Microsoft's Office Suite finally embraced the iPhone on Friday with the introduction Office Mobile for iPhone. The app lets iPhone owners view and edit -- at least to a degree -- their Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files in an iOS-native app, but only if they have an Office 365 subscription.
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The lack of the Office Suite apps on iOS has always felt like a glaring omission on Microsoft's part, so it's nice to see the company finally release something even though other developers stepped up and shipped their own versions long ago. The fact that Office Mobile requires an Office 365 subscription and doesn't include an iPad version, however, feels like yet another glaring omission on Microsoft's part.
If you've never checked out the Path Bar or the Status Bar in the Finder, you're about to learn some groovy stuff. Using these features, you can see how much space is remaining on a drive you're browsing or immediately know where your current folder lives on your Mac. Here's the scoop.
This is too fun: Amazon Japan sells a trash can (Google translation) that looks a lot like Apple's brand spankin' new Mac Pro. Some may find that fitting since there was a barrage of "it looks like a trash can" comments when Apple announced the device on Monday.
You've probably seen Apple's new Mac Pro. It's gorgeous. It's sexy. It's powerful, too, according to some people who have been working the device in recent weeks. In an Apple video called "Painting the World," the lead developer of 3D rendering tool MARI and an artist at Pixar both talked the Mac Pro and how powerful it is.
Here's something you don't see everyday, a frank discussion of the role that psychedelics played in the early years of NeXT software development. The story is being told by infamous NeXT developer Andrew Stone of Stone Design (Create, Twittleator, Videator—you can see the latter on the screen at TMO's Cirque du Mac Macworld/iWorld party), and it includes some of his personal observations about the emergence, growth, and eventual failure of NeXTStep and OpenStep, as well as stories about the Stone Rave parties held in the 1990s. Andrew Stone told his tale this week at AltWWDC in a presentation called DMT, the NeXT, and the Soul of the Human Machine, and posted the text at Stone Design's website. It's available as a video (starting at approximately 1 hour and 13 minutes). It's an interesting look back at an important aspect of what became the foundation of Apple's OS X.
IK Multimedia announced on Thursday the release of Lightning Cable for iRig Keys. It allows the company's iRig Key keyboard MIDI controller to be used with the current generation of iPhone, iPad, iPad mini, and iPod touch. It's priced at US$19.99 and is available now. In a meta sense, it's great to see more Lightning dock accessories hitting the market.
Joe Pezzillo has had a varied career, developed several startups, worked for Apple, and even tried his hand at being a Bohemian poet. At WWDC this week, Mr. Pezzillo told TMO's Dave Hamilton the most important thing he learned about being a successful entrepreneur as he built Push.io.
Peter Kelly is a professor in Adelaide, Australia and teaches classes on computer operating systems. After writing his Ph.D. thesis with Lyx and LaTex, he thought it would be interesting to develop similar software for Android. That didn't work out so well. UX Write for the iPad was the result. Dave Hamilton interviewed Dr. Kelly at WWDC this week and got the story.
Apple's World Wide Developer Conference rumor roundup gave us a flat interface for iOS 7, the redesigned Mac Pro, and iRadio iTunes Radio. With those out of the way, and WWDC about to wrap up for another year, the rumor mill is back in full swing and this time it's bigger iPhones... again.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, along with President Barak Obama, U.S. Attorney Genreal Eric Holder, NSA Director Keith Alexander, and the CEOs of several other companies have all been named in a US$20 billion class action lawsuit over privacy violations related to the PRISM domestic surveillance program. The lawsuit was filed by Larry Klayman who clearly isn't pleased with reports that the National Security Agency has allegedly been collecting information from several technology-related companies, and is calling the lawsuit part of a move to stop government tyranny.
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Assuming Apple and the other companies named in Mr. Klayman's lawsuit really have been giving the NSA access to their servers, were acting under court orders, the case should target the government instead. If, however, they have been voluntarily handing over information to the NSA -- and he can prove it -- it's a pretty safe bet lots of money will be changing hands in settlements and court costs.
Bryan Chaffin
Nancy Gravley
Jeff Gamet
John Martellaro
