Weekly Mobile News Roundup – 30 August 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 confirms iPhone trade-in program begins today at retail stores – Apple has confirmed long-suspected rumors that it has been developing an iPhone trade-in program to be based out of its retail locations, saying that that program will begin rolling out nationwide today.

Apple Promotes iTunes Festival with 6 Free Song Downloads via ‘Apple Store’ iOS App – Earlier this month, Apple began offering free content from its digital content stores through its Apple Store iOS app, starting with the app Color Zen and moving on to an iBookstore offering with Margaret Wise Brown’s Away in My Airplane.

DeskConnect Lets You Instantly Share Files Between your iPhone and Mac – Many of us are constantly switching back and forth between our desktop computer and a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet. The problem is retaining exactly what you were doing, as no-one likes to spend time re-opening the Webpage or document they were looking at five minutes earlier.

Apple files for ‘Startup’ trademark in Malaysia – Apple Inc. has applied to the Malaysian intellectual property rights administrator seeking to trademark the oft-used term ‘startup’ in the Southeast Asian country,” Jason Ng reports for The Wall Street Journal.

Apple canceling support staff vacations ahead of iOS 7 launch – Just like it did ahead of every iPhone launch since the original iPhone’s release back in the summer of 2007, Apple is now canceling vacations for its AppleCare support personnel ahead of next month’s release of new iPhones. Specifically, Apple is restricting employees from taking time off from September 15 and all the way through September 28.

Sim City for Mac release sees multiple issues, lessons not learned from Windows launch – Sim City finally made its long awaited debut on the Mac yesterday, and we all hoped that things would turn out a lot smoother than when our Windows counterparts started trying to play.

Google Makes Apple iOS App for Chromecast – Nice timing: On the same day that Apple upgraded Apple TV by adding more content to its Web TV box, Google upgrades Chromecast, its Apple TV competitor — by making it more appealing to Apple users

Apple Cracks Down On Unofficial iOS 7 Beta Activation – If you are trying to install iOS 7 beta today, then there are chances that you may see an activation error on your device, if you have not registered your device with Apple Developer Program.

AppleCare+ launch in UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, & Switzerland ‘imminent’ – In line with a rumor from earlier this week, we’ve heard from our sources that AppleCare+ is indeed set to soon launch in Europe. AppleCare+ is Apple’s premium support service, and it provides customers with technical support for both the iPhone and iPad for two years from the original purchase date. AppleCare+ also provides support for up to two instances of accidental damage.

Parallels Desktop 9 for Mac launches with cloud storage support, Windows 8 Start button, 40% faster read times – Existing Parallels users can now get their hands on Parallels Desktop 9 for Mac, the latest version of the virtualization software that lets Mac users run Windows applications natively, with new features such as cloud storage optimizations for iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive and SkyDrive.