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TidBITS#1132/02-Jul-2012

The big news this week, which indicates it’s a bit of a slow time, was Apple’s release of the new Podcasts app, which lets you subscribe to and listen to podcasts on iOS devices. Podcaster Andy Affleck takes a look. Also this week, Bob Mansfield retires from Apple, we cover the closings of ZangZing and QOOP, the Dropbox-driven Calepin blogging platform goes open source, and Steve McCabe contributes a story of how he got the runaround from Apple both on an international iPhone replacement and on getting technical details about why the replacement wasn’t possible. Notable software releases this week include Aperture 3.3.1, CloudPull 2.1.1, and KeyCue 6.2.

Adam Engst 13 comments

ZangZing and QOOP Closing Their Doors

A pair of companies that we’ve written about, and whose services we’ve used, will be shutting down soon. It’s a sad fact of life that many — perhaps even most — Internet startups will fail, but it’s harder to accept when you were a happy user.

Steve McCabe 35 comments

Apple’s International Obfuscation

All Steve McCabe wanted was an in-warranty fix for a struggling iPhone. But Apple’s service advisors proved incapable of either helping with an international warranty repair or providing a straight answer to a seemingly simple technical question.

Andy Affleck 8 comments

Podcasts App Breaks Podcasts out of Music App

Apple has released a new iOS app called Podcasts that focuses on — wait for it — podcasts, removing the need to listen to podcasts in the Music app. However, along with some impressive skeuomorphic graphics, the Podcasts app has a few interface and performance issues.

TidBITS Staff No comments

ExtraBITS for 2 July 2012

Should you be worried about the privacy implications of Siri? That’s the question prompted by this MIT Technology Review article. Also this week, Andy Ihnatko expresses his concern about how Apple is requiring certain things for integration with iCloud.