Jordan Golson

A German court has ruled that eight provisions in Apple's privacy policy are inapplicable because they run afoul of German consumer protection laws, reports Bloomberg.The lawsuit, between Apple and consumer protection group Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (VZBV), related to Apple's request of its users for 'global consent' to use customers' data.The German court appears to have struck down...

Apple is missing the opportunity to reach 2.8 billion wireless customers because of their stringent requirements around minimum purchases of iPhones and price subsidies, according to a report from Bloomberg. In order to carry the iPhone, Apple has strict requirements for carriers. One such requirement relates to minimum purchase agreements, which regional U.S. postpaid carrier Cricket has had...

EA has announced in a blog post that its Maxis studio will release The Sims 4 for the Mac and PC in 2014.The company released no other details about the game, but said more information would be forthcoming.Today we are revealing to our top fans the fact that The Sims™ 4 is coming to PC and Mac in 2014.The Sims franchise is fueled by the passion and creativity of its millions of fans around ...

Google has updated its Gmail for iOS app with a pair of new features aimed at Google power-users.Users clicking links in emails can now have those links open directly in Google's YouTube, Chrome or Google Maps apps, rather than going to the mobile web versions in Safari.Also, users who use multiple Gmail accounts in the app can sign out of one of them without signing out of all of them, a...

Google Glass will soon gain stronger interoperability with iPhones, allowing iPhone-owning Glass wearers to access text messages and navigation on the device. Currently, only Android phone users can access navigation and texts on Glass via a special companion app.Google Glass pulls data from the iPhone's cellular connection via Bluetooth tethering, but until now a number of Glass functions were ...

Apple has posted a new contest on the App Store [Direct Link], offering a $10,000 gift card to whomever downloads the fifty billionth app from the App Store, similar to previous promotions. Apple said during its most recent earnings call that the company has surpassed 45 billion app downloads.Apple's most recent contest was for 25 billion downloads back in February 2012. This time around, Apple ...

The developers behind popular to-do list app Clear have created a new charades-type app for The Ellen Show called Heads Up!. It's a party game that is getting excellent reviews, including from our sister-site TouchArcade:In a nutshell, you get a group of people together, load up the app, select a category, and then hold your iPhone (or iPad) up to your forehead. From there, you've got 60 seconds ...

German Apple website ifun.de has posted a collection of images from the beautiful new Apple Store Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, Germany. The store is located in a century-old theater building in one of the city's major shopping districts. The building measures some 48,000 square feet, though it's unclear how much of that space Apple is occupying.Apple first posted job listings for the...

A new national stolen phone database is having little effect on smartphone thefts in the U.S., according to an article in The New York Times. The country's four major carriers all contribute to the database, which lists stolen phone ID numbers that should not be activated on domestic networks. However, the database appears to be ineffective for several reasons.For one, the database has no...

Renowned Apple journalist Jim Dalrymple has confirmed earlier reports that Apple has pulled engineers off OS X 10.9 in order to finish iOS 7 on time with a one word post: Yep. Jim Dalrymple (right) with rock guitarist Slash A report from AllThingsD earlier today said that Apple was in a repeat of the scenario from 2007 wherein the company pulled engineers off the development of OS X Leopard to...

The U.S. Department of Defense is readying a new government approval for iOS devices to be used by military agencies for nonclassified communications. This is apparently a separate approval from the "commercial mobile device implementation plan" that the DoD announced a few months ago.The Wall Street Journal reports that the certification would not only allow more widespread use of iPhones and...

Apple CEO Tim Cook will be the opening night speaker at the 11th D: All Things Digital conference next month. Last year, Cook joined hosts Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg for a 100-minute session that covered a wide variety of topics.There’s lots to talk about, from the explosive growth of the mobile market to intense competition from a range of rivals, most especially Google’s Android, as...

AT&T has announced an upgrade to its in-store smartphone trade-in program. The plan will give an instant credit of at least $100 for any smartphone that is less than three years old, with more recent and valuable phones receiving larger credits.The credits are good for the purchase any AT&T smartphone or accessories, meaning someone could trade in an older Android smartphone for a new iPhone...

With Apple's stock price at its lowest levels since 2011, Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov -- one of the main investors behind the Digital Sky Technologies investment group -- has purchased $100 million of Apple stock, reports Bloomberg.“I believe in the future of this company even after Steve Jobs,” Usmanov, 59, said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Moscow offices, referring to...

Twitter's popular six-second video sharing app Vine has received its first major update, adding support for the iPhone's front-facing camera and Twitter mentions in posts and comments.You can now shoot with the front-facing camera. When creating a post, tap the button in the bottom left corner to try the front-facing camera. You can switch back and forth between the regular and front-facing...

The original iPhone will soon be considered obsolete in Apple Retail Stores according to an internal Apple document shared by 9to5Mac. Products considered 'obsolete' are ineligible for service parts and documentation at retail stores and cannot be repaired at mail-in AppleCare Repair Centers.Apple typically makes products 'obsolete' or 'vintage' five years after they are discontinued, though...

Two brothers, Patrick and Daniel Klug, recently released their first game called 'Game Dev Tycoon'. In it, players start a small game development company in the 1980's and attempt to build it up to a development powerhouse over the next 30 years.In a bit of an experiment, the Klugs released a cracked version of their game and uploaded it themselves to a torrent site. However, in the pirated...

Echoing recent reports about a redesigned 'flatter' user interface in iOS 7, 9to5Mac says the next version of the operating system will lose "all signs of gloss, shine and skeuomorphism". Jony Ive took charge of all Apple's user interface teams last October following a management shakeup. While the look of the updated system may be surprising to some, iOS 7 is reportedly not more difficult to ...

Credit card processing company Square has updated its Register app with a number of new features to make it easier to use in restaurants, as well as speeding up checkout in other types of retail businesses. For the iPad edition, restaurants can attach a customer's name to their order, as well as customize orders with modifiers like "no pickles" -- and the app also has gained the ability to...

Apple's market share of the worldwide smartphone market may have slipped, but a new Yankee Group survey (via AllThingsD) shows some promising data points for the company.In a survey of 16,000 U.S. smartphone users, the company found 91 percent of iPhone owners plan to purchase another iPhone when it's time to upgrade, while for Android the number is just 76 percent. And, three quarters of those ...