This update is recommended for iMac (late 2013) models. This update addresses an issue which may cause a black screen to appear when installing Windows 7 or Windows 8 using Boot Camp Assistant if both an external optical drive and USB thumb drive are connected to the system. This update also ensures that the system will boot by default into OS X after installation of Windows 8.
The 8.7 MB update requires OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.4 (12E4022) or later, suggesting that at least some new iMacs may need to be updated with the current OS X 10.8.5 upon delivery.
Apple's new iMacs include Intel's latest Haswell processors, improved graphics, faster PCI Express-based flash storage options, and the support for the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard making its way into the company's Mac products. The 21.5-inch model begins at $1299, with the 27-inch model starting at $1799.
Popular free messaging service LINE has released a new update to its iOS app today, bringing new features such as the ability to hold video calls with contacts cross-platform, and the “Snap Movie” function, which allows users to add background music to short videos and send them to friends. The app has also added a feature named “Albums” that allows users to create and edit photo albums in collaboration with a friend or in groups, and improved privacy settings in the Home feature, along with support for iOS 7.
Have you checked out the new version of LINE yet? Other than improving the quality of chats and voice calls, we have also added many exciting new features, including the long-anticipated video calls.
The new Snap Movie feature will be available first on iPhone. Create short video clips and spice them up with some music – now anyone can be a filmmaker!
Previously, LINE was ordered by Apple to remove its ability for users to purchase and sticker sets as gifts to friends, which was an important monetary source for the service. The app’s success with stickers has inspired apps like Path and Facebook to use stickers, and overall remains one of the most popular apps on the App Store.
LINE is a free download and is available on the App Store. [Direct Link]
IHS Suppli has released its estimate of the component costs involved in building the iPhone 5s, performing a virtual teardown based on information revealed by Apple and industry knowledge. The estimate, which does not include numerous other costs involved in product development, manufacturing, and sales, such as research and development, software, patent licenses, marketing, and distribution expenditures, pegs the component cost of the 16 GB iPhone 5s at $199.
Apple spends at least $191 on components to build a 16 gigabyte iPhone 5s. The cost rises to $210 for a 64GB unit. The cost of assembly adds another $8 per unit, bringing the range to between $199 and $218.
That cost estimate is pretty close to that of the original iPhone 5, which IHS pegged at about $205 last year. Without a contract, the iPhone sells at prices ranging from $649 to $849, depending on storage capacity.
The bill of materials includes $41 for the iPhone 5s display, $32 for the RF chips, $7 for the fingerprint sensor, and $19 for the A7 chip manufactured by Samsung. The report says the cheaper iPhone 5c costs between $173 and $183, with the A6 processor costing $13.
However, from a material perspective, the iPhone 5c and 5s are very similar. With the exception of the fingerprint sensor, A7 processor and "some newer memory chips that consume less power", IHS analyst Andrew Rassweiler says they are "basically the same".
However, Apple appears to have spent "a lot of time and money combining [radio frequency] chips", says Rassweiler. "Apple seems to be pushing its RF suppliers to do things they don't do for anyone else."
Those vendors, according to IHS’s analysis, are Qualcomm, Skyworks, Avago, RF Micro Devices and TriQuint Semiconductor, all of which make chips that handle different aspects of the iPhone’s connections to various wireless networks. These efforts toward getting the radio frequency chips to work together have the effect, Rassweiler said, of allowing the phones to support more frequency bands in a single phone than before. “The iPhone 5 supported no more than five LTE bands. The 5s and 5c can support as many as 13, and that’s unique,” he said. “Unlike other phone designers, Apple has spent a lot of time collaborating with the RF chip companies to find novel solutions that its competitors don’t have.”
Some older generations of iPhones required a number of different models to cover all the different cellular frequencies, but Rassweiler says the progress Apple has made on RF chips suggests the company may soon be able to produce a single iPhone model that works on all cellular frequencies, increasing economies of scale significantly.
The full IHS Suppli report should be released tomorrow.
Image editing software Pixelmator was updated to version 2.21 today, adding a multitude of new enhancements that increase the overall speed of the app.
Today we are happy to release the first Pixelmator 2.2.1 update. That may sound minor in numbers, but in our little Pixelmator world, it's a major one. We've done some radical improvements behind the scenes. One of them is a new Pixelmator file format. It's still the same file format you are used to, yet it now has a completely new architecture that takes advantage of the modern OS X technologies making your image editing even faster and more enjoyable.
Pixelmator documents now open twice as fast, iCloud saves are faster, and better Quick Look support allows users to preview documents without opening them. Background saves have been added, and a progress bar shows file status when opening and saving documents.
Quite a few improvements to effects have been added as well, designed to allow users to search, preview, and apply effects faster. Multiple effects have seen speed enhancements, and bug fixes that cause crashes have been applied. The full log of changes to Pixelmator 2.21 can be found on the company's support site.
Major League Baseball has once again updated its MLB At Bat app for the upcoming 2013 MLB Postseason, bringing various new features to enhance the viewing experience of baseball’s playoffs. New features include complete postseason information with live scoreboards and series statuses, as well as the ability to watch multiple camera angles live with the new Postseason TV section within the app. The new section is available for the AL and NL Wild Card, AL and NL Division Series, and NL Championship Series games. The latest update to the app also gives it compatibility with the recently released iOS 7.
Version 6.4.0 · iOS7 Compatible · Complete Postseason information, viewable by series with scoreboards and series status. (iPhone, iPad) · Watch multiple camera angles live with Postseason.TV. Available exclusively for AL and NL Wild Card, AL and NL Division Series and NL Championship Series games. (iPhone, iPad) · Postseason Sortable Stats section (iPhone, iPad) · Postseason News Section (iPhone, iPad) · Updated News and Video Highlights navigation. All content now available through News tab for one-step access. (iPhone only) · Overall maintenance improvements
The last major update to the app came before the start of the 2013 baseball regular season, which gave the app multi-platform access for subscriptions purchased through the In-App Purchase mechanism featured in MLB At Bat. Current subscribers of the high-end $130/season MLB.tv Premium package are granted access to view all out-of-market video streams and access all radio broadcasts for the 2013 MLB Postseason. The cheaper At Bat 2013 in-app purchase priced at $20/season or $3/month, offers all home-and-away playoff radio broadcasts with no blackout restrictions.
MLB At Bat is a free universal download from the App Store for iPhone and iPad. [Direct Link]
Apple has announced that it will be holding a grand opening for its Potomac Town Center retail store in Woodbridge, Virginia this Saturday at 10:00 AM.
Located right off of Interstate 95 about 20-25 miles south of Washington, DC, the new store is located in the Stonebridge at Potomac Town Center, a nearly year-old outdoor shopping center anchored by a Wegmans supermarket. The new Apple retail store occupies about 7,000 square feet, making it a fairly standard-sized location among Apple's mall-based stores.
Yesterday, Apple began offering in-store pickup for online orders of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, giving users the ability to check availability at their local Apple retail stores and place orders for immediate pickup at the stores.
But just 24 hours later, Apple has already removed the in-store pickup option for iPhone 5s orders, leaving shoppers with the options of placing online orders for delivery in October or visiting their local retail stores on their own to check on availability. In-store pickup of online orders remains available for iPhone 5c models.
The reason for the quick backtracking on the iPhone 5s in-store pickup option is unknown, although the company continues to experience very tight supplies, particularly of silver and gold models. With some Apple retail stores still experiencing daily lines of customers hoping to purchase from new iPhone 5s shipments arriving at the stores and even having to turn away customers, the company may simply have found that availability of in-store pickup is not yet broad enough to warrant offering the service for the iPhone 5s.
EA Sports has released FIFA 14 for iOS, the newest iteration in its popular soccer gaming franchise. The release marks the first time that the game is free to play, along with offering in-app purchases for use with FIFA’s Ultimate Team feature that allows users to collect and trade FIFA players, play styles, formations and kits and use them in-game. The game features over 16,000 players from over 600 licensed teams in 33 leagues, and features new touch controls that allow for easier gestures such as tap to pass and swipe gesture shooting.
REAL PLAYERS. REAL TEAMS. REAL LEAGUES. Welcome to the most authentic football game on the App Store. Feel the excitement of every pass, shot, and tackle with new touch controls. Plus, live every moment of real-world football mastery with EA SPORTS™ Football Club Match Day. Get in there!
EA Sports also released the first free-to-play version of its other popular sports franchise, Madden NFL 25, last month. FIFA 14 can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
At its media event introducing the new iPhones earlier this month, Apple highlighted several chip innovations included on the iPhone 5s including a new A7 main chip with one billion transistors and a smaller M7 "motion coprocessor" designed to efficiently measure accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass data and thus allow for enhanced fitness tracking, navigation, and more.
Chipworks and iFixit have now posted a teardown revealing what's inside these chips, as well as several other components of the iPhone 5s, offering an interesting first glimpse at these components at the heart of the device.
In looking at the A7, Chipworks noted that it is indeed manufactured by Samsung using its 28-nm process node. Apple has been seeking to shift its A-series chip production from Samsung to TSMC, but TSMC's chip production will reportedly not start until early 2014.
Gate pitch comparison of A7 and A6 (click for larger)
For the A7, Apple and Samsung have reduced spacing between transistors to 114 nanometers, a 7.3% decrease compared to the A6 chip. That denser transistor packing plus a slightly increased die size has helped Apple to fit approximately one billion transistors on the chip.
It turns out that the A7′s “gate pitch” — the distance between each transistor — is 114 nm, compared to the A6′s 123 nm.
Those 9 nm are a big deal. Looking to improve on their current 32 nm process, Apple decided to make the A7 with the same 28 nm process as the eight-core Samsung Exynos 5410, the current flagship CPU for Samsung’s own Galaxy line.
A7 transistor die photo (click for larger)
Chipworks also took a look at the M7, which is actually an ARM Cortex-M3 part from NXP running at 180 MHz. The chip allows for low-power collection of motion data drawn from a Bosch Sensortec accelerometer, an STMicroelectronics gyroscope, and an AKM magnetometer.
After collecting information from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer, the M7 performs some matrix math processing magic to produce an absolute orientation of the phone relative to the world. This data is then passed to the A7 in a neat package, probably in the form of three headings (roll, pitch, and yaw).
Using the A7 to monitor this sort of data would be mega-overkill, so the M7 was introduced to maintain a constant, low-power watch over these sensors.
M7 die photo (click for larger)
Finally, Chipworks performed some analysis on several other components from the iPhone 5S, including the rear camera sensor and LTE modem, while iFixit pointed to the Wi-Fi module and various radio and power amplifier components that all work together to provide connectivity for the new iPhone.
iMessage Chat, an unofficial iMessage app for Android devices, has appeared on the Google Play store to provide Android users with access to Apple's instant messaging services (via 9to5Mac). The implementation has, however, raised significant security concerns as it routes user's Apple ID information through remote servers, potentially allowing user accounts, which may be linked with iTunes Store purchases, to be compromised.
According to software developer Adam Bell, the app and associated servers facilitate connections to Apple’s iMessage server by posing as a Mac mini, with Cydia creator Jay Freeman adding that the app forwards all communication through a server located in China.
In addition, developer Steven Troughton-Smith discovered that the app has the capability to download and install software in the background of a mobile device, which would allow for potential installation of malicious software.
As a result, while the development is an interesting one in terms of third-party interfacing with iMessage, users should be extremely wary of installing this application on their Android devices.
Update: The app is no longer available for download.
Last October, Apple began construction on the first phase of its Prineville, Oregon data center, a project ultimately planned to include two 338,000 square-foot data center buildings on 160 acres.
First phase of Apple's Prineville data center under construction in February 2013 (Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian)
But as reported by the Central Oregonian late last week and covered in The Oregonian today, Apple appears to be looking to add an additional 96 acres to its holdings in the area. While no deal has been struck, officials with the City of Prineville and Crook County are looking to make zoning and other changes to the property so that a deal can be completed quickly.
Though [assistant planning director for Crook County Phil] Stenbeck declined to identify the company behind Project Pillar by name, it's plainly Apple.
The property awaiting transfer is covered by the same tax break agreement that Apple now operates under. And Stenbeck said Pillar previously went by the code name Maverick -- that's the name Apple used last year when it paid $5.6 million to buy 160 acres of Crook County land for its first Prineville data center.
The property in question is also inaccessible without traveling through Apple's property, making it all but certain that Apple would be the only entity interested in acquiring it.
Apple has been on a data center building boom in recent years, opening a large facility in Maiden, North Carolina and moving forward on both the Prineville project in Oregon and another facility near Reno, Nevada.
Apple's push into new data centers comes amid continued growth of Apple's digital stores, as well as growing iCloud services that require significant server capacity for Apple. The company has committed to using 100% renewable energy at its data centers, building its own solar farms and fuel cell facilities in some cases and in other cases sourcing wind and hyrdroelectric power from local providers.
In something of a surprise move, Apple today announced the launch of updated iMacs based on Intel's Haswell processors, faster PCI Express-based flash storage options, and 802.11ac Wi-Fi.
“iMac continues to be the example that proves how beautiful, fast and fun a desktop computer can be,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Inside its ultra-thin aluminum enclosure, the new iMac has the latest Intel processors, faster graphics, next generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi and faster PCIe flash storage.”
New models include:
21.5-inch - $1299: 2.7 GHz quad-core i5 and Intel Iris Pro graphics - $1499: 2.9 GHz quad-core Intel i5 and NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 1 GB video memory
27-inch - $1799: 3.2 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 and NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M with 1 GB video memory - $1999: 3.4 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M with 2 GB video memory
All standard configurations come with 8 GB of RAM and a 1 TB traditional hard drive.
Build-to-order options include a 3.1 GHz Core i7 processor and 16 GB of RAM on the 21.5-inch model and a 3.5 GHz Core i7 processor and up to 32 GB of RAM on the 27-inch model. Storage options of up to 3 TB traditional hard drive, 3 TB Fusion Drive, and 1 TB flash storage are also available depending on model. The high-end 27-inch model also has an available graphics upgrade to NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB of GDDR5 memory.
The new iMac is available today through Apple's online store with all standard configurations with the exception of the high-end 21.5-inch model showing availability of "within 24 hours". The high-end 21.5-inch model is currently showing a shipping estimate of 2-3 weeks.
Adobe today released new versions of Photoshop and Premiere Elements, its lower-cost photo and video editing software aimed at consumers. Photoshop Elements 12 and Premiere Elements 12 have been revamped with several new features, focusing heavily on mobile integration.
"Our customers have a lot of photos and videos, and they love to use their home computers to organize them and be creative, but they also want the freedom and flexibility to view, edit and share on their mobile devices," said Lea Hickman, vice president products, Creative Consumer Business, Adobe. "Photoshop Elements 12 and Premiere Elements 12 will provide customers with the best of both worlds, quickly, easily and at their discretion."
Both Photoshop and Premiere Elements 12 offer Mobile Albums, allowing the software to integrate with Revel, Adobe's cloud photo storage solution. With Revel support, Elements 12 users are provided with access to their photos and videos on all of their devices.
Photos edited in Revel sync with Photoshop Elements, and vice versa, while Revel support for Premiere allows seamless mobile video uploads. Sharing photos and videos has been enhanced, allowing content to be posted to Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, and more, directly from the Editor.
Photoshop Elements 12 offers several new editing features including Content-Aware Move, Pet Eye Correction, Auto Smart Tone, and Quick Frames, Effects, and Textures.
Content-Aware Move is a smart editing tool that autofills the background of an object that has been moved within a photo, allowing for quick edits. The functionality is bundled into a new Straighten Tool as well. Pet Eye Correction works much like red-eye removal but is aimed at pets, and Auto Smart Tone is designed to learn a user’s editing preferences for faster adjustments.
Quicker editing is also possible with Quick Frames, Effects, and Textures, which are one-click filters and modifications, and the software has been designed to be easier to use with improved Guided Edits, offering step-by-step instructions to complete a number of tasks such as photo restoration.
Premiere Elements 12 has been updated with Guided Edit support too, providing tutorials for users that are new to video editing. It includes instructions on trimming frames, adding scores, animating graphics, and more.
The video editing software includes more than 50 new soundtracks along with 250 sound effects. Auto Smart Tone, the tool that learns user editing preferences, has also been incorporated into Premiere 12, along with four new filters or “Looks” that can be applied to any video. Looks include Comic, Trinity, Yesteryear, and Cross Process, and with new Motion Tracking support, effects like speech bubbles and other effects can be added to videos.
Both Photoshop Elements 12 and Premiere Elements 12 for Mac and Windows can be purchased on Adobe's website for $100 each (or $80 for users upgrading from a prior version). A bundle is available for $150 (or $120 for upgrades). Adobe’s Revel app for iOS can be downloaded from the App Store for free, and includes 50 photo or video uploads per month. [Direct Link]
Apple is sending emails offering refunds to customers who purchased a Breaking Bad "Season Pass" for the fifth season of the series on iTunes. In early September, Apple was sued in a class action lawsuit for failing to provide all 16 episodes of Breaking Bad season 5 to "Season Pass" purchasers on iTunes, instead only providing 8 episodes.
We apologize for any confusion the naming of "Season 5" and "The Final Season" of Breaking Bad might have caused you. While the names of the seasons and episodes associated with them were not chosen by iTunes, we'd like to offer you "The Final Season" on us by providing you with the iTunes code below in the amount of $22.99. This credit can also be used for any other content on the iTunes Store. Thank you for your purchase.
Season 5 of Breaking Bad was split into two halves, one half starting in July of 2012 and the other in August of this year, by the show's network: AMC. This resulted in customers having to purchase each half of the season separately at not only iTunes, but also at other online retailers like Amazon Instant Video and physical retailer Best Buy. iTunes customers had to pay $14.99 (standard definition) and $22.99 (high definition) for each half.
Breaking Bad can currently be purchased on the iTunes Store, and tops both the "Top TV Episodes" and "Top TV Seasons" on the store's charts. Thanks James and Daniel!
The Apple TV 6.0 update that Apple pulled over the weekend is now once again available for download. As noted by 9to5Mac, the updated version carries a build number of 11A502, compared to the old 11A470e version, indicating Apple has made some changes to the software.
Following the software’s initial Friday release, there were multiple reports that the update caused critical errors for a number of users, necessitating a full iTunes restore. The newly updated software presumably fixes those issues.
The Apple TV's 6.0 software offers a number of new features, including iTunes Radio, iTunes Music Store purchases, iCloud Photo updates, Podcasts, and AirPlay from iCloud. It can be downloaded from via the Update Software tool in the Apple TV settings menu.
A pair of games with support for iOS 7's newly added game controller support have been released on the App Store.
Though the game controllers haven't actually been released yet -- there are at least two companies who have announced or hinted at upcoming controller releases -- both Walking Dead and Bastion were updated today with game controller support, according to our sister-site TouchArcade.
We've been really into everything to do with iOS 7 game controllers, as the idea is really exciting to us- Especially now that we're seeing big name games getting controller support. It seems really odd to me that both Telltale and Warner Bros. just said to their respective dev teams, "Hey guys, what are you doing today? Nothing? Let's add controller support." Instead, this smells of what might be the start of a much bigger push from Apple to get the "AAA" of the App Store ready for controllers... Whenever it is that they launch.
Last week, Apple began approving games that include game controller support and we should see more and more titles including it going forward.
Three days after the iPhone 5s went on sale, Algoriddim has updated its Djay and Vjay apps with 64-bit support, including new features that are only possible with the A7 processor.
For the realtime video-mixing app Vjay, the most processor-intensive task has always been decoding two videos simultaneously. For prior iPhones, the Algoriddim team needed to use a number of tricks and optimizations to get the process to work, and the resolution was degraded. With the iPhone 5s and the 64-bit A7 processor, decoding speed is twice as fast as before, and the iPhone 5s can process two full 720p HD video streams. The app can also export HD video over AirPlay in real time with zero latency.
The new version of Djay now offers a new Harmonic Match feature that can analyze the musical key of a song in realtime and then transpose the key to ensure that transitions from one song to another match musically. This sort of realtime analysis and transposing simply wasn't practical with prior iPhones, Algoriddim told MacRumors -- analysis might take 10 to 15 seconds and the phone simply didn't have the horsepower to do realtime transposing of keys without risking dropouts of audio.
Because the A7 processor is so powerful, Algoriddim CEO Karim Morsy explained, its programs can spend processing cycles on a smoother user interface and better visual effects. He told us that the Djay and Vjay programming teams were able to 64-bit compatible versions of the apps just three days after the iPhone 5s went on sale largely because of Apple's excellent developer tools.
The teams use a shared codebase between Algoriddim's iOS and Mac apps, and code that had been written previously for the 64-bit versions of the Mac apps was able to be transitioned to iOS with a relatively minimal amount of effort. They were able to get 64-bit versions running in the Xcode iOS simulator and when the iPhone 5s hardware was released on Friday, the team was able to get a version of the software -- complete with new iPhone 5s-only features -- ready for a public release on Monday.
Morsy explained that because Apple's Xcode tools allow code to be moved from desktop to mobile, its development cycle was dramatically shortened. "Anything we develop on one platform, the code can be reused on other platforms," Morsy told MacRumors. "Our strength is a code base shared across three platforms, and it's a key reason we are successful on Apple's app ecosystem."
BlackBerry has agreed to a "letter of intent" to be acquired by Fairfax Financial, in a potential deal worth $4.7 billion or $9 per share. Fairfax currently owns 10% of BlackBerry shares.
Fairfax Financial is a conglomerate holding company, somewhat like a Canadian Berkshire Hathaway. The company's primary business is insurance. Fairfax's CEO, Prem Watsa, was on the BlackBerry board of directors until he resigned from the position last month.
The deal is far from complete, with "a number of conditions" according toBloomberg reporter Sarah Frier. The agreement includes six weeks of due diligence and, in the meantime, BlackBerry is free to look for higher bids, though Fairfax has the right to match those bids.
"BlackBerry has fallen on hard times recently, but we have every confidence it will be successful again," Fairfax CEO Prem Watsa said in an interview.
[…]
Mr. Watsa said that a significant amount of the equity in the deal will come from Canada. There are no strategic players, or other technology firms, in the consortium.
"If the right strategic investor comes in we’d consider taking them as a partner in this company," Mr. Watsa said. "We’re looking at any possibility for the good of the company, its customers and its employees."
As part of a larger reorganization of the company, BlackBerry said on Friday that it would layoff 40 percent of its staff, ceasing sales of devices to consumers. The company also put the imminent release of the iOS version of BlackBerry Messenger on indefinite hold because of separate technical issues with the rollout.
BlackBerry shares had been halted because of the news, but last traded at $8.23 a share. The stock traded near $15 as recently as July.
Following today's launch of updated iMacs, Apple has released an iMac (late 2013) EFI Update 2.1 for the new machines.
Image editing software 
Three days after the 
BlackBerry has 
