A longtime industry watcher moves to Cupertino, Steve Jobs’s email to James Murdoch is marked as read, and Tim Cook dodges an inane “rumor.” The remainders for Wednesday, May 22, 2013 are live, in the flesh.

Longtime Tech Industry Analyst Michael Gartenberg Joins Apple (Forbes)

Occasional Macworld contributor Michael Gartenberg—who has served as an analyst at Gartner, Jupiter Research, Altimeter Group, and Interpret, in addition to a brief stint at Microsoft—has joined Apple in a role that reports to Apple senior vice president of marketing Phil Schiller. Let the iBagel rumors begin!

Here’s That Steve Jobs ebook Email to James Murdoch (AllThingsD)

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This week's roundup of iOS accessories features not one, but two ways to elegantly convert your iPad into a cash register. But the iPad and iPhone aren't all business, as there's fun to be had, too!

Syncing is a hot topic these days, with plenty of alternatives and lots of angst over their perceived limitations and shortcomings.

If you happen to be a user of the Omni Group’s apps, like OmniGraffle and OmniFocus, you’ll be happy to know that the company is releasing its own sync solution—aptly dubbed OmniPresence—on Wednesday, bringing yet one more option into the fray.

Easy and powerful

From the user’s point of view, OmniPresence is designed to be simple while still offering a powerful feature set. The core of that is compatibility across both OS X and iOS apps, allowing you to effortlessly sync data back and forth.

On the Mac, OmniPresence runs in the background and resides discreetly in the menu bar, where it can be accessed at any time. Once installed, it asks you to connect to an OmniPresence server and designate a directory on your hard drive that will act as the synchronization point between your computer and the server. From there on, documents are automatically synchronized back and forth any time you update them in one of Omni’s apps.

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In most of the world, the asymmetric nature of your average Internet connection means that, unless you are lucky enough to be on a corporate network or fiber reaches your house, sending large files to your friends and colleagues is often an exercise that requires a lot of patience. Most of it is spent waiting for files to upload and dealing with complex workflows that tend to take up more time than they're worth.

This is where the recently-launched Minbox comes into play. Its developers have set their sights on turning file sharing into as frictionless a workflow as possible, while keeping costs down to a rather cool zero dollars.

There is, of course, no shortage of competing products that attempt to reduce the stress of sharing data—Dropbox and Droplr come to mind—but their focus is primarily on providing you with storage in the cloud, rather than on simplifying the process of sharing one or more files with a specific group of people. It’s this latter case that Minbox hopes to streamline.

Sharing with flair

Minbox is made up of two components: a cloud-based backend and a small OS X app that is free, weighs in at a little more than 1MB, and works with Snow Leopard or later. Once installed, and after going through a few set-up steps, the app sits quietly in OS X’s menu bar, awaiting your orders.

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Samsung's Galaxy S4 infringes on 5 Apple patents, according to a court filing by Apple.

Apple wants to add the new Galaxy S4 to an ongoing case involving Apple and Samsung being heard in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, San Jose Division, according to a filing with that court on Tuesday.

Samsung's newest flagship smartphone was launched in March and went on sale in the U.S. in late April.

"Apple obtained the Galaxy S4 on April 27 and immediately began its infringement analysis, including Samsungs customizations of the Android Jelly Bean platform, covering the eight asserted patents," Apple stated in the filing, adding that it tested S4's sold by AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint. "That analysis revealed that the Galaxy S4 infringes five of Apples asserted patents in the same ways as Samsungs already accused products," it added.

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Apple’s executives speak before congress, Ireland doesn’t think it has a taxation problem, and iOS 7 looks to share and share alike. The remainders for Tuesday, May 21, 2013 are certain.

Tim Cook’s Opening Statement Before The Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations (Apple)

In case you missed Tuesday’s riveting Senate subcommittee action, you can now read the opening remarks from CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer on Apple’s site. But that does mean you’ll miss out on the full effect of the Tim Cook appearing before the body in a purple velour track suit.

Ireland says not to blame for Apple’s low tax rate (Yahoo Finance)

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Apple pays a fair share of the taxes it owes the U.S. and other nations, its CEO said Tuesday, despite criticism from U.S. senators that the company is ducking taxes by shifting profits to subsidiaries that the company does not consider tax residents of any nation.

Apple CEO Tim Cook defended the company Tuesday before a Senate subcommittee, saying that Apple uses no “tax gimmicks” in assigning about two-thirds of its worldwide profits to three subsidiaries in Ireland, where the company has negotiated a corporate income tax rate of less than 2 percent.

In reality, Apple has paid a far lower rate than the 2 percent negotiated in Ireland, with one subsidiary paying no income taxes in the past five years, and another paying 0.05 percent in Ireland in 2011, according to a report released Monday by the investigations subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

But Cook and two other Apple executives defended their tax decisions before the subcommittee. Apple paid an effective tax rate of 30.5 percent in the U.S. last year and may be the single largest corporate taxpayer in the U.S., Cook said. The company employs 50,000 people in the U.S. and its products support hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs, he said.

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Sony and Apple are at loggerheads over streaming music, AT&T gets ready to open the floodgates on video chat over its network, and the head of Turkey drops in on Silicon Valley. The remainders for Monday, May 20, 2013 are up a stream without a paddle.

One issue holding up Apple iRadio: The economics of skipping songs (CNet)

If you were expecting Apple’s rumored music streaming service to roll out at next month’s WWDC, you might be disappointed. CNet reports that Sony Music is at odds with Cupertino over what Apple will pay for songs that users skip or rate poorly. Here’s a tip, Sony: Make better music. That one’s free!

AT&T says ‘any’ mobile video chat app will work on its network by the end of 2013 (The Verge)

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Apple has set up three foreign subsidiaries that the company claims are not resident in any nation for taxing purposes, in an effort to avoid paying tens of billions of dollars in taxes to the U.S. and other countries, according to a new report from a U.S. Senate subcommittee.

Apple has set up a “complex web” of offshore entities to avoid paying taxes, with some subsidiaries set up in low-tax Ireland, according to a report released Monday by the investigations subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

One of the subsidiaries set up by Apple has paid no corporate income tax to any nation for the past five years, although it reported $30 billion in net income from 2009 to 2012, the report said. Another subsidiary has paid a tax rate to Ireland of one-tenth of 1 percent or less in 2009, 2010 and 2011, far below the normal Irish corporate income tax rate of 12 percent, according to the subcommittee report.

Apple has negotiated an income tax rate of less than 2 percent with the Irish government, but in some cases, avoids paying even that rate, staffers said.

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Tim Cook’s taking on the tax man. On Tuesday, the Apple CEO will appear before the U.S. Senate’s permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to discuss that body’s look into multinational companies and how they pay taxes. As a special preview to those who really can’t wait to hang on Cook’s every word, Apple on Monday released its head honcho’s testimony.

Those searching for even the merest hint of Apple’s future plans will want to find another tree up which to bark: the 18-page testimony deals almost exclusively the relatively dry subjects of Apple subsidiaries, the company’s corporate structure, and its broad suggestions for overhauling the federal tax system. Given that, it’s no surprise that Cook will be joined by Peter Oppenheimer, the company’s CFO, and Phillip Bullock, Apple’s head of tax operations.

In its testimony, Apple begins by stressing that as one of the largest companies in the U.S., it provides a huge benefit to the economy. Included in the numbers the company tosses around are estimates of how many jobs it supports or has created in the U.S. (approximately 600,000, including 50,000 of its own employees and around 290,000 related to the company’s so-called “App Economy”), the large sums it’s paid out to app developers (more than $9 billion), and the company’s fiscal year 2012 tax bill (almost $6 billion, which it estimates will rise to more than $7 billion for fiscal year 2013). The last, Apple says, likely makes it the largest corporate income tax payer in the U.S.

Apple strenuously asserts that it pays every cent it owes, both to the U.S. government and to the governments of other countries in which it does business. The most significant of those is Ireland, in which Apple has five—count ‘em, five—subsidiaries, each of which the company says adhere to the letter and spirit of the law; Apple says it doesn’t use tax gimmicks, such as offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands or Caribbean nations, and its large foreign holdings are simply due to the fact that the majority of its revenue—61 percent last year—are generated internationally.

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Summer is practically here, so it's only fitting that one of the cases we cover in this week's roundup of iPad cases is good enough, and protective enough, to take swimming. If taking a dive is not in your immediate future, though, we have plenty of other protective accessories that are great when you're dry.

iOS devices are in the army now, Intel’s former CEO recounts his Apple misstep, and Apple’s got its work cut out for its WWDC keynote. The remainders for Friday, May 17, 2013 lead the way.

Apple Mobile Devices Approved for Use on U.S. Military Networks (Bloomberg)

The Pentagon has given thumbs up to iOS 6 devices on military networks, though the Defense Department is still waiting for Apple’s much anticipated “Find My Enemies” app.

Paul Otellini’s Intel: Can the Company That Built the Future Survive It? (The Atlantic)

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This week's roundup of new and updated iOS apps includes cool new offerings for music and movies, as well as a new storytelling form designed just for your phone or tablet.

While it may not be a full-fledged HDTV, the Apple TV set-top box continues to expand its portfolio. According to a story first reported by Deadline, the CW is bringing its video content to the Apple TV via a dedicated app.

The CW offering would mimic what the network already has on Microsoft’s Xbox; the network confirmed to MacRumors that the app will feature ad-supported full episodes available for streaming the day after they air. And, in a bonus for cord cutters, the app will not require an existing cable subscription to view content. A specific release date for the app has not yet been announced, though it should be sooner rather than later.

This marks the first foray from one of the major broadcast networks onto the Apple TV, though the box already features content from video middlemen like Hulu and Netflix; sports leagues like MLB, NHL, and NBA; video-sharing sites Vimeo and YouTube; and other video sources, like the Wall Street Journal.

Thus far, video content has only gradually trickled onto the Apple TV: Hulu Plus, for example, just appeared last July. But the appearance of a CW app could signal a shift in the winds. With the recent incursion of Aereo into the broadcast space, the networks are sure to be looking for ways to keep control of their content. ABC recently announced that it would begin offering live streaming in its iOS app—but only in certain markets, and only for cable and satellite subscribers. Meanwhile, many of the studios and networks continue to enforce availability windows and device-specific streaming rights.

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In this week’s edition of our iPhone-case roundup, you’ll find protection inspired by one of history’s darkest and most-loved superhero vigilantes. But if battling crime is not your thing, we also have our usual mix of the fashionable, the practical, and the adventurous.

Previously unknown Mac OS X spyware, signed with a valid Apple Developer ID, has turned up on the laptop of an activist from Angola at a human rights conference in Norway.

Security researcher and privacy activist Jacob Appelbaum found the spyware on the activist’s Mac at the Oslo Freedom Forum earlier this week.

The activist’s computer was compromised as a result of a spear phishing attack, Appelbaum said Thursday on Twitter. The researcher claims that he has copies of the attack emails and two different malware samples.

Security researchers from Finnish antivirus firm F-Secure analyzed one of the malware samples and concluded that it is a previously unknown Mac backdoor program which appears to be signed with a valid Apple Developer ID.

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Mr. Cook goes to Washington, an Apple Store grows in San Francisco, and Mac spyware turns up in Norway. The remainders for Thursday, May 16, 2013, are going global.

Apple on offense over $100B offshore stash (Politico)

Yes, that’s right: Politico. Tim Cook’s giving interviews to political sites in advance of his testimony in front of the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The topic? Offshore holdings by Apple and other companies. In his Politico interview, Cook categorically denied funneling domestic products overseas, and said that the company paid all of the taxes it owed. Furthermore, Cook apparently plans to make some suggestions about overhauling the tax code, which will finally let those salivating tech writers drag out the “Apple tax” headlines again.

Apple to open new store on Union Square (SFGate)

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If you were hoping that the next update to iTunes might reverse some of the drastic changes Apple made in last year’s version 11, don’t hold your breath. A minor update released on Thursday, iTunes 11.0.3, makes some tweaks to the program’s interface, as well as applying fixes for some security issues.

Among the changes in 11.0.3 is a revamped MiniPlayer, which now features a progress bar, complete with draggable playhead. The audio output button, which now uses a speaker icon instead of Apple’s traditional AirPlay icon, is also now visible even when you’re not hovering over the window.

There’s also now an alternate view of the MiniPlayer, which you can toggle by clicking on the album art: You’ll get a larger window, focused on the album art, with controls—including playback, Up Next, audio output, and more—that appear when you hover over the window. This view replaces the somewhat peculiar album art window from earlier versions of iTunes 11, which appeared when you double clicked on album art in the playback window, but provided fewer controls.

And Apple’s fascination with album art continues apace: a new view option in 11.0.3 lets you display album artwork in the Songs listing. Go to View -> Show View Options and click the new Show Artwork checkbox. By default, iTunes will not display album art for albums where you only have a couple songs, but you can force it to display those images by selecting the Always Show option.

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Brandon Ashmore, who calls Mentor, Ohio, home, is having a very good day. Apple on Thursday announced that Ashmore downloaded the 50 billionth app from the App Store.

As part of Apple’s promotion for the historic download, this makes Ashmore the lucky winner of an iTunes gift card worth a cool $10,000. The app Ashmore downloaded to win the prize was Space Inch’s new Say the Same Thing, a fun (and free) game for the iPhone in which two players collaborate to find common words by free association—like the old “think of a word” game you used to play as a kid, but with smartphones.

Apple itself has much to celebrate, of course, as the App Store now counts some 850 thousand apps—almost half of which work natively on the iPad—and has paid out some $9 billion in royalties to developers.

And, if 50 billion downloads doesn’t sound impressive enough, consider this: That’s the number of first-time downloads only, which doesn’t include updates or re-downloads.

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The DOJ wants to put Apple on ice for collusion on ebooks’ price. Elsewhere, if an iPhone button wiggles, is it more than just a niggle? And to get some relief, Siri asks you to please keep it brief. The remainders for Wednesday, May 15, 2013 like to rhyme all of the time.

U.S. Now Paints Apple as ‘Ringmaster’ in Its Lawsuit on ebook Price-Fixing (New York Times)

According to the Department of Justice, Apple masterminded the price-fixing scheme, cajoling and threatening the poor innocent publishers into its nefarious schemes. Supporting evidence includes emails from Apple execs to publishers, as well as a recording of ex-CEO Steve Jobs sitting in his office and laughing maniacally.

Apple tells U.S. of tough talks, not collusion, with publishers (Reuters)

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A new feature released Tuesday from children’s app maker Kidaptive lets parents track the progress of what their children are learning inside the company’s first story and game application.

Leo’s Pad has been out for a year, releasing short story and game content it calls “appisodes.” The new parental layer shows a control panel broken out by child, and breaks down which areas children are struggling with and what new things they’ve learned. It also gives tips on how to increase color recognition, for example, and cites research for each recommendation.

Kidaptive

The company’s founders have a varied background in comic book writing, education and 3D animation, which helped create an app that children’s-application watchers say sets it apart.

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Internet payment company Square has announced a new accessory that turns your iPad into a high-tech cash register, complete with built-in credit-card swiper and a slew of point-of-sale accessories.

Aimed squarely—if you’ll pardon the pun—at small businesses, the $299 Square Stand allows you to connect an iPad to a secure card-swiping machine; it’s designed to work alongside the company’s free Register app. This, in turn, combines a credit-card-processing facility with a powerful point-of-sale system that can be used to maintain inventory and charge customers, essentially working like a souped-up version of a traditional cash register.

The Stand also features a hub that can be used to connect external accessories to the system, including a receipt printer, cash drawer, and barcode scanner. The current version works with an iPad 2 or a third-generation iPad—later this year, the company will release a version that works with Apple tablets that use the new Lightning connector.

The company’s new hardware is slated for general availability starting the week of July 8, when it will be sold both online from Square as well as at Best Buy stores; pre-orders begin on Tuesday. If you want to see it in action before then, Square says that it will be piloting the Stand at select small business throughout the United States starting May 15.

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The $30 Innotraveler Universal Car Mount attaches to the inside of your car’s windshield, letting you mount your iPhone for easy access—say, for GPS guidance—while you’re on the road.

First, T-Mobile didn’t even offer the iPhone. Then, last month, it started offering the phone for $100—and it sold half-a-million phones in three weeks. But now, the carrier has boosted the upfront price on that iPhone 5 to $150.

As first reported by TmoNews, an unofficial T-Mobile blog, the $100 iPhone 5 price tag lasted just about one month. Now, the total cost for an iPhone 5 from the carrier is $630 (after making monthly $20 payments on the phone for two years), up from $580.

To put T-Mobile’s price hike in context, other major carriers charge $199 for the 16GB iPhone, and require two-year contracts. T-Mobile, which bills itself as an ”un-carrier,” only requires a two-year commitment for the $20 phone fee; its cellular plans no longer require contracts.

The price tag on the 32GB and 64GB iPhone 5 models also increased by $50 apiece.

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The Hazard (iPad mini; $45) is a lightweight-but-durable hardshell case with a slim profile. Compatible with Apple’s Smart Cover, the case provides access to all ports, buttons, and cameras.

The Hazard is available in sheet metal or jet black.

Got photos? Online retail giant Amazon has released a new app that lets iPhone users save their pictures directly on the company’s own cloud storage space.

Dubbed Amazon Cloud Drive Photos and available free of charge from the App Store, the app can transfer photos back and forth between a device and Cloud Drive, where they can be accessed using a desktop computer, Web browser, or other compatible device, like a Kindle Fire.

The app’s goal is to let customers enjoy the benefits of cloud storage—including ease of sharing and easier backups—regardless of what platform they use. In addition, the app lets you view your photo albums in various layouts from your iPhone or iPod touch and share Cloud Drive photos on Facebook, Twitter, and via email.

Launched in March of 2011, Cloud Drive offers users 5GB of free storage, which can be used for files of all kinds, including music, pictures, and video. Additional space is available for fees that range from $10 per year for 20GB to $500 per year for 1000GB (1TB).

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PDF Expert has updated with the ability to cut and past your document annotations … Office2 HD now lets users hide and unhide presentation slides. Packing Pro 9.0 (pictured) lets users filter their travel lists track every item in every single bag you carry.

It happens to every Mac (and every other kind of PC): The system slows down when it’s doing lot of things at once. If this happens to your Mac more than you’d like, though, your system might need more RAM.

Adding more RAM to your Mac—if you can add more RAM—is one of the eaiest ways to improve your Mac’s performance. The crucial question is, How much more RAM do you actually need? Macworld Lab ran benchmarks on a couple of Macs at different RAM configurations and analyzed the results. Our conclusion: The impact of more RAM depends on the types of tasks your Mac performs. In some situations your Mac may benefit from having as much RAM as you can afford; in others, you’ll be fine with the stock configuration.

But before we dive into the results, let’s take a brief look at what RAM is and why it’s important to your Mac. (This article focuses exclusively on the impact of RAM on system performance, but of course RAM isn’t the only component that affects performance. Macworld Lab is currently working on tests that will allow us to take a similar look at how other components—storage, graphics, and CPU—affect performance.)

What is RAM?

Random Access Memory is a temporary storage medium that your Mac’s CPU uses for fast access to data it’s processing. The CPU can access data contained in RAM much faster than it can data held on long-term storage devices like traditional hard drives and even solid-state drives.

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If you have a Thunderbolt-equipped Mac—lucky you!—it’s time to back up your data and set a little bit of time aside to download and run Thunderbolt Firmware Update v1.2, released by Apple on Thursday.

According to Apple, the update is a stability fix for Thunderbolt and Target Disk Mode. The update is a scant 1.2MB in size and requires OS X 10.8.3 or later.

If you have a Mac laptop, be sure to plug it in before you run the update. During the installation, your Mac will restart and the screen will go gray with a status indication bar.

Adobe has used its Max conference this week to reveal that the company is making its first foray into creative hardware, with Project Mighty and Project Napoleon—a digital pen and ruler for iOS devices (see above). Still in the experiment stage, there’s no word yet about when we should expect to see Mighty and Napoleon hit the shelves, but we got our hands on working prototypes of the devices to try them out and take some photos of them in action.

Project Mighty is a cloud-connected stylus pen that currently works with unreleased Adobe apps that have been designed specifically for the hardware.

Adobe has chosen a twisted, three sided design for Mighty, which we found was brilliantly comfortable to hold and gave us precise control over the movement of the pen while we were drawing. The prototype we tested had a soft, rubberised tip, but Senior Experience Design Lead at Adobe, Geoff Dowd, told us that the company has been experimenting with different tip types, such as a narrower precision tip for more intricate drawings.

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