Apple sold 4 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in first day

Apparently, a lot of people want the iPhone 6.

Apple sold a record 4 million iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones on Friday, the first day that the new iGadgets were available for pre-order, the company said Monday.

Demand for the new iPhones was so high that the iPhone 6 Plus sold out within hours. While many people who pre-ordered the iPhone 6 will get them this Friday, many others won't get their iPhones delivered until next month.

"Demand for the new iPhones exceeds the initial pre-order supply," Apple said in a statement. The company noted that an additional supply of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones will be made available to walk-in customers on Friday Sept. 19, beginning at 8:00 a.m. local time at Apple stores. People have already begun camping outside Apple Stores around the world to be among the first to get their hands on one of the new iPhones.

Related: Apple's Tim Cook on TV, Steve Jobs and the iPhone 6

This is the first year that Apple announced how many iPhones it sold in the first day -- rather than in the first weekend. A year ago, Apple said it sold 9 million iPhone 5S and 5C smartphones in the first weekend.

 

iPhone 6 or 6 Plus: Which should you buy?

But the numbers aren't exactly "apples to apples," pardon the pun. The iPhone 5S was not available for pre-order. Also, the iPhone 5S went on sale in China at the same time as as it hit store shelves in the United States.

This year, the iPhone 6 will not be available in China until at earliest October. China was not listed among the 30 countries that will get the iPhone this month. 

California OKs first tests of self-driving cars

California, a state synonymous for cars, has issued its first approvals to test self-driving cars.

Audi and Google have both received an autonomous driving permit from California.

Audi said the permit was issued the same day that new state regulations governing the testing of self-driving cars go into effect.

Audi (AUDVF)said that it's already tested self-driving cars in Europe and other U.S. states where testing is permitted. It said the California is particularly important as a testing ground, since it's home to the company's Electronics Research Lab.

The lab, known as the ERL, is owned by Audi parent Volkswagen (VLKAF) and is located in the Silicon Valley city of Belmont.

Google (GOOG)revealed its self-driving prototype in May and expects it to hit the market in the next five or six years.

Google has also been prepping its self-driving test cars to fit California standards, which requires the test vehicles to have manual controls.

"After each vehicle is assembled, we fit a temporary steering wheel and set of controls into it," said Google, in a recent blog post. "We'll remove these manual controls after the prototypes have finished being tested and permitted, because our vehicles are ultimately designed to operate without a human driver."

Related: Americans warm up to self-driving cars

Nevada, Florida and Michigan have also passed legislation allowing for the testing of self-driving cars on public roads. Audi said that in 2012 it was the car maker to receive a Nevada license plate allowing autonomous driving.

Nissan (NSANF) plans to have a self-driving car on the market by 2020.

Apple beefs up security with 2-factor authentication for iCloud backups

A sneaky method hackers use to crack your iCloud back-ups won’t work anymore if you’re serious about your security. On Tuesday night, Apple turned on two-factor authentication for iCloud, which will protect against the kind of social engineering exploits that helped hackers steal celebrity photos last month.

Until Tuesday, Apple’s brand of two-factor authentication only protected your Apple ID, preventing people from making purchases from your account. But if thieves were able to guess the answers to your security questions and recover your password, they could easily use third-party software to access your iCloud backup. Your photos, documents, text messages: All of it was up for grabs.

Check your e-mail, iCloud users: There's important information about Apple's new security measures.

That’s no longer the case. Ars Technica tried to install an iCloud backup with two-factor turned on using the most common software, made by Elcomsoft, and found it no longer worked.

Two-factor authentication works by requiring a second means of verification, aside from your password, to sign in to your accounts. That second method is usually an SMS code sent to your phone, which you then enter to gain access. If you don’t even have two-step verification turned on for your Apple ID, you’re forgiven. Apple buried the option in your settings and the process was cumbersome once you actually found it. It’s still not exactly easy to turn on two-step verification, but we created a handy how-to guide with step-by-step instructions.

Apple sent out an e-mail to iCloud users on Tuesday night with information about its security measures and how to use them. On Oct. 1, the company will let you generate app-specific passwords for third-party apps with access to your iCloud account, like Microsoft Outlook, BusyCal, and Mozilla Thunderbird. The new option prevents those apps from knowing your iCloud password and will keep your account safe.

The new security measures are too little, too late for celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence, but turning on two-factor authentication for every account that offers it is the safest way to protect your information.

Court throws out $368.2 million patent award against Apple

A U.S. appeals court has thrown out a US$368.2 million award against Apple in a patent infringement case brought by patent-holding and software company VirnetX.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Tuesday declined to invalidate VirnetX’s four Internet security-related patents, but ruled that Apple’s VPN On Demand service did not infringe one of the Nevada firm’s patents. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas also erred in defining the value of the patented technology related to secure communications links in two patents, and should reexamine whether Apple’s FaceTime application infringes the two patents under a correct claim construction, the appeals court ruled.

The district court must also reconsider the jury’s damages award based on the appeals court ruling, the higher court said.

“In calculating the royalty base, [the district court] did not even try to link demand for the accused device to the patented feature, and failed to apportion value between the patented features and the vast number of non-patented features contained in the accused products,” Chief Judge Sharon Prost wrote for the appeals court.

VirnetX acquired the four VPN-related patents from SAIC in 2006. Two of the patents involve DNS and resolving domain names using secure communications links. The other two patents involve using DNS proxies to intercept Web traffic to determine whether a DNS request is for a secure site.

VirnetX, in a patent lawsuit filed in late 2012, accused Apple’s iPhone 5, iPod Touch 5th Generation, iPad 4th Generation, iPad mini and Mac computers running the Mountain Lion operating system of infringing the four patents.

VirnetX said it was disappointed with the appeals court’s decision. “We are bolstered by the fact that the patents were again found valid and that it was confirmed that Apple’s VPN on Demand functionality infringes the VirnetX patents,” Kendall Larsen, VirnetX CEO and president, said in a statement. “We look forward to readdressing the FaceTime infringement and damages issues as soon as possible.”

Apple representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comments on the appeals court decision.

Apple updates privacy policy: 'We sell great products,' not your data, says Tim Cook

Need another reason to upgrade to iOS 8? Apple can’t see any of your personal information if you have a passcode enabled on devices running the new OS. And if Apple can’t see it, the government can’t, either.

Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed the company’s new privacy measures in a Wednesday night letter that not-so-subtly slammed other tech companies like Facebook and Google.

“Our business model is very straightforward: We sell great products,” Cook said. “We don’t build a profile based on your e-mail content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don’t ‘monetize’ the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don’t read your e-mail or your messages to get information to market to you. Our software and services are designed to make our devices better. Plain and simple.”

Apple launched a new privacy page detailing how it protects your data from prying eyes. If you’re using a device running iOS 8 and have a passcode activated, Apple can’t see any of the data behind the passcode. That includes photos, e-mails, messages, notes, call history, and contacts. Even if the police issue a warrant for that data, Apple said it’s “not technically feasible” to hand it over.

Apple can't see e-mails or messages on devices running iOS 8 with passcodes enabled.

Apple has worked tirelessly over the last few weeks to clarify and strengthen its security tools as it seeks to handle your most private information. iOS 8’s HealthKit will centralize the health and medical data third-party apps collect on you, with your permission, so Apple has put in place developer guidelines that prevent those apps from selling that data to advertisers. In the wake of the celebrity photo hacking scandal, the company addedtwo-step verification for iCloud backups. Apple has a slew of privacy measures put in place when it launches Apple Pay, a mobile payments platform that uses Near Field Communication technology baked into the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Apple Pay won’t store your financial information on your phone or on its servers, instead generating a one-time-use number, and will require Touch ID to authenticate your purchases.

HealthKit and Apple Pay have the potential to streamline your life, but they won’t find mass adoption until users are convinced that their information isn’t up for grabs—especially in the post-Snowden era. That’s where the iOS 8 passcode comes into play. But even before the new OS rolled out, Apple didn’t actually receive that many national security-related requests—less than 250 total in the first six months of this year.

“We have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services,” Cook said. “We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will.”

 How virtual office technology changes everything

We’re in the middle of a sea of change that’s upending every aspect of computing as we know it. One of the biggest trends driving this change is the rise of the virtual office – the ability to relocate our workspaces from central offices to just about anywhere in the world. In every aspect of business, from file sharing to tech support, new tools and services collapse the entire world into an immediate, shared experience.

Here are five key ways that trend manifests itself today:

Work Follows You (Not the Other Way Around)

The commute to downtown. Wrestling your way into an anonymous cubicle. Outdated equipment that doesn’t work the way you want it to. The office as we know it hasn’t changed much in the last two or three decades, but virtual offices are finally revolutionizing all of it in one fell swoop. With technology like videoconferencing, remote access, and cloud-based storage you can work where you’re most productive, whether that’s your kitchen table or the coffee shop. Just bring your laptop and a wireless connection and let tools like LogMeIn Hamachi’s VPN software do the heavy lifting.

Shaking Up Support

Most organizations offer support of some kind, whether it’s tech support for company employees or offering live chat to customers experiencing trouble or prospective buyers with pre-sales questions. Managing a support operation used to require a large-scale help desk and call center: a huge investment for any company. That’s no longer needed thanks to the virtual office. Now you can engage support experts from anywhere with tools like LogMeIn Rescue. This enables support teams with live, remote access to the customer’s devices - no cubicle required. It also allows you to find hire best tech support crew regardless of their location, and to scale up for your busy season without having to worry about adding desks or buying more hardware. 

The End of Big Hardware

The virtual office doesn’t just do away with the front office, it’s replacing the back office as well. Not long ago running a tech-savvy company meant investing thousands of dollars in an array of high-end file servers, each gobbling up power, requiring special cooling, and reliant on an army of IT staff to keep running. Servers are now easily accessed via third-party providers which let you buy only the storage space and bandwidth you need for only as long as you need it. 

Software When You Want It

The flipside of outsourced hardware is SaaS, software as a service. Need a project management tool? Sign up for one online instead of buying dozens of software licenses and installing them on every computer in the organization. Ditto email, CRM, accounting, human resources, and just about any other business function you might conceivably need. Now it’s all is available through the cloud – which means it can reach your employees anywhere they happen to be, on any device they choose to use.

Backups You Can’t Forget

Dealing with backups at the enterprise level has become increasingly difficult as staff rosters have swollen. Not to mention, it’s always tough to get users to run backup software on a regular basis. Enter the virtual office, which gives you much greater control over what devices are backed up and when. Advanced, secure, centrally-managed backup software now protects all your organization’s computers no matter where they’re located, letting you scale up or down to easily back up all the devices in your worldwide organization.

5 more killer features Windows 9 should steal from Linux

If the latest Windows 9 leaks are any indication, some of the operating system's coolest new features will look a lot like what Linux users already enjoy: Like the virtual desktopsLinux users have had since the 90’s, and a centralized notification center like the one available in GNOME Shell.

Windows 9 also looks like it'll co-opt Ubuntu’s vision of a single operating system interface that can run on all form factors, complete with apps that run in windowed mode when it makes more sense to do so. Who would have imagined? Windowed applications are a big new feature in Windows.

Further reading: Windows 9 rumor roundup: Everything we know so far

But there are other great Linux features Microsoft should copy, too. And hey, I'm not just complaining here—Windows would legitimately be better if they stole these features. AsApple once said: “Redmond, start your photocopiers.”

A package manager (a.k.a. desktop app store)

One of the big new features in Windows 8 was the Windows Store. Well, Linux was doing “app stores” since before they were cool, and they were called package managers. A package manager is a centralized place for installing all your software so you don’t have to crawl the web.

Ubuntu's software center is a central desktop app store. (Click to enlarge images in this article.)

The Windows Store should have been a package manager, or desktop app store, full of all the desktop applications you’d want. On Linux, you can pop open your package manager and install anything from Steam to Firefox to LibreOffice to the Adobe Flash Player. All it takes is a few clicks—the software is downloaded and installed automatically, with no hopscotching through software installation wizards.

Instead, Microsoft went completely off the rails and invented a new sort of app (first known as “Metro apps” and since called “Modern apps,” “Immersive apps,” “Windows 8-style apps,” and finally “Store apps”). Most Windows users have no interest in using a full-screen calculator app on a desktop computer monitor—something Microsoft is just now finally realizing. To make matters worse, the Windows Store was ignored and left to the scammers. Rather than containing trickster apps that take your money only to guide you through installing free desktop software, the Windows Store should just contain the real desktop applications in the first place. As on Linux, there should be a single place for installing all your desktop apps.

Software repositories (aka an open app store)

On Linux, you aren’t just limited to your Linux distribution’s own “package repositories” the way you’re limited to Microsoft’s Windows Store on Windows and Apple’s Mac App Store on Mac OS X. Instead, anyone can make their own package repositories.

Keeping your far-flung programs up-to-date is a cinch with Linux's software repositories and package managers.

For example, when you install Google Chrome, Valve’s Steam, or even Microsoft’s own Skype on Linux, the package enables Google’s, Valve’s, or Microsoft’s software repository on your system. Software providers can add their own software to the package manager for easy installation while still hosting the software on their own servers.

This also means you can get all your application updates in one place. Your operating system updates, Google’s updates, and even Microsoft’s Skype updates all arrive in the same software-updating tool. Imagine if Windows Update were a streamlined application that let you easily see, install, and schedule updates for all of your installed applications—not just ones from Microsoft. Every desktop application shouldn’t need its own separate software updating-system.

Easy always-on-top

This may sound like a little feature, but it’s a huge one for window management. Every popular Linux desktop environment lets you right-click a window’s titlebar and select “Always on top.” That window will then appear always-on-top of other windows on your desktop, so you can easily look at it while using another application.

A Linux-like 'Always on top' option would scratch a long-untended itch for Windows users.

On Windows, you either have to rely on each application having its own separate always-on-top option or seek out an always-on-top utility that just isn’t as integrated. Windows desperately needs to steal this basic desktop window management feature.

Web app integration

Look, let’s be honest. Most Windows users aren’t touching those new “Store apps.” In fact, they’re probably using fewer traditional desktop apps, too. Desktop users are increasingly using web apps like Outlook.com, Facebook, and Google Docs.

Ubuntu realizes this and offers “web app integration”—an easy way for web services to integrate with your desktop environment. They're given their own shortcuts and taskbar entries, they display desktop notifications, and they all-around integrate with the operating system.

'Installing' web apps in Ubuntu Linux couldn't be easier—or more useful.

Gmail and Twitter are integrated in Ubuntu's desktop “messaging menu” so you can see new emails and tweets in one place. Rdio and Grooveshark are integrated with the music menu so you can see playback information and control music playback with the desktop environment’s standard interface and hotkeys, too. You don’t have to do anything special to set this up—just head to the website in your browser as you normally would, and Ubuntu will ask whether you want to “install” the web app.

Windows needs to do this sort of thing. Users shouldn't just have an almost-empty taskbar with everything running in their web browser. Microsoft should make nice with the web app ecosystem and help Windows folks use those web apps they’re already using, instead of focusing all their efforts on trying to kick-start another new proprietary app framework. The Amazon website is way better than Amazon’s “Store app,” and the same is true for many other services—including YouTube and all those Windows 8 banking “apps” with far fewer features than the banks’ official websites.

Tiling window management

Ubuntu's tiled windows management.

Some Linux desktop environments are built on tiling window management. In a nutshell, the window manager chooses where your windows should go instead of you. It “tiles” them so you don’t have to manually resize them and drag them around, fitting many windows on screen at the same time.

It’s a bit like Windows 8’s full-screen “Modern” interface, but actually useful on a desktop. You can have any number of apps tile on a large screen, and the apps can be tiled vertically in a grid, rather than only horizontally. (Windows Store apps "Snap" from left to right on your screen while multitasking.) This works with the same desktop apps you use elsewhere on the system. Sure, you can get tiling window management for Microsoft's operating system with third-party apps, but baking it into the Windows desktop—and allowing the touch interface to tile apps both vertically and horizontally—would be a major improvement.

Tiling window management has a long history that Microsoft is ignoring. Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, and Microsoft is indeed repeating the history of tiling window management as they work in their tiling “Store app” interface.

But enough nitpicking! It’s good to see Microsoft actually remembering that people use Windows on desktop PCs again. Hopefully they’ll add more of these great Linux features in a future update to Windows—“Windows 9.1 Spring Update 1,” perhaps?