Apple’s 30-day concert series is about to take off in just three days, so to promote the iTunes Festival and the bevy of artists that will be putting on free shows, the Apple Store iOS app is giving away six free tracks to iOS users.
To get the free tracks all you have to do is download the Apple Store app and then tap on the “30 Nights of Music” section on the main screen. The offer officially expires on October 31st, 2013.
The full track list:
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is one to shy away from sharing his opinions on the state of Apple, but rather than giving a speech on the advice he would impart to Tim Cook, Woz recently shared his Apple product wishlist, which includes wearable computers and bigger displays.
During a recent interview with Reuters, Woz says that he wants Apple to make an iWatch that is as complete in functionality as the current iPhone. The wishlist also includes larger screens on the iPhone, more customizations, and a happy room full of Dreamers thinking up how to change the world with a product that you wouldn’t call a phone.
Here’s the full interview:
Twitter released a new update for its iOS app that makes it easier for users to keep track of conversations between friends. To keep tabs on who’s saying what to whom and when, Twitter has added a blue line that connects conversations and displays replies to tweets in chronological order.
Conversations can now be expanded by tapping the blue line to see more replies from people you don’t follow. Twitter also added new notification settings and bug fixes.
Here’s a video on how the blue line works:
Apple is no stranger to lawsuits and with all the cash its been making the past few years, the lawsuits from patent trolls have been piling up. According to a new study on lawsuits from non practicing entities (patent trolls), Apple got slammed with more patent lawsuits (171 total) in the last five years than any other company.
Philips Hue lights have quickly become one of favorite new iOS accessories thanks to a bunch of neat hacks and apps that have take advantage of the connected lights. Until now, Hue has mainly been controlled via an iOS app, but Hue Menu for OS X makes it so you can finally control Hue from your Mac.
Hue Menu is a new menu bar app that not only allows users to turn their Hue bulbs on/off, but you can also change the colors, create presets, pick custom colors using your own photos or the Mac OS color Picker and more. At $2.99, the app is an easy buy for Hue owners, plus the developer behind it says upcoming features will include alarms, timers, and geo-fencing.
Here are the full release notes:
Football season is nearly upon us and that means an all-new version of Madden is ready to bust onto screens. Madden 25 for iOS was released this morning and for the first time ever, EA Sports has made the game free-to-play while also offering in-app purchases.
Madden 25 boasts a new Ultimate Team feature that allows players to custom build their own NFL superstar team by collecting player cards or purchasing them from the Auction House. The game sports some new tap & swipe controls for a more intuitive experience, along with the new Solo Challenges, head-to-head mode, and more.
Here are the full release notes:
We’re only two weeks away from the official unveiling of the iPhone 5C, but some eBay geniuses scammers are trying to make some quick Gs off desperate Apple fans hungry for a prototype scoop.
An eBay listing for a genuine iPhone 5C Rear Shell started out at $20 but has quickly received 70 bids, with the latest totaling over $13,600. With the insane amount of iPhone 5C leaks dropping over the past few months, we imagine it’s probably real. But what those clueless fanboys don’t know is they could save $13,584 and get one for $16.
Update: The listing has been removed, citing “the item is no longer available.”
Source: eBay
Following up on the Department of Justice’s revised proposed punishment from Apple’s e-book antitrust case, Apple’s lawyers filed a response this morning claiming the DOJ is trying to give Amazon an unfair advantage on e-books.
Defense attorney Orin Synder said that the DOJ’s 12-page proposal is just trying to find a remedy that will give Amazon a competitive advantage again. Synder had the following to say regarding the DOJ’s proposal that Apple allow App Store developers to sell e-books through their apps without Apple taking a cut:
This morning we were treated to some leaked images of an alleged graphite-colored iPhone 5S, but now Sonny Dickson has a new set of leaked next-generation iPad mini back housings to feast our eyes on.
The shells looks similar to ones we posted earlier this month. Based on the cases it looks like the iPad mini 2 will predictably have the same form factor as the original iPad mini with the option for 4G service or Wi-Fi only. The rear shell also sports the new embedded Apple logo, but is void of any other info, like whether it will really have a Retina display.
Here are some close-ups:
Google may have won a lot of new admirers thanks to its fancy Glass headwear, but Siri isn’t impressed one bit. In fact, if you try to talk to Siri about Google Glass she will just give you the cold shoulder.
A recently discovered easter egg in Siri spits back frustrated responses when you use the Glass prompt, “Okay Glass.”
Here are some of Siri’s other responses:
48,000 people are about to descend on Black Rock City, Nevada to join in the Burning Man festival experiment. There’s going to be art galore, crazy events, weird costumes for days, and the brutal Black Rock Desert meting out its hellish punishments on each and every Burner.
Making the trip to BRC is easy, but surviving is entirely different, so we’ve found eight great apps that will help you get out of the desert alive:
Apple began running its Mac Pro teaser ad in theaters before showings Jobs last week, but now that no one is up to seeing Kutcher doing his worst Steve impression, Apple’s pushed the ad out onto YouTube.
The ad is essentially the same as one that was shown during the Mac Pro announcement at WWDC, except they’ve added some new cinematic-styled text at the end.
Here’s the full teaser:
Apple’s iTunes Radio service doesn’t launch in the U.S. for a few more weeks, but Rdio’s been pumping some awesome updates into its iOS app to get ready. The latest Rdio update for iOS today added the much needed Station Tuning that’s been available on desktop since the launch of You FM earlier this month.
The Rdio 2.3.1 update also comes with a redesigned view for Collection that features a new album art view. Some UI tweaks and bug fixes were also tossed in for good measure along with improved search.
Here are the full notes:
1Password has been one of the most essential Mac apps for years, but it hasn’t seen a major upgrade since November 2009. Agile Bits is hard at work on the redesign of 1Password 4 for Mac, but they sent us a sneak peek of the reengineered password management app that’s been in the making for over a year.
Here’s what’s new:
Apple has been launched a full court press on Maps ever since its disappointing launch last fall. The company has already gobbled up a few mapping companies but it’s not ready to stop quite yet, as it just purchased the map app Embark.
Embark, Inc. focuses on building free transit apps to help navigate public transportation. According to a report from Jessica Lessin, Apple acquired the small team very recently and plans to directly integrate Embark’s tech into Apple Maps.
Using Facebook is usually one of the quickest ways to log in to apps and other services without creating an account, but there’s nothing more annoying on Facebook than giving an app access to your account only to have them post spam on your wall without permission.
Facebook announced today that it has finally come up with a solution by updating Facebook Login for mobile so that apps have to ask you separately for permission to post on your behalf.
The update should result in 31% faster load up times, too. And if you decide later that you really want to share all your progress from Kitchen Scramble, or any other apps, you can do that too.
Source: Facebook
Via: The Verge
Spoke to Tim. Planning dinner in September. Tim believes in buyback and is doing one. What will be discussed is magnitude.
— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) August 22, 2013
Famous billionaire investor Carl Icahn took to Twitter this afternoon to announce that he and his new buddy Tim Cook are going to be meeting up for dinner in September to talk about Apple’s stock buyback program.
According to Icahn, Tim believes in doing the buyback, but the two giants are going to talk about the “magnitude” of it later to see just how much cash can be wrung out of AAPL.
Icahn made a lot of noise last week with claims that AAPL stock is extremely undervalued. AAPL shares shot up quickly after Icahn’s tweet last week, but his tweet this afternoon seems to have less of an effect on the stock. AAPL is down -3.83 and trading at 498.53 a share today but NASDAQ has been down part of the day, so maybe we’ll see a jump when things get back to normal.
Source: Twitter
We’re a few weeks away from the final release of iOS 7, but it looks like Apple is starting to prep its non-stock apps with an iOS 7 update. This morning Apple released an update for Find My iPhone that comes with a new icon more fitting for iOS 7.
A few bug fixes were tossed in, but early reports claim the update has broken the app for non-developers, so we’d advise against updating right now. The new Find My iPhone icon was also added to the beta.iCloud.com homescreen, but hasn’t been updated on iCloud.com yet.
Apple is reportedly looking to skirt the cable companies and strike up deals with HBO, ESPN, Disney, and Viacom to offer their content on a new pay TV service. Rather than distributing content in channels, Apple’s strategy would emphasize apps over cable TV according to a report from QZ.
Sony, Google, and Intel are also trying to score similar deals and might even get their pay TV services up before Apple. However, Apple is also looking to release a TV set as well, in order to control the entire TV-watching experience.
Apple has released the sixth beta build of OS X Mavericks to developers this afternoon. The update comes a full two weeks after the release of the fifth beta, which brought iBooks to the Mac along with a new version of iPhoto.
Developers can download the new beta build by checking for software updates in the Mac App Store, or directly from the Mac Dev Center. OS X Mavericks is scheduled to release later this fall.
Yahoo released an update today for its recently redesigned Yahoo Sports app for iOS that includes the addition of MMA coverage along with improving some of the UI and bugs.
The app also comes with improved scoring summaries and an expanded view for football games, as well as WNBA info and improved external article rendering. The update is available now in the App Store for free.
Here are the release notes:
A new video on the iPhone 5C has been posted by Taiwan Apple Daily, showcasing the durability and scratch resistance of the Apple’s unreleased device, along with some measurements.
The video shows an iPhone 5C rear shell being placed into a plastic bag filled with coins and a car key. After a good shaking, the iPhone 5C part comes away unscratched. At one point they even bust out a key to scratch the surface directly, but leave behind no visible scars.
Twitter’s video sharing app, Vine, has been overshadowed by the addition of video to Instagram, but that hasn’t stopped millions of people from signing up for Vine. Vine announced this afternoon that it just hit 40 million registered users today — a huge jump from the 13 million users it announced in June.
The launch of Vine’s Android app in June is likely one of the main contributors to the recent boost, but Twitter hasn’t said how many of its users are on Android, or how are even active., but with amazing videos like this, it looks like Vine might be hard to kill.
Source: Twitter
Apple’s Pandora-like competitor, iTunes Radio, is gearing up for a fall launch, but before Apple can stream songs to iOS devices across the U.S. for free, it’s got to find someone to help pay for it all, so it’s recruited some of the biggest brands in the world to supply it with ads.
The list of brand partners participating in the iTunes Radio launch will include McDonalds, Nissan, Pepsi and Procter & Gamble — all of which get exclusivity within their industries until the end of 2013.
Google announced a new version of its YouTube app for iPhone and iPad is hitting the App Store today. YouTube 2.0 includes a bunch of new features, including the ability to watch a video while searching for the next great thing to watch.
The app sports better Chromecast integration as well, complete with a new preview screen that lets you queue up videos to push to your TV. There’s also a “play all” feature that allows users to watch every single video in a playlist without having to queue anything up.
The free update is available now in the App Store and Google Play.
Here’s a video of the new features: