Want to hear something silly? Today Google introduced this odd beta feature called Handwrite that’s supposed to change the way you interact with search on your iPad, iPhone or other mobile devices.
The way it works is that instead of pulling up the Google homepage on your iPhone and typing in your search query, you just draw the words instead. It’s suppose to be a “fun and easy new way to search,” but it’s probably one of Google’s worst concepts and here’s why.
There’s always been a stigma around Apple products that they’re really just made for rich people. Almost all of Apple’s machine’s cost well over $1000, and the iPhone and iPad are two of the most expensive products in their categories.
Some people say only rich people can afford Apple products, and maybe they have a small point. A recent report shows that Apple is the company of choice for users whose net worth is more than $100,000, and it just become more popular the more money you earn.
Earlier this month, we thought Boxcar had given on third-party push notifications for iOS. But it seems that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, the service is about to get a new lease of life after being acquired by Kwaga, the company behind WriteThat.name.
It didn’t take long for OS X Mountain Lion to hit the top of the Mac App Store’s paid chart following its release yesterday, which means Apple shifted a heck of a lot of copies on day one. In fact, it sold so many copies that traffic from the Cupertino company’s servers was up to six times higher than normal.
GarageBand is awesome, we know. But when it comes time to get a little more professional, professionals (and their pro-sumer brethren) choose Logic Pro, now owned by Apple.
If you’ve been using GarageBand on your iPad, of course, you might wonder how to get these files into Logic Pro, so you can add all the professional polish that such a Digital Audio Workstation provides, using the files you perhaps created on the road with your iPad. Or even the ones you created downstairs on your iPad – it’s cool. Because Logic Pro is not available on the iPad, but GarageBand is.
SpellTower, the award-winning word game for iOS, is part of the first wave Mountain Lion-ready games in the Mac App Store today, with Retina graphics and support for Game Center leaderboards and achievements shared with iOS, a Mountain Lion only feature.
SpellTower is a word finding game – click your way through letters set up in a grid, creating words from adjacent letters. The visuals, the sound, and the simple pleasure of finding longer and better words all shine through, making it a joy to play. But how does a game designed for the touchscreen of your iPhone or iPad work on the Mac?
Beyond the numbers, there were some tantalizing tidbits about Apple and the company’s future plans during today’s quarterly financial call. While nothing quite lived up to Tim Cook comparing Windows 8 to someone trying to converge a toaster and a refrigerator into a single device during the last call, there were several choice comments.
If you’ve been watching the App Store, you may have noticed iTranslate Voice, a translation tool that looks a lot like Siri, rise to the top. iTranslate Voice does just what you’d expect: you speak into your phone, and it magically outputs what you’ve said into the language of your choice.
Starting today, iTranslate Voice is now available on the iPad as well.
If you’ve been debating for the past two years whether or not you should finally commit $4.99 to purchasing Rock Band for iOS, the time to act is now my friend, because soon, your beloved guitar shredding game will be gone from the App Store in all its hair metal glory. Due to an expired license agreement with developer Harmonix, EA has notified users that Rock Band for iOS will be removed from the App Store on July 31st.
Okay, so I was being sarcastic about the clever name. Nevertheless, the joint venture announced by Redbox and Verizon back in February has finally given birth to an official name, and that name is Redbox Instant by Verizon. Together, Verizon and Redbox plan on bringing yet another video on-demand streaming and download service to the market. As long as Verizon doesn’t screw it up with pricing, the Redbox kiosk/streaming combo could be a real winner.
The App Store has had its fair share of apps and games that attempt to replicate a hit title that isn’t available on iOS — like the numerous Super Mario clones we’ve seen over the years. But MineKart 64 is a little different. It takes not just one, but two hit titles — Minecraft and Mario Kart — and fuses them together.
It’s literally Minecraft kart racing — what could be more enjoyable than that?
Only it’s not that at all. It’s actually a complete scam that you should avoid at all costs.
I’ve been a Viber user for sometime now, but I’ve always been frustrated with its lack of support for group messaging — something I believe every messaging app should do from day one. Thankfully, this is one of the features introduced in Viber’s latest update, available on Android and iOS today.
Colligo Networks today announced a major revision of its award-winning line of iOS SharePoint clients. SharePoint has become an indispensible tool for many businesses. Having access to SharePoint resources on the iPad has become equally crucial to many mobile professionals.
Colligo Briefcase is designed to provide secure access to SharePoint sites, documents, and resources. The apps in the Colligo Briefcase lineup include core features like the ability capture, view, edit, and share files and list items. They also provide a range of ways to view SharePoint content, support for editing content in other iOS apps, and the ability to print to AirPrint-enabled printers.
Let the games begin. Within minutes of the first Olympic athletes arriving in London for the summer games, Grindr — a geolocation-based dating app primarily geared towards gay men — crashed due to an onslaught of unprecedented demand. Technicians believe that the arrival of the Olympians created a wave of new customers signing up for the service that caused the servers to grind to a halt.
Jumsoft has announced its first pack of Word for Mac templates. Named the Inspiration Set for Word, the pack contains 169 templates for almost any document or project from business stationary to canning jar labels – of them beautifully designed by Jumsoft’s team of professional graphic designers.
Jumsoft has made a name for itself with a range of template collections for iWork and other Apple apps including a collection of templates/themes for iBooks Author and two collections for spicing up emails composed using OS X’s Mail app. The company has also produced two packs of clipart that can be used in virtually application.
Apple’s fight against Russian hacker Alex Borodin, who took advantage of an in-app purchasing exploit to provide users with paid content for free, has paid off. The Cupertino company has developed a fix that will make its debut in iOS 6, which is almost impossible to bypass, according to Borodin.
Kicking off this week’s must-have apps list is a new to-do app called Checkmark, which is being labeled the reminders app Apple should have made. There’s also a great new video sharing service called Vyclone, a unique clock app, and more.
Kicking off this week’s must-have games roundup is Dark Knight Rises, the official game of this year’s biggest blockbuster. You’ll also find the sequal to Fieldrunners, arguably the best tower defense game on iOS; a great cycling simulator; and a humorous title featuring Usian Bolt, the world’s fastest man.
If you were (or still are) the proud owner of a Sega Dreamcast, then you may remember the classic title Jet Set Radio (Jet Grind Radio in North America). Jet Set Radio was hailed as a revolutionary game due to it being one of the first to make prolific use of a rendering technique called cel-shading (allowing for a “cartoon-like” appearance of 3D rendered objects). While these rendering techniques aren’t so revolutionizing today, Jet Set Radio remains a rollerblading, music loving classic, featuring wholesale amounts of spray paint.
The iPhone is the top performer in the mobile ad monetization performance space, according to a new report from Opera Software. It is followed by Android devices, of course, and then a large gap in which the rest of the mobile devices are being left behind.
“The iPhone leads the smartphone OS pack with an average eCPM of $2.85,” writes the company in their first State of Mobile Advertising report. “Though it is closely followed by Android devices (at $2.10). The rest of the mobile phone field is significantly behind.”
Now that Apple is fixing the in-app purchasing exploit that Russian hacker Alexei Borodin brought to light this week, it seems as if he’s at it again. This time, however, it’s an in-app purchasing hack that works in the Mac App Store.
The method here is similar as the one Borodin used in iOS, with the user installing some fake security certificates and then pointing the Mac’s DNS servers at a false server run by Borodin. The remote server then pretends to be the actual Mac Store and verifies the purchase, bypassing the real system for in-app purchases set up by Apple and use by developers of Mac apps. Borodin claims that this system has allowed approximately 8.4 million free purchases so far.
Earlier this week, we reported on the move by Australian airline Qantas to swap out the 1,300 BlackBerries used by its staff (and the related infrastructure) in favor of iPhones. It looks like Qantas is doubling down on Apple and iOS. The airline also announced this week that it will begin offering streaming entertainment on iPads across all the planes in its fleet of Boeing 767 aircraft.
Qantas is launching the new service, which it has dubbed QStreaming, following a successful trial of the service earlier this year.
Do bring your own device (BYOD) programs that allow or encourage users to bring their personal iPhones, iPads, and other devices into the workplace reduce costs or do they drive costs up because of the need for mobile management, training, and technical support?
That fundamental question has been the source of a lot of debate, numerous studies, and a lot of sleepless nights for CIOs and IT managers.
The truth is that this is a question that’s difficult, if not impossible, to answer definitively. There are many variables involved in developing and implementing a BYOD policy or program.
Clueful, from antivirus experts Bitdefender, is a great little app for iOS that tells you which of your apps are accessing your personal data, and exactly what data they may be interested in. We wrote about it back in May when it first hit the App Store, and I liked it so much that I included it in one of my must-have apps roundups.
But it seems Apple wasn’t so keen, because it has now yanked Clueful from the App Store, and no one knows why.
Early last year, Apple applied for a patent which described how they could add a “wild new dynamic screen saver system that could sense the environment it is in and in a chameleon-like fashion automatically change the screen saver.”
Clumsy wording aside, I loved the idea from the get go. Imagine, docking your iPhone at night, only for the screen to perfectly match the decor of your bedroom. Unfortunately, like most of Apple’s patents, there’s no telling when or even if Apple will ever actually roll out such functionality.
Luckily, we don’t need to wait for Cupertino to get off their duffs, because Chameleon Clock is here to turn our iPhones and iPads into chameleons for us.