Killian Bell - page 275

Research in Motion showed off its BlackBerry 10 operating system earlier this month at its BlackBerry World event in Florida. While many have branded the release too little too late, it does have some features that actually look pretty nice.

One of those is its gesture-based predictive text keyboard, which allows you to swipe a single key to input common words. Thanks to one iOS developer, this feature will be available on jailbroken iPhones before it gets its official debut on a BlackBerry 10 handset.

Instacast, undoubtedly the best podcast manager for iOS, got a great update this week that deserves a place in our must-have apps roundup. We’ve also got an impressive voice translation tool that you just have to try, a social weather app that’s more reliable than the weatherman, plus major updates for Pocket and Google+.

This has been a terrific week for gaming for those with an iOS device. Gameloft’s hugely impressive N.O.V.A. 3 leads our roundup having set an incredible standard of mobile FPS games, with stunning visuals and terrific gameplay. We’ve also got a wonderful sequel to Frontier Developments’ LostWinds, an original skateboarding game from Penny Skateboards, and lots more.

Earlier this week, one iPhone Dev-Team member teased a new version of Redsn0w that would allow users to downgrade their A5-powered devices — including the iPhone 4S, the iPad, and the new iPad — to iOS 5.0.1 and above for jailbreaking.

That update is now out and available to download.

During a press conference in Shanghai this week, Foxconn president Terry Gou finally confirmed that the company is making preparations to begin production of the upcoming Apple HDTV. Production is yet to begin, so you may not see the set before Christmas. But Apple certainly plans to bring Steve Jobs’s set to market.

Following Apple’s acquisition of several mapping companies over the years, it has always seemed inevitable that the company would one day wave goodbye to Google Maps in iOS in favor of its own, in-house service. That’s exactly what will happen when iOS 6 makes its debut later this year, according to one report.

Apple is expected to launch its own maps service, which offers an innovative 3D view mode, allowing you to view city stunning cityscapes in all their glory.

When you build a robot or an artificially intelligent machine, there’s always going to be a fear that one day it will turn against you. That’s what Siri has done to Apple today, labeling one of the iPhone’s biggest rivals, the Nokia Lumia 900, the “best smartphone ever.”

During a recent radio interview with ABC Sydney, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak slammed the Cupertino company’s “horrible” prices down under, which force consumers to pay large premiums for its latest devices. Woz’s comments come after several technology giants have come under fire from Australian consumers and its government over price discrimination.

One of my favorite jailbreak tweaks for the iPhone 4S (before I updated to iOS 5.1 and lost my jailbreak) was called Lingual, which enabled Siri to connect to Microsoft’s Bing Translate API and immediately translate words or phrases into a number of different languages.

Thanks to iTranslate Voice, you can now get the same functionality and more for any iPhone from the App Store. This excellent $0.99 app listens to you speak, then quickly translates your sentences into one of 31 languages. It’s super quick and incredibly accurate.

Proview has long been battling with Apple over its use of the “iPad” trademark in China, but the Cupertino company has moved to put an end to the dispute by offering a settlement figure of ¥100 million (around $16 million). The problem is, that sum covers very little of Proview’s massive debt, and the company is demanding a $400 million payout instead.

If your new Apple gadget picks up a fault before its warranty expires, Apple will repair or replace your device for free. No matter how long you’ve had it — whether it’s six months old or just one week — you’ll almost always receive a refurbished model as a replacement.

Unless you live in Korea, where Apple has just introduced the “world’s best” after-sales policy, which will provide customers with brand new devices if theirs become defective within one month.

Foxconn chief executive Terry Gou has confirmed that Apple will use some of its cash to help improve the labor conditions for more than 1 million workers in Foxconn’s Chinese factories, where devices like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod are assembled.

Gameloft has blown us away with its N.O.V.A. 3 teaser trailers over the past few weeks, and today one of the most anticipated iOS games so far this year makes its App Store debut. The series has always been up there with the best first-person shooters for iPhone and iPad, but this release promises to deliver a new benchmark for graphics and gameplay on iOS.

N.O.V.A. 3 could be the best $7 you’ve spent on mobile gaming to date.

Apple could be preparing to kill off OS X Lion early in favor of its predecessor, Mountain Lion, according to the company’s AppleCare training schedule. One source claims that the Cupertino company is already recruiting and training staff for the new release, which could get its debut in June, weeks earlier than expected.

The Notebook Case from CPeel is a plastic keyboard case for the iPad that’s designed to transform your tablet into a mini MacBook for €85 (approx. $111). It adds a full QWERTY keyboard that includes 13 function keys and connects to your iPad via Bluetooth.

But it’s not only its looks that make this case desirable. It also features an integrated 4,000 mAh Lithium-ion battery and a built-in USB port, which allow you to charge almost any device via a USB cable while you’re on the go.

Boom, a terrific utility for Mac OS X that boosts system volume well above Apple’s default limit, is set to receive a new update that promises to deliver all of the features and improvements that Boom users have been asking for. That includes scroll gestures for those running Snow Leopard and Lion, the ability to access functions from the status bar icon, and more.

Before we read any further into these claims, let me just reveal where they came from: DigiTimes. While the site has published a few accurate reports on upcoming Apple products in the past, most of its rumors are worryingly farfetched.

The latest claims sources in Apple’s supply chain have detailed the Cupertino company’s launch plans for 2012, promising three new iOS devices between now and the end of the year. One of those will, as you’d expect, be the sixth-generation iPhone, but before that, we will see a new, 7-inch iPad.

What’s more, that new iPad you just bought will apparently be replaced by an even newer one during the fourth quarter.

If you’ve updated your iOS devices past iOS 5.0.1, then you would have lost your untethered jailbreak. Hackers are working on a solution for Apple’s latest firmware, but it’s expected to be at least several months before it makes its public debut.

Fortunately, there is hope. The upcoming Redsnow release will allow you to downgrade your A5-powered devices — the iPhone 4S, iPad 2, and the new iPad — so that you can reinstate your untethered jailbreak.

Just hours after announcing its acquisition of Penultimate, Evernote has released an update to its iOS app that promises to deliver some major improvements to note taking on the iPhone. It has improved the way in which the app handles attachments and checkboxes, added support for Photo Stream, redesigned the audio recorder, and more.

Apple’s effort to make the future iPhone smaller and thinner has caused it to focus once again on making SIM cards even smaller. The Cupertino company has designed a new “nano-SIM” that is even smaller than the micro-SIM that was introduced with the iPhone 4 back in 2010.

However, rival smartphone vendors like Nokia have publicly voiced their concerns over the new standard, calling it an attempt to devalue its rivals’ intellectual property. Apple has now amended its design slightly to quash some of those concerns, and ETSI is set to case its vote on the design this month.

It’s likely this would be an entirely different story if Steve Jobs was still at Apple’s helm, but the Cupertino company has now agreed to drop a number of its infringement claims against Samsung, roughly cutting the case in half, in a bid to ensure that a trial goes ahead this summer.

Likewise, Samsung has agreed to do the same — dropping five of its 12 complaints  — but both companies continue to bicker over the “copycat products” that have made Samsung the world’s number one smartphone vendor. 

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has handed back $3.25 million of his own salary in a bid to appease shareholders who have been upset by the carrier’s iPhone deal with Apple. Shareholders spoke out against the arrangement when it was discovered that Sprint did not consider the financial effect of carrying the iPhone when it calculated employee bonuses.

PlayForge, the developers behind the popular undead farming sim Zombie Farm, have confirmed that a sequel will make its App Store debut within the coming weeks, bringing plenty of “changes and upgrades.” It’ll also let you transfer all of the progress you’ve already made in Zombie Farm — including your stock of brains — so that you can pick up right where you left off.

We’d usually advise jailbreakers to avoid Apple’s iOS updates just after their release, until hackers have confirmed that the latest software can be jailbroken. But one report claims that it’s perfectly safe to update your A4-powered devices to iOS 5.1.1 without losing your Redsn0w jailbreak.

One of the features iPad users have been consistently calling for since the device made its debut back in 2010 is multi-user support, which would allow families and small businesses to share one device between a group of people who all have their own account, with their own wallpaper, their own apps, and their own settings.

According to one iOS developer who recently contacted Apple about this feature, the Cupertino company is aware of the issue, and it is currently being “investigated by engineering.”