When T-Mobile sent out an email to BlackBerry-using customers suggesting that they switch to an iPhone 5s, the response from the BB faithful was loud and angry.
Even BlackBerry CEO John Chen said that he was “outraged” by T-Mobile’s behavior.
As a make-good, the network operator has now said that it will offer any customer who wants to upgrade to a new device $250 for a BlackBerry phone — or $200 for any other smartphone, including the iPhone.
Everyone loves mini golf, but how do you make mini golf even better? By adding robots, of course. And by having it take place in outer space.
Helping Orbit the Robot and his ladyfriend Tess find their way home, Astro Golf players must participate in a variety of space-themed mini golf challenges — involving dodging black holes and avoiding a plethora of spaceship-related impediments.
During an Ubuntu Town Hall Hangout on Wednesday, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth made some interesting comments regarding Apple’s sapphire displays.
“Apple just snapped up three year’s worth of the supply of sapphire screens from the company that we had engaged to make the screens for the [Ubuntu] Edge [smartphone],” he said.
For those unfamiliar with it, the Ubuntu Edge was a proposed “high concept” smartphone announced by Canonical on 22 July 2013. Canonical was seeking to crowdfund a production run of 40,000 units through Indiegogo, but the project was scrapped when fundraising was able to only raise $12,809,906 out of the $32 million goal needed to kickstart the project.
Interactive map app WunderMap has received a new update, adding universal support (the app was previously designed for iPad only), as well as other neat touches.
These include a full-screen map view, accessible by swiping upwards on the top bar; a completely redesigned display for current conditions, forecasts, and alerts; a simplified interface which combines layer groups and layers to better control what you want to see on your WunderMap; and the ability to “share your weather with your mom” via webcam.
In addition, WunderMap has received a new app icon, and vastly improved performance and memory usage.
We might be no closer to getting classic Nintendo games on iOS, but independent developer Riley Testut yesterday released the long-awaited 2.0 update to his slick Game Boy emulator, GBA4iOS.
Supporting Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, and original Game Boy games, GBA4iOS is the most straightforward and best-looking way to bring nostalgic Nintendo action to iOS 7 — and you don’t even need to jailbreak your iOS device to use it.
All that is required is to open up Testut’s dedicated GBA4iOS website — which greets users with the Apple-esque message, “Game Boy Advance, meet iOS. Again.” From there, simply tap “download” and you’ll be tracking wild Pokemon, or leaping on mushrooms with Mario, in no time.
Most endless running games are the definition of pick-and-up-play affairs: sometimes with more depth than you’d expect, but also games that will immediately graspable by the most casual of audiences.
An endless runner in an airplane (an endless flyer?) Any Landing is a bit different. Taking its name from the old saying about any landing you can walk away from being a good one, Any Landing will most appeal to a more hardcore game audience — the kind of people who will invest a few hours in mastering control mechanics.
Tales from the Borderlands developers Telltale Games and Gearbox Software will reveal the first details about their forthcoming game during a panel at the SXSW Gaming Expo, Telltale revealed today.
The award-winning studios will describe how they first came to work together on the eagerly-anticipated project, how the game might unfold, and (hopefully) plenty of other juicy details.
The Rumor: Samsung is hard at work trying to copy Apple's Sapphire glass display on the unannounced iPhone 6.
The Verdict: This is an early nominee for least surprising rumor of the year ETNews cites industry sources with inside knowledge on Samsung's meetings with manufactures, but we could've called it as soon we saw the Gold S5 with a fingerprint scanner. Or their Smart Case. Or their Chromebox. Or... you get the point.
Sapphire glass was in the news again today, thanks to a jump in the share price of GT Advanced Technologies Inc. — the company which will reportedly manufacture the iPhone 6’s sapphire display.
With contrasting reports about sapphire’s advantages over Gorilla Glass, along with counter-reports from Gorilla Glass maker Corning, we figured the time was right to break down some of the questions about Apple’s latest wonder-material.
According to numbers from analyst firm IDC, Apple is now the fifth-largest cellphone maker in China, with 7% of the overall market share.
Apple jumped an entire 1 percent in the last quarter of 2013, based on the success of the iPhone 5s and 5c. This doesn’t take into account the impact of Apple’s deal with China Mobile, which began selling handsets to customers this January.
The International Game Developers Association has issued a statement opposing King’s recent Candy Crush Saga trademark filing — in which the game developer claimed ownership of the words “candy” and “saga” across all gaming platforms.
Calling the move “predatory,” the group plans to use its Business and Legal Special Interest Group to investigate the filing, which was recently approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The Rumor: Samsung is hard at work trying to copy Apple's Sapphire glass display on the unannounced iPhone 6.
The Verdict: This is an early nominee for least surprising rumor of the year ETNews cites industry sources with inside knowledge on Samsung's meetings with manufactures, but we could've called it as soon we saw the Gold S5 with a fingerprint scanner. Or their Smart Case. Or their Chromebox. Or... you get the point.
GT Advanced Technologies Inc. shares received a nice boost on Tuesday, on the back of reports that Apple will use the company’s sapphire glass for its next generation iPhone cover.
GT shares posted a new 52-week high of $12.72, while analysts at Canaccord Genuity also raised their price targets on the company from $13 to $15.
Apple maintains its position as the world’s most valuable brand for the third year in a row, according to this year’s Brand Finance Global 500 study.
After Apple, the other positions in the Top 10 were filled out by Samsung, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, General Electric, AT&T, Amazon, Walmart, and IBM.
“What sets [Apple] apart is its ability to monetize [its] brand,” Brand Finance CEO David Haigh said in a statement. “For example, though tablets were in use before the iPad, it was the application of the Apple brand to the concept that captured the public imagination and allowed it to take off as a commercial reality.”
When Google Translate received its post iOS 7 update last September it was missing one important feature: the iOS 7 keyboard.
That has been amended in the free translation app’s latest update, which builds on the streamlined and modern look and feel of the previous update, but also adds an iOS 7-optimized keyboard and status bar.
Apple has launched the second story on its new Your Verse microsite.
The campaign — which focuses on showing the iPad in unexpected real world situations — this time chronicles the work of mountaineers Adrian Ballinger and Emily Harrington, who take the iPad with them on their extraordinary climbs.
Ballinger and Harrington use the iPad — along with the Gaia GPS topography app — to plan and navigate their ascent, while also using the device’s access to social networking tools to post photos and progress updates during various junctures of the journey.
A new Apple patent, published Tuesday, reveals how future Apple earbuds and headphones might incorporate health-monitoring features.
The patent shows how a monitoring system could be cleverly built into Apple earphones, and used to track activity such as speed and distance traveled during exercise. The device would also be able to sense other biometric data relating to metrics body temperature, perspiration rate, and heart rate.
First unveiled in November last year, the newly-released Second Chance Heroes gives gamers the chance to take part in an epic, arcade-style coop action-adventure in which you save a world overrun by werewolves, zombies, and sentient cheeseburgers.
DoubleTwist — the company behind the AirSync tool which allows users to wireless sync their iTunes data — has released a new Mac app, letting users rip songs directly from iTunes Radio.
Called AirPlay Recorder, the app basically tricks iTunes into thinking that it’s an AirPlay device, so that it will stream music. It then records that audio for later offline playback.
San Francisco artist Jason Mecier has just unveiled a new portrait of Steve Jobs, composed entirely out of e-waste.
Created using 20lbs of electronic waste — including cell phones, iPods, headphones, Mac keyboards, CD-Rs, batteries, mice, and memory sticks — Mecier’s portrait is a meticulous recreation of the iconic 2006 Albert Watson photo of Jobs originally commissioned by Fortune magazine.
The original image was most famously used for the hardcover jacket of Walter Isaacson’s 2011 Steve Jobs biography.
As with all classic games, the question about EA’s Tetris for iOS doesn’t have anything to do with whether the core concept is a good one or not (we know that it is), but rather how well the developers have translated it to the world of multi-touch.
If you’re a long-time Tetris fan and former Game Boy owner, chances are you’ll have fond memories of Alexey Pajitnov’s classic puzzle game on mobile. The good news, then, is that at its best EA’s Tetris is every bit as revolutionary and addictive as that game was when you first played it.
UPDATE: Shortly after posting this news item, Ive’s photo appeared back on the U.S. Executives Profiles page.
In a strange move, Jony Ive’s picture has vanished from Apple’s online list of executives – although his profile page is still accessible to users who type in the address.
While it would be a massive mistake to jump to conclusions, this change has previously signaled the departure of an Apple Senior VP — as it did when former iOS head Scott Forstall left the company in 2012.
Musical video sharing app Mindie has received a significant new update.
Similar to (non-musical app) Vine, Mindie lets users select a backing track, and then record and share a looping music video of up to 7 seconds.
Apple opened its first store in Brazil over the weekend — with around 1,700 impatient South American Apple lining up to be the first through the doors.
The Apple Store, located in Rio de Janeiro, holds the (dubious) distinction of offering the highest priced iPhone 5s currently available on the market. The 16-gigabyte, contract-free model is selling for 2,799 Brazilian reals — a figure that translates as $1,174.
Successor to Steve Jobs, BFF of Steve Wozniak, and all-around “creative genius” Kanye West had some harsh words for Tim Cook over the weekend.
Speaking/singing on stage at a Saturday night show in Newark, NJ, West blasted the Apple CEO for allegedly asking him to perform for free at an Apple event.
Apple is reportedly looking into developing a device capable of predicting heart attacks.
The medical sensor device — possibly a feature for the long-reported iWatch, if previous rumors are to be believed — would listen to the sound blood makes as it flows through arteries, and use this to predict irregularities.
Chalk it up to the state of modern life if you want — where we’re much more comfortable looking at an iPhone screen than building fires and hunting wild animals — but there’s something undeniably manly about the idea of cleaning your iMac with something called a Screen Cleaning Blade.
Okay, so things get less rugged individualist when you hear that this is a scented, anti-bacterial Screen Cleaning Blade, and still less so when you hear that it features a “vibrant satin finish” — but, hey, at least it’s something, right? Coming packaged with another cleaner designed for your keyboard (the Keyboard Blade?), these two handy gadgets promise to keep your Apple products looking as shiny as the day you first unboxed them.
So do they live up to their word?