Category: Small Biz Go Mobile

Don’t worry! Nobody’s going to cut off your finger to steal your iPhone 5S

by Shy Mukerjee
photo by zigazou76 on Flickr

Earlier this week, in my article about how the iPhones 5S and 5C will impact your life I joked about the new fingerprint sensor in the 5S:

Potential thieves will find themselves with an expensive brick unless they also steal your finger.

As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one with this thought. But, here’s what’s cool: somebody actually looked into it!

Mary Branscombe, writing for CITE World really went into depth about how the iPhone 5S fingerprint sensor ACTUALLY works, and what she found is amazing! Apparently, the sensor is so evolved that it only reads LIVING SKIN. Check this out:

With the new sensors you don’t have to move your finger, just press it against the reader. And like the sensor in the iPhone 5S, the sensors that will be in laptops and keyboards and other phones can detect the ridge and valley pattern of your fingerprint not from the layer of dead skin on the outside of your finger (which a fake finger can easily replicate), but from the living layer of skin under the surface of your finger, using an RF signal. That only works on a live finger; not one that’s been severed from your body.

Yup, it turns out that if someone cuts off your finger, they won’t be able to unlock your iPhone 5S. How sweet is that!

How to Update to iOS 7: What You Need to Know

by Katherine Elsasser

iOS 7, Apple’s newest edition of its mobile operating system, is coming to devices near you on September 18th. With a new, more colorful look and some pretty substantial changes under the hood, some people are calling this release the biggest change to the operating system since the release of the original iPhone. And, as with all the updates to iOS, the newest version is totally free. So whether you want the new look and feel, want to be on the cutting edge of the new features and security updates, or are just really excited about the new filters on the camera app, here’s what you need to know before you can make the change.

Read More

How to Choose Between the Samsung Galaxy and the new Apple iPhone 5S/5C

by Shy Mukerjee

Galaxy vs. iPhone

One question we’re getting a lot is, “How do I choose between the new iPhone 5S/5C and the Galaxy phones?” Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that. There are two current Galaxy phones, the 5” Galaxy S4 which is the most direct competitor to Apple’s offerings. But there’s also the 5.7” Galaxy Note 3, which was just announced and is the latest gen “Phablet” which includes a stylus.

There’s also two top-of-the-line Apple devices now. The slightly-cheaper iPhone 5C is colorful and comes in an array of bright plastic designs. The high-end 5S includes all the latest whizzes and bangs and even comes in the excludive, blinged-out gold (or “champagne” or whatever you want to call it). Read More

This is how the new iPhone 5S and 5C will impact your life, business, and family

by Shy Mukerjee

Today’s iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C announcements were big news, but you can’t just look at a spec sheet and get the full picture of what Apple is releasing in the coming weeks. The two new iPhone models announced today, the 5S and 5C, represent more than just the most advanced tech and the most affordable top-of-the-line smartphone to come out of Cupertino, they suggest a major shift in how consumers protect their data, shop for phones, and use mobile technology.

Read More

Ping is an app that makes your email more like text messages

by Shy Mukerjee

Do you send rapid fire emails from your smartphone and want a way to send emails even faster? Do you wish email was more like your messaging app, with “typing” notifications? Do you want to see every email from your girlfriend or boss all huddled together in a single thread? Do you wish your email was automatically sorted into those from “people” and “everything else”? Do you want to set a custom email notification sound for each person you regularly talk to?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you just might love a hot new cloud-based email app called Ping, which is launching soon. I’ve been testing out the beta for a few weeks, and I can confirm that a lot of it’s features are a big change from the way we’re used to doing email. For one, instead of sorting emails but subjects and conversations a la Gmail, Ping shows you ALL of the email you get from a single person or group of people in one giant thread, just like your text messaging app on your smartphone. Read More

Samsung Galaxy Gear Smart Watch: Brand New, Pretty Awesome

by Katherine Elsasser

All eyes (including ours) have been on Apple’s upcoming September 10th release announcements. But yesterday, Samsung debuted their newest offerings, including a smart watch that has a lot of people excited. Last month, we reviewed some of the more popular smart watches on the market, and at that time, we only just heard that Samsung had filed for a trademark for Galaxy Gear. But the watch is here, and it looks pretty amazing.

Smart watches have labored under the impression that they’re a needless accessory: it’s hard to imagine what we’d want on our wrist that isn’t better done with the phone in our pockets. The niche they seem to fill is as a kind of notification device: if you’re inundated by emails or text messages or phone calls or push notifications, your watch will let you know about it first before you feel the need to dig into your pocket and pull out your phone.

It’s understandable if this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to everyone. But maybe combine that feature with easy updates to the weather or stock tickers and maybe a couple of other apps, and the proposition becomes a little more appealing. Recognizing the limited scope of current smart watches, the Galaxy Gear packs in a few additional toys: there’s a 1.9-megapixel camera, a microphone, two speakers, and a gyroscope and an accelerometer to keep track of your workouts. Read More

The Future of Publishing: Ebooks, E-Singles and Their Potential for Business

by Davar Ardalan

Davar Ardalan is the Senior Producer of NPR’s Tell Me More, and author of the recent iBooks-exclusive title, The Persian Square,  a digital book that culls together over 30 media files including audio and video, weaving a modern, multimedia tapestry of Iranian American history going back to the 1800s. Ms. Ardalan contributed the guest post below.

It’s hard to define today’s media architecture, but the success of Amazon’s Kindle Singles and steady sales for the digital publishing start-up Byliner prove that Americans are ever more eager to dive into an electronic book for their reading pleasure or for some in-depth news.

In 2012, ebook sales made up over 22 percent of the U.S. publishing industry’s net revenue, according to The Association of American Publishers. Media companies looking to diversify their revenue stream might want to take note.  According to The New York Times, Amazon sold five million copies of Kindle Singles since it opened in January 2011. Amazon created an e-singles digital platform back in 2011, allowing writers of non-fiction and fiction to publish original writings between 5,000 and 30,000 words. These e-singles also known as e-shorts or Quick Reads by Apple are meant to be read in one sitting.

David Leonhardt's E-Single Here's the Deal from Byliner and the NYTimes
David Leonhardt’s E-Single produced as a collaboration between Byliner and the New York Times

The New York Times has also entered the ebook business. In December 2012, The Times teamed up with Byliner, a leading publisher in the e-shorts space and launched it’s own line of ebooks featuring The Times culture, sports, business, science and health stories. The Times/Byliner collaboration seemed like a “perfect fit” says Byliner Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief Mark Bryant. “Byliner is all about ambitious storytelling that lives in the space between magazine and books, and the opportunity to tap into such a deep, smart talent pool at The Times has made our partnership all the better.”

Two examples of successful Times/Byliner collaborations in the past six months include David Leonhardt’s Here’s the Deal, detailing the ever-contentious debate over the deficit, and Adam Liptak’s To Have and Uphold, on the struggle over same-sex marriage.

Bryant says both of these original Times/Byliner productions have been particularly well received, “There is a sweet spot for these types of stories — original, well written, ambitious narratives on some of the most compelling issues of the day.”  He notes that declining newspaper and magazine revenues have meant fewer and fewer opportunities for writers to publish ambitious narratives.

Bryant says the addition of the mobile reading experience and it’s new subscription reading service or “streaming reading” make digital short stories even more relevant and accessible.

“Stories are being squeezed into tighter and tighter spaces,” Bryant notes, adding that readers are looking for great personalized recommendations that help them “cut through all the clutter and noise and also takes into account how much time they have to read.”

Read More

How to Use Apple AirPrint

by Katherine Elsasser

AirPrint reverses the normal mobile trend. A lot of the hype about mobile technologies has centered on “augmented reality”—letting you see the world with additional data provided from your phone or a special device like Google Glass. But we don’t just need to bring reality into the digital realm; sometimes we need to bring the digital realm into reality. Apple’s AirPrint technology is supposed to do just that—let you print from your phone or other iDevice—to an AirPrint enabled printer on the same wireless network.

Read More