Stories by Ryan Faas

  • Office Mobile for the iPhone enters an already-crowded field

    The problem with Microsoft's approach to Office for the iPhone is that a diverse range of alternative iOS apps and suites already exists. Apple and other developers have had years to create and refine products that deliver compatibility with Office file types.

  • Apple plays hardball with iPad mini reveal

    In staging an Apple event on Tuesday to unveil the long-awaited iPad Mini, Apple is poised to steal a lot of Microsoft's thunder. That's symbolic of a confident Apple, says columnist Ryan Faas.

  • Lessons for IT, Apple in Flashback brouhaha

    While the number of Macs infected by the Flashback malware is seemingly in decline now, the security reverberations for Apple continue. The discovery of the botnet a couple of weeks ago -- and Apple's response -- has prompted criticism by IT security pros, concern among Mac users and even some smug told-you-so's from Windows users who've watched for years while Apple and its fans derided the the omnipresent malware issues plaguing PCs.

  • OS X Mountain Lion: A big cat for business?

    Apple surprised the tech world by unveiling a developer preview of OS X Mountain Lion, the next generation of its desktop operating system set to ship this summer - just a year after OS X 10.7 Lion arrived.

  • Dig deep into Lion: The best overlooked, underrated features

    Apple billed this summer's release of Mac OS X Lion as having more than 200 new features, but most coverage of Lion in the intervening months has focused on only a handful of them. While iOS-like navigation and app-launching interfaces, autosave/restore capabilities, AirDrop file sharing and an emergency restore partition are by all means important, there are a lot of helpful tweaks and enhancements that can easily be missed.

  • In depth: Apple's new vision of education

    Apple has made it clear that one of the next industries it hopes to disrupt and reinvent is education. It's an arena the company has a long history of working with: schools have been one of Apple's biggest market since the days of the Apple II.