Apple

It's been a full week of Apple for me and an interesting one at that here at the Hess house. My family feels my pain. My new Mac mini is cool but I've discovered a few quirks with it that make me want my Windows system back. In all, I've almost duplicated everything from my old Windows computer to my mini, so there are only a few gaps that remain. In the midst of school starting, my own productivity needs, my birthday, and my daughter's birthday, and forcing myself to use the Mac mini exclusively, it's been a trying week.

In a tweet on Sunday, a Fox News reporter said Apple's upcoming next-generation iPhone will sport a significantly faster "A7" processor, while a separate chip will be dedicated to motion tracking.

Citing inside sources, Clayton Morris claims the so-called "iPhone 5S" will be powered by an Apple-designed "A7" system on a chip that is some 31 percent faster than the current A6 silicon used in the iPhone 5. In addition, mention of a totally new chip dedicated to "motion tracking" will be used to bring another layer of user interactivity to Apple's flagship handset.

Setting up a home security system can involve buying expensive cameras, covering installation costs, and paying a monthly service fee.

Entrepreneur Gene Wang began searching for a more cost effective way to protect his mother's house after it was burglarized twice in one year. This lead to the development of the Presence app, a free iOS app that turns old Wi-Fi-enabled Apple devices into home security cameras.

A recent spate of rumors claim that Apple will be including biometric technology in the upcoming iPhone 5S in the form of a fingerprint reader embedded in its home button.

I hope that the rumors are true. If Apple's July 2012 acquisition of AuthenTec wasn't enough evidence, purported leaked photos of the iPhone 5S rear shell and home button flex cable might be the smoking gun.

A paper presented at last week's USENIX Security Symposium in Washington described how a group of security researchers at Georgia Tech were able to create a "novel method of attack" that can defeat the mandatory software review and code-signing mechanisms defending apps in the Apple App Store. The title of the paper was Jekyll on iOS.

While there are lots of fans of Apple's products who routinely stand or sit in lines outside of stores waiting to get the next iPhone or iPad, there were no such lines in front of US movie theaters this weekend to watch the heavily hyped biopic of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. The movie, titled simply Jobs, is estimated to have grossed just $6.7 million from 2,381 screens, placing it in a dismal seventh place on the box office charts.

Along with predictions of a much rumored "iPhone 5S," KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo's note to investors on Thursday shed some light on Apple's new A-series system on a chip, expected to be called the "A7."

With each successive iPhone generation, Apple has introduced a new processor design that trumps the outgoing version in both efficiency and speed. The current A6 used in the iPhone 5 was the first chip completely designed by Apple in-house, and the forthcoming "iPhone 5S" is predicted to build on that architecture with a so-called "A7" SoC.

Apple just bought a small startup company you probably never heard of called Matcha.tv. Why is this important? Because it might, maybe, could possibly reveal what Apple sees as the future of Apple TV: a channel-less oasis where it doesn't matter what streaming service you watch your favorite TV show on as long as it's through Apple TV.

There's few things worse that losing your keys or getting locked out of a building. A New York City startup aims to solve this problem with a digital photo of your keys stored in the cloud.

Enter KeyMe, an ingenious service and iOS app (free, App Store*) that allows you to take photos of your keys using your iPhone's camera and store them securely in the cloud. Once your "keys" are stored with KeyMe, you can make copies any time.

In an interview with Charlie Rose set to air on Tuesday, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison gave a bleak outlook when asked how Apple will fare without his close friend Steve Jobs at the reins.

A short snippet of the "This Morning" segment was released on Monday by CBS, showing Ellison alluding to an anticipated dark time for the Cupertino, Calif., company.