Weekly Mobile News Roundup – 26 July 2013

  Once again the week is coming to an end and that means it’s time for a roundup of the past weeks news!

Apple Makes ‘Greatest Acquisition Ever’ By Spending $16B On Its Own Shares – Apple may not be snapping up big companies all over the place like Yahoo!, but it is buying lots of shares in one major corporation — itself.

Chromecast vs. AirPlay: how do they compare? – Google’s new Chromecast HDMI stick is a lot of things: it’s a simple new way to bring internet video to your living room after the company stumbled with Google TV, it’s a new platform for content creators like Netflix, and it’s an interesting extension of Chrome as a platform beyond the browser itself. That’s a lot of responsibility for a $35 dongle.

10 Things You Didn’t Know Dropbox Could Do – If you “favorite” images or text documents on your mobile device using the Dropbox app, you can access those files later, even if you’re not connected to Wi-Fi or cellular service.

Phishing scam takes advantage of Apple Dev Center downtime – Reports of phishing emails seeking Apple ID passwords have been making the rounds, with the fraudulent messages leveraging perceived concerns over the extended downtime of Apple’s developer website to gain access to sensitive user data.

Remote Control uTorrent Downloads From iPhone – Torrents get a lot of flack from just about every angle on the Web. Some people love them, some people hate them. Not to be confused with anything, the system of torrenting itself is simply a method of data transfer which tends to be a lot faster than most other methods.

Penguin offers to end ebook deals with Apple – Apple’s ebook price-fixing cases are now in the settlement stage in the US and Europe, and the latest word from the EU is that Penguin has become the last publisher to offer to end ebook pricing restriction deals with Apple.

Apple Reportedly Debating Over Retina iPad Mini, Fears It May Drive Sales Away From iPad – Latest rumors suggest that Apple is going to release two iPads this September, the next generation iPad mini as well as the fifth generation iPad. It has been speculated quite a lot whether or not the next iPad mini will have a Retina display.

Apple urges China to only use official chargers after recent fatality – Following the recent death of a Chinese woman that was reportedly “electrocuted by her iPhone,” Apple has posted guidance on its website urging citizens to only use its official chargers.

Nexus 7 2013 vs iPad mini: more than a pixel race – If you’re getting ready to buy a brand new tablet on the smaller end of the spectrum and you’re deciding between the new Nexus 7 and the iPad mini, you may very well be asking yourself the wrong question.

Apple Issues Update On The Current Developer Portal Situation, Launches System Status Page For Devs – Apple’s Developer Portal has been offline for some time now, and with reports of a claimed security breach by a security researcher still echoing across the internet, the iPhone maker has today updated its users and developers on the situation, whilst also offering more information on how the company intends to restore service to its developer hub.

Finding your Mac’s UUID – Most Apple owners are familiar with the UDID, aka serial number, for their iOS device, but did you know that your Mac has a similar hardware UUID too? In this post, I will show you where to find it, so you can use it in beta testing.

Apple releases Logic Pro X 10.0.1 with fixes for Track Stacks, 24-bit audio files – Less than 10 days after it become available, Apple’s Logic Pro X was updated on Thursday to version 10.0.1, addressing issues that would down-convert 24-bit audio to 16-bit, inadvertently flatten audio in Track Stacks, and more.

Mac Mini Shipping Times Slip to 5-7 Days on Apple Online Stores, Possible Refresh Ahead? – Ahead of a “very busy fall” for Apple, Mac mini ship times on many Apple Online Stores have slipped to 5-7 business days.

Apple posts $6.9 billion profit in Q3 as iPad sales shrink to 14.6 million – Apple today published its financial results for its third fiscal quarter of 2013, reporting a $6.9 billion profit on $35.3 billion in revenue.

5 Videos That You Won’t Believe Were Shot With An iPhone – As the iPhone has developed over the years, there have been many useful qualities the camera bears that have been often overlooked for more basic uses, such as snapping cheeky selfies, and taking pictures of your fancy lunch. One of the more unnoticed features of the iPhone are its movie-making capabilities.