Luke Dormehl - page 298

Although we’ve heard vague reports about it, all’s been quiet on the Cupertino front about Apple’s plans to relaunch its Beats Music streaming service later this year — possibly as early as February.

Today another piece of the puzzle may have fallen into place, however, with the news that Apple has acquired U.K. startup Semetric, which runs the Musicmetric analytics tool, designed to allow music labels to track sales, BitTorrent, YouTube, Spotify and social-networking data for their artists.

Now that Google has pulled Glass off the market, for the time being at least, we’re left with a handful of questions that can’t be easily answered — even by a face-mounted computer.

Questions like, “What went wrong?” And, “What didn’t go wrong?” And, perhaps most enlightening of all, “How would Apple have gotten Glass right?”

While Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior VP of worldwide marketing, was not a fan of Glass, we’re certain Cupertino could have found success with a head-mounted wearable. Here’s how.

Steve Jobs famously didn’t let his kids use an iPad, because he wanted them to avoid getting sucked into a netherworld of endless screens, without real-world engagement. It’s a feeling even the most tech-loving of parents likely knows — and it’s the inspiration behind a new project from MIT graduate Adam Kumpf.

I wrote about Kumpf’s clothespin iPad piano a few months back, and I’m fascinated by his concept for what he calls an iPad inventor’s kit. Essentially it’s a shoebox of easy-to-find household objects that, when paired with the right app, can help kids invent futuristic iPad gadgets — while also teaching them about the fundamental concepts of mechanical systems, physics, basic electronics, interface design and engineering.

Best of all, you can put it together yourself free of charge, thanks to Instructables.

Apple is already testing iOS 9, but in the meantime iOS 8 adoption continues to grow — although it’s starting to slow down.

According to Apple’s latest stats, 69 percent of active iOS devices are now using the latest version of the company’s mobile OS; up just 1 percent from January 5, when Apple last shared iOS 8 adoption stats. By comparison, 28 percent of users are still working on iOS 7, with a minuscule 3 percent using assorted earlier iterations.

Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time isn’t just a popular kids’ show, it presents one of the richest and most surreal animated landscapes I can remember seeing on a TV show.

In other words, it’s perfect for sparking and unlocking young people’s imagination and creativity.

That’s the concept behind the newly-launched Adventure Time Game Wizard, which lets you use your iOS device and a few sheets of paper to draw and play your own video game levels. And much like Adventure Time itself, it’s really quite addictive.

We’ve all seen YouTube videos like the above, showing a time-lapse of a person’s changing face over time. If you’re anything like me, you’ve momentarily thought about how interesting it would be to create a similar video for yourself, just to see how much your features alter from month-to-month, or year-to-year — only to drop the idea because you realize you’ll never remember to take selfies every single day.

Well, Grzegorz Aksamit’s suitably-titled Selfie App can help you, since it will automatically trigger your MacBook’s built-in iSight camera every time you lift the notebook’s lid, or wake your iMac up from its slumber. Useful, huh?

The iPhone recently celebrated its eighth birthday, and what better way to mark the occasion than with a mesmerizing animated GIF — showing the evolution of Apple’s mobile handset from the revolutionary but (now) small and slightly bulky device Steve Jobs unveiled in 2007, to the landmark iPhone 6 which racked up more than 10 million sales in its first weekend alone?

If you’re a long-time iPhone fan, or a relatively new user, it’s an astounding glimpse at just how far we’ve come in just a handful of iPhone iterations. To paraphrase The Simpsons, it’s hypnotic… almost like watching a lava lamp.

From gorgeous new architectural concepts, to its most ambitious retail store opening plan in years, Apple certainly isn’t slacking off when it comes to its continued expansion into China: a market that Tim Cook has said will one day be Apple’s largest of anywhere in the world, including the U.S.

Ahead of opening its latest brick-and-mortar retail store at West Lake in Hangzhou this Saturday, Apple has added a new video to its Chinese webpage — showing famous calligrapher Wang Dongling creating an astonishing mural for the store.

It’s a great nod to Chinese tradition, while also managing to be quintessentially Apple in spirit.

From its outspoken CEO with his unabashed Apple love, to the company’s insistence on trying unorthodox strategies to hook customers, there’s plenty to like about T-Mobile. Plenty to like, that is, unless you work on the business side of things.

In a new interview, Timotheus Höttges, CEO of T-Mobile’s parent company Deutsche Telekom, says that while he loves the carrier’s “super-maverick” approach to the mobile business, it’s just not sustainable in the long term.

The forthcoming Apple Watch may be Apple’s first tentative steps into the wearables market, but it’s not the company’s first attempt at a timepiece — as YouTube user Jonathan Morrison shows in a new video.

You see, back in 1995, when Apple was still reeling from the damaging blow that was Windows 95, the company produced a limited collection of custom-made wristwatches to reward users who upgraded to Mac OS System 7.5. And despite its slightly Saved By The Bell appearance, it was actually pretty neat.

Check out Morrison’s video after the jump.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and to mark the occasion Apple has changed the image on its homepage to one commemorating the beloved civil rights activist and pastor.

The black-and-white image is accompanied by a line reading, “Today we reflect on the life and vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the work that continues in service of the broader concerns of humanity.”

Apple has long been outspoken about the measures it goes to to keep your iPhone secure, but new documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden demonstrate how the British spy agency GCHQ was able to carry out “realtime tracking of target iPhones” — by compromising users’ computers.

Rather than directly targeting the iPhones, GCHQ agents focused their attack on the computers with which the iPhones were synchronised, enabling them to access much of the data stored on the handset. The method took advantage of flaws in Apple’s UDID (unique device identifier) system, which issued a unique code for every iPhone, linking it with its owner.

The iPhone tracking report was handed over by Snowden to a group of nine journalists — including Laura Poitras, the filmmaker behind the acclaimed documentary Citizenfour.

You know that scene in a horror movie where everything seems to be good, but things are just a bit too quiet?

Well, according to analyst Abhey Lamba of Mizuho Securities, Apple is there right now. With the company coming off its most profitable iPhone launch ever, exciting new devices on the horizon and a stock price that recently hit an all-time high, what else is there for the self-respecting analyst to do but predict that doom is right around the corner?

What is the metaphorical monster ready to leap out of a cupboard and savage Apple to bloody death, so soon after it hits its glorious peak? Why, the Apple Watch of course.

And according to Lamba, it could cost Apple big.

Be it John Mayer or U2, Apple’s always been a brand that’s both embraced — and been embraced by — the music world. Which is why it’s interesting to hear a legendary musician, in the form of Pink Floyd member Nick Mason, saying possibly the worst thing a creative person can say about it: that it’s passé.

Mason is talking specifically about Apple’s iTunes service, which has been on the decline for several years now, as we have seen the rise of streaming services like Spotify. Interviewed by GQ magazine, Mason’s comments offer a glimpse at how a section of the music world views Apple — and why it needs to change before its too late.

It’s been a long hard slog for all involved but the 64,000-person class action anti-poaching lawsuit brought against four major tech companies, including Apple, is finally over.

The companies — which also included Google, Intel, and Adobe — reportedly agreed to pay a total of $415 million for their misdeeds.

Whether it’s fuzzy, Polaroid-style filters on Instagram or iPhone speakers disguised to look like cassette players, there’s a fascinating retro streak that runs through high tech — something that should, by rights, be as modern as it gets.

With that in mind, developers Mint Digital have come up with an intriguingly counter-intuitive app concept, which may be either genius or the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard. In an age where we can snap and view as many photos as our iPhones will store, Mint Digital’s WhiteAlbum app wants to change that, in effect turning your expensive iPhone into the equivalent of a cheap disposable camera.

You get to take just 24 photos, and you are unable to see these until the first time they arrive at your door, printed on real photo paper, at $20 per album, with free worldwide shipping.

I’ve written on numerous occasions before about how we’re currently living through a golden age of iOS games, and apparently Apple agrees with me.

According to a new patent application published today, Apple may be investigating the possibility of building in a miniature joystick inside the Home button of future iOS devices.

Read on to find out how it could work.

Want to see something neat to start off your day? How about a Siri RSS reader?

RSS readers, as most readers will be aware, are great at aggregating news headlines from a variety of different websites that get updated throughout the day. While they’re useful tools, they’re less than ideal for blind or partially sighted users, however.

With that in mind, one blind Redditor recently announced that they were posting a $1,000 bounty for any developer who could create a jailbreak tweak capable of not only keeping track of RSS feeds, but also getting Siri to read them out loud.

Although high-end smartphones can boast anything up to 4GB RAM these days, the iPhone has been stuck on 1GB ever since the iPhone 5. This hasn’t really been much of a problem, because iOS is so efficient that developers have been able to continue making apps and games superior to most things on Android, while sticking within the 1GB limit.

This may be about to change, however, according to a new report circulating in the Taiwanese media, which suggests that Apple plans to boost up its iPhone to 2GB of LPDDR4 memory for its forthcoming iPhone 6s, which will likely arrive this September.

I’ve been a huge fan of The Sims franchise since I first laid my hands on the original version back in 2000. Since then, I’ve played every major version, a large number of the expansion packs, and the freemium version for iOS… but never The Sims 4.

That’s because despite having been launched on PC back in September last year, the fourth incarnation of the popular people simulator has yet to make it onto Mac.

Fortunately that’s about to change, since The Sims 4 developers have finally announced that a Mac version of the game is coming next month. Here’s what we know about it so far:

A brilliant white lightning bolt strikes the Eiffel Tower in Paris. In Venice, Italy, a whale splashes joyfully through a street system made up of canals. In New York, an elephant is lifted high into the sky by a mass of colored helium balloons.

These may sound like the most fanciful of cheese dreams, but they are, in fact, the work of a fantastic artist double-act: German-born Robert Jahns and his iPhone.

Using his iPhone to assemble his surreal masterpieces, and then posting the resulting pictures to Instagram under the name nois7, Jahns is taking the art world by storm. And like many contemporary artists, he couldn’t have done it without his trusty Apple device.

The whole Bendgate incident prompted Apple to release some details about its own internal stress-testing policies for new iPhones. It’s unlikely that anyone at Cupertino carries out iPhone stress-testing quite to the degree of YouTube user TechRax, however.

Masquerading as a tech channel, Ukrainian YouTuber TechRax is really just using that an excuse to destroy the latest must-have gadgets. This week, he turned his attention to the iPhone 6 — a device that has previously had its endurance tested by him in boiling Coca-Cola, deep snow, under the treads of a tank — and a variety of other scenarios that, frankly, are unlikely to befall your precious smartphone.

In TechRax’s latest “experiment” he sets on the gold iPhone 6 with a DeWalt angle grinder. The results are… well, largely what you’d expect. You can check out the video after the jump.

In their efforts to trigger mass market adoption, most food-tracking apps and tools go out of the way to be nice to you. After all, who wants an app which publicly shames you for gorging on unhealthy food — or choosing a greasy takeout over five sticks of carrot and a crouton?

Try telling that to the creator of CARROT Hunger, an hilarious new smart calorie counter which rewards you for healthy eating — and brutally punishes you for overindulging.

Ericsson’s former CEO has gone on the record as saying his company should have taken the iPhone more seriously when it arrived back in 2007. Today, everyone takes the iPhone seriously — and there are the lawsuits to prove it.

In the latest of these, Apple and Ericsson are suing each other after failing to come to an agreement about the pricing of Ericsson-owned patents used by Apple.

Apple is claiming Ericsson is chasing excessive royalty rates, while Ericsson is holding out for more cash.

And when you’re talking about a handset like the iPhone 6, which sold upwards of 10 million units in its first weekend, who can blame it for trying?