

A review of Apple's so-called overscroll bounce patent has invalidated a key claim. Though the review processreaffirmed three of the patents claims (14, 17, and 18), claim 19 was at the heart of (some of) Apple's legal victory in Apple v. Samsung in which Apple won more than a billion U.S. dollars in damages. This…

The HTC One earned a 1 out of 10 Repairability Score from iFixIt on Friday, the first time a device earned such a score. Will that result in legions of Apple critics leveling their wrath on HTC? Don't count on it. The HTC One is one of the most highly-regarded Android devices on the market.…

U.S. cell service provider T-Mobile will be hosting a media event in New York City Tuesday morning where the company is expected to talk about its LTE network plans, and possibly even some news about bringing the iPhone to the network. T-Mobile is the only big carrier to be left out of the iPhone game,…

Apple did two things last week that have stuck in my mind: it radically redesigned its Podcasts app and added support for a third-party music routing system, called Audiobus, to GarageBand. I try not to get too optimistic when watching Apple’s moves, but I can’t help but wonder if these tea leaves speak of what’s…

This week I have the pleasure of not only welcoming Smile back as our sponsor here at TMO, but also talking about a new version of their fantastic product, PDFpen. For those of you who don't know, PDFpen allows you to edit and modify your PDFs in many different ways. Need to add a signature…

Apple has purchased WifiSLAM for about US$20 million, hinting that indoor location tracking and navigation may be coming to iOS. WifiSLAM specializes in indoor mapping based on WiFi signals — a feature that Google offers in some locations through its own map apps, but so far isn't available in Apple's Maps app. Apple gets deeper…

I am happy to welcome back online backup service CrashPlan as this week's sponsor here at TMO. CrashPlan is something I have personally used for years, and I always happily recommended on our Mac Geek Gab podcast, too. In short, CrashPlan is an online backup service for your Mac (and other machines, like Windows, too). A…

The purpose of advertising is to create demand and then sales. If a company that's behind in market and mind share spends enough, it not only influences the customers, it influences the tech community. Is this what's behind the Apple malaise? We are all creatures born of the advertising era, and we grudgingly admit that…

Justin Long is playing Steve Jobs in iSteve, the newest Steve Jobs biopic. Unlike Ashton Kutcher's jOBS or Aaron Sorkin's in-progress adapatation of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography, iSteve is a comedy made by Will Farrell's Funny or Die. iSteve Movie Poster The New York Times reported that the movie's script was written in three…

ECBC's Poseidon Messenger Bag for 13-inch notebooks, part of their K7 series, has a casual look, but hidden inside are a number of features that make this bag a workhorse for busy people who need both their computers and their iPads at the ready.  There is a lot to like about this bag. The outside,…

Samsung launched the Galaxy S4 on Thursday at a launch event called SamsungUnpacked. The event featured awkward plays, bad executive presentations, and a celebrity MC, but the takeaway is that the company is distancing itself from Google and Android with the new device. SamsungUnpacked was packed full of awful, awkward mini-plays Samsung introduced a variety…

Those familiar with external storage and storage controllers will recognize the name CalDigit. For years, the California-based company has offered a variety of storage products aimed primarily at the professional market, including a new update to its “AV” line of external drives, the AV Pro. CalDigit sent us a review sample and we’ve spent the…

 Phil Schiller Apple vice president Phil Schiller took the offense on Wednesday, the day before Samsung launches its long-awaited Galaxy S4 smartphone. Mr. Schiller gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal where he dismissed the user experience on Android and called fragmentation on the platform a fact, “plain and simple.” Speaking of The Wall…

There are writers who understand Apple. They've been covering Apple for years, decades. Some of them are very smart and accomplished at research and analysis. Other writers just write about Apple to earn some money and see their name in lights. Is there a war emerging between the two? One can't help but notice that…

Apple can't make its Paris store employees work past 9PM, and to back that up a Paris court has ordered the Mac, iPhone and iPad maker to pay €10,000 fine to unions for working its staff after closing their stores at night. The fine came as part of a lawsuit brought by labor unions, and…

We'd like to thank Go Daddy for sponsoring us here at TMO this week. Go Daddy has long sold domain names at discount prices, as you probably know, but what you may not realize is that they also can be your web host. And they're not just a web host for geeks who know how…

Everyone knows that Android has all the market share in smartphones and has achieved near parity or parity with Apple's iPad in tablets, but I want to know what the heck people are doing with those devices. Every single data point that I've seen shows again and again that at the very least Apple's iOS…

Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985) was an American science fiction writer who, amongst his many achievements, also noted that “ninety percent of everything is crap.” Coined as “Sturgeon's Law”, it applies to fiction, but has come to be applied to most anything else. From what I've been reading, it also applies to current day writing about Apple.…

There is definitely an art to naming products — as any Microsoft or Apple executive knows. Today, we learned about some candidate names Apple had for what we now call the iPhone, thanks to an article at 9to5 Mac. Some seemed oh-so rational at the time and now seem, well, just crazy. Candidate names for…

There are several working theories about why Marissa Mayer no longer allows Yahoo employees to work at home. In any case, in principle, working at home is very doable for these kinds of technical jobs. I worked out of a home office for Apple, and I have some thoughts on the whole affair. The fundamental…

It requires a clear, articulate presentation to properly enumerate the perils of Facebook. A CNN author, who has quit Facebook, has done just that. He tells a story that's worse than you ever could have thought. Preamble You won't find me on Facebook. You might find someone with the same name there. There are several…

Recently we learned the details of how the “Six Strikes” punishments will work. For those who don't already know, the production studios made a deal with your ISP to notify — and then punish — you if you're caught using BitTorrent to (illegally) share movies online. Your ISP doesn't really care about this, but they…