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Apple’s CEO is headed to Washington next week to talk taxes. He’s not just going to be defending Apple’s practice of keeping billions of profits offshore, Tim Cook is going to be armed with some suggestions for future policies too. And no, he doesn’t think Apple should get a free pass on bringing its money back home.

Cook told the Washington Post that he has ideas for how to help convince companies like his own to bring back their overseas earnings to the U.S.:

 “If you look at it today, to repatriate cash to the U.S., you need to pay 35 percent of that cash. And that is a very high number,” Cook said in an interview Thursday. “We are not proposing that it be zero. I know many of our peers believe that. But I don’t view that. But I think it has to be reasonable.”

Apple is set to pay $7 billion in taxes in the U.S. this year, he told the paper. He also said he believes that Apple is “likely the largest corporate taxpayer in the U.S.”

But the company has — along with a lot of its peers — found creative ways to make sure that number is not any higher. Apple has $145 billion in its coffers, and $100 billion of that is from profits derived from sales overseas. But the company has not brought that money back to the U.S. because of the current corporate tax rate. Even when the company decided to issue a larger dividend for shareholders, Apple elected to borrow money rather than use profits from overseas to fund that, partly because of the tax burden.

This will be Cook’s first testimony before Congress, but not his first trip to Washington in an official capacity. A year ago he visited with House Speaker John Boehner, signaling his interest in engagement with Washington and public policy would be somewhat of a departure from his predecessor’s.

Cook also told the Post Apple believes “in good corporate citizenship.” And he has made some good U.S. corporate citizen moves since becoming CEO. In addition to instituting a charitable-giving matching program for employees, he’s also laid out plans to bring production back to the U.S. of one model of Mac. Cook told Politico that it would be an existing product that will be made here. Not only will it be put together in the U.S., he said some of the parts would be manufactured in Arizona, Texas, Illinois, Florida and Kentucky.

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Will 2013 be the year when we say goodbye to passwords? According to PayPal CISO Michael Barrett, speaking at Interop today, we are close to an authentication revolution. Apple will lead the way with the next generation iPhone as it will pack a more robust authentication protocol based on an open standard.

“We have a tombstone here for passwords,” Barrett told the audience, pointing to a slide with a tombstone for passwords with the years 1961 to 2013 etched on it.

“Passwords, when used ubiquitously everywhere at Internetscale are starting to fail us. [..] Passwords are running out of steam as an authentication solution,” he added. “They’re starting to impede the development of the internet itself. It’s pretty clear that we can’t fix it with a proprietary approach.”

It is important to note that Barrett is the president of FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, which pushes for replacing 50-year-old password technology with convenient and industry-supported, standards-based open protocol. FIDO combines hardware, software and internet services to provide a secure user experience.

How FIDO works:

A FIDO user will have a FIDO Authenticator or token that they chose or was given to them. This could be any authenticator type that supports FIDO such as a built-in finger scan or a USB memory drive with a password. Users may pick the authenticator type that best suits their needs.

FIDO Authenticators will come in two basic variations.

Identification tokens will be unique identifiers that can be connected to the user’s internet accounts. Once they are connected to the account, they will be transparently presented each time the account is accessed as an identifier without the user needing to anything else. This will provide single factor authentication.

Authentication tokens can ask the user to perform an explicit action to prove it is really the token owner. These actions could include entering a password, PIN or finger swipe. These authenticators will provide two factor authentication with the token being “something you have” and the password being “something you know” or the biometric being “something you are”.

What it needs for mass adoption is a little help from a leading smartphone manufacturer, which could pave its way to success. And according to Barrett, this company could be Apple, which is widely rumoured to introduce an iPhone with an embedded fingerprint scanner.

“It’s widely rumored that a large technology providerin Cupertino, Calif., will come out with a phone later this year that has a fingerprint reader on it,” he said. “There is going to be a fingerprint enabled phone on the market later thisyear. Not just one, multiple.”

Currently, Apple already has several fingerprint-sensor related patents in its portfolio, and if the KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is right, we will indeed see an iPhone with a fingerprint sensor launched this year.

PayPal Executive Believes Next iPhone Will End Need for Passwords is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog – Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

Netflix subscribers have long been familiar with the automatic feature on the web where after finishing one episode, the next one will queue up and play right away. Well, this post-play feature has made its way onto Netflix for iOS as of today. As for movies, the app will

What’s New in Version 4.1
The new Netflix app makes it even easier to enjoy more movies and TV shows. Enjoy binge watching your favorite TV shows and get the best movie recommendations with this new update.

• Added post-play feature where, when one episode of a TV show ends, the Netflix app automatically cues and then starts the next episode
• In post-play for movies, the three best movie recommendations are displayed at the end of the movie currently being watched
• Added enhanced second screen options

Let us know how this new update works for you. Just last week Netflix added more rows for TV and movies to its iPad app.

Click here to download Netflix for iOS–it’s free. You can sign up for Netflix here for $7.99 per month.

Update: Netflix has said this new post-play feature is for the iPad only and it’s true, as we can’t get the feature to work on our iPhone.

Netflix iOS Updated with Post-Play Feature for Watching Next Episodes [Update] is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog – Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

Netflix subscribers have long been familiar with the automatic feature on the web where after finishing one episode, the next one will queue up and play right away. Well, this post-play feature has made its way onto Netflix for iOS as of today. As for movies, the app will

What’s New in Version 4.1
The new Netflix app makes it even easier to enjoy more movies and TV shows. Enjoy binge watching your favorite TV shows and get the best movie recommendations with this new update.

• Added post-play feature where, when one episode of a TV show ends, the Netflix app automatically cues and then starts the next episode
• In post-play for movies, the three best movie recommendations are displayed at the end of the movie currently being watched
• Added enhanced second screen options

Let us know how this new update works for you. Just last week Netflix added more rows for TV and movies to its iPad app.

Click here to download Netflix for iOS–it’s free. You can sign up for Netflix here for $7.99 per month.

Netflix iOS Updated with Post-Play Feature for Watching Next Episodes is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog – Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

The world’s most popular cross-platform instant messaging application WhatsApp, that now handles a total of 20 billion messages per day, is rumoured to get a major update pretty soon that will introduce a bunch of interesting new features to the messaging app’s iOS version (via BlogDoiPhone). According to the source, some of these features will include iCloud integration, support for transferring multiple images and Push-to-Talk capability.

The report claims that the app will allow syncing of conversation data with iCloud, which will be preserved on WhatsApp servers even when the application is uninstalled or the device is restored. The update will also allow users to select several images at the same time to send. Furthermore, a new ”Push-to-Talk” (press to talk) function will let users send small quick snippets of audio.

Currently, there is no release date or official word for such an update, though leaked screenshots definitely suggest beta testing of new features. So, who’s excited?

Next WhatsApp Update To Bring iCloud Support, Push-To-Talk & More [Rumour] is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog – Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-116154" alt="Commander: Anomaly 2" src="http://www.technologytell.com/apple/files/2013/04/anomaly2-promo1.jpg" width="640" height="360">

The next fight for Earth? Didn’t we just finish one? No matter, because if you’re a gamer, you can never have enough fights for Earth. This next one comes in the form of Commander: Anomaly
2. The sequel to Anomaly Warzone Earth from 11 bit studios is now
available for pre-order from the game’s official website at anomaly2game.com and via Steam and
other digital outlets for May 15th delivery.

Anomaly 2 is a real-time strategy game that takes the tower offense…

Continue reading The next fight for Earth begins May 15th with Commander: Anomaly 2 [screenshot gallery]

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One of the first stories I wrote for my college journalism class involved me interviewing people on campus about whether they’d ever even possibly consider paying for music with this — at the time — brand new iTunes service. The story isn’t online, but I recall that most interview subjects laughed, curled up their noses in disgust or said something along the lines of, “Pay 99 cents for a song I can get from free from Napster? Uh, no.”

Ten years later, paying for music — whether through downloads or subscription access — is by now a long-established practice. It’s sort of hard to believe it’s been a decade since iTunes launched, but it’s true: Sunday is the 10th birthday of Apple’s download service that seismically restructured the music industry and how we think of buying and owning music. iTunes’ effect on digital entertainment is a well-worn story, of course. But the occasion of iTunes’ 10-year anniversary is a good one to recall how far it’s come — and how the competition for digital music is fiercer than ever.

Here’s a look at iTunes through the years and how it stacks up today to its chief rivals in music: Google,, Amazon and Spotify.

iTunes is about much more than music today: It’s about mobile apps, movies, TV shows, ebooks, podcasts and even education. And over the years, Apple’s added more cloud services for customers to access their entertainment remotely. It’s not uncommon to hear people complain that the desktop version of the software is unwieldy (though I’ve found it to be fine for my needs).  iTunes is a huge download and has many moving parts because so many services are tacked onto it. The common refrain is for Apple to unbundle the desktop software, separating the App Store app from Music and Videos apps, like the way it’s handled within iOS. That, of course, would be a major philosophical change and one that Apple would not confront lightly.

But more than the software itself, it’s music that likely is going to determine what happens to iTunes.

While Apple still has the advantage in overall song titles, as the graph above shows, its competitors have been innovating on ways to offer their comparatively smaller catalog of songs. The pay-for-high-quality download service was innovative a decade ago, but now Apple is the one that will be forced to make some changes in order to keep its lead: subscription music services and web-based streaming are the future, and Apple knows it. And that’s why the company is looking to offer a streaming, web-based music service – dubbed by the press “iRadio.”

As a recent NPD study showed, ownership of music is still important to people. But streaming music discovery services encourage people to find and buy more music, and Apple needs to be a part of that.

iTunes is an important piece of tech history. But as attitudes about music ownership change, iTunes’ next 10 years will likely be more challenging than its last.

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The next generation iPad will likely be 15% thinner and 25% lighter compared to the currently available iPad 4, Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities, a rather accurate analyst, said on Thursday in a research note alongside other juicy information obtained by MacRumors.

The analyst expects the mass production of the tablet to increase around August-September. Here is what Kuo says we can expect from the fifth generation iPad in terms of tech specs.

“We think the tablet will, at 7.5-8.0mm, be 15% thinner than iPad 4. The new device will likely be about 500 grams, or some 25% lighter than iPad 4, run on an A7X processor, and sport cameras with similar specs to the iPad 4’s (front HD, rear 5MP). The casing shape and color (silver and black) and narrow bezel design will be similar to the iPad mini’s.”

An interesting addition to the above is that Apple will make the iPad 5 more power-efficient by using the same GF2 touch technology used in the iPad mini, which also allows the company to design a thinner 9.7-inch display and contribute to the rumoured up to 2mm loss in thickness for the device.

“We therefore think that iPad 5’s battery capacity will be 25-30% smaller, at 8,500-9,000mAh, than iPad 4’s, and the battery’s thickness will be 15-20% smaller, at 7.5-8.0mm, and the number of cells will be reduced to two from three.”

Turns out Samsung can expect new chip orders from Apple, specifically the A7X chip on a 28nm manufacturing process powering the iPad 5, at least from what Kuo’ sources revealed. Although this may surprise some, this is in line with previous information that the A7 chip on a 20nm process manufactured by TSMC will be available only sometime next year.

Next Gen iPad to be 15% Thinner, 25% Lighter than iPad 4, Analyst Says is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog – Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

According to Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, Apple’s next major iOS update expected to be unveiled this summer, could introduce a true mobile wallet solution, CNET reports. While calling it a “killer app”, the analyst claims that this mobile wallet feature would come as part of iOS 7 which will be shown at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

Huberty’ claims of a digital wallet have also been supported by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, though he believes the technology won’t come to iOS devices for at least a year or two. Last year, Apple Passbook was introduced with iOS 6, allowing users to store digital coupons which can be synced with a membership card at retailers such as Starbucks to pay for items. But adding a true mobile wallet to iOS would likely require support for near-field communications (NFC).

“Would a mobile wallet truly be a “killer app,” as Huberty dubs it? Apple could certainly use an innovative new feature to drum up interest in iOS 7 and its next iPhone and iPads.

Consumers have been promised that digital wallets would put an end to their reliance on cash and credit cards, enabling them to buy items with just a tap of their smartphone. But mobile payments have yet to fulfill that promise”.

According to Munster, Apple’s digital wallet would use a technology other than NFC, yet its system would work with existing mobile payment solutions.

Apple’s Upcoming Mobile Wallet Could Be The Next ‘Killer App’ [Analyst Report] is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog – Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

Former Apple ad man Ken Segall has done some thinking about the tendency to assume that the next iPhone will be called the iPhone 5S — and he thinks it’s a pretty bad idea. He argued in a blog post Thursday why Apple should call the next smartphone it releases next the iPhone 6, no matter what.

It’s true: even though Apple has released (in order) the iPhone 3GS in 2009, the iPhone 4 in 2010, the iPhone 4S in 2011 and the iPhone 5 in 2012, that doesn’t mean the company has to or will stick with that pattern. We’ve seen with the iPad in the last year that Apple has been unafraid to ditch naming conventions mid-stream and go with more descriptive names instead of numbers: after the iPad and iPad 2 in successive years came the third-generation “new iPad” in early 2012, which was quickly followed by a fourth-generation “iPad with Retina display” in October of the same year. Apple apparently doesn’t necessarily feel bound to tradition with naming its mobile devices.

One of the reasons Segall thinks “iPhone 5S” is unwise is because it tells potential buyers that it’s an “off year” for Apple innovation. He also says this kind of thinking has been a huge favor to Samsung, which has laid out hundreds of millions of dollars to paint the iPhone as old and behind the times.

You might be thinking, who cares? It’s just a name. But that’s Segall’s expertise: marketing. Whether or not the naming is supposed to reflect the device’s specs or speed or whatever (we actually don’t know the true meaning of the “S”), it’s critical for selling the product to new customers. As Segall puts it:

The simplest path is to give each new iPhone a new number and let the improvements speak for themselves. If anyone wants to say that the 7 isn’t as big a leap as the 6, that’s their business. Attempting to calibrate “degree of innovation” in the product name seems like a needless (and self-diminishing) exercise.

I think it’s safe to say that if you’re looking for a new car, you’re looking for a 2013 model — not a 2012S. What’s important is that you get the latest and greatest.

And I agree with his take: why lower expectations for a device from the outset by telegraphing to buyers that this year’s device isn’t as new or “innovative” as the one coming in the next year? There are plenty of smartphone reviewers and tech bloggers willing to do that for Apple.

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