Apple has posted listings around the Internet for a Technical Recruiter based in Israel, signifying that the company is kicking off a hiring drive in that country. The main goal of the individual in that position will be to get involved in "identifying, engaging and securing world-class candidates for Apple in Israel," and presumably growing the company's operations there. The position asks for quite a bit of recruiting experience, particularly in the engineering, hardware, and semiconductor industries, and will also need to deal with "hiring ramps of 20+ vacancies," which again means there's probably a significant team headed to Israel.

This isn't the first we've heard of Apple trying to move into Israel, and CEO Tim Cook has said in the past that as well as Apple is doing here in the US and overseas in Europe, the biggest potential for growth is in developing tech nations like Israel and other countries in the Middle East. A move like this shows that Apple is not only taking advantage of its cash pile and status as a company right now, but also looking ahead to grow even bigger in the future.

Apple initiates hiring drive in Israel originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.

No Flash? Click here to listen.

Daily Update for February 22, 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I’m excited to announce Cult of Mac’s shiny new audio podcast, The CultCast — made with absolutely 0% child labor!

Why should you listen to The CultCast, you ask? Simply put, it’s the best 30 minute conversation about Apple you’re going to hear all week. Join Leander Kahney, Buster Heine, and me, Erfon Elijah, as we banter about all the most popular Apple news, rumors, and products. Hear the stories behind the stories of our favorite Cult of Mac pieces, and get caught up on all the best things from the world of Apple in a fun, 30 minute chunk each week.

Our maiden CultCast episode will be released Thursday night, but you can subscribe right now on iTunes to make sure you never miss an episode. We’ll have a new CultCast for you every Thursday evening!

• Everything You Need To Know About Cult Of Mac’s New Design
• Oprah: “The iPad Is My Favorite Thing Ever.”
• Time to Move On [Personal Note From Ed Sutherland]
• Bob Lefsetz On The Cult of Mac
• This American Life And Jon Stewart Take On Foxconn

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Legal battles can sometimes make strange bedfellows. Microsoft announced today that they've filed an antitrust suit against Motorola Mobility in the European Union charging that the company (which is being purchased by Google) is abusing the standard-essential patents that it owns. Apple also filed a complaint a few days ago on the same topic -- that Motorola Mobility is attempting to illegally block sales of others company's products by leveraging patents that should be offered with Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Descriminatory (FRAND) licensing.

Standard-essential patents are patents held by companies like Motorola Mobility that become part of industry standards like Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11n, for example) and the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard. Since they're part of industry standards, companies are obligated to use the patented intellectual property in creating their products. If the patent owner attempts to coerce companies to either stop using technology that is part of a standard or to pay exorbitant licensing fees, lawsuits like those filed by Apple and Microsoft are the result.

Dave Heiner, vice-president and deputy general counsel for Microsoft's Corporate Standards and Antitrust Group, was quoted as saying that "Motorola has broken its promise. Motorola is on a path to use standard essential patents to kill video on the Web, and Google as its new owner doesn't seem to be willing to change course."

Florian Mueller, patent expert at FOSS Patents, believes that Microsoft joining Apple with a lawsuit against Motorola Mobility will improve the odds that the European Commission will investigate Motorola's alleged abuses of FRAND patents in Europe.

Microsoft joins Apple in FRAND patent fight with Motorola Mobility originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Users of Google’s Flight Search will now be able to receive the same great desktop features on their mobile devices. Flight Search is now available for both Android and iOS users who search for a flight via their mobile browser. Just search for a flight departing from the US and watch as Google provides you with a table that shows available flights, including duration and prices. Benefits of Google’s Flight Search include:

• Find flights quickly with results that load instantly and a list that’s easy to scan.
• Discover places to go on a map – see ticket prices for various destinations by surfing the map. You can filter by price, airline, or flight duration.
• Find the best time to go – Click the calendar icon to see what dates will get you low prices.

Considering the amount of time we spend on-the-go, having mobile accessibility is a must and this should come in handy for a lot of frequent travelers, as well as anyone else.

Source: Google Inside Search Blog via Engadget

• The iPhone is The Device of Choice For Airline Passengers [Report]
• Google’s New iOS App Gets It Right [Review]
• Google Says that 2/3rds of All Mobile Search Happens on iOS Devices
• Google Updates iOS Search App With Google+ Style iPad UI And Many More Improvements
• Google Goggles Comes to the iPhone

Once again it's Understudy Wednesday on TUAW TV Live, meaning you get a bonus dose of TUAW Talkcast host Kelly, and co-host (or partner in crime, depending who you ask) Doc Rock.

Since Apple didn't have the decency to consult the TUAW TV Live schedule, they released Mountain Lion the day after last week's show so this we'll be talking about that and any other news and hardware or demos that Kelly and Doc come up with before the show starts.

Below, you'll find a Ustream livestream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to participate by asking questions or making comments.

If you're driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you're stuck in traffic, please don't -- keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone and join the chat by downloading the free Ustream App. It's a universal app and is wonderful on an iPad, both for viewing and participating in the chat.

We'll start at about 5 PM ET, so if you're seeing a prerecorded show, be sure to refresh your browser until you see the live stream. For those of you who are not able to join us for the live edition, you'll be able to view it later this evening on our TUAW Video YouTube channel and as part of the TUAW TV Live podcast viewable in iTunes or on any of your Apple devices.

No Flash? Check out the YouTube channel or podcast listed above or click here.

TUAW TV Live at 5pm ET: Mountain Lion Edition! originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The makers of the most widely used mobile app stores have agreed to comply with a California law requiring mobile apps that collect personal information to have a privacy policy. California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced the agreement today with Apple and Google, which run the two most popular mobile app stores, as well as Amazon, HP, Microsoft, and Research In Motion.

"These platforms have agreed to privacy principles designed to bring the industry in line with a California law requiring mobile apps that collect personal information to have a privacy policy," Harris's office said in a press release. "The majority of mobile apps sold today do not contain a privacy policy."

The agreement doesn't place restrictions on what types of data app makers may collect. But app makers must describe "how personal data is collected, used and shared," and make their privacy policies easily found by users. App store listings will contain either the text of the privacy policy or a link to the policy.

There have been several controversies over mobile app privacy, and one of the most recent centered on the social network Path accessing and uploading iPhone users' contact databases without permission. Harris noted that a Wall Street Journal report last year found "that 45 of the top 101 apps did not provide privacy policies either inside the application or on the application developer’s website," despite the fact that most of the mobile apps were transmitting a phone's unique device ID or location "to other companies without users' awareness or consent." Some apps were also transmitting the user's age, gender, and other personal details.

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Buzz Contacts from Savvy Apps (US$0.99) is a fast way to reach contacts from your iPhone. Organize them into groups for one-tap access to phone calls, text messages, email or FaceTime sessions. The UI is about as clean and tidy as one can get and conveniences like pre-written text messages are quite helpful. Here's my look at Buzz Contacts for iPhone.

The no-frills, utilitarian look of Buzz Contacts is appropriate for a handy utility. Once you've set up some groups (more on that later), they're laid out on a 4 x 4 grid. Each contact is listed by name and an icon depicts the action associated with each button (phone, text, email or FaceTime). If a group contains more than four members, a swipe to the right reveals the next grid of four while a swipe to the left produces a list view.

A toolbar pops up from the bottom of the screen allowing for group actions, so you can send an email or a text, for example, to everyone at once. The large buttons are hard to miss, so the risk of unintended taps is nominal.

It's easy to create a group. I made one called "Family" which includes my wife, mother, father and two sisters. To begin, swipe to the right and tap "New Group." Next, tap the title to customize it and then tap the icon in the upper right.

A list of your contacts appears. Tap the one you'd like to add and chose the method of contact. Keep adding contacts in this fashion until "Page One" is filled, meaning you've added four contacts. You can re-arrage the order in this screen as well.

Make as many groups as you like, swiping to the right to toggle between groups. From there, you simply launch the app and tap the appropriate block to initiate just the type of communication you want: FaceTime with your sister, iPhone call to your co-worker, text message to your son or daughter. It's speedy and a time-saver.

Buzz Contacts also lets you call those not in a group from the dialer. To use the dialer, swipe to the right again and tap Dialer. A keypad appears. Start tapping a number and Buzz guesses which one you're after. Give it a tap and you're off.

There are a few thoughtful niceties in the app. Tapping a contact set up as an email or FaceTime session asks you to confirm your intention before placing the call, so you won't place accidental phone calls. Also, there's a list of pre-written text messages to choose from, like "Running Late. See you soon." and "On my way." Combine that with a group text message to send a lengthy message to the whole gang with little effort.

I love useful utilities and Buzz Contacts is one. Since I pretty much only call the people in my family group, I've replaced the phone app in my iPhone's Dock with Buzz Contacts. It's definitely worth a try at $0.99.

Buzz Contacts for iPhone offers fast access to contacts originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!

• New! New Apple Mac Mini: $530
• New! Refurbished OtterBox Defender Series Case and Holster for Apple iPhone 4S: $49.95 -> $14.99
• New! Refurb Apple iPod nano 8GB MP3 Player for $99 + free shipping, 16GB for $119
• New! Refurbished Apple TV Media Receiver: $85 + free shipping
• New! Apple MacBook Pro Core i7 Quad 2.2GHz 15″ SSD Laptop: $2,447
• New! MacBook Pro Core i7 Dual 2.7GHz 13″ Laptop: $1,200 + free shipping
• Duplexing Brother Laser Printer: $69.99

_________________________________________

• New! FotoMagico: $29.99 -> $14.99
• New! Ruby on Rails 3: Your complete video guide: $129 -> $49
• Tower (Git Client for Mac): $59.99 -> $44.25
• GoMedia Arsenal Complete Vector Set 12: Free with tweet
• The Envato Web Designer Pro Bundle: $500 -> $20
• New! Build iOS Apps from Scratch: $497 -> $99
• PhotoStyler And LightFrame: $39.90 -> $19.99

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• New! Destiny: A Fairy Tale [Kindle Edition]: $2.99 -> Free
• Alfred Hitchcock: A Rare Look Into the Filmmaker’s Creative Mind: Free
• Celebrate the 200th Birthday of Charles Dickens with Movies, eBooks and Audio Books: Free
• Writing Tips by Henry Miller, Elmore Leonard, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman & George Orwell: Free
• The Guggenheim Puts 65 Modern Art Books Online: Free
• Tim Burton’s The World of Stainboy: Watch the Complete Animated Series: Free

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• New! Cut the Rope (Games): $4.99
• New! Appinator (Utilities): $3.99
• New! TinyGrab (Utilities): Free
• New! TICKE-TACK (Lifestyle): $.99
• New! Thumbtack, a Minimal Pinboard Menu Bar App (Utilities): $1.99
• Salt (Productivity): $19.99 -> $4.99
• Silkscreen (Graphics & Design): $11.99 -> $7.99
• Finch (Productivity): $8.99 -> $4.99

_________________________________________

• New! Buzz: 99¢ (review)
• New! Monkey Island Tales 4 (Games): $4.99 -> $2.99
• New! Monkey Island Tales 3 (Games): $4.99 -> $2.99
• New! Monkey Island Tales 2 (Games): $4.99 -> $2.99
• New! Monkey Island Tales 1 (Games): $4.99 -> Free
• New! Pocket Warriors (Games): $.99 -> Free
• Whacky Escape! (Games): $1.99 -> Free
• Bit-1 (Games): $1.99 -> $.99
• WeatherSnitch™ 2 (Weather): $1.99 -> $.99 (review)
• Launch Center – Tap. Tap. Go! (Productivity): $1.99 -> $.99
• Terminology Ph (Reference): $1.99 -> $.99

_________________________________________

• New! Monkey Island Tales 5 HD (Games): $6.99 -> $2.99
• New! Monkey Island Tales 4 HD (Games): $6.99 -> $2.99
• New! Monkey Island Tales 3 HD (Games): $6.99 -> $2.99
• New! Monkey Island Tales 2 HD (Games): $6.99 -> $2.99
• procreate (Entertainment): $4.99 -> $.99
• Whacky Escape! HD (Games): $1.99 -> Free

_________________________________________

• New! Wind-up Knight (Games): $1.99 -> Free
• New! Nostalgio (Lifestyle): $2.99 -> Free
• New! Tiny Defense (Games): $2.99 -> $.99
• SAMURAI BLOODSHOW (Games): $4.99 -> $.99
• Gangstar Rio: City of Saints (Games): $6.99 -> $.99
• Combat Arms: Zombies (Games): $4.99 -> $.99
• Write 2 – The Best Note Taking & Writing App with Dropbox Sync & Printing Support (Productivity): $2.99 -> $1.99

MakeGo is quite an idea. It's an iPhone app, available for $1.99 right now, that turns the touchscreen of an iPhone (or iPod touch) into a vehicle-style toy, where you can play around and generate sounds for toys like a racecar, ice cream truck, or even a riverboat. But the genius of this one isn't what's in the iPhone, it's what's outside of it. The idea is that you build a vehicle case for the iPhone out of whatever you want, be that Legos or wood or just paper, and then your custom-built case, along with the iPhone running the app, becomes a very professional, interactive toy.

Now, there are a few issues here, the first one being that when I played with vehicle toys as a kid, they almost inevitably ended up crashing in horrible ways, so I don't know how comfortable I'd feel giving any child an iPhone 4S to throw around. But lots of kids have access to old iPhones or iPod touches at this point, and this seems like a really ingenious way to inspire creativity and come up with a really great DIY toy. It's also super cheap, given that you already have the iOS device, because touchscreens for toys can send prices up through the roof.

And finally, it's a great example of just how much the iPhone and iPod touch have changed all sorts of industries. When powerful, touchscreen-based devices are this prevalent and this ubiquitous, why not use them to inspire some really interesting imagination play?

[via Wonderland]

MakeGo turns your iPhone into a vehicle toy originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We recently covered how to resolve an issue when Mac OS X doesn’t remember a wireless network, password protected or not, and since then several readers have notified us of another separate issue: Mac OS X won’t remember a wireless network password. The networks are remembered, but each time the network is found the password is forgotten and has to be reentered. This annoyance is fairly easy to resolve, as shown below.

1. Hit Command+Spacebar to bring up Spotlight, launch “Keychain Access”
2. Pull down the “Keychain Access” menu and select “Keychain First Aid”
3. Enter the password accompanying the given user name
4. Check “Repair” and click on “Start”

Sometimes repairing the keychain can be enough to resolve issues with passwords being remembered by OS X, but if not carry on with a solution that definitely works below:

1. Hit Command+Spacebar for Spotlight and search for “Keychain Access”, launch the app
2. Using Keychain Access search box in the upper right corner, search for “Airport network password”
3. Locate and select the name of the problematic router, if there are multiple entries for a single router select them all
4. Right-click on the router name and choose “Delete RouterName”
5. Authenticate the removal, then close out of Keychain Access
6. Reboot the Mac and re-join the wireless network

Mac OS X should now remember the wifi password without incident.

If you’re having broader problems with Mac OS X Wi-Fi where it doesn’t work at all or doesn’t work after waking from sleep, try the above methods in combination with removing the network and renewing the DHCP lease.

If you’re still out of luck, don’t miss our guide on fixing wi-fi problems in OS X Lion.

Amidst concerns about trademark battles in China, an unprecedented factory audit of Foxconn, and the question of potential stock dividends, Apple is scheduled to meet with AAPL shareholders tomorrow at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. All investors are encouraged to attend.

There have been whispers of dividend payouts over the last few months, and Apple has said that it’s considering such shareholder options. Considering that the company has $100 billion in cash on hand, investors are wondering how Apple can continue to not let its funds “burn a hole in its pocket.”

The Fair Labor Association is conducting a highly-covered audit of Apple’s supply chain partner Foxconn in China. ABC’s Nightline ran a report on Foxconn last night, and the FLA has voiced concern over the factory’s working conditions. Apple is also in the middle of a heated trademark battle with Proview that could result in a halt of iPad sales in China.

You can see 2011′s Annual Meeting of Shareholders by checking out this PDF.

AAPL stock soared past $500 for the first time less than two weeks ago, and Apple’s market cap is valued at about $480 billion.

Make sure to come back tomorrow for Cult of Mac’s report on the Apple annual shareholder’s meeting and what occurred there.

(via Reuters)

• Apple Plans Jobless Annual Meeting
• Apple Stock Reaches New Highs, Veteran Investors Dancing in Aisles
• Report: Apple Ramping Up iPad Product to Meet Upcoming Demand
• Apple Shareholders Re-Elect Board, Sing to Steve at Annual Meeting (UPDATED)
• Apple Downgraded, Estimates Lowered Ahead of Annual Meeting

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Securing business data on employee-owned devices like the iPhone and iPad is one of the biggest challenges for IT departments when it comes to operating bring your own device (BYOD) programs. The mobile device management (MDM) approach taken by most companies is an excellent starting point because it aims to make devices themselves more secure. Unfortunately, it also tends to impose limits on what workers can do with an iPhone or iPad that they bought and paid for out of their own pockets.

Another approach to the challenge is to carve out a specific niche of secure storage on each employee-owned devices. Good Technology has always offered this mechanism for securing business emails and related technologies like shared contacts and calendars. This week, Good took that concept and made it available to iOS developers in a product called Good Dynamics.

Good’s products use industry standard encryption to secure business content. The company also offers an MDM service that plugs into the MDM architecture that Apple introduced in iOS 4 and expanded in iOS 5. This combination allows companies to secure business data on the device as well as the ability to apply any standard iOS management options. Like all iOS MDM solutions, Good allows business data to be wiped in the event that a device is lost or stolen. If an employee leaves the company, however, Good can wipe business data from that person’s iPhone or iPad without wiping the entire device.

This approach has multiple advantages, but the most important is that it allows organizations to scale back on whole-device restrictions. Since a separate passcode is needed to open any of Good’s apps and access business data, organizations don’t need to enforce complex passcode policies to unlock an iPhone or iPad. That can, and should, be encouraged but since unlocking the device doesn’t unlock any business data, IT departments can consider relaxing overall device security. This strategy has made Good’s initial products a good fit (pardon the pun) for BYOD programs involving iOS devices as well as other platforms like Android.

As native business apps have made gains for accomplishing a range of tasks on iOS and other platforms, there has been an increased amount of business data being stored by these apps on user devices. Most apps don’t use a secure storage mechanism for data, however. For some developers building reliable encryption for on-device data is too big a hurdle to consider. For others, there may not be enough return on the investment to create an encrypted data store.

Good Dynamics offers a solution for both developers and IT professionals. Good has built an SDK library that can easily be added to third-party apps using Xcode. As Herve Danzelaud, Good’s Vice President of Business Development, told me recently, the SDK is simple and flexible enough that one of Good’s partners was able to implement Good Dynamics features while on a flight from New York to California. That’s a pretty good testament to Good making the process fairly easy and painless.

While encrypting stored data is a big part of what Good Dynamics is about, its SDK doesn’t stop there. It also allows developers to build management options into their apps. Those options can then be centrally managed from Good’s MDM console. This actually extends past Apple’s MDM framework, which doesn’t offer control over third-party apps running on an iOS device.

The Good Dynamics SDK can be implemented in public apps available through the App Store as well as in private apps developed by companies for purely internal distribution and use. Good has been working with several partners to implement the technology in business-oriented public apps. The most notable being Good’s partnership with cloud storage provider Box. The result of this partnership is an app that can be managed to ensure cloud data is secured on the device and can be limited in terms of how that data is shared with others (if sharing is allowed at all).

Given the how commonplace personal devices are becoming in the workplace, Good Dynamics offers a viable solution to many challenges. The ultimate effectiveness will come down to how broadly the platform is implemented by third-party developers. Even if just a handful of companies that provide core business functionality sign on, Good Dynamics will have the potential to make an impact on mobile devices in the enterprise, but more apps based around the platform will certainly drive interest and adoption.

• How The iPhone Saves Money For Businesses (And Why Android Can’t)
• BYOD Challenge: How IT Can Keep User-Owned iPhones And iPads Secure In Enterprise [Feature]
• Creating An App Store For Your Company Just Got Easier… And Free
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Apple has given developers yet another few months to implement application sandboxing for OS X apps, a security feature brought over from iOS: the deadline is now June 1, 2012. While the intent of sandboxing is to prevent hacked apps from taking over a user's system, however, the sandbox design inherently limits functionality that users and developers have come to expect on the desktop. Apple's changes and delays to sandboxing requirements have also created a situation where the sandboxing goalpost keeps moving while developers continue to push Apple to improve its design.

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