Apple has rolled out what is perhaps the most important update ever to its mobile advertising platform, giving anybody with an Apple ID the ability to create iAds for free.
Using the updated iAd Workbench tool, anyone can make their own iAd campaign in a simple, Apple-style interface. It just got a whole lot easier to make iAds for iOS devices.
And that’s not all Apple has added.
Apple is considering a buyout of a division of Renesas Electronics that specializes in display chips for smartphones. The buyout would give Apple engineering expertise to help improve the iPhone’s display “sharpness and battery life,” according to Japanese business site Nikkei.
Apple already orders all of its liquid crystal display chips from Renesas, and the Japanese company is responsible for powering about a third of the world’s small to midsize LCDs. Instead of using the chip division of Renesas like an outside contractor, Apple wants to bring it in-house.
Round two of what might be the biggest patent trial in tech history will be decided by a plumber, a police officer and a store clerk. Those blue-collar types are among the 10-person jury finalized Monday for the latest legal battle between Apple and Samsung.
“Jury picked,” tweeted San Jose Mercury News reporter Howard Mintz shortly after jury selection concluded. “Plumber, teacher, cop, secretary, store clerk, county worker, etc. Not [a] sniff of a tech geek to decide $billion patent trial.”
Apple has announced that the LTE iPad Air and iPad mini are now available in China. Cellular iPad models have been on sale in the country already, but today marks Apple’s adoption of the local TD-SCDMA network standard.
Here’s the full press release:
Apple will hold its second quarterly earnings call for 2014 on Wednesday, April 23rd. The call will be streamed online at 2:00 p.m. PST.
Tim Cook promised that we would see new stuff from Apple in “both current product categories and new ones” across 2014. There has yet to be a media event or new hardware.
Apple has set revenue expectations at $42-44 billion for Q2. Last quarter’s holiday numbers were an all-time high for the company.
Source: Apple
The most shocking revelation to come out of jury selection for the latest Apple-versus-Samsung trial isn’t that the Silicon Valley jury pool is loaded with people connected to one of the two companies. It’s that one potential juror claims ignorance when it comes to Apple’s nearly ubiquitous tablet.
“I’m kind of a dinosaur,” said one potential juror Monday. “I don’t even know what a iPad is.”
Apple has notified developers that it is increasing App Store prices in certain countries due to “changes in foreign exchange rates.” Affected currencies include the Australian Dollar, Indian Rupee, Indonesian Rupiah, Turkish Lira, and South African Rand.
Prices for Israeli New Shekels and the New Zealand Dollar will also be decreased. All changes should be applied within the next 24 hours.
Source: Apple
Apple and Samsung have become very acquainted with one another in the courtroom. Every since Apple’s crushing victory against Samsung in 2012 over patent infringement, the tech giants have been duking it out through a seemingly-endless string of appeals. The culmination of 2012’s verdict is a second trial that begins today in San Jose, California.
Much in this trial is the same as the last: Apple and Samsung are both accusing each other of copying patented ideas, and there are billions of dollars on the table. But enough has changed to make the outcome of this second trial unguessable.
SAN FRANCISCO — The New York Times is launching a new iPhone app on April 2nd in the App Store. Called NYT Now, the app will aggregate news from the Times as well as other publications. All stories will be handpicked by a 10-person team of Times editors and complied in daily reports.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because the Yahoo News Digest app is based around the same model. The difference with NYT Now is that it’s a paid service with the full backing of one of the most influential papers in the world.
The day has finally come. During a keynote today in San Francisco, Microsoft unveiled the Office suite for iPad. Rumors have said that Word would be unveiled for Apple’s tablet this month, but that’s not all; Microsoft has also released versions of PowerPoint and Excel.
Today Apple updated its iTunes Movie Trailers app with a couple of cool features, including the ability to receive push notifications when movies marked as favorites arrive in theaters or on the iTunes Store. While you could previously only see overall Rotten Tomatoes ratings for movies, the app now lets you read individual reviews from critics.
Here’s the full list of changes:
Twitterrific, the oldest Twitter client in existence, changed its business model today in the App Store. Instead of charging $3 to download, Twitterrific 5 is now free and ad supported.
Selling a half-billion of anything is impressive, especially when you can do it in less than seven years. That’s exactly what Apple has managed to do with the iPhone.
Apple had sold 472 million iPhones in total at the end of 2013, and given analysts estimates of 38-42 million units sold this current quarter, the 500 million milestone has most certainly been reached.
Today you may have noticed a little teaser page from Flexibits, makers of the beloved calendar app Fantastical.
“Fantastical 2 for iPhone on your iPad is good,” reads the teaser. “Fantastical 2 for iPad on your iPad is even better.” There’s a mailing list where you can sign up to get notified when the app arrives.
We’re itching to tell you more, like exactly when the app is coming out and why it’s awesome, but you’ll have to be patient. All that’s being said at this point is that Fantastical for iPad will be a separate download from the existing Fantastical for iPhone. That means new and existing customers will need to pony up a little change.
Stay tuned for Cult of Mac’s full review.
Source: Flexibits
Today Spotify announced a killer deal for college students: it’s cutting the cost of its Premium subscription in half from $10 to $5 per month. The discount will work for up to four years, and all you have to do is verify your name, date of birth, and college you attend.
A Spotify Premium subscription gets you unlimited access on any device to the service’s 20 million songs. We recently called it the best all-around music subscription service money can buy. Apple is even rumored to be building its own Spotify competitor. Spotify has apps for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and web.
Claiming your college discount is pretty easy through the Spotify website. The cost will be reduced for the next month’s billing cycle. Existing Premium subscribers can get in on the discount as well.
Source: Spotify
Today Google released Photowall, an iOS and Android app that beams photos through a Chromecast to be displayed on a TV. Photos can be doodled on and rearranged in a grid interface that updates as new photos are added.
Photowall works with the Chrome browser by providing a URL that anyone on the same network can access in Chrome to add their own photos and make edits. Once all photos are uploaded, a video can be made and published on YouTube.
Google put together a quick video to show how Photowall works:
If the rumors are indeed true and Apple is planning to release a 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone this year, both screen sizes may not arrive at the same time.
Google Now notifications can now be seen in your Mac’s menubar thanks to today’s Chrome update. The feature has been in beta for awhile, and now it’s finally available for all.
Apple and Comcast are in the early stages of negotiating a streaming TV service, according to The Wall Street Journal. The service “would use an Apple set-top box and get special treatment on Comcast’s cables to ensure it bypasses congestion on the Web.”
Rumors have been saying that Apple is working on a TV streaming product for years, and this latest report suggests that Apple is concerned about its customers have enough bandwidth to make the experience worthwhile at home.
Remember Twitter’s #music app? It was basically D.O.A. when it launched in the App Store last summer, and it hasn’t been updated since September.
Twitter has announced that it is officially pulling the plug today. The app will no longer be available for download after this afternoon. For those already using it, the service will work until April 18th.
Originally designed as a way to discover music based on who you follow and trends on Twitter, #music never really caught on. Farewell #music, we hardly knew you.
Source: Twitter
Via: Engadget
The appropriately named Transit app for iPhone has already gotten a lot of love in the App Store, including Editor’s Choice, and it is getting featured again because of a major update that’s out today.
Transit is designed to provide you with realtime data on public bus and train systems in 62 metropolitan areas around the world. Today’s update includes a more streamlined way of figuring out the right route to take, the ability to search locations using stop codes, a drastically improved offline mode, and more.
Here’s the full list of changes:
Apple has been talking to record label executives about launching its own on-demand streaming service, according to a new report from Billboard. In what would certainly be a shocking turn of events, Apple is allegedly considering an iTunes app for Android as well.
“The surprising discussions are part of a multi-pronged strategy to deal with the double-digit decline in U.S. download sales at Apple’s iTunes Music Store,” according to the report.
There have been several jailbreak tweaks over the years that have attempted to revolutionize the concept of multitasking in iOS. Few, if any, have come as close as ProWidgets, a new widget framework that’s available in Cydia now.
I say close because I don’t think ProWidgets solves a better way to multitask on the iPhone and iPad. However, it is a valiant effort that allows other developers to create third-party widgets that live outside of the traditional app experience.
Yesterday it was reported that Oscar-winning actor Christian Bale was in talks to play Steve Jobs for David Fincher’s upcoming biopic with Sony and Aaron Sorkin. While nothing has been confirmed, the rumor has already fueled some imaginations, as evidenced above.
Reader Ste Smith sent us this Photoshop job of Bale in the iconic Jobsian pose. It’s pretty believable, if we do say so ourselves.
Bale is known for his intense process of getting (and sometimes staying) in character. He’s great at losing and gaining weight, and he has already played balding characters multiple times. Is there really anyone more perfect to play Jobs?
And lets not forget that he already auditioned for the role like five years ago.
Thanks: Ste
Tweetbot for Mac has been updated with large image/video thumbnails to match the recent update to its iOS counterpart. The thumbnail option can be turned off entirely in the display settings, but I’m not sure why you would want to do that because they look great.
The app also supports three finger left/right swipes in the timeline if your Mac’s trackpad is configured that way. Some bugs have been squashed as well, so be sure to get the update in the Mac App Store. Tweetbot costs $20.
Source: Mac App Store