Stock of the Apple TV has been quickly dwindling across Apple retail stores in the U.S. in recent months, fueling speculation that the device will soon be replaced by a new model with the “J33” codename that recently popped up in the company’s iOS 5.1 beta software.
One report claims that 98% of Apple retail stores in the U.S. now have no Apple TV stock at all.
Mass Effect 3 lands on consoles in the U.S. today, but if you prefer to do your gaming on an iOS device, then you should definitely dedicate your evening to Mass Effect Infiltrator. From the makers of Dead Space for iOS, this title is an all-new and original Mass Effect storyline made exclusively for mobile devices, and it promises to “boost your Galactic Readiness Rating within Mass Effect 3.”
So the 25 billionth download from the iOS App Store was none other than Where’s My Water? Free. It brought its owner a shiny $10,000 iTunes gift card and worldwide fame for 15 minutes. But will it bring you anything? The short answer is probably: no.
The consumerization of IT is about more than just a handful of users bringing their own devices into the office. That’s the big take away from the first morning here the CITE Conference in San Francisco. The real story is that movement may have started out with people taking their iPads to work and and checking Twitter throughout the workday, but it has become something much much greater.
At heart, this movement isn’t so much about devices, social networks, or cloud services – it’s about how these technologies have changed the relationship that people have with technology. Apple and other companies have made most people comfortable with technology and shown them an experience of solutions that just work.
Fuzel is another one-dollar photo collage maker for iOS. There are dozens of others, so what marks this one out?
Well actually it’s rather impressive. To start with, it has a lovely natural interface that begins with the faux-textured front cover of a photo album, with your most recent creation poking through a hole. Swipe this aside, and keep swiping through your creations, just as you would with a real album.
Apple is yet to strike a deal with China Mobile over the iPhone, but that hasn’t stopped the Cupertino company from supporting China Mobile customers who want to use its latest smartphone with the carrier unofficially. Just a month after Apple confirmed that the iPhone 4S has issues with China Mobile SIM cards, it has fixed the device to eliminate signal issues.
This simple image has become a cliché in the UK in recent years, and is now much parodied and remixed everywhere you look. Now you can remix it yourself, thanks to a variety of (very similar-looking) apps for iOS.
Take a glance at the App Store Top Paid Apps list and you’ll see that 7 out of 10 are games. So, if you want to CRUSH it with an iOS app…then this iOS game development course may just be your ticket.
Angry Birds, Cut The Rope, Peggle— each one is as unique as they come, but they’re tied together to one simple principle: they’re built using Cocos2D. In this course, expert Cocos2D instructor, Marin Todorov takes a hands-on approach and walks you step-by-step through the process of building a complete game.
Get it while you can, this Cult of Mac Deal is 50% off for a limited time!
We all can’t wait to get our hands on a Retina display-equipped iPad in the coming weeks, and many developers are starting to get their current iPad apps ready for the rumored 2048×1536 resolution.
One developer in particular decided to share and compare Retina display screenshots of his iPad game. The differences between the new and current resolution are pretty stunning.
Yesterday we showed you how to make your own gorgeous pixel art with The Grix. Today we’re looking at pixels again, this time with a clever new photo toy for iOS called pxl, by Rainer Kohlberger.
Today would have been Theodor Seuss Geisel’s 108th birthday. Of course we know him as Dr. Seuss, one of the most revered children’s book authors of all time. Many people and organizations will be celebrating his works today and even Hollywood is doing its part by bringing the classic Thorax (auto-correct fail) The Lorax to life in an amazing looking 3-D CGI film (in theaters today). While his books have entertained and educated children for generations, recent technology has breathed new life into his classics via digital interactive children’s books. Oceanhouse Media, a leader in DICBs, has also joined the celebration by discounting their Dr. Seuss apps on both Android and iOS.
Many pundits have made the argument that the iPad’s days in the business and corporate world will be numbered once Microsoft releases Windows 8 and Windows on ARM (WOA) tablets later this year. The biggest rationale behind this argument is that corporate IT departments will feel much more comfortable deploying and managing Windows devices and that they will already have the skills, tools, and resources needed to setup, secure, and roll out Windows-powered iPad competitors.
That argument lost a lot of credibility this week when Microsoft acknowledged that WOA tablets cannot be managed like other Windows variants including Windows 8 on PCs and x86 tablets or PCs running Windows 7, Vista, or XP. This makes the iPad much more suited for business than Windows on ARM devices.
Unlike most computers, the iPad isn’t designed to be a multi-user device. iOS doesn’t support multiple user accounts or profiles – that essentially means one set of device and application settings along with a personal collection of information like notes, email, browser bookmarks, and stored passwords for different online services. Sharing a device with that much personal data makes it easy for someone to snoop while using another person’s iPhone or iPad or on an iPad that is commonly shared between multiple users.
Passtouch is a web browser for the iPad that’s designed to offer at least some multi-user capabilities as well as to secure web-based information like bookmarks, cookies, and stored passwords. It doesn’t offer whole-device accounts or profiles but it does offer some extra security for devices that are regularly shared.
No one likes to be throttled — just ask Shep Smith — so when AT&T started sending throttling warnings to “unlimited” customers they considered to be the “Top 5%” data hogs, outrage and confusion ensued. After multiple complaints and an online petition, AT&T was forced to clarify their throttling policy and what it means to be in the “Top 5%.”
Camera Awesome is a new all-singing, all-dancing photo app on the iOS Store this week. But just how awesome is it?
Brought to you by photo sharing site SmugMug, the first noticeable thing about this app is the price: it’s free. There are no adverts inside it, you’ll be pleased to hear. But there are quite a lot of extras that can only be unlocked with in-app purchases.
The Grix is a cool new $5 pixel editor for iOS, with wide appeal for serious pixel artists and anyone looking for a creative way of killing a dull moment.
One of the big trends at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has been announcements regarding NFC. While NFC has been supported in a handful of Android phones and BlackBerry models, till now there haven’t been many real-world applications for it. With several announcements around NFC, the technology’s time may be finally be coming.
Despite rumors, Apple has never shown an interest in adopting NFC in the iPhone or iPad. Could Apple’s lack of NFC support could stick out like a sore thumb despite the fact that it managed to upstage every company at MWC with yesterday’s iPad 3 event announcement.
The GSMA has announced the winners of the 17th Annual Global Mobile Awards which took place yesterday at Mobile World Congress. The top mobile products and services were showcased and there was even some entertainment with comedian/songwriter Tim Minchine as the host. Categories ranged from Best Consumer Mobile Service to Best Mobile Innovation for Publishing and while we love hearing about innovative products, it’s really the hardware categories that had us talking.
Ever find yourself alone in your positive review of an app? Maybe you think the price of a mobile game is too high while others think it’s a steal. User satisfaction in the mobile ecosystem is quite a roller coaster of information and emotion. That’s why uTest, a software testing company, decided to crawl hundreds of thousands of apps and user reviews to see just how happy or unhappy users of the top two mobile operating systems were with their app experience. uTest has laid out this information in a nifty little infograph showing user satisfaction across Android and iOS with side-by-comparisons of the two. Check it out and tell us what you think.
Despite RIM’s reassurances to developers at this week’s Mobile World Congress, the mass exodus of its government customers continued as another U.S. federal agency announced that it would ditch BlackBerry in favor of the iPhone. The agency in question is The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which announced that it will be abandoning the BlackBerry and RIM services beginning this month.
As the agency revealed its plans, RIM attempted to cast a softer light on the situation by playing up it’s overall standing with the U.S. government.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 — On the surface of things, Asus’s Eee Pad Transformer Prime is just a wonderfully swell idea. Why have both an ultrabook and tablet when you can have one that is both? What if you could take your iPad, snap it onto a keyboard + trackpad, and have a MacBook Air?
It’s a nice dream, and, in actuality, the Transformer Prime is a beautiful piece of hardware. But the challenges aren’t hardware: they lie in software. And in software, neither Android nor iOS is yet up to the challenge of driving both a mobile and laptop OS. But after Windows 8 sets the bar higher, they both could be.
Apple has been grilled for iOS security problems repeatedly over the last few weeks. Path started the firestorm when it was revealed that the popular iPhone app secretly uploaded a user’s entire address book to its private servers. Despite the fact that Apple is firmly against such practices, many apps continue to take advantage of Apple’s poor guideline enforcement.
The New York Times sounded the bell again earlier today with the revelation that an iOS app can collect your device’s entire Camera Roll (not just the location data) without your permission. A new report claims that Apple has acknowledged the bug and is working to fix it in a future iOS update.
Mobile customers have been waiting for what seems like forever for family shared data. One carrier that’s been slowly working on making it happen is Verizon. Not to long ago we saw leaked training material from Verizon that showed they were gearing up for some sort of family shared data plan. We now have a better idea of when to expect these changes as Verizon’s Communication CFO Fran Shammo spoke about them in an investors meeting yesterday.
I first heard about Launch Center from my old TUAW colleague Dave Caolo when he began writing a series of posts about it on his excellent 52 Tiger blog.
Read what Dave writes, and take careful note of his wise words: Launch Center is an ingenious little marvel that’s well worth having on your iPhone. Allow me to explain why.
Over the last few weeks, third-party iOS developers received a lot of heavy venom from the Internet after reports surfaced that apps are accessing users’ address book information without users’ permission. It appears that the situation is worse than first thought and that apps can access more than just address books without notifying users. Photos on iOS devices are also susceptible to apps once a user has granted an app permission to their location information.