Microsoft Support & Discussions

Why haven't you updated to iOS 8? According to Apple, as of January 19, 2015, 69% of devices — iPhones, iPads, and iPods touch — currently accessing the App Store are running iOS 8. That leaves 28% still running iOS 7, and 3% running iOS 6 or earlier. The iPhone 4, originally released in 2010, is the only device capable of running iOS 7 that can't be updated to iOS 8. iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2, and iPad mini 3 all shipped with iOS 8. Everything else, including the iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPod touch 5, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad Air, iPad mini, and iPad mini 2, can be updated to iOS 8. It's reasonable to assume some portion of that 28% is compr…

There's been a lot of buzz about "HD audio" lately — some even rumored that it would be included in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus — but the dirty little music secret is this: Humans can't appreciate the difference if all you're bringing to the track is more bits. Dave Hamilton does a great job breaking it down on MacObserver: This difference between 16-bit/44.1kHz audio and anything greater than that has been tested (a lot... in double-blind tests) and we have yet to find any human that can reliably notice that difference. Bit depths greater than 16 bits and sample rates above 44.1kHz simply don't matter as long as the data is converted properly (and our ability to…

There are things we all take for granted, because we see them so often. One of those is the toolbar that graces every open window in OS X's Finder. Did you know the Finder toolbar is customizable? Here's how. Here's the OS X Yosemite Finder toolbar in its unadulterated default glory. Four buttons determine your view mode; an Arrange button lets you sort what you're viewing; the Action button, which lets you quickly do things like create a new folder or get info about an item; the Share button; the Edit Tags button; and a search field. You see it so often you might even forget it's there. In fact, some users obscure it all together by clicking on the View menu and …

Last week, after CES 2015, I wrote about what was taking HomeKit accessories time to hit the shelves. Today, Recode has written about what, in their opinion, is behind the "slow ramp". There's some interesting information in there about chipset availability from Broadcom but, before we can talk about speed to market, I think it's valuable to break down the actual timelines and processes involved. The HomeKit framework was announced at WWDC in June of 2014, or just under 8 months ago. It was released in September of 2014, or just under 5 months ago. The full spec went live in October of 2014, or just under 4 months ago. Made for iPhone (MFi) certification started in Nov…

iOS has let us copy, paste, and print for quite some time now, but iOS 8 shook things up, allowing developers to build action extensions right into their apps that make them more useful and intuitive than ever. With action extensions, you no longer have to copy a password from your favorite password management app or use an in-app browser; instead, you can call it up via the Share sheet whenever you need it. You can also perform translations on the fly, thanks to apps like Bing Search, or even add a delivery to your favorite tracking app with just a tap. Read on for some of our favorite apps that support action extensions! Workflow Workflow automation has come…

There's been a lot of talk lately about styluses — specifically, an Apple-branded stylus pen that might ship alongside the rumored iPad Pro. As an artist, frequent note-taker, and all-around scribbler, I've wanted a Wacom-esque pressure-sensitive stylus since the iPad's release. I wrote about iPad styluses time and time again as we saw creative developers try and build around the iPad's hardware limitations. I've looked longingly over at Wacom's half-baked tablet solutions. And I haven't been happy. Could Apple make an iPad stylus that actually fulfilled my wants — and those of other artists — for a tablet next year? It could. But would it want to? This year, quite …

Apple has made a new hire from Burberry, the fashion house once run by current Apple SVP of Retail Angela Ahrendts. According to his Twitter and LinkdIn profiles, Chester Chipperfield, previously Burberry's Vice President of Digital and Interactive Design, will now be working on Special Projects at Apple. Chesterfield announced his departure from Burberry in December on Twitter: Goodbye London. I have been lucky to call you home for 31 years, time to discover another city.. http://instagram.com/p/xJxk9mkTa3/ — Chester Chipperfield (@chesterchip) December 28, 2014 Chipperfield is the latest in a long line of Apple hires for "Special Projects. It's not clea…

The TETRA Case adds an advanced design to your typical bumper case with its geometrically shaped corners and CNC-machined aluminum edging. Even with the combination of aluminum and shock absorbent TPU, this case is amazingly thin and lightweight. Comes in 6 colors and is only $16.95 today! [/url] Continue reading...

Task manager Any.do is now available as a native Mac app. Previously available on desktop as a Chrome extension, Any.do lets you sync and maintain your to-do list across your devices. The Mac app includes many features of the mobile version, including voice entry, auto-suggest, and real-time list collaboration. Any.do for Mac presents you all of your tasks in a single window. You can choose how you want to view these tasks. Column view places all of your tasks in side-by-side columns next to each other under Today, Tomorrow, Upcoming, and Someday. Switching to folder view will do the same thing, but with tasks divided by topic. The row view will display your task on …

Sprint's taking the fight straight to T-Mobile and is offering customers of the Un-carrier a guaranteed minimum trade-in credit of $200 for their current working T-Mobile smartphone. That's in addition to the current contract buy-out offer (though T-Mobile ditched traditional contracts nearly two years ago) or up to $350 in credit to pay for their new Sprint phone. The offer's good through April 9, and as with the $350 switcher credit, can be combined per line. Though it's worth noting that any high-end smartphone in good condition, even one from the last two years, will likely fetch more than $200 in trade-in. Though if you've got a bargain basement smartphone on yo…

Apple will reportedly allow the Chinese government to conduct security inspections of the products the company sells in China. The inspections would be a way to curb worries that other governments are using Apple products for surveillance against China. The vast majority of Apple's products (with the exception of the Mac Pro) are manufactured in China. Apple CEO Tim Cook apparently agreed to inspections while meeting with Lu Wei, head of China's internet regulator, back in December. Lu Wei apparently told Cook that Apple would need to do more to ensure the security of Chinese citizens, according to the Bejing News [translated from Chinese]: According to the res…

We use Facebook and Twitter for more than just talking with our virtual social communities these days. We use them to login to other sites, to comment, to register — to host our digital identity. That's why it's a good idea to check and control which iPhone and iPad apps have access to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. The best part is you don't even have to log in to Facebook or Twitter on the web. You can do it right from your iPhone or iPad! Note: this method will only control what actual apps access your Twitter or Facebook accounts. This doesn't include web services and other kinds of non-iOS apps. So it's still a good idea to check the websites for Facebook a…

The iPad Air 2 took Apple's thinnest and lightest full-sized tablet ever and made it even thinner and lighter. It also laminated the screen to make the pixels look like they were floating inside the glass, added Touch ID, and 8 megapixel iSight camera, and introduced the Apple A8X — a custom three processing core, eight graphics core chipset so powerful it made even recent ultrabooks nervous. But Apple themselves have told us technology alone isn't enough. What matters is what we can do with it, where, and how well. Back in October we did a full iPad Air 2 review. Now we're revisiting that review three months later. Design Rene: The iPad Air 2's design is so…

Google's Project Zero research program has disclosed and released proof-of-concept code for a series of 0day — previously unknown — vulnerabilities found in Apple's OS X operating system for the Mac. These exploits are all fixed in OS X Yosemite 10.10.2, now in beta. Here's a report on the vulnerabilities from Ars Technica: In the past two days, Project Zero has disclosed OS X vulnerabilities here, here, and here. At first glance, none of them appear to be highly critical, since all three appear to require the attacker to already have some access to a targeted machine. What's more, the first vulnerability, the one involving the "networkd 'effective_audit_token' XPC,…

Update: Three UK owner Hutchison Whampoa has officially confirmed that the company has entered into exclusive negotiations with Telefonica over a potential purchase of O2. Three UK, announced that it has entered into exclusive negotiations with Telefónica, S.A. over a period of several weeks for the potential acquisition of Telefónica, S.A.'s UK subsidiary, O2 UK, for an indicative price in cash of £9.25 billion which would be paid at closing, and deferred upside interest sharing payments of up to a further £1 billion in the aggregate payable after the cumulative cash flow of the combined businesses of Hutchison 3G UK Limited and O2 UK has reached an agreed threshol…

Attention fans of ridiculously buggy, yet hilariously wacky simulator games featuring barnyard animals: Goat Simulator for iOS has picked up an update today. Coming along for the ride are a new map and, perhaps most importantly, "pigs that are stuck." Here's the official breakdown of what's new in version 1.1: A whole new map: Goat City Bay! Lots of new goats Lickable helicopter Pigs that are stuck Hyper realistic water physics As you can tell, there's lots to look forward to. However, maybe it's my inner cynic, but something tells me that "hyper realistic water physics" may be an indicator of something to watch out for. Also, please mind your tongue …

Twitter has announced today that it has enabled tweet translation, powered by Bing, on both its official iOS app, as well as on the web. The feature was previously available on TweetDeck, and has been tested off and on for a while now. Twitter made the announcement, fittingly, via a Tweet earlier today: We're introducing Tweet translation with @Bing Translator so you can read Tweets in multiple languages: https://t.co/RuraBeYa5S — Twitter (@twitter) January 22, 2015 You can follow the link in the tweet (or by clicking here) to get more information about how the translation works. However, it is very simple to operate. All you have to do when you see a twe…

Apple submitted a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today that not only gives us the breakdown of earnings for the tech giant's top executives, but also announces that board member Millard Drexler will be retiring after the company's annual shareholder meeting on March 10. A successor has not yet been determined following Drexler's retirement. From the filing: On January 16, 2015, Millard "Mickey" Drexler, 70, who has served on the Board since 1999, notified the Board of his intention to retire at the end of his current term, which will expire at the Annual Meeting. The Board has not yet nominated an individual to fill the vacancy that will…

I’m very pleased to announce that Microsoft has reached an agreement to acquire Revolution Analytics. Revolution Analytics is the leading commercial provider of software and services for R, the world’s most widely used programming language for statistical computing and predictive analytics. We are making this acquisition to help more companies use the power of R and data science to unlock big data insights with advanced analytics. As their volumes of data continually grow, organizations of all kinds around the world – financial, manufacturing, health care, retail, research – need powerful analytical models to make data-driven decisions. This requires high performance c…

This week, Microsoft introduced the next generation in more personal, more mobile and more intuitive computing with Windows 10. We also got the 411 on Cortana’s persona. Apparently, there was room for more excitement, following the Seahawks miracle win to return that that annual pro football championship. On Wednesday, Microsoft unveiled more about Windows 10 – how it will “inspire new scenarios across the broadest range of devices, from big screens to small screens to no screens at all,” explains Terry Myerson, executive vice president of Operating Systems. Windows 10, he says, “is the first step to an era of more personal computing. … We are moving Windows from its h…

If you're a fan of credit monitoring apps on your iOS device, you may want to check out Credit Sesame's latest update. In version 2.6.7, users will be able to take advantage of TouchID to login to the app, and even be able to ask Siri, "What's my credit score?", to be taken directly into the app. If you're unfamiliar with Credit Sesame, it is a service that allows you to monitor your credit score for free once a month from data supplied by Experian. The app also gives you suggestions for improving your financial situation. Overall, this update is pretty neat. The integration with Siri and the ability to use TouchID to login to the app are both welcome additions fr…

SimCity's newest game for Mac has been re-released as a new bundle that has a bunch of extra content. SimCity Complete Edition includes the core game, Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack, Amusement Park, Airship Set, Heroes and Villains Set, and French, British and German City sets. This version plays offline, so no need to worry about keeping a connection. As always, SimCity challenges you to build a thriving metropolis while managing vital services, balance citizen needs, and keep a balanced budget. Before you get downloading, here's a quick run-down of the system requirements. Operating System: 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion), 10.9.5 (Mavericks), 10.10.1 (Yosemite) CPU …

The second episode of Telltale Games' six-part adventure game based on the Game of Thrones TV series from HBO makes its Mac debut February 3 and for the iPhone and iPad on February 5. The second episode is titled "The Lost Lords" and Telltale is getting fans of the fantasy series pumped for its release with a new trailer. Here's a summary of the storyline for The Lost Lords: House Forrester is in disarray. Their liege lord and his heir are dead, and Ironrath is occupied by Whitehill soldiers. The survival of the family depends upon those who are left. Placed at King's Landing, the epicenter of intrigue, Mira Forrester must weigh her loyalty to Margaery Tyrell a…