News roundup for December 24, 2013

Good afternoon! It’s the day before Christmas, which means a lot of people are focused on time off and their families. But, there’s still a bit of news out there! Here’s what’s going on in the Apple world today.

  • Former Apple executive Ken Segall explains why critics need to back off the company’s Christmas ad featuring a seemingly tuned-out teenager secretly filming a video of his family – even though it does commit the crime of filming in portrait mode, but it magically gets shown in landscape mode.

    It’s a clever concept. The spot relies on our own stereotypes to lead us to an incorrect assumption, setting the stage for the second half of the spot to pull our heartstrings so effectively. Despite its cleverness, the spot feels very real.

  • Hacker Geohot has taken a look at the untethered iOS 7 jailbreak and determines that he “found nothing sketchy in my reversing, your phones most likely aren’t being backdoored by Chinese.” MacRumors had reported that the evad3rs team was paid $1 million to preload the “Taig” app store on the jailbreak.
  • Electronista reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook and a team of executives will visit Turkey in February to discuss a possible $4 billion education deal. The country is looking to purchase roughly 12.5 million to 13 million tablets in two waves over a four-year period, which would replace the paper textbooks circulating in schools. Cook also plans to visit the country’s first Apple Store in Istanbul.
  • MacRumors reports that Mac Pro users have received an early Christmas gift, as some pre-ordered machines began arriving today. Merry Christmas!
  • Apple has received a couple of new patents: one for hover-touch sensing and another for an embedded heart rate monitor. The first sensor detects if your finger is anywhere near a touchscreen device, a feature that Samsung’s Galaxy S4 has.





News roundup for December 24, 2013
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