Duffy-Marie Arnoult / WireImage file

Jonathan Ive

Jonathan Ive, the designer who has created Apple's most successful products in the last decade-plus, has been awarded a knighthood in his native Britain.

Ive, who designed the first iMac in 1998 that was "Bondi blue," then later available in a variety of candy colors, went on to design the iPod, iPhone and iPad. He is considered one of Apple's most important assets, a man whose design philosophy meshed pretty much perfectly with that of the company's late co-founder, Steve Jobs, who died in October.

In an interview with the BBC, Ive, 44, said the knighthood is "absolutely thrilling" and that he is "both humbled and sincerely grateful."

"I am keenly aware that I benefit from a wonderful tradition in the UK of designing and making," he said. ""I discovered at an early age that all I've ever wanted to do is design."

Ive was made Knight Commander of the British Empire; the honor is the second one for him by Britain, said the BBC: In 2005, he was made a a Commander of the British Empire.

Ive's title with Apple is senior vice president, industrial design. He has been with the company since 1996. Six of his Apple creations, including the original iPod, are part of the collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In a recent story about the quite-private Ive, Donald Norman, co-founder of usability consulting firm Nielsen Norman Group said of the designer: "He just has a wonderful eye of making things that are simple and elegant. But he also understands that it has to be usable by people."

Related stories:

• Steve Jobs to receive honorary Grammy
• PhotoBlog: Archives offer a window into the early days of Apple
• 'Armani of Apple' will be key in post-Jobs era
• Behind Apple's products is longtime designer Ive

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

Android Market

It's being billed as "Siri, now for your Android device!" But it's not really Siri, and it's certainly not the same as Apple's intelligent voice-control feature, built into the iPhone 4S.

Developer "Official App" has released the "Siri for Android" app, which is free, and in this case, you do get what you pay for. The app is simply a Siri icon (see, you'll look cool —not —  having that Siri-like icon on your Android phone) that opens Google's Voice Actions app. That's right: In this case, "Siri for Android" is a kind of door-opener, or shortcut.

Google's Voice Actions, while no Siri, does let you do a variety of things by voice: Send text messages, "write" a note, ask for a song to be played, among other tasks.

"It supports many different voice commands and Google is constantly working to make it even more powerful. Show your iPhone friends your Android phone can do what Siri does!" exclaims Official App about Siri for Android.

It doesn't hurt Official App that its official-sounding name appears right beneath the "Siri for Android" name in the Android Market. So far, there have been between 1,000 and 5,000 installs of the app.

This isn't the first Siri knockoff for Android phones. There are some others, and at least one is called by the name it should have: "Fake Siri for Android," created "just for fun," says the developer.

"Just for fun" can be misleading though, and in this case is an example of the Android Market's Wild West approach to apps, where just about anything goes, in contrast to Apple's more rigid app-approval process.

"While this approach allows legitimate developers to quickly release new apps or updates, it also opens to the door to malware or apps that infringe on copyrights, which Google may then remove," writes Jared Newman of PCWorld. "In this case, a complaint from Apple or media attention may cause Google to take action. Hopefully these misleading Siri knock-offs don't last long."

—Via TheNextWeb

Related stories:

• What if Siri went evil?
• Careful! Your iPhone's Siri could easily embarrass you
• My iPhone says the darndest things (thanks to Siri)

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

YouTube

Let's talk about kittens. They're charming creatures — unless you happen to be allergic to them — and they're just plain adorable. So adorable, in fact, that anything they do seems absolutely delightful — even if it leads to shattered egos or scratched iPads.

The fuzzball that's causing both of those issues today is a mysterious yet talented gamer whose name we don't even know. What we do know is that he or she is rather good at playing Fruit Ninja.

Don't believe it? Check out the video below. The quick-pawed feline earns 128 points — which, much to my ego's dismay, is higher than my very first Fruit Ninja score — while potentially scratching up his or her owner's iPad. (Though it's possible that the kitten's declawed or really skilled and not letting its claws mar the gadget's display.)

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Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Google

Android logo

As 2011 ends, Google employees, especially those involved with Android, will probably be popping a few extra corks, given that it emerged victorious in the latest bout in an ongoing war with Apple's iOS for top smartphone platform.

In a recently released report from comScore, Android made up nearly 47 percent of the U.S. smartphone market share by the end of November, followed by iOS at nearly 29 percent. But Android rose more than 3 percent from the previous month, while iOS only climbed 1.4 percent. 

Research in Motion, the makers of the beleaguered BlackBerry, hung in for third place at 16.6 percent, after a 3.1 percent fall.

While 234 million Americans age 13 or older use mobile devices, currently just 91.4 million own smartphones, so it's an area with plenty of potential growth.

One of the most prolific Android pushers, Samsung, scored big with consumers as the No. 1 overall handset manufacturer, with 25.6 percent of mobile subscribers choosing one of its smartphones or regular mobile phones. Though LG isn't nearly as successful in smartphones, its overall business is still big enough to keep it in second place, at 20.5 percent. 

Samsung may be the biggest purveyor of Android devices, but some issues still rankle Android devotees. While Samsung's Galaxy Nexus is the industry's forerunner for the latest version of Android (4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich), the Korean electronics giant recently made a major faux pas with its customers by not offering the Ice Cream Sandwich update to its current Galaxy S phones. Anyone who bought a phone as recently as this holiday season is stuck with a year-old software version, 2.3 aka Gingerbread — if they're lucky.

With the introduction of the iPhone 4S in October, Apple made the biggest gain among the top five handset makers, from 9.8 percent in August to 11.2 percent in November.

Text messages still dominated U.S. mobile phone usage, with 72.6 percent devoted to sending messages to others. Nearly 45 percent of users downloaded apps, while 44.4 percent used the browser. Social networking came in fourth at 33 percent.

More stories:

• More Android devices means more downloads than iOS
• Welcome to the United States of Android and iOS
• 25 reasons Android should fear iOS right now
• Top 10 ways iOS outdoes Android

Check out Technolog on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Athima Chansanchai, who is also trying to keep her head above water in the Google+ stream.

RedLightRunner

"This is probably the most ridiculous message I'm gonna leave in quite a while, but ... ," I chuckled awkwardly before explaining that I'm wondering if anyone from Apple can confirm that the company put out a collection of inspirational songs labeled as the "Apple Boogie" in the 80s.

Considering that it's the very end of the year and that even Apple's press relations team is supposedly getting a little break, I doubt that the voicemail will get a response anytime soon.

Here's what I do know though.

The folks at the Next Web were recently scouring the Internet for something called "Blue Busters," a Ghostbusters parody video created for Apple's 1984 International Sales Meeting. During their search for this silly clip, they came across something else — a collection of eight MP3 files.

The MP3 collection was posted to an Apple-focused South African website called Apple2.ORG.ZA and it came with scans of a cassette tape cover which suggested that the songs belong to something called the "Apple Boogie." The scans also showed the lyrics for the collection's tunes (which include "Power to Be Your Best," "We're So Excited," Apple II forever," Building the Future with You," the song from the "Blue Busters" video and more).

Some clever searches revealed further references to the "Apple Boogie" collection.

An archive of the comp.sys.apple2 Usenet group showed a mention of the cassette tape in 2005:

Mac GUI Vault

The poster of that message would later offer to upload the songs in MP3 format (which appears to be how they wound up on Apple2.ORG.ZA). Another member of the Usenet group would chime in and suggest that the cassette tape was handed out during a sales conference in the 80s.

The exchange would wither out shortly after that and one of the only other mentions of the "Apple Boogie" would be on RedLightRunner, a website which stocks and sells Apple memorabilia. (I'll save you a click: The tape's already sold out.) There we'd learn that the collection was supposedly produced by Geoff Levin and Chris Many.

That's all we know about this delightful collection of songs for now, folks. We'll update if we hear back from Apple, but in the meantime we'll just quietly hum along to a couple of upbeat tunes.

Related stories:

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Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

GameStop

A GameStop ad highlight's the retailers acceptance of iOS device trade-ins, which the company says are doing better than expected.

Though its known primarily as a place to buy and sell new and used video games and consoles, major retailer GameStop says its been seeing better-than-expected results from a recent program accepting trade-ins for Apple's iOS devices.

While GameStop didn't disclose specific numbers for the trade-in program, which started in September, president Tony Bartel said in a statement that “the velocity of this trade program has exceeded our expectations," and that the company expected "strong post-holiday traffic as customers trade in older models that were replaced by gifts.”

GameStop offers up to $180 in cash or store credit for the most recent premium iPod Touch, $300 for similarly new iPhones and $400 for iPads turned in at over 6,000 locations in 17 countries. Before you get too excited about your unit's trade-in value, though, note that these top-of-the-line numbers drop quickly for older models or those with less storage capacity.

GameStop isn't the only option to get rid of your old iOS device, of course. Best Buy, Amazon and even Apple itself offer some kind of monetary exchange for your used products. You might be able to cash in even more if you're willing to brave the online jungles of Craigslist or eBay, as well.

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Kyle Orland has written hundreds of thousands of words about gaming since he started a Mario fan site at the age of 14. You can follow him on Twitter or at his personal website, KyleOrland.com.

Boondoggle

Waking up and realizing your car is covered with snow, or worse, that the roads are paved with ice, can be stressful, and the worst part is, no matter what you do, you're going to be late — maybe very late. If only there were an alarm clock that would automatically wake you up early on such mornings.

Wait! Stop! There's no need to try constructing some sort of bizarre snow-activated Rube Goldberg machine which will set off an alarm early if the world turns into a winter wonderland as you snooze — because there's an app for that.

The app's called Winter Wake-Up and it can be downloaded for free through either the Apple App Store or the Android Market.

According to the app's promotional video, it was created by the folks of digital agency Boondoggle after some employees kept running late on winter mornings.

Using Winter Wake-Up is simple. You just set an alarm for your regular wake-up time and then tell the app how much earlier you'd need to be woken if there was snow or frost during the night. As you snooze, the app will check weather reports in order to ascertain just how many zzzZZZzz's you get to catch.

Oh, and if the snowfall is heavy enough to completely skip work, you can just tell Winter Wake-Up to not bother waking you up at all.

Related stories:

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• Kindle iPad app now offers magazines, textbooks
• Finally! An app to help the truly fashion-challenged

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

You won't get an email from Apple asking you to update your billing information. But if you think you got one in recent days, delete it; it's a phishing scam designed to snatch that info from you, and it's definitely not from the Cupertino company.

The "vast phishing attack," as Mac software security firm Intego calls it, began around Christmas Day, and seeks to prey on those who got new Apple gear for the holiday. The spammers don't know whether you did or not; they do know that with Apple products as popular as they were on holiday gift lists, the odds are in their favor of getting some hits on this.

The email's subject line is "Apple update your Billing Information." Says Intego: "These well-crafted emails could fool many new Apple users, especially those who may have found an iPhone, iPod or iMac under their Christmas tree, and set up accounts with the iTunes Store or the Mac App Store for the first time. The messages claim to come from 'appleid@id.apple.com.'" And here's what it says:

Intego

Looks official, right?

Intego says if you click on the link in the message, you'd be taken to a "realistic-looking sign-in page, then, after entering your Apple ID and password, you’ll be taken to a page asking you to update your account profile, notably entering your credit card information. Again, this page looks realistic, and many of the elements it contains are taken from Apple's own Web pages."

But if you moved your cursor over the link in the message and waited for a "tooltip to pop up," you'd see this:

Intego

The URL that's shown is not an apple.com address, Intego says, "but rather a numerical address (we've blurred the first part of the address). At the end of the address is a page called apple.htm, which could fool people, but that’s not what’s important. Always look at the part right after the http:// in the URL: if it's not something.apple.com (it could be www.apple.com, store.apple.com, or something else), then it's bogus."

Thanks to Intego for the heads-up and the reminder that phishing scams may be at their worst during the holidays, but can also proliferate after them, too.

— Via TheNextWeb

Related stories:

• Romance scammers prey on the lonely at the holidays
• iPad 2, iPhone 4S top holiday wish lists
• 12 online holiday scams to avoid

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

ReelDoozy

Wish you could have Santa in your holiday home videos, but don't have a costume (or beard)? No problem. All you really need is your iPhone, an app called Reel Doozy, and a couple of minutes to doctor footage.

The Reel Doozy app that you'll need for this task can be downloaded through the Apple App Store now. It'll let you edit four videos for free. Additional video packs can be purchased for a buck.

ReelDoozy

In order to have make festive videos, all you need to do is take your existing clips, import them into the app, and choose foreground scenes to add. 

And ta-da! Seconds later you'll have a dancing Santa or singing elves in your own video, thanks to some clever green-screen technology (and perhaps a touch of magic).

Related stories:

• IceBreak is like couples therapy in an app
• Kindle iPad app now offers magazines, textbooks
• Finally! An app to help the truly fashion-challenged

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Rooster Teeth

Whenever my iPhone acts up, I throw my hands in the air and announce that my gadget must be "spiteful" or "out to get me" somehow. But what if that wasn't just an irrational way of explaining technical hiccups? What if  Siri — the virtual assistant built into the iPhone 4S — really went evil?

The folks in comedy team Rooster Teeth must've been wondering the same thing when they made this video:

Yes, all the typical clichés are there. Yes, it's just as cheesy as any real horror movie. And yes, I am looking at my iPhone 4S suspiciously right now.

If I disappear under mysterious circumstances, tell someone to interrogate nearby Apple gadgets.

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Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Google

The Google Voice iOS app has been updated and that's a reason for cheer. After all, iPhone users are now finally able to enjoy group text messaging — a feature which has been available to Android-carrying Google Voice users for quite some time.

The freshly updated Google Voice app — version 1.4.0.2372, in case you're wondering — can be downloaded from the Apple App Store now.

Along with the group text messaging support, it brings to users multi-line text entry fields (so that you don't have to stare at a cramped single-line text entry field), better integration for Sprint iPhones and one-touch copying and pasting on the "Dialer" screen.

All in all, this sounds like a decent update which helps iPhone users catch up to their Android counterparts.

But as Lifehacker's Melanie Pinola points out, it's worth noting that some folks are experiencing log-in problems or seeing account errors while attempting to use this latest version of the Google Voice app. So be careful and make sure you back up your iPhone before updating the app — that way you could always revert to the older version if something's funky with 1.4.0.2372.

Related stories:

• IceBreak is like couples therapy in an app
• Kindle iPad app now offers magazines, textbooks
• Finally! An app to help the truly fashion-challenged

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Amazon

The Kindle iOS app — which can be used on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch devices — has received a nice little update on Wednesday. One of the most noteworthy changes? On the iPad version, users are now granted access magazines, newspapers, and textbooks — just like Kindle Fire users.

According to Amazon, all iOS users — iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad — can now sync compatible documents to read on the app, either via iTunes or by emailing files to their Send-to-Kindle addresses. A built-in PDF reader means that you don't have to use a separate app for non-book reading.

The updated (and free) app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store right now. 

But on the iPad, the app has even more. It allows users to access over 400 magazines and newspapers — the same ones that are available to Kindle Fire users — including Martha Stewart Living, Cosmopolitan, Men's Health, Popular Science, and more. It'll be possible to buy single issues or subscriptions thanks to the Kindle Newsstand feature (not to be confused with the iOS Newsstand, of course).

Electronic textbooks that preserve the layout and graphics of the original printed versions will also be available for purchase or rental.

And frankly, the magazine service surprises us a bit. Not that Amazon would bring it to the iPad, but that Apple would allow it in an app. Amazon is blatantly trying to get into magazine subscriptions on the iPad, and Apple has made it clear that it wants to dominate this business — especially on its own turf.

We've reached out to Apple to see why it let things go, at least for now. I will update if there is any comment.

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• Finally! An app to help the truly fashion-challenged

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.