Buster Hein - page 196

Microsoft gave us a new anti-iPad ad yesterday, but there’s even more where that came from as the company released a new ad today that takes the iPad mini to task against the Acer Iconia W3.

The ad mostly focuses on the differences between iOS and Windows 8 and suggests that the iPad mini doesn’t have great games or productivity apps—which we all know is pretty much the exact opposite of reality.

Eventually the Siri-dubbed ad knocks on the iPad’s $429 price tag next to the $299 Iconia W3, even though Microsoft has conveniently forgotten that the W3 was originally priced at $380 before a series of price drops were introduced to try and get people to buy it.

Here’s the ad:

Social networks have trained us to share all the superfluous details of ourselves, but a new app called Leftover Swap is trying to take things to the next level by allowing users to share leftover scraps of meals with one another.

Hungry, but too cheap to buy a $0.99 hot dog down the street? With LeftoverSwap you can just pull up a map of discarded meals in your area, make a selection, and then go pick it up from your neighbor.

To celebrate the upcoming release of Ashton Kutcher’s role in the new JOBS biopic, famed Mac icon designer, Susan Kare, released new 32 x 32 pixel portraits of El Jobso himself and Señor Aplusk.

Microsoft’s recent barrage of anti–iPad ads have nearly all featured third-party tablets rather than boasting about Microsoft’s own iPad-killer, the Surface RT. Now that it’s desperately slashed prices on RT units, Microsoft is feeling inexplicably cocky in its latest ad, which pits the hardware and software specs of the iPad against that of the Surface RT.

Basically, Microsoft is praying the iPad’s lack of a keyboard (that you have to purchase separately), Microsoft Office, and a USB port will be enough to entice some unlucky nerds to buy a Surface RT instead of an iPad now that it’s cheaper than ever but still deprived of quality apps.

Here’s the ad:

Instagram just pushed out a big update for its iOS and Android apps which gives users the ability to import video from their smartphone libraries into Instagram.

Now you can film video at any time and then splice it together later into a 15-second video to import into Instagram. The update also brings video support to Android 4.0 devices and has a new trim and crop feature so your vids can be molded into perfect squares.

iOS users also pick up a new Automatic Straightening feature that set your photos level with the tap of a button. The new Instagram 4.1 update is available now in the App Store and Google Play.

Source: Instagram

Spike Jonze is coming out with a new movie and this time, rather than dissecting the mind of a famous movie star, Jonze’s new film, Her, takes a look at what it would be like to fall in love with an operating system like Siri.

The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely dude with a non-ironic mustache who becomes intrigued with a new, Siri-like, advanced operating system named Samantha that’s powered by Scarlett Johansonn’s sexy vocal chords.

We’ll have to wait until November 20th to see what happens when you give Siri a soul and place her in the hands of anti-social men across the world, but here’s the first trailer to hold you over:

Apple has been trying to be less dependent on Samsung components for years now, but ditching its rival has been a lot more difficult than imagined, mostly because there’s not a single company that can churn out displays and RAM like Samsung.

A new report from NPD DisplaySearch claims that Apple’s dependency on Samsung displays has only deepened recently, thanks to shortcomings by LG Display and other manufacturers as the iPad mini 2 launch looms ahead.

Apple’s yearly music festival is set to kick off at the Roundhouse venue in London’s Chalk Farm next month, and while the festival already had 23 acts slated for the month long concert, Apple just added 17 more artists to the line-up.

The new additions include Avicii, Bastille, Janelle Monae, The Lumineers, Tinie Tempah and many more to go alongside Elton John and Justin Timberlake. U.K. residents can use the iTunes Festival app to get free tickets, while the rest of the world will be able to watch the shows live from an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV.

Here’s the full line-up:

Twitter announced today that it is bringing a new verification process to its iOS and Android apps to improve security. The new feature allows you to protect your account with two-factor authentication that can be turned on and managed directly from the app, rather than having to depend on third-party SMS clients.

Along with beefing up security, Twitter also added a new gallery view that can be seen when you tap “view more photos’ from a profile, or by doing a photo search. Lists can be managed from within the app now, too.

You can read about all the engineering details that went into the new two-factor authentication on Twitter’s blog and grab the free update right now on the App Store.

Here are the release notes:

Along with the new beta for iOS 7, Apple has also seeded a new beta version of Apple TV 5.4 to developers.

Developers can download the new beta from the iOS Dev Center or via the direct links below:

It’s only been a week since the last iOS 7 beta came out, but Apple just seeded the fifth beta to developers this morning. The new update can be downloaded over the air, or directly through the iOS Dev Center.

Here are the direct download links:

The number one rule when it comes to stealing an iPhone is to turn off Find My iPhone and restore iOS to factory settings. Every good thief knows this, but there are so many clueless ones who don’t; the latest of whom is a charming douchebag from Dubai named Hafid.

Hafid likes to cruise around various locales of the UAE and pose the shit out of them. What he doesn’t know is all his profound selfies and other photos on his stolen iPhone are being uploaded to the original owner’s Dropbox account. And she’s posting them all on Tumblr:

Things haven’t been going all that well for HP on the PC shipment front, but it’s hoping to make up for that with its new high-tech Project Moonshot servers. In fact, HP CEO Meg Whitman is so jazzed about her company’s new servers that she’s even going around bragging that Apple might be considering HP for its iTunes services.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqfEE_X5cpQ

Joining its buddy Microsoft, Nokia has decided to start attacking Apple’s products head-on with a new ad campaign for the Nokia 925 that bashes the iPhone 5’s camera.

The new ad starts by noting that more pictures are taken on the iPhone every day than on any other camera. But Nokia’s all about quality instead of quantity, goes the ad, so you should totally buy the the Nokia 925 if the only thing that matters in the world to you is your smartphone’s camera sensor.

To Nokia’s credit, their PureView cameras are pretty nice—if you don’t mind lugging around a big bulky Windows Phone that still doesn’t even have Instagram.

Thanks: Dave

Football season is only a month away, so the NFL has completely rebuilt its NFL Mobile app for iOS and Android with a redesigned look that gives football fans quick access to breaking news, scores, and video highlights.

As part of the update, the NFL has folded in functionality from its Verizon-made app, which gives Verizon subscribers the ability to pay for premium features such as live streaming NFL games on Thursday, Sunday, and Monday nights and NFL RedZone on Sundays.

We’ve seen our fair share of cool MacBook decals and engravings over the years, but holy crap this one might take the cake. as the most trippy MacBook engraving ever.

Your retinas can get lost for days swimming through this weird Illuminati vortex. The redditor who created it said he designed it using Illustrator and then used a laser at his school. It’s a lot more permanent than a decal, but at least the warranty is still intact.

Source: Reddit

Been waiting around for a killer deal before jumping all over a new MacBook Pro with Retina display purchase? For the next three days Best Buy is giving away a free Apple TV to customers who buy one of two 15-inch MacBook Pro models that are $200 below MSRP.

Since the dawn of time, Verizon has dominated customer satisfaction rankings thanks to its network reliability and customer service. Sadly, the king has been overthrown as AT&T topped J.D. Power’s latest rankings for wireless care satisfaction for the first time ever.

Netflix has begun to officially roll out user profiles today, meaning you can now share an account with your family and friends without all their horrible movie choices clogging your Instant Queue. 

The production company behind Ashton Kutcher’s JOBS has released a featurette this afternoon with a behind-the-scenes look on how the film was made.

The 2:50 video features Ashton, Josh Gad, Durmot Mulroney and the rest of the cast gushing about how much they love El Jobso, along with some scenes from the movie and what it was like making it.

Take a look:

Despite the cornucopia of different smartphones available to consumers, the battle for global smartphone domination comes down to just two companies: Samsung and Apple.

Samsung posted record results in Q2 and even though a new iPhone hasn’t been announced, Apple still managed to beat Wall Street’s iPhone sales estimates last quarter, leaving Nokia, HTC, LG, and all the other major OEMs with nothing but table scraps to feast on.

Source: Benedict Evans

Via: BGR

With competition around the iPhone at an all-time high, Apple could use a huge boost in sales numbers, so Tim Cook made another visit to Beijing this week to recruit the world’s biggest mobile carrier, China Mobile, to bring the iPhone to its network.

China Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua was on hand Tuesday to meet with Cook, and according to the Chinese firm, the two discussed ‘matters of cooperation’ between the two companies, which means they were probably talking about how much money they’d both make if China Mobile sold the iPhone 5C.

Apple and Motorola are set to do battle in a Miami courtroom in August 2014, but before the fight can begin, the two companies have decided to drop 14 patents from litigation.

At the behest of Federal Judge Robert N. Scola, the two companies are starting narrow down the list of patents they want to sue each other over. The trial originally started with 24 patents under review, but Apple dropped six patents yesterday and Motorola dropped eight. 

Amazon updated Kindle for iOS today with a new feature that will make purchasing Amazon e-books through your iPhone a bit feature.

The new ‘Free Sample’ feature in Kindle for iOS 3.9 lets users search through Amazon’s catalog of Kindle books, download free samples, and if you like it you can email yourself a link to purchase it from Amazon’s website later.

There’s also a new Bring Your Own Dictionary feature so you add medical, legal, or other translation references to define words while you’re reading. Here are the full notes:

Providing access to old episodes just isn’t enough for cable channels to be competitive on iOS anymore. The latest trend is to allow users to tune into live TV if they have a cable subscription. ABC, Time Warner, and ESPN are all doing it, and now Showtime is jumping in too.

Showtime Anytime 2.0 hit the App Store this morning with a new feature that lets you tune into Showtime’s live programming. Now you can ride around town and not miss a second of Homeland season 3.

Here are the release notes: