The term iSheep has been around for quite some time to describe those who purchase Apple products for no other reason than the fact that they’re Apple products and to denote that they all look the same. While I believe every facet of life has its “sheep,” Samsung makes an obvious reference to these iSheep in its latest Samsung Unpacked teaser video where they use sheep to depict “everyone else.”
We’ve all seen the ridiculous Samsung videos where they pit some clueless iPhone users against one of their experienced gurus in an attempt to show how you can do more with a Samsung Android device. Well, one Android user decided to switch over to the iPhone to see for himself which of the operating systems was truly easier or “simpler” to use. After 30 days of using an iPhone, he finds iOS to be much more frustrating and actually more difficult to use. Well, not so much “difficult” as cumbersome.
The ability to share my documents across all of my devices and have them with me wherever I go is indispensable to me, and so Dropbox is one service I couldn’t be without. However, one of its biggest flaws has always been the difficulty in sharing documents.
That’s no longer the case with Dropbox’s latest update, which makes it super simple to share your files with your friends, family, and colleagues.
Time Warner recently added the ability to live stream national and regional sports networks from the TWC TV app for the iPad, iPhone, Android 4.0 smartphones and tablets, and TWCTV.com. Any Time Warner Cable video subscriber living in New York, Dallas, or Charlotte will now have the ability to live stream their favorite sports channels at no extra cost by using the TWC TV app.
Apple, Google, Intel and four other tech giants failed to convince a judge to dismiss an antitrust suit brought against them. The suit alleges that the companies conspired against hiring each other’s employees and District Judge Lucy Koh in her decision said:
“The fact that all six identical bilateral agreements were reached in secrecy among seven defendants in a span of two years suggests that these agreements resulted from collusion, and not from coincidence,”
While Apple, Google, and Intel are the three largest firms in the suit, other major companies, including Adobe, Lucasfilm, Pixar and Intuit are included.
One of the first things you’ll notice about the Sony Tablet S is its design. It’s not flat, but a wedge that fits comfortably into the hand, like a magazine with its cover folded back on a hot summer day. The Tablet S looks wholly unlike any other tablet on the market. It’s something original, something that instead of simply trying to be an iPad knock-off has its own distinct design language. And it’s without a doubt the best thing about the Sony Tablet S. It’s just a shame that this brave and wonderful sense of identity in a sea of iPad clones is only skin deep.
We’ve all been there, that moment when the bill for that great mobile plan you signed up for comes in. Monthly access charges, usage charges, surcharges, taxes, governmental surcharges & fees — the list goes on… and on… and on. The FCC and others call this “bill shock,” while I call it well… we’ll save that for another day. Regardless of how we feel about these charges and fees, they are the services we signed up for and agreed to pay. Unfortunately it’s not always easy to monitor our usage and it can be very easy to incur overage charges when it comes to services like data and text messaging.
It’s been a busy day for photo sharing community 500px. They managed to launch a major update to their iPad app as well as release their first ever Android app. While Instagram is all the rage these days and has amateur mobile photographers giddy inside, 500px is a photo community built around passionate photographers and enthusiasts who discover, publish, share, buy and sell thousands of photographs every day. You won’t be snapping pictures with this app but you have the opportunity to:
Continuing with their 12 city rollout, AT&T has added three new cities to the LTE club today. Those living in Akron, Ohio; Canton, Ohio; and Lafayette, Ind will now be able to take advantage of the fantastic speeds LTE has to offer. While AT&T doesn’t come close to having the LTE coverage that Verizon does, they certainly have the speed — as shown by PC World’s independent testing.
During its quarterly earnings call today, Verizon CFO Andrew Davies revealed to investors that the carrier will be introducing data sharing plans this summer, allowing your whole family to share one data plan for all of the devices in your home.
Gone are the days of walking into a bank with your passbook and having your deposit stamped and recorded. Technology and the advent of online banking has eliminated the need to shuffle through the mouse maze line of your local banking institution and has replaced our favorite smiling teller with bright LED screens and Helvetica font. Online banking is a major convenience that saves us time and allows us to stay in our pajamas that much longer.
Mega-popular Android and iOS app Draw Something has received a significant update that brings several new features and improvements. The ‘pull to refresh’ gesture has been implemented for loading new game updates, and you can now swipe with your finger to undo the last line you drew.
Drawings can now be shared directly with friends on Facebook and Twitter. You can also save your drawings locally to your smartphone.
Just about every major carrier seems to boast the “fastest network speeds,” while bombarding us with acronyms like LTE and buzzwords such as “lightning fast.” When it’s all said and done, we’re left confused and none the closer to the truth of which network actually has the fastest speeds. So how do we find out the truth? Well, it’s not as simple as we’d like it to be and there are near infinite variables to the equation, but one way to get a general idea of how fast a network’s speeds will be in a real-world environment is to test them out.
Verizon continues its onslaught of 4G LTE rollouts across the U.S. and after expanding a slew of California markets last week, they’re back at it again. This next bombardment of 4G LTE is a huge one and reaches across various markets from New York to Colorado. Hopefully by April 19th, your city/town will have been added to the coverage list and you’ll be able to ditch that 3G in favor of the fast lane speeds of 4G LTE. Rollouts and expansions are expected to start Thursday and will cover the following markets:
Read It Later, the most popular way for users to save content they find on the web, has just received a new name, stacks of new features, and lost its price tag in a major update released today. Now called Pocket, the new app is free across Android and iOS devices, and delivers a new user interface, video and image filters, favorites, and much, much more.
Verizon continues to blanket the US with 4G LTE while the rest of the carriers desperately play catch up. We’re quick to complain about Verizon’s high prices but at least they’re putting that money to work. Today, Verizon announced it will be expanding its 4G LTE reach in ten California markets as well as Reno, Nevada within the coming weeks. 3G will soon be a thing of the past for those living in the following California cities:
Disclaimer: Some of you may find this material offensive — you’ve been warned.
Jon Stewart gives us his take on last week’s most talked about tech news: Google’s glasses and Facebook’s purchase of Instagram for 1 billion dollars. It’s classic Daily News humor that includes ball-licking dogs, time-travelling cock-blockers and illicit drug innuendo. If that sounds like your kind of humor, head on past the break to watch the video. Cheers!
LogMeIn has launched a new cloud-based storage, syncing, and sharing service that hopes to compete with services like Dropbox, Box.net, and the upcoming Google Drive. Called ‘Cubby’, the service offers 5GB of free storage which is protected by LogMeIn’s 128-bit SSL encryption, and it can be accessed from a web browser or using the official Cubby apps for Android and iOS.
It’s been some time since we’ve seen an update to the popular productivity app Springpad, and for good reason. After fishing through months of feedback from over 3 million users, it appears the Springpad team has been hard at work improving their “Smart Notebooks,” and readying the release of their new and improved Smartpad 3.0. Released today, Springpad for Android and iOS features a complete redesign, with a clean UI and a plethora of new functions.
Google’s beautiful magazine-esque news reader has received its first major update today. The update takes care of a slew of issues but most importantly, it takes care of the painfully slow syncing. Users will now have instant online sync as well as sync speeds 7x faster than the previous version. Other improvements to the app include:
AT&T customers living in St. Louis have just had their LTE jetpacks filled and should be able to start flying through downloads and web pages — not to mention battery life. Along with St. Louis, Staten Island, NY was added to the AT&T LTE club with 4G LTE being expanded to the 5 boroughs. AT&T is certainly playing LTE catch up and while the rollout may seem like it’s running at a turtle’s pace, AT&T has already pushed out LTE to five of the twelve promised markets. Those remaining include:
Looks like Big Red is out for blood after tremendous consumer backlash put the kibosh on their plans to charge customers a $2 “convenience fee” to pay their bill. We would have been better off surrendering our $2 because now Verizon is pulling the ol’ “upgrade fee out of a hat” trick. That’s right, starting April 22, Verizon customers can expect to pay $30 for the privilege of purchasing a new device while signing over their souls for the next two years.
Ah, the wondrous findings of random polls. This one appears to favor my personal favorite company and therefore I won’t argue against it. The rest of you are free to sound off in the comments after reading the favorable findings of this ABC News/Washington Post poll. A random national sample of 1,007 adults were asked whether or not they had a favorable or unfavorable impression of the following four tech companies: Google, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter.
Adobe Reader for Android and iOS received a hefty update today, adding a slew of new features and enhancing performance across the board. We’ll highlight these new features for you below and then send you over to the Adobe blog where they have done an excellent job at explaining what has been added and improved in the latest Adobe Reader update.
Facebook just announced on its blog that the company has purchased the popular photo sharing app Instagram for a cool $1 billion. The news comes shortly after Instagram just launched its popular Android app, which has seen great success.
But the real success of Instagram is over on iOS, where the app has exploded to be one of the top apps on the iTunes App Store. Before its release on Android, Instagram boasted over 30 million users and added 1 million the day Instagram launched on Android. Check out Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerburg’s announcement: