Apple Design Teams Get Cozier  —  Last October Apple Inc. announced a management shake-up designed to increase collaboration across its different divisions.  Sure enough, some walls have come down, though many others remain.  —  One of the biggest areas of change has been design.

Apple beefs up iCloud, Apple ID security with two-step verification  —  Today, Apple has rolled out a new two-step verification service for iCloud and Apple ID users.  This functionality greatly enhances the security of Apple accounts because it requires users to use a trusted device and an extra security code.

Apple: Google Now hasn't been submitted to our App Store  —  The company has confirmed to CNET that the app was never brought to the App Store's submission service, despite Eric Schmidt indicating it might have been.  —  Google Now has not been submitted yet to Apple's App Store, the iPhone maker has confirmed to CNET.

Apple looks to protect dropped iPhones by shifting their orientation mid-flight  —  An Apple invention discovered on Thursday describes a system that could potentially save the most fragile components of an iPhone, such as the glass screen, by detecting when a device is falling and shifting …

Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost  —  Let me get this out of the way: I don't like Adria Richards.  I think I have good reason to not like Adria Richards.  So I should be feeling some major Schadenfreude right now.  Instead, though, I think what's unfolded in the developer community in recent days has been a tragedy.

Apple blames rights holders for 70% mark-ups in Australia  —  Apple Australia boss Tony King has blamed “old-fashioned notions” of record labels, movie studios and TV networks for inflated prices of digital media paid by Australians on the iTunes store.  While claiming prices of Apple's products …

Strategy Analytics: iCloud, Dropbox and Amazon top cloud media in the US  —  We often focus on market share for hardware, but cloud media services increasingly dictate our lives after the devices have reached our bags and pockets.  Wouldn't it be nice to know who rules the online media landscape?

App Store apps that access UDIDs, don't support iPhone 5/Retina to be rejected May 1  —  Apple has informed developers that it will begin officially rejecting newly submitted and updated applications that access the iOS device UDID.  Apple says that this new policy will begin on May 1st.

Google chairman: Chrome, Android operating systems to stay separate  —  Google Inc's Chrome and Android operating systems will remain separate products but could have more overlap, Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said, a week after the two came under a single boss.

Google quietly pulls plug on Frommer's print travel guidebooks  —  The first edition of “Europe on $5 a Day” alongside “Frommer's Belize,” which is the last title in the series that has a cover image on Amazon.com.  —  » Get your daily dose of Skift: subscribe to our newsletter, RSS, Twitter or Facebook.

Future Windows Phone speech recognition revealed in leaked video  —  Microsoft has had speech recognition in Windows Phone since it first debuted, but it looks like the company is preparing a fairly significant upgrade.  In a leaked video from Microsoft's TechFest earlier this month …

New OS X trojan injects ads into pages browsed by Chrome, Firefox, and Safari; even targets Apple's website  —  A new trojan specifically for Macs has been discovered that installs an adware plugin.  The malware attempts to monetize its attack by injecting ads into Chrome, Firefox, and Safari …

HBO CEO mulls teaming with broadband partners for HBO GO  —  (Reuters) - HBO could widen access to its HBO GO online streaming service by teaming up with broadband Internet providers for customers who do not subscribe to a cable TV service, according to HBO's Chief Executive Richard Plepler.

7 Things That Could Have Killed Twitter, But Didn't  —  Looking back on Twitter's seventh birthday.  —  Twitter is observing its seventh birthday today — that is, it's been 7 years since Jack Dorsey's stirring “just setting up my twttr” tweet.  In Twitter's celebratory blog post …

Apple updates Podcasts app with custom stations, on-the-go playlists and less ‘skeuomorphic’ design  —  Apple has updated its much-maligned Podcasts app for iOS with custom iCloud-synced stations that update automatically when new episodes of those podcasts are posted.

Email app Mailbox hits 1M reservations filled as it moves into its new office at Dropbox  —  Mobile email client Mailbox has announced taking its 1 millionth reservation, as it moves into its new offices at its new parent company Dropbox.  —  The app was released to much fanfare just six weeks ago.

Billionaire Google Board Member Is Latest Victim Of “Guccifer” Hacking Rampage  —  Buster  —  Add a billionaire Silicon Valley titan to the growing list of public figures victimized by the hacker “Guccifer.”  —  Venture capitalist John Doerr had his AOL account breached several days ago …

Apple data centers now 100 percent renewable-powered, but emissions rise 34 percent  —  Apple's data centers are 100 percent powered by renewable energy, and its corporate facilities are increasingly green, but a new report from the company shows that its greenhouse gas emissions actually increased by 34 percent in 2012.

Defense spokesman says DoD not dumping BlackBerry  —  A U.S. Department of Defense spokesman on Thursday said a report suggesting the defense agency is dumping BlackBerry devices was inaccurate, and that BlackBerry is still part of ongoing DoD mobile device deployment plans.