This year’s edition of Macworld, taking place January 26-28, is shaping up to be a bit of a departure from Macworlds of the past. 2012 is a year of evolution for the event, now branded as Macworld/iWorld.
And that evolution begins tonight with a blast.
Some of Apple’s stock iPhone apps would work wonderfully on the iPad, such as Clock, Stocks, Weather, and Calculator. But the Cupertino company seems to have no plans to port these apps over to the larger device. After all, I’m sure if it did we’d already have them by now.
But thanks to a new utility for jailbroken iPads called Belfry, you can port them over yourself.
The U.S. government declared the act of jailbreaking legal on July 26, 2010, encouraging hundreds of thousands of iOS users into hacking their devices, safe in the knowledge that their actions would incur no legal repercussions. The ruling certainly had a huge on the jailbreaking community, but the tables could be set to turn once again.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), jailbreaking could become illegal again this year, but you can do your bit to prevent it.
Meet one-eyed Evi, a one-dollar alternative to Siri which works on older (non-4S) iPhones.
She’s had a bit of a rough introduction to life, thanks to a much-hyped launch followed by 24 hours or so of struggling to keep up with demand.
New from Tap Tap Tap is Serenity, a relaxation app for iPhone or iPad.
Relaxation app? What’s one of those? It’s an app for relaxing by; in this case, a digital jukebox of all things peaceful, calm, tranquil, and imperturbable. It plays sounds and moving images to lull you to sleep, or at least to a less troubled state. It’s an anti-alarm clock. Without the clock.
The mobile Safari browser that comes baked into Apple’s iOS devices is quite possibly the best mobile browser there is. But what if you want don’t want to load mobile web pages? What if you want to enjoy websites in their entirety?
Unfortunately mobile Safari doesn’t let you do this, but a free third-party browser called Dolphin does. Here’s how to ditch the mobile web and load full, desktop websites on your iPhone.
The ability to print documents from an iOS device is a feature that many of us find incredibly useful, but Apple’s implementation has its flaws — such as the need for an AirPrint compatible printer. But thank to xPrintServer from Lantronix, you can wirelessly print to almost any networked printer from any iOS device.
Audiobooks.com has today launched the first subscription service to provide unlimited access to thousands of audiobooks streamed directly to your device. The service uses an HTML5 web app and promises to enforce no monthly limits and no long-term commitments.
Thanks to Apple’s free AirPort Utility app for iOS, it’s easy to make simple changes to your Time Capsule and update its firmware without having to use a computer. Here’s how to update your Time Capsule firmware using only your iOS device and the AirPort Utility app.
Following the release of iTunes U for iOS last week, Apple has introduced a new support section to its website that is aimed at students and teachers who are interested in adopting the new app. The support notes cover things like creating new iTunes U courses, creating course podcasts, and marketing your institution’s content.
Designer extraordinaire Jeff Broderick has created yet another tool for enhancing your productivity on your iOS devices. QuickContact is a beautiful web app that allows you to create app icons for quickly initiating calls or messages from your Home screen.
Pixelbit’s Reckless Racing quickly became a hit when it first came to iOS back in October 2010, so it’s no wonder the company has been hard at work on a sequel. Fans of the top-down arcade racer will be pleased to know that Reckless Racing 2 is on its way, and it’ll hit the App Store next week.
Laaaaaaaaaaadies and Gentlemen, welcome to Friday Night Fights, a new series of weekly deathmatches between two no-mercy brawlers who will fight to the death — or at least agree to disagree — about which is better: Apple or Google, iOS or Android?
After this week’s topic, someone’s going to be spitting teeth. Our question: Which is better? Android’s three virtual buttons or iOS’s physical home button?
In one corner, we have the 900 pound gorilla, Cult of Mac; in the opposite corner, wearing the green trunks, we have the plucky upstart, Cult of Android!
Place your bets, gentlemen! This is going be a bloody one.
If you’re a Dropbox user, uploading images to your Dropbox account directly from your iOS devices can be incredibly handy. And with QuickShot ($1.99), it couldn’t easier. Simply link the app to your Dropbox account and images are automatically uploaded as you snap them.
This is great if you often use public computers and you need to upload multiple images, but you don’t want to send them all via email. You can also use the app as alternative to Photo Stream. Sure, Photo Stream’s great, but until Apple allows us to delete our photos individually, it’s not ideal for everyone.
By uploading your images to Dropbox instead, you have access to them on pretty much all of your internet-connected devices. Here’s how to get setup with QuickShot!
I cried like a kindergartener on the first day of school when I watched Water For Elephants. Sure, while I was really sad about the elephant, most of my tears were spilled for Robert Pattinson because he’s so stinking dreamy. Even so, the film opened my eyes to the plight of the big top pachyderm. Compared to me and Robert Pattinson, PETA is about a year late to the scene, but they’ve recently released a new iOS game that gives tortured circus elephants the last laugh while also raising awareness of animal cruelties by raining down horror on humans. Sounds like fun, huh?
Rovio is at it again, this time with an Angry Birds Seasons update to celebrate the Chinese New Year and the beginning of the Year of the Dragon. In this blockbuster franchise update, our favorite angry aviators are allying themselves with the mythical mighty dragon to help thwart the imperial swine from swiping their offspring. This new theme features popping fireworks, glowing lanterns, and red envelopes bursting with money — all in celebration of China’s biggest and longest festival.
It sounds like a plot line straight out of Hollywood: washed-up cell maker teams with down-on-its-luck software giant to overtake a Silicon Valley tech behemoth. But researchers believe 2015 will be the comeback year for Nokia with Microsoft Windows Phone replacing Apple’s iOS as the No. 2 smartphone operating system.
Two of the reasons Apple’s iPhone is yet to adopt LTE connectivity is that existing LTE chips are just too large for the iPhone’s slender form factor, and they eat up so much power your new iPhone 4S wouldn’t even last the six hours that you currently get if it was hooked up to an LTE network.
However, a new Apple patent application reveals that the Cupertino company has already set about revolutionizing its batteries to make them thinner and more efficient — possibly making way for LTE connectivity in the iPhone 5.
Have you ever arrived at the office and realized that report you need for the meeting today is still on your Mac at home? I’m sure that at some point we have all needed access to our home computer while we’re away from home, and it’s actually a lot easier than you might think thanks to the free LogMeIn app for iOS.
Apple’s education event in New York City this morning may see the launch of a new version of the company’s Pages word processor which will feature support for iBooks publishing, and an iBooks application that will allow us to read our favorite titles on our Macs. Furthermore, we could also see the launch of textbook rentals.
While the feature is currently still in beta, Apple is yet to extend Siri support to apps that aren’t already baked into the iOS operating system. But did you know that the company’s own Find My Friends app, which debuted alongside iOS 5 last summer, does include Siri support, allowing you to locate your pals using only your voice?
Here’s you to find your friends using Siri.
Remember the images of Android as unstoppable? Uh, it’s slowing down. Seems someone threw an iPhone 4S on the tracks and derailed the growth of the Google mobile operating system among new smartphone buyers. After the iPhone 4S’ October release, Android’s popularity with new phone buyers dropped from 61.1 percent to 46.9 percent.
I’m lucky: the real Stonehenge is only about 40 minutes’ drive from my front door, so I can go and visit whenever I like. For students of prehistoric monuments who live further afield, the Stonehenge Experience app for iPad offers a tiny glimpse of what this ancient English stone circle is all about.
If you need information from Wikipedia, you’d best get it very quickly; in just a few hours, at 9 P.M. PST (5:00 UTC for our European readers), a coalition of sites across the web — including Wikipedia’s English site, Boing Boing and Reddit — will go dark for a day, displaying this page instead of their usual home pages.
Those who are trawling through the source code of Apple’s latest iOS 5.1 beta have discovered references to the company’s upcoming iPad 3, and more interestingly, hints that Facebook integration could be making its way to iOS to accompany Twitter.