Like its tech industry peers, Apple has released a statement regarding PRISM, the alleged NSA data-collection program. Apple gives some examples of what has been requested by law enforcement agencies, including 4,000–5,000 requests for data between 1 December 2012 and 31 May 2013. However, Apple also claims that it cannot decrypt iMessage or FaceTime conversations, and also states that the company does not store data related to location, map searches, or Siri requests in “any identifiable form.”

With all the noise about iOS 7, you might have forgotten about one of iOS 6’s least-known features: Guided Access, which lets you lock down apps and interface elements to protect your iPad or iPhone from prying eyes or rambunctious kids. Rene Ritchie of iMore gives an overview of how to use this feature, including how to simulate a “Guest Mode.”

If the icons of iOS 7 look disjointed to you, there might be a reason for it. According to an exclusive report by The Next Web, Jony Ive, Apple’s SVP of Design, had the marketing team choose the color palettes and basic look of the icons, then passed each icon off to the respective app teams to finish. In other words, too many cooks… The good news is that the look of iOS 7 is reportedly far from done, so we anticipate a more coherent design by release.

Apple has awarded its annual design awards to 11 apps for Mac and iOS. On the functional side, winners include WWF Together for iPad, which details endangered animals; Procreate for iPad, a drawing app; Yahoo’s new weather app for iPhone and iPad; Web development app Coda 2 for Mac; and note-taker Evernote 5 for Mac. Winning games include Letterpress for iPad and iPhone, Badland for iPhone and iPad, Ridiculous Fishing for iPhone and iPad, and Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. There were also two student winners: Finish, a streamlined to-do app for iPhone, and mosaic.io, a photo mosaic app for iPhone and iPad.

One of the less-discussed features in iOS 7 is the new male voice for Siri, but why is Apple adding it now? According to Stanford professor Clifford Nass, one cringeworthy reason could be because female voices are sometimes seen as less intelligent than male voices. These cultural perceptions are the reason why Siri originally received male voices in some countries, like the United Kingdom, but not in others. For example, BMW had to recall a car in Germany, because male drivers didn’t trust the female voice chosen for the GPS. A better reason? Apple wants to let users customize the iOS experience more fully, though it seems unlikely that Apple would go as far as including the celebrity voices used by GPS makers TomTom and Garmin.

Apple might have wowed the WWDC keynote audience with its iOS 7 Weather app, which shows animated weather effects in the background, but Apple wasn’t the first to have the idea. Developer Alaric Cole tells the tale of his potentially groundbreaking weather app, Horizon, and how Apple kept it out of the App Store. Horizon would have also displayed weather effects in the background, but was continually rejected by Apple for vague reasons. Cole doesn’t accuse Apple of stealing his idea, but he does wonder if they delayed his app so as to beat him to market.

Over at Macworld, Serenity Caldwell explores 27 new features in iOS 7 that Apple glossed over during the WWDC keynote. Some of the more interesting tidbits are natural language calendar notifications, better Wi-Fi hotspot support, walking directions and a night mode in Maps, and Smart Mailboxes in Mail. One particularly interesting note is support for third-party game controllers, which could be a clue to Apple’s future TV and gaming plans.

The Washington Post is reporting on a program code-named PRISM that provides the U.S. National Security Agency and FBI with direct back-door access to the servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies to record and analyze audio and video conversations, email messages, online documents, and connection logs in order to track foreign targets. The firms in question include Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple, with Dropbox “coming soon.” All deny knowledge of and involvement in PRISM. More details about PRISM will undoubtedly be forthcoming, but in the meantime, remember the dictum, “Don’t put anything on the Internet that you wouldn’t want on the front page of the New York Times.”

If you’re having trouble keeping your iPhone charged, Facebook may be at fault. A German developer has discovered that the Facebook app’s misuse of background tasks is causing the app to run in the background all day, hogging the CPU and causing the battery to drain faster than normal. Until the bug is resolved, Facebook users can preserve battery life either by killing the app from the multitasking switcher after every use or by deleting the app and using the Facebook Web app within Safari.

If you crack your iPhone 5 screen and didn’t think to purchase AppleCare+, you can now have your screen replaced in an Apple Store for $149. While third-party repair shops have offered this for years and may be less expensive, working with the Apple Store ensures an Apple-approved screen. Stephen Hackett, a former Apple Store Genius, managed to snag a picture of the special machine Geniuses are using to calibrate the new displays. “We’re bringing China to the Genius Room,” an anonymous Apple employee told him.

Opening arguments have begun in the U.S. Department of Justice’s trial against Apple over the agency model of pricing, heralded by the iBookstore launch in 2010. The issue at stake is Apple working with all the major publishers to adopt a model where the publishers set the retail price of ebooks, instead of selling at wholesale to retailers, who then choose their own retail prices. However, things don’t look good for Apple, as Judge Denise Cote has already said, in a pre-trial hearing, “I believe that the government will be able to show at trial direct evidence that Apple knowingly participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of ebooks.” Ironically, if the government wins, it may lead to less competition, as Amazon had previously set most ebook prices at $9.99, even if it meant selling at a loss, a move arguably designed to cement Amazon’s dominant position. Dan Moren of Macworld provides a solid overview of the case.

After more than 11 years, development on the open-source Camino Web browser has ended. Back in the dark ages of Mac OS X, before Safari and Chrome, the Camino Project was established to graft a Mac-native interface onto Mozilla’s Gecko rendering engine. Many of Camino’s developers were later hired by Apple and Google to work on their respective browsers. Web browsing on Mac OS X wouldn’t be what it is today without Camino, and for that, we thank the developers, salute them, and wish them the best in whatever they do next.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is asking for your help to fight a patent troll who wants to kill podcasting. Personal Audio claims to have a patent on key podcasting technologies, and has been legally threatening many podcasters, including Adam Carolla and HowStuffWorks. Though the EFF has already raised over $60,000 as of this writing, beating its $30,000 goal in under 10 hours, legal fees can get expensive, and they need all the help they can get. So if you love podcasting, or just hate patent trolls, consider supporting their cause!

Apple has released a new 16 GB variant of the fifth-generation iPod touch, which features a Retina display, but lacks a rear-facing camera and a loop attachment. The “new” model replaces the 16 GB fourth-generation model, which was still being sold. The fifth generation of iPod touch was unveiled in September 2012, starting at 32 GB of capacity for $299.

Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher to kick off the 11th D: All Things Digital conference. Though Cook was, as usual, careful not to give too much away, he called television an “area of great interest.” Cook also expressed an interest in wearable computing, though he dismissed Google Glass in favor of wrist-based solutions, and he suggested that Apple will make iOS more open to third-party developers in the future.

Our own Glenn Fleishman has purchased The Magazine from its creator, Marco Arment, after having served as executive editor since the second issue. Arment launched The Magazine in October 2012 as an iOS-exclusive, general-interest magazine for geeks. Arment also recently sold another creation of his, Instapaper, leading to questions about his future plans. However, there are few questions about Glenn’s plans for The Magazine: they include a Web site redesign, a refresh of the app, and an upcoming podcast.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield wowed the world with his haunting zero-gravity performance of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” from the International Space Station, but how did he avoid the copyright cops when he landed on terra firma? The Economist’s mysterious “G.F.” breaks down the potential complications and pitfalls of copyright in space. While Commander Hadfield secured the rights from Bowie long before blasting off, does interplanetary war erupt if a Martian downloads “Game of Thrones” from BitTorrent?

In the Communications of the ACM, Cornell professor Stephen Wicker responds to a 2012 New York Times editorial by Google Chief Internet Evangelist and ACM President Vint Cerf that posits that Internet access is not a human right. In disagreeing, Wicker argues that a human right comprises both an “abstract expression of the right and some means for enabling that right,” and goes on to point out that the consequences of the Internet meriting human right status include non-discriminatory access to a wide variety of ISPs and support for common carrier rules that prevent ISP blocking or discrimination based on content.

Prompted by a study in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research about perceived sensitivity to electromagnetic fields, columnist Mark Morford of SFGate.com has penned a powerful commentary about why some people may suffer very real symptoms from seeming exposure to radio waves from Wi-Fi gateways and cell phones. He doesn’t dismiss either the severity of these symptoms or the fact that there are innumerable aspects of modern life that have been proven detrimental to human health, but emphasizes that we similarly cannot discount the power of suggestion or conviction.

The United States Department of Defense has approved the “security technical implementation guide” for mobile devices running iOS 6, including the iPhone and iPad, meaning that Apple’s handhelds can now be used on DOD networks. Also approved are BlackBerry smartphones and devices from Samsung running its Android-based Knox operating system. The DOD currently has around 600,000 commercial mobile devices in use, including 470,000 BlackBerrys, 41,000 unspecified Apple devices, and 8,700 Android devices. Most of these are part of a pilot program by the Defense Information Systems Agency to make use of the latest in technology. Unlike most enterprises, BYOD, or “bring your own device,” isn’t allowed, at least when it comes to connecting to DOD networks.