Apple sued by users who feel iOS 8 is too fat

Apple sued by users who feel iOS 8 takes up too much space on iPod, iPhone and iPad


It's at this time of year that many people start a diet -- and it's something that Apple might want to think about as well. Two US men are suing Apple because they believe iOS 8 is too big. Or, as the lawsuit puts it, uses an "unexpectedly large percentage of the storage capacity on 8 GB and 16 GB iPhones, iPads and iPods".


Paul Orshan and Christopher Endara complain that Apple failed to warn users that upgrading to the latest version of iOS could mean filling up to 23.1 percent of the available storage space. The lawsuit goes on to suggest that Apple is using the fact that users are likely to run out of space to push its iCloud storage service.


Apple has long been criticized for its low capacity devices, and the loss of up to 1.3GB of space when upgrading to iOS7 to iOS 8 is a hefty chunk to give up. The lawsuit states that users "do not expect this marked discrepancy between the advertised level of capacity and the available capacity of the Devices, as the operating system and other storage space unavailable to consumers occupies an extraordinary percentage of their Devices’ limited storage capacity".


The class action is seeking millions of dollars from Apple because "nothing close to the advertised capacity of the Devices is available to end users". It also points out that in advertising the storage capacity of devices, Apple has used the GB abbreviation to mean gibibytes and not gigabytes. Orshan and Endara also complain that Apple prevent users from adjusting the size of storage partitions, even though it can be achieved through jailbreaking.


The suggestion is that Apple uses a lack of physical storage to push iCloud packages -- "offer[ing] to sell that capacity in a desperate moment, e.g., when a consumer is trying to record or take photos at a child or grandchild’s recital, basketball game or wedding".


Photo credit: Nata-Lia / Shutterstock






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NetMarketShare adjusts its figures -- still has Windows 8.x losing major usage share

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Yesterday, web analytics firm NetMarketShare released its monthly breakdown of desktop operating system usage share, and it contained a huge shock. According to the figures, Windows 8.x had dropped to its lowest usage share since March 2014, putting it back below XP.


It was a surprise because Windows 8 and 8.1 had both shown solid growth in the previous two months, but suddenly, according to NetMarketShare, 8.x had dropped a whopping 7.07 percentage points in a single month, most of that going to Windows NT. As I observed when reporting, something not quite right there. Late yesterday, the figures were pulled, and new ones have appeared today that show the tiled OS still doing badly, just not quite as badly.


According to the new figures, Windows 8 went from 6.55 percent in November to 4.03 percent in December, losing 2.52 percentage points. Windows 8.1 went from a high of 12.10 percent to 9.49 percent, a drop of 2.61 percentage points. Combined, NetMarketShare shows 8.x dropping 5.13 percentage points for a total share of 13.52 percent. That’s an improvement on yesterday’s loss of just under 2 percentage points, but still not great news for Microsoft.


In the revised figures, Windows 7 dropped from 56.41 percent to 56.26 percent (originally NetMarketShare had it on 54.57 percent).


Windows NT, yesterday’s bizarre winner, loses all of its "gains" in the new figures, and instead it’s Windows XP that leaps up, going from 13.57 percent, to 18.26 percent, which puts it way ahead of Windows 8.x again. Odd, but not unrealistically so.


NetMarketShare’s figures are based on data collected from visitors to over 40,000 websites and compiled from approximately 160 million unique visits per month. Although collecting data in this way means it can never be completely accurate, it does usually paint a reliable picture of the state of the desktop operating system market.


Yesterday, something went badly wrong with its figures. In addition to publishing incorrect OS data, it also published browser usage share which showed Internet Explorer losing an incredible (and obviously ridiculous) 30 percentage points. Today, that drop is just 0.45.


We’ve reached out to NetMarketShare to find out what went wrong with the figures yesterday and will update this story when we have a response.






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Upp's hydrogen fuel cell charger can power your smartphone for a week

Upp-charger


A new way of powering your smartphone has been released that can provide a week’s worth of charge using renewable energy sources.


Upp is a portable power solution utilizing hydrogen fuel cells that should charge any USB-compatible device.


Upp consists of an Upp fuel cell and Upp Cartridge, both of which are included in the starter pack for £149. Once the reusable cartridge is empty, the owner can exchange it for a replacement cartridge for just £5.95.


Upp is currently available at Apple Stores across the UK as well as online from the Upp website.


The product has been designed by Intelligent Energy, which in recent years has focused on producing hydrogen fuel cells that are small enough to charge the array of portable devices, like smartphones and tablets, which play such a key role in our daily lives. Previously, hydrogen fuel cell technology had largely been confined to the automobile industry.


Dr Henri Winand, the company’s CEO, believes that Upp could be the start of a number of new and innovative technologies that enter the consumer market.


"Upp represents the start of the next generation of energy devices, a signal to the portable electronics market that customers are ready to adopt transformative technologies", he said. "Consumers want energy independence as the demand and reliance on portable devices accelerates".


Upp could also be used to power wearable devices such as fitness bands, portable speakers or e-readers. Upp charges at the same speed as an ordinary wall socket and is safe to take on airplanes, so is suitable for keeping your mobile charged on long trips abroad.


A full Upp cartridge can provide, on average, one week of power for the user’s smartphone, equaling approximately 900 additional hours of standby, 32 hours of call time, 26 hours of video, or 40 hours of web browsing.


The product also comes with its own smartphone app, which tells the user important information, such as how much charge has been used up and the nearest location selling replacement cartridges.


Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.






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Montblanc Announces A Smart Bracelet For Your Fancy Watch


What did I tell you? In a last-ditch effort to save themselves, watchmakers are now turning to the band in order to ensure that timekeeping remains well in the realm of the mechanical.


The new band, part of the Montblanc Timewalker Urban Speed collection, is a little metal screen that can receive notifications and messages. From A Blog To Watch:


The e-Strap features a high-end leather strap that has a carbon fiber texture to it that Montblanc calls “Extreme Montblanc Leather” and is produced by them in Florence, Italy. At the bottom, sitting under your wrist is an electronic module made from DLC (diamond like carbon) coated steel or in gray steel. Apparently, there are a few color and size options.


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I fully expect this to be the stupidest thing ever, on par with the Prada phone, and this shows exactly what companies like Montblanc are up against. Wearables are replacing some watches and the Apple Watch will replace the rest. I expect that the mechanical watch manufacturers will soon be facing a massive slowdown at best and bankruptcy at worst.


Don’t worry, though: you can buy the Montblanc band separately for about $300 (the mechanical watches are about $3,000) so you can strap it to your Apple Watch.






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High Tech Or Hangover? Watch Quake On An Oscilloscope


Head spinning? Stomach gurgling? Did you just drink a Bloody Mary just to find some respite from your pounding gulliver? Why not take a look at Pekka Väänänen’s project, an attempt to play Quake on a Hitachi V-422 oscilloscope.


Why? Because if it can’t run Quake it’s not a true piece of technological hardware, that’s why. But it’s pretty hard. To get the machine to display a comparatively complicated game, Väänänen had to simulate an oscilloscope in code and then learn how to program the Hitachi to move the ray across the screen.


In order to line draw line segments that are not connected together, you need to move the ray quickly across the screen without actually tracing a visible line. This can be done by spending more time drawing the visible lines and then scaling the monitor intensity accordingly to hide unwanted artefacts.


To actually display the images he had to output the results in audio format and got about 1,800 on the screen. You can even download some audio files to play the screens on your own workbench.






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The One Where Netflix Started Streaming All Ten Seasons Of Friends

Christmas was about a week ago, but that doesn’t mean that the morning of January 1, 2015 doesn’t have an awesome surprise in store for you. Starting today, every. single. episode. of Friends is available to stream on Netflix.


Go ahead! Celebrate for a minute!


Friends is one of those mythical shows that has long been locked out of the new (streaming) world. But that hasn’t stopped the sitcom, which is now more than ten years off of the air, from being one of the most beloved and popular shows ever.


2015 is already looking to be a significant improvement over last year.






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Windows 8.x market share plummets back to March 2014 levels -- way, way below XP once more

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Over the past two months Windows 8 and 8.1 have shown tremendous usage growth. According web analytics firm NetMarketShare, the tiled OS went from a paltry combined 12.26 percent share of the desktop OS market in September, to a much more respectable 18.65 percent share in November. That’s a growth of 6.39 percentage points in two months (October and November). Impressive. Which is why last month I declared Windows 8.x was no longer a huge embarrassment to Microsoft.


After all that celebration and jubilation the tech giant is going to be suffering from a New Year’s hangover today though, as the latest figures show the tiled OS has tumbled to its lowest usage share since March 2014.


In December, Windows 8 dropped 3.27 percentage points (from 6.55 percent to 3.28 percent) and 8.1 fell 3.8 percentage points (from a high of 12.10 percent to 8.30 percent). Combined, 8.x dropped a whopping 7.07 percentage points (11.58 percent total share), wiping out all recent gains and putting it back below XP levels. Way, way below.


In December, XP gained 0.65 percentage points, going from 13.57 percent in November, to 14.22 percent in December. A minimal gain of 0.65 percentage points.


Windows 7 dropped share in the same time frame, going from 56.41 percent to 54.57 percent.


As to where Windows 8.x’s share went, Mac OS X 10.10 took a chunk, as did "other" operating systems, a category which shot up 9 percentage points in December. A spot of investigation reveals that NetMarketShare has Windows NT jumping from 0.11 percent to 7.64 percent share in a month. Something not quite right there.


As to how Windows 10 is doing, the web analytics firm shows the Technical Preview at 0.3 percent. That’s the same share as commanded by both Windows 98 and Windows 3.1, apparently.


It will be really interesting to see what happens to Windows 8.x's usage share next month.


Photo Credit: ostill /Shutterstock






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