Your Cheating Heart: iPhone App Finds Wife With Another Man

When Apple released its new iOS 5 operating system to go with its iPhone 4S, it touted a new app called “Find My Friends” as a great way to track and meet up with friends. If they agree, you can see their locations on a map on your screen.

But the app’s enterprising customers are apparently already finding other uses. If the online posts appearing on a chat forum at MacRumors.com are for real, “Find My Friends” may have already claimed its first marriage.

Saturday night on MacRumors, a man saying he lived in New York City posted this:

“Divorcing wife. Thanks iPhone 4s and Find My Friends.”

I got my wife a new 4s and loaded up find my friends without her knowing. She told me she was at her friends house in the east village. I’ve had suspicions about her meeting this guy who live uptown. Lo and behold, Find my Friends has her right there.

I just texted her asking where she was and the dumb b—- said she was on 10th Street!! Thank you Apple, thank you App Store, thank you all. These beautiful treasure trove of screen shots [sic] going to play well when I meet her … at the lawyer’s office in a few weeks.

“thankfully, she’s the rich one.”

It has not been determined whether the story posted on MacRumors was, in fact, authentic, and the man did not immediately reply to a request from ABC News for comment. But more than 100,000 people have viewed the posts, according to MacRumors. More than 300 of them replied with expressions of sympathy, skepticism and — this being the Internet — a few less-than-savory jokes.

Arnold Kim, the editorial director of MacRumors, said it was “definitely a busy thread.” MacRumors did not try to verify the man’s story (if, in fact, it was a man), but said everyone who registers for its forums has to validate their email when they register.

“Find My Friends” uses the iPhone or iPad’s cellular network data, plus local Wi-Fi networks and the Global Positioning System to show your friends’ locations on a map on the screen of your device. Apple would not offer numbers, but GPS usually can be accurate to within a few feet for civilian uses.

Apple says “The Find My Friends app is a great way to share your location with people who are important to you” — whether you’re trying to meet friends at a crowded concert or make sure your kids get safely home from school.

The man was back with a new post less than an hour later, including a couple of screen grabs showing the location of his wife was on East 65th St., though she sent him a text message saying, “Was hard to find stupid cab hate meat packing….”

The husband again: “She said she is in meat packing district which is on 12th street. I DONT THINK SO. Appreicate [sic] the support. not my finest hour here but going to get better soon.”

The presumably-jilted husband put up one last post Saturday night: “what really chaps my a– is not the cheating but the fact that they were probably admiring and laughing over the new phone I BOUGHT. haha. well someone about to get the last laugh tonight.”

And that was the last from him. The whole thing may have been a joke, or a domestic tragedy. Ben Crompton, who writes the Pocket Lint blog, said there have certainly been other apps before, such as Google Latitude, that let you track people through GPS signals, but Apple will make it trendy.

“The burning issue seems to be that it is a very powerful tool to have,” he wrote, “bringing with it huge amounts of info to the user as well as delivering plenty of info about the user to others. For some this power will outdo the user’s knowledge of how to use it properly.”

“Still, on the up side,” he concluded, “maybe Siri will be able to offer some marriage guidance advice.”

Ice Cream Sandwich Statue Joins Android Pals on Google Campus

Google may have postponed the debut of Ice Cream Sandwich, the next version of its Android mobile operating system optimized for smartphones, in deference to the passing of Apple’s Steve Jobs. But as the I, Programmer blog discovered this weekend, it looks like somebody forgot to tell the delivery guys not to drop off the latest Android-themed statuary at the search giant’s Mountain View, Calif. campus.

Check out the video below of Googlers installing the Ice Cream Sandwich statue in an area outside of Google’s Building 44 that is rapidly turning into a kind of Candyland. Ice Cream Sandwich last week joined such Android-version commemorating statues as a ginormous doughnut (Android 1.6 Donut), a giant éclair (Android 2.0 Éclair), and a big old cup of frozen yogurt (Android 2.2 Froyo).

Interestingly, the Ice Cream Sandwich statue is the only version statue in the shape of the Android icon itself, although the iconic green robot does have its own statue in the garden as well.

Google and Samsung had been expected to unveil Ice Cream Sandwich on Samsung Nexus Prime smartphone at the Samsung Mobile Unpacked event during CTIA in San Diego last week. But that Oct. 11 event was cancelled, according to Google, because “we believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing.”

It has been reported that the operating system, which may be dubbed Android 4.0, though that is not entirely clear, will make its debut at an Oct. 27 event in London. Samsung however, has called those rumors “not true whatsoever.”

Google previewed Ice Cream Sandwich at the Google I/O conference in May to the delight of Android developers. Earlier this month, Google chairman Eric Schmidt let it slip at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference that Android 4.0, the next major overhaul to Google’s mobile OS, will be released in “October or November.”

Google CEO Larry Page also made it clear that Ice Cream Sandwich is on its way soon during the company’s third-quarter earnings call with analysts last week.

iOS 5: Exploring 7 Hidden New Features

iPhone 4S owners are poised to become members of an elite class. Their new phones boast an improved camera, dual antennae and an unpaid personal intern named Siri — all relevant talking points in “Who’s got the real iPhone?” one-upsmanship battles.

Luckily, though, even 4S have-nots can enjoy the benefits of iOS 5, one of the new phone’s best features. Released Wednesday, Apple’s new mobile OS is a no-brainer download (we gave it an enthusiastic 8 verdict). It’s also entirely free, and compatible with iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S, the 3rd- and 4th-gen iPod touch media players, and iPad and iPad 2.

Downloaded the new OS? Good. The blogosphere is teeming with iOS 5 feature guides, but aside from exposing Easter eggs hidden in Siri voice recognition, many sites are glossing over some of the OS’s most hidden or novel new features. Here we explore some of the more notable or quirky additions to grace our iPhone and iPad interfaces.

User-Defined Keyboard Shortcuts

At first glance, iOS 5 does nothing to address the pain and embarrassment of auto-correction mistakes. But go to your Settings menu, and navigate to General>Keyboard. Scroll to the bottom, and you’ll find a prompt to add a new shortcut. Just type in the word or phrase that deserves a shortcut, and then plug in the shortcut itself.

Now, for example, when you type in “fwiw,” iOS will provide an auto-correct prompt for “for what it’s worth.” It may not be a Twitter-friendly tool that’s compatible with character count requirements, but it can help ease the pain of constantly miss-typing (or miss-tapping, rather) long or vexing words.

And the fun doesn’t end there. I see great potential for mischief too: Grab your pal’s iOS 5 device, and begin entering shortcuts for common words like “hi” or “siri,” as in the screenshot above. Hilarity abounds as your friend suspects his or her iDevice is suffering demonic possession.

Create Custom Vibrations for Stealth Alerts

You’re in a high-powered business meeting. Your phone volume is mute because you don’t want to offend the client. But you really need to receive that critical phone call from your pilates instructor scheduling a rain check. By assigning a unique vibration sequence to any contact, you can leave your iPhone on the table and listen for the sweet euphony of a customized “zizip, zizip” as your device resonates against the table top.

Interested? Go to Contacts, choose a contact and tap Edit. Navigate to Vibration>Create New Vibration. You’ll be greeted by the screen above. Simply tap out a new vibration rhythm, save it, and prepare for near-stealth notifications of when special people are trying to reach you.

Create LED Flashes for Visual Alerts

We all have different preferences when it comes to how we receive iOS notifications. Some people like audible alerts, some like vibrating alerts, some like no alerts at all. But the more flamboyant among us may prefer a new visual alert buried in the Accessibility menu in General settings. Toggling on “LED Flash For Alerts” will prompt your iPhone to trigger your camera’s LED whenever you receive a message or email when the phone is set to silent mode.

This feature offers great utility to anyone who can’t hear, but we also see great potential for multiplayer gamers who like to create a chilly-spooky vibe in darkened rooms. Huzzah! says the flash. Your pizza has arrived!

Instant Definitions

Much has been made about iOS 5’s new text formatting options. You can select a word or text string, and then make it bold, italic or underline. That’s well publicized. But check out all the other options that become available when you hold down a selection of a word.

The Suggest function provides a list of other words you may have preferred to type. Quote Level either increases or decreases the number of vertical lines that appear before text — helpful when you’re annotating a threaded conversation. But one of the niftiest options is Define, shown here, which provides a tight (but surprisingly robust) dictionary entry for the selection, complete with a definition, usage examples, and often information on word derivatives and origin.

Cover Your Digital Tracks

The new iOS includes a number of key features that foster more private, secure use. In Safari’s settings menu (shown above), you can toggle on Private Browsing. Once enabled, Safari will refrain from building a history of your browser activity (hey, we all have something to hide).

Over in the new Message app, which provides for seamless transitions between traditional carrier-hosted text messaging and Apple-hosted iMessages, you can define whether to allow Read Receipts, which notify your friends when you’ve read their messages. So, if you want to continue the charade of, “Oh, did you send me a message? Never saw it,” then head to Settings>Messages, and turn Send Read Receipts to off.

Finally, you can put an end to those awkward conversations that occur when you leave your iPhone on the table, and someone reads the first few sentences of one of your text messages or emails on the lock screen. Go to Settings>Notifications and turn off Show Preview for both Messages and Mail.

Check App Usage, Dispatch Offenders

If you fear your iDevice is approaching the limits of its storage capacity, head on over to Settings>General>Usage, and start surveying your worst offenders. Clicking on an app name will provide a bit more detail — specifically, the footprint of the document and data files associated with the app. You’ll also see a button to delete the app entirely.

Alternate Routes in Maps

Views of alternate routes have always been available in the desktop version of Google Maps, and now they’re finally available on iOS devices too. After defining where you are and where you want to be, just tap Route 1, Route 2, etc., to toggle between Google’s recommended directions.

iPad now 97% of tablet traffic, eclipses iPhone, iOS remains mobile leader

A new market research report notes that mobile devices now amount to almost 7 percent of all US web traffic, with Apple’s iOS representing a 58.5 percent slice of all mobile traffic and the iPad now accounting for more traffic than iPhones.

 

The growth of mobile devices has claimed a 6.8 percent chunk of US web traffic from conventional PCs, according to a new report by comScore.

Of that segment, about two thirds of the traffic is from mobile phones and a remaining third is being generated by tablet users. The group notes that Apple’s iPad now accounts for 97.2 percent of all tablet-originating web traffic, driving home the reality that competitors have not yet released a significant tablet competitor.

Among iOS users, iPad now accounts for 46.8 percent of all traffic generated, making it now a more prolific tool than the iPhone for mobile web use, which represents 42.6 percent of iOS traffic.

An increasingly important market segment

The firm also outlined why the growth of tablet traffic is significant, noting that almost half of tablet owners have completed purchases using their tablet.

“Tablet owners exhibited significant use of their devices throughout the entire online shopping process,” comScore reported, “from doing the initial planning, conducting product and store research, making price comparisons, to finally transacting. In the past month, more than half of tablet owners looked up product or price information for a specific store (56 percent) and read customer ratings and reviews while on a tablet (54 percent).”

The group added, “the incremental reach through mobile and connected devices should not be underestimated,” pointing out that, “in August 2011, the additional mobile and connected device audience for Pandora accounted for more than half of their total cross-platform audience.”

Who rules the mobile world? Girls! No iOS

“Although the Android platform accounts for the highest share of the smartphone market (43.7 percent in August),” comScore stated, “its total audience among mobile and connected devices in current use is eclipsed by the Apple iOS audience.

“The iOS platform had the highest share of connected devices and smartphones in use at 43.1 percent, fueled by the iPad’s dominance in the tablet market, while Android accounted for 34.1 percent of the total mobile and connected device universe.”

While Apple has a minor lead over Android with iOS as a mobile platform in terms of its installed base (unique users), it has a major lead in the mobile traffic those users engage in.

“When measuring market share of Internet traffic by platform,” comScore explained, “iOS accounted for more than half (58.5 percent) of the share of total non-computer traffic in the U.S. Android OS ranked second, delivering 31.9 percent of overall non-computer traffic in August. With iOS having a significantly higher share of traffic (58.5 percent) compared to its share of devices (43.1 percent), it suggests that iOS users are heavier-than-average consumers of Internet content.”

It has been speculated that the huge divergence between Android’s popularity (sales of Android-based phones have outnumbered iPhone sales most of this year) and its minority presence in web analytics is due to the fact that the majority of low end devices now use Android, including basic models that work like feature phones. That results in impressive sales figures for Android as a platform, but does not translate into a comparably important software platform for apps, nor an equally important market demographic.

That reality has helps make it clear why the supposed “avalanche” of new Android tablets failed to materialize as a real challenger to the iPad over the past year, just as Steve Jobs had predicted last October.

Unlike mobile phones, which existed as a major market long before the iPhone, tablets have never taken off prior to the release of iPad, making the new device a market unto itself much like the iPod had been. Apple’s music player has not been significantly challenged in sales by any competitor over the past decade.

If Apple can maintain a similar competitive lead with the iPad over the next decade, it will not only maintain dominance over mobile devices and the App Store software that runs on them, but also continue to eat up the market currently held by conventional computers on one end while its own conventional computers vie for market share within that market itself.

 

Google+ loses 60 per cent of active users

INTERNET SEARCH GIANT Google has lost over 60 per cent of its active users on its social network Google+, according to a report by Chitika Insights, raising questions about how well it is doing against its rival, Facebook.

Google+ was originally invite only, generating significant interest as all and sundry attempted to join what many believed would be the next social networking craze. This frenzy continued when Google opened the doors to its social network to everyone on 20 September. This resulted in a massive influx of new members, with traffic growing by a whopping 1,200 per cent.

However, despite the clear interest in an alternative to Facebook, it does not appear that the people joining are staying around and actively using the web site. On 22 and 23 of September traffic appeared to peak on Google+, but it began to drop soon after, back to pretty much the same level it was before it opened to the public.

Google’s problem is not getting users in the first place, it seems, but rather keeping them after they have arrived. For now it appears that a lot of users are merely curious about Google+, but return to the tried and tested format of Facebook when the lustre fades.

Chitika Insights argues that, despite this lack of staying power, Google+ could still become a competitive alternative to Facebook, providing it continues with its fast pace of adding new features. The problem is that Facebook is not going to rest on its laurels while Google attempts to get the advantage. Already it has added features inspired by Google+, particularly in terms of improving the transparency of its privacy options.

While the jury is still out on which firm will win this battle, there’s no denying that the intense competition could make both social networks considerably better than they were before.

Google’s new mobile ambitions

A slew of new product announcements will put Apple under more pressure than ever.

Mobile phone manufacturers claim their handsets are designed to last four years – but consumers will be asked to change their phones faster than ever over the next few months as a host of new devices is released onto the market.

Last week, just days before the announcement of Steve Jobs’ death, Apple announced the iPhone 4S, an upgrade rather than a revolution for its world-leading model; two days later HTC announced its new device, focusing on audio performance. Google is soon to unveil its new flagship model, likely to be called the Nexus Prime, and major announcements are expected from the newly resurgent Motorola. The pace of change is dizzying.

One theme, however, emerges clearly: both Google and Microsoft want to respectively maintain and establish their positions alongside Apple as major smartphone powers. Google has numbers on its side, with more than half of all new phones sold now running the company’s Android operating system. But its problem now is to establish the operating system as a real rival to the ease of use the Apple iOS has pioneered.

Google’s next major mobile announcement will see it launch a new version of the Android operating system, codenamed “Ice Cream Sandwich”. This will be the first that, like Apple’s iOS, provides a unified experience across both tablet devices and mobile phones. The effect, the company hopes, will be to galvanise the app developers who make an OS feel vibrant. Thus far, it’s been Apple that has hogged their attention because iPhone and iPad users remain much more likely to download paid-for apps rather than free ones.

Steve Jobs biography to be released on 24 October

Publisher brings forward official biography of Apple co-founder, who told author: “I want my kids to know me”

The official Steve Jobs biography will be released on 24 October after being rushed forward because of the Apple co-founder’s death.

The authorised biography Steve Jobs is written by Walter Isaacson, the former managing editor of Time magazine. Customer pre-purchases have already made it the number one bestseller at Amazon. Publishing house Simon & Schuster had originally planned to release it on 21 November.

Isaacson has told how Jobs, in pain and too weak to climb stairs a few weeks before his death, wanted his children to understand why he wasn’t always there for them. “I wanted my kids to know me,” Isaacson quoted Jobs as saying in their final interview at Jobs’ home in Palo Alto, California. “I wasn’t always there for them and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.”

Isaacson said he visited Jobs for the last time a few weeks ago and found him curled up in some pain in a downstairs bedroom. Jobs had moved there because he was too weak to go up and down stairs “but his mind was still sharp and his humour vibrant”, Isaacson writes in an essay that will be published in Time magazine’s 17 October edition.

Jobs died on Wednesday at the age of 56 after suffering a rare form of pancreatic cancer.

Simon & Schuster’s synopsis says the book is based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs conducted over two years – as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues. “Although Jobs co-operated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against.

“Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership and values.”

Another publisher, Bluewater Productions, has said it is rushing out a special edition e-book of its forthcoming comic book on Jobs.

The 32-page comic titled Steve Jobs: Founder of Apple is initially being sold on the NOOK and Kindle readers. The print edition is due for release at the end of October, with a portion of the profits from both issues going to the American Cancer Society.

Goodbye, Steve!

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple and mind behind the company’s visionary products, passed away at the age of 56.

Steve Jobs was famous for creating a “reality distortion field” in which his charisma, words, personality and vision succeeded in making him the most persuasive evangelist in the technology world.

The following is a collection of his quotes on technology and life:

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the ones who think differently. While some may see crazy, we see genius.”

“That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

“The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it into a nationwide communications network.

We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people – as remarkable as the telephone.”

“Picasso had a saying, ‘Good artists copy, great artists steal.’ We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. … I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, artists, zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.”

“You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. … Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

“I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometre. Humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list. … That didn’t look so good, but then someone at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle and a man on a bicycle blew the condor away. That’s what a computer is to me: The computer is the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, … that’s what matters to me.”

“We do no market research. We don’t hire consultants. … We just want to make great products.”

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”

Apple iPhone 4s unveiled

The latest “all new” iPhone complete with voice recognition software has been unveiled by technology giant Apple.

The iPhone 4S will go on sale in the UK on October 14 – the same day it is released in the United States.

Phil Schiller, senior vice president of Apple, said the new phone looked similar to the previous iPhone4 and shared its glass front and back and trademark stainless steel band.

He added: “But don’t be deceived. Inside it’s all new.”

The phone has a new A5 chip inside which allows it to use much faster graphics for gameplay and download data twice as fast.

Senior vice president of iPhone Software Scott Forstall came on stage to show off the voice recognition software, called Siri, which allows users to ask the phone questions and get answers.

He said it works as “your humble, intelligent personal assistant that goes everywhere with you and can do anything for you just by asking”.

Mr Forstall said Siri understood the language and context of users’ questions and then gave a series of examples by asking the phone about the weather, his diary and the stockmarkets.

He said: “I’ve been in the AI field for a long time and this still blows me away.”

The phone has an eight megapixel camera with five lenses, one more than the iPhone4, which will result in sharper pictures.

It also allows users to take HD video.

The 64 giga bytes phone will sell for 399 US dollars (£260), the 32gb for 299 US dollars (£195) and the 16gb for 199 US dollars (£130).

Technology expert Ernest Doku of uSwitch.com said some people would be “bitterly disappointed” at the announcement of an upgraded phone rather than a brand new model.

He added: “A phone which talks to you and answers your questions? That’s the iPhone 4S. Slightly disappointing from a hardware standpoint, but Siri has the potential to revolutionise how we use our mobiles.

“Apple is gambling that people will see this as a reinvention of the wheel.”

Italian Wikipedia Shuts Down Prompted by New Wiretap Act

Wikipedia’s Italian edition homepage has been shut down following the prospect of a new wiretap law from Italy’s Prime Minister, forcing the Italian language Web site to be hidden with the possibility to be eventually deleted.

Users were directed to a message from “The users of Wikipedia” on Oct. 4 when logging onto the Italian homepage, which cited a looming law as the reason for the shutdown, which is currently temporary. The site could be permanently deleted if the law goes through in the Italian Parliament.

“At this time, the Italian language Wikipedia may be no longer able to continue providing the service that over the years was useful to you, and that you expected to have right now,” the Wikipedia message read. “As things stand, the page you want still exists and is only hidden, but the risk is that soon we will be forced to actually delete it.”

The law called “DDL intercettazioni” (Wiretapping Act) from Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is an attempt to gag bloggers from posting unfavorable remarks. Clauses in paragraph 29 of the Wiretapping Act give bloggers 48 hours to remove a post before being fined €12,000 if an offended party chooses to prosecute over offensive material.

The prospect of the wiretapping law has Wikipedia, whose content has always been user-generated, caving into civil liberty pressures and forcing its content to be censored or provide corrections to anything deemed offensive.

“The obligation to publish on our site the correction as is…is an unacceptable restriction of the freedom and independence of Wikipedia, to the point of distorting the principles on which the Free Encyclopedia is based and this would bring to a paralysis of the ‘horizontal’ method of access and editing, putting — in fact — an end to its existence as we have known until today.”

However, Wikipedia said it has always been a source available to be reviewed and modified by anyone. In addition, the new law does not outline what is deemed offensive and is solely based on the offended person’s opinion without a third party review or discussion before the Web site is forced to issue a correction.

“Hence, anyone who feels offended by any content published on a blog, an online newspaper and, most likely, even on Wikipedia can directly request the removal of such contents and its permanent replacement with a ‘corrected’ version, aimed to contradict and disprove the allegedly harmful contents, regardless of the truthfulness of the information deemed as offensive, and its sources,” the message from Wikipedia read.

Wikipedia addressed in its message that every Italian citizen is protected by a clause which punishes for defamation.

In addition, Italian bloggers are enraged over their right, as listed in Article 21 of the Italian constitution, to free speech being taken away in an attempt to censor unfavorable content.

Wikipedia, a horizontal publication, fears that their rights are being squelched as well, as users will have to completely dodge giving information that could be deemed offensive, even if true.

“With this announcement, we want to warn our readers against the risks arising from leaving to the arbitrary will of any party to enforce the alleged protection of its image and its reputation,” Wikipedia wrote. “Under such provisions, web users would be most probably led to cease dealing with certain topics or people, just to ‘avoid troubles.’ We want to be able to keep a free and open-to-all encyclopedia, because our articles are also your articles — Wikipedia is already neutral, why neutralize it?”