Here’s a heads-up to Mac users with Adobe Flash Player installed. Adobe has posted a security bullet in this week advising Mac, Windows, and Linux users of a known security issue with the latest version of the Flash Player plug-in, version 19.0.0.207 and earlier. In the security advisory, Adobe details that the ‘critical vulnerability’ in Flash Player could potentially cause system crashes and allow attackers “to take control of the affected system.”

Also in the briefing, Adobe acknowledges a report detailing that the exploit, which Adobe labels CVE-2015-7645, is “being used in limited, targeted attacks.” As for a fix, uninstalling Adobe Flash Player is currently the only sure solution for concerned users. Adobe goes on to promise an upcoming fix through the next version of Flash Player expected to be released as soon as Monday, October 19th.

As for how serious the vulnerability seems to be, Adobe notably marks the exploit as ‘critical’ status, which ranks highest on its Severity Rating System. The label applies to: “A vulnerability, which, if exploited would allow malicious native-code to execute, potentially without a user being aware.”

Although the fix isn’t ready yet, Flash Player users can find the latest version of the plug-in here. Mac users wanting to uninstall Adobe Flash Player from OS X can follow these steps for removing Flash Player from the system.

By default, Apple hasn’t pre-installed the Flash Player plug-in on OS X for several OS X versions. Rather than shipping out-of-date versions of the plug-in, Apple has instead let customers decide whether or not Flash Player is needed at all. iOS, of course, doesn’t support Flash Player.

A growing number of voices in the tech community have increasingly called for Adobe to stop developing Flash Player including Facebook’s chief security officer. Because fewer people are installing Flash Player and browsers are starting to block or pause the plug-in, Amazon recently announced it would stop accepting Flash-based ads. Earlier this year, Mozilla temporarily turned off Flash Player in its Firefox browser after another security concern.

Filed under: Mac, Tech Industry Tagged: Adobe, Adobe Flash Player, Flash, Flash Player

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Yahoo is rolling out an update to its Mail app for iPhone and iPad that introduces a refreshed design, as well as new features including smarter search, contacts management and rich compose. Alongside the updated app, Yahoo Mail is for the first time introducing account integration for third-party email services including Outlook.com, Hotmail, and AOL Mail.

In addition to a fresh coat of paint for the app, the app gets improved search functionality that taps into all messages, contacts, files, etc, while Yahoo says you’ll notice better performance across the board. It also gets an enhanced compose window with the ability to attach multiple photos and videos simultaneously, and a quick shortcut for sending yourself messages by long pressing the compose button.

And rolling out globally today is support for third-party email services, allowing users to connect their Outlook.com, Hotmail, and AOL Mail accounts in the Yahoo Mail app to manage mail from those services alongside their Yahoo Mail accounts.

Lastly, the new app introduces “Yahoo Account Key,” a new effort by the company to make passwords less frustrating by letting users log-in to their accounts using a code sent to their device through SMS.

The updated Yahoo Mail app for iPhone and iPad is available on the App Store now.

Filed under: Apps Tagged: AOL Mail, App Store, Hotmail, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Mail, Outlook, Yahoo Account Key, Yahoo Mail

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Gary Allen, creator of the now-defunct but historic web site ifo Apple Store, died Sunday at age 67, reports The Washington Post. ifo Apple Store tracked Apple Store retail openings and changes from their earliest days, when the Stores were considered by some to be a risky gamble, until well after the Stores had become ubiquitous in higher-end shopping malls and profoundly lucrative for Apple. Allen’s articles discussed opened stores, as well as details about unannounced stores that were expected to open in the future.

Having announced in March that he was shuttering ifo Apple Store based on increasingly widespread reporting on Apple Store openings and changes, Allen was actually suffering from brain cancer, his brother confirmed to the Post. During the years he ran ifo Apple Store, Allen traveled to over 140 new Store openings across the country and internationally, notably including locations in Europe and China. ifo Apple Store’s site currently reads “Please come back later,” without links to its past content.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple, Apple Store, Gary Allen, IFO Apple Store

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I knew Celluon had something special on its hands when I reviewed the $349 pocket-sized video projector PicoPro earlier this year: the Korean company known for laser-projecting keyboards released an iPhone 6 Plus-sized HD projector, capable of simulating a TV using lasers, a speaker, and a rechargeable battery. PicoPro’s projection system was MicroVision-developed and laser-sharp, requiring no manual focus knob — an advantage over rival projectors such as the otherwise more powerful AAXA P700 and ST200, which I subsequently reviewed and liked.

This week, Sony is entering the pico projector market with MP-CL1 ($350), which uses the same MicroVision laser projector found in PicoPro. Sporting the same 1920×720 resolution and putative 32-lumen brightness/80,000:1 contrast ratio as PicoPro, MP-CL1 promises to create a 40-inch TV image at 4-foot distances, an 80-inch image at 8-foot distances, or a (very dim) 120-inch image at 12-foot distances. Sony has pitched it as a “take it anywhere” big screen display for the iPad, iPhone, and PlayStation 4; it’s equally viable for Apple TVs and HDMI-ready Macs. So which is the better value: MP-CL1 or PicoPro?…

Looking solely at the actual projector units, Sony’s MP-CL1 and Celluon’s PicoPro have a lot more in common than not, and even where they diverge, they’re pretty similar. For instance, MP-CL1 measures 5.9″ by 3″ by 0.51″, while PicoPro measures 5.9″ by 2.9″ by 0.55″ — just barely thicker and narrower. Sony’s matte-finished aluminum-bodied unit weighs 7.4 ounces and Celluon’s glossy plastic PicoPro is around 6.4 ounces, a weight difference that isn’t practically noticeable. MP-CL1’s minimalist metal chassis is more timeless than PicoPro’s pleasant but decidedly plasticky design; if I had to pick just one projector solely on overall look and feel, I’d go with Sony’s.

Sony also has the better port and control array. Everything is lined up on MP-CL1’s right side, starting with a reinforced wriststrap hole, a micro-USB charging port, a power button, a three-position volume/menu navigation toggle, a mini-HDMI (MHL) port, a 3.5mm headphone port, and a full-sized USB port that can be used to share the projector’s battery with a USB device. Unlike PicoPro, there are no wonky capacitive surfaces or color-coded lights to worry about; MP-CL1 is really cleanly-designed.

However, Celluon wins on pack-ins. Sony includes a detachable stand, a USB to micro-USB charging cable, and an MHL HDMI to HDMI adapter. Celluon doesn’t include a stand, but bundles in a wall adapter — not found in MP-CL1’s box — plus a USB cable, HDMI cable, MHL to HDMI adapter, and soft carrying bag. While Sony’s bundled stand makes MP-CL1 easier to prop up, a non-trivial advantage, Celluon’s set makes PicoPro easier to charge, carry around, and immediately start connecting to certain Apple devices.

Both units feature wired and wireless connectivity interfaces, though Apple users only have the option of using the wired HDMI port — not integrated Wi-Fi, supported by some Android devices. If you’re connecting an Apple TV or any Mac with an HDMI output, all you need is a self-supplied HDMI cable, but iOS devices will also require Apple’s Lightning Digital AV Adapter, sold separately. Additionally, although Sony includes a larger 3,400mAh battery (PicoPro’s is 3,140mAh), their continuous HDMI video playback time was virtually identical: MP-CL1 ran for 2 hours and 58 minutes of continuous video playback time at its full audio volume, versus the “just under 3 hours” I reported when testing PicoPro.

Another point of commonality is sound output. Like Celluon, Sony includes a small speaker, and it’s adequate for listening to the audio portion of videos. Monaural and frequency limited, it’s just a hair less powerful than the speakers built into the iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6s Plus, and a little more powerful than PicoPro’s, which is to say that it’s capable of being heard clearly in a quiet room, but not phenomenal. The biggest advantage both projectors have over non-laser rivals is their fanless designs, which enable their speakers to perform without competition from a loud adjacent source of noise. If you need more sonic power or clarity, the 3.5mm audio port lets you attach self-supplied speakers or headphones of your choice.

As a video projector, MP-CL1 is very similar to PicoPro, defying conventional wisdom as to a 32-lumen projector’s capabilities without presenting a challenge on raw light output. In a room with no ambient light, MP-CL1 can create a very watchable, colorful image ranging from around 6 inches to 80 inches in size, though as with all projectors, the light really begins to fall off at the upper end of that range, and pushing it further to its 120-inch limit isn’t advisable. The unconventional (and PicoPro-matching) 1920×720 resolution isn’t quite 1080p “full HD,” but there are enough pixels here to display reasonably sharp videos, text, and computer output; an iPad, iPhone, or Mac UI can be read without issues. Just as was the case with PicoPro, MP-CL1 presents images with a faint but noticeable sparkle that looks a little like grain in these screenshots.

This doesn’t mean that the two units are completely the same in video quality. Although this comparison image doesn’t show it perfectly, MP-CL1 (shown right, above) received a small but valuable color tweak from Sony, reducing (but not eliminating) PicoPro’s (left, above) slightly blue-green color balance. MP-CL1’s white balance is a little closer to white, though still visibly aqua-tinted in person. You can play somewhat with the contrast, hue, and saturation, as well as separate optical and biphase alignment, but Sony’s default settings are about as good as you should expect from MP-CL1. There’s no toggle to adjust brightness, which is — just like PicoPro — hard to measure by conventional lumen standards, as the unit’s laser-lit points are very bright; my ST200 review discusses the real-world differences you can expect versus a larger but similarly-priced conventional projector.

Two things that make MP-CL1 (and PicoPro) special are the zero-focus projection and quick keystoning adjustments. MicroVision’s projection engine automatically projects perfectly sharp images regardless of its distance from a wall, a major setup and usability advantage over rival pico projectors where manual knob turning is required to achieve sharpness. Additionally, MP-CL1 has two (fully working) keystoning presets and manual keystone adjustments so you can make its projections rectangular rather than trapezoidal. Even relying solely on the very basic included stand, MP-CL1 does a good job of displaying appropriately boxy rather than distorted videos.

Overall, MP-CL1 is a very nice pocket-sized video projector, and on balance, a little better than the earlier-to-market, same-priced PicoPro: between its video tweaks and metal chassis, it has modestly better performance and design on its side, even if its threadbare pack-ins leave some things to be desired. By contrast with bigger projectors, MP-CL1’s ability to operate nearly silently, without fan noise, is an advantage that helps Sony make the most of its battery life, size, and audio output. If you’re interested in a very small, low-configuration video projector capable of creating a good, reasonably-sized TV facsimile, MP-CL1’s worth considering. Those seeking huge displays and more lighting horsepower will need to accept considerably larger projectors to achieve bigger, brighter results.

Filed under: Apple TV, iOS Devices, Mac, Reviews Tagged: hd projector, HDMI, MP-CL1, pico projector, pocket-sized, projector, Sony

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Apple has today announced an expansion of ResearchKit into studies for autism, epilepsy and melanoma. ResearchKit enables people to conduct distributed scientific research studies from an iPhone app, enabling higher participation rates than traditional medical research can provide. The new studies are being run by researchers in Duke University, Johns Hopkins and Oregon Health and Science University.

ResearchKit is open-source. In the same statement, Apple says that over 50 researchers have already contributed to the project.

In the PR statement, Apple SVP Jeff Williams says over 100,000 people are participating in ResearchKit projects.

“We’re honored to work with world-class medical institutions and provide them with tools to better understand diseases and ultimately help people lead healthier lives,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations. “In just six months, ResearchKit apps studying everything from asthma and diabetes to Parkinson’s disease, are already providing insights to scientists around the world and more than 100,000 participants are choosing to contribute their data to advance science and medical research.”

The autism project from Duke University are looking to use the front-facing iPhone camera to detect developmental issues in early years of life, detecting a child’s emotional response to specific videos.

Filed under: iOS, iOS Devices

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Following the corresponding update to Pixelmator for iOS 9, the company has released the latest version of Pixelmator for the Mac ($29.99) with full support for El Capitan. This includes compatibility with changes to the OS as well as an overhaul in the Pixelmator user interface to feature San Fransisco, Apple’s new system font. The update, version 3.4, also includes official full-screen Split View support on El Capitan, so users can dock Pixelmator next to any other app on the system filling the display.

Perhaps most interestingly, the app now includes a Photos.app editing extension …

The extension does not add all of the Pixelmator feature set inside the Photos app, instead focusing on the Distort tools. Backed by a Metal rendering engine, users can swirl, twist, pinch and warp their images without leaving the Photos editing UI. After installing the update, the extension just appears alongside the other edit panels in Photos for quick access. There’s even a Reduce tool to selectively undo any warping edits.

Unfortunately, there’s still no easy way to open an image from within Photos into a fully-fledged Pixelmator edit window but the onus to implement this is heavily on the side of Apple, not third-party developers.

To top it off, the update also includes enhanced integration with the pressure-sensitive Force Touch APIs on OS X   to make painting even smoother on supported Macs, including desktop Macs using the new Magic Trackpad 2. The update should also address many of the crashes users experienced with the app when updating to OS X El Capitan.

As always, the update is free for existing users. New Mac users interested in advanced photo-editing can buy Pixelmator from the Mac App Store for $29.99. You can also buy Pixelmator for iPhone and iPad ($4.99) and have all your projects sync through iCloud across all your devices.

Filed under: Apps, iOS, iOS Devices, Mac Tagged: image editor, OS X, photo editor, photos, Pixelmator, pixelmatr

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Apple is set to open its first two retail stores in United Arab Emirates in the next couple of weeks. Apple will host a grand opening in Dubai and Abu Dhabi on October 29 for the new Apple Stores, one of which is rumored to be the biggest Apple Store in the world. The company updated its store locations page recently to include the two stores in UAE, announcing the openings of both stores…

The Dubai store is in Mall of the Emirates, Al Barsha and will open at 4pm on October 29, while the Abu Dhabi store is in Yas Mall, Yas Island and will open at 7pm on the same day. The launch ties in perfectly with the rumors we’ve heard up until now. Tim Cook himself was reported to have visited the two UAE nations in February 2014, with a plan to launch these two stores.

Launching the stores in UAE hasn’t been without controversy. It’s clearly a market Apple wants to be in, but the popular tech company had to overcome foreign ownership issues in order to have its stores there. The store in Dubai was expected launch in August initially, and may have been delayed — along with the Abu Dhabi store — by legal matters. Of course, that’s just speculation based on what we know about the launch.

If rumors of the Dubai store being 50,000 square feet are accurate, it’ll be 25% larger than the three-level Covent Garden store in London, which was the world’s largest Apple store when it launched at 40,000 square feet. The Dubai store will join several luxury brand stores in what is one of the wealthiest parts of the world, and will surely be a hit among the rich who want to be seen with the latest and greatest tech products.

Thanks, @mohdalshamsi

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Abu Dhabi, Apple Store, Dubai, mall, retail, uae

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Live Photos is one of the stand-out new features on the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. It captures a short video while you’re taking pictures, which you can then watch back, and interact with using 3D Touch on your Lock Screen. Today, a company named Priime launched a new app which makes them easily shareable and viewable with anyone, regardless of device or platform.

Live GIF is the first app of its kind and lets any iPhone 6s or 6s Plus user turn their Live Photos in to GIFs which can then be shared by MMS, email, or shared on social media. The best part is, it doesn’t really require much setting up. Launch the app and it automatically detects any Live Photos on your phone, displays them in a grid (as shown below). Once you’ve picked one to share, you can choose either to ‘share as GIF’ or ‘share as video’, then select which service you want to share them on, and you’re done.

As you’d expect, Live GIF also supports 3D Touch. On the home screen, this lets you quickly open the last Live Photo and turn it in to a GIF immediately.

Live GIF is available to download from the App Store from today, and costs just $1.99. The app is compatible with any device running iOS 9.0 or later including iPhone 5s, 6, 6 Plus and the new 6s and 6s Plus as well as several iPad models.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: 3D Touch, App Store, Apps, iPhone 6s, iphone 6s plus, live gif, Live Photos, priime, software

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Update: Apple has also increased the price of Macs in Australia by AUD $80-$200, depending on the model.

The same week as it increased the price of apps in Australia, Indonesia and Sweden, Apple today has raised the prices of its Mac line in a handful of countries. The company has increased the prices of its MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, and Mac mini in Brazil, Norway, New Zealand, and Malaysia to account for the fluctuation of foreign currency against the United States dollar.

 The Mac mini now starts at NZ$899 in New Zealand, up from NZ$749. Likewise, the Mac Pro now starts at NZ$5,699.00, an increase from NZ$4,499.00. The MacBook Air now starts at NZ$1,599 and maxes out at NZ$2,199, up from NZ$1,399 and NZ$1,799, respectively. Finally, the MacBook Retina goes for NZ$2,399, up from NZ$1,999.

In Norway, the Retina MacBook pro now starts at kr 14 990,00, up from kr 12 590,00. In Malaysia, it starts at RM 5,899.00. In Brazil, the MacBook Air now runs from R$ 8.499,00 to R$ 11.499,00, an increase from R$ 5.899,00 and R$ 7.699,00.

Apple adjusting the prices of its products to account for currency fluctuations is not out of the ordinary and is something that residents of non-U.S. nations have come to accept. Because the company reports its earnings in U.S. dollars, Apple commonly adjusts prices to make earnings reports easier and more comprehensible.

Filed under: AAPL Company, Mac Tagged: Apple, Mac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro, MacBook

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Since Apple’s CarPlay feature first hit cars — with iTunes Radio built-in — whether or not Pandora Radio would ever support the infotainment platform has been a popular question among users. In the past Pandora has left the door open for CarPlay support at some point, noting that Apple controls which apps are allowed to work with it, and Pandora’s CFO went as far as promising it will support CarPlay earlier this year. Fulfilling that promise 7 months later, Pandora Radio has updated its iPhone app to totally support CarPlay:

Updating to the latest version of Pandora Radio for iPhone automatically lets the app appear on CarPlay. The release notes only mention fixing bugs, but the CarPlay app works just as expected.

Launching it once you’re signed in presents a list of your stations you’ve already created. You can tap into one and start streaming music or choose to shuffle all your stations. Some head units have special Pandora integration so expect some interference if that’s the case, but the app generally works well (unlike other CarPlay apps).

The Now Playing screen for Pandora Radio on CarPlay has an action menu next to the playback controls for Thumb Up and Thumb Down. Just like in the Pandora app on iPhone, this lets you mark songs you like and dislike to fine tune your stations to your preferences.

Pandora Radio for iPhone, now with CarPlay support, is available for free on the App Store. You can check out our CarPlay review here plus what’s new with CarPlay in iOS 9 here.

Filed under: Apps Tagged: CarPlay, CarPlay apps, Pandora, Pandora Radio

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