Research giant Gartner had a quick lesson for Apple: don’t let off the iPhone accelerator — if you do, you’ll pay. The latest price for delaying until October its new smartphone: iOS dipped to 15 percent of sales while Android-based handsets skyrocketed to 52.5 percent of the market.
Adding to their now dizzying array of cloud-in-box hardware and desktop app that turns your Mac into a cloud server, Pogoplug has just unveiled a web-based cloud service that can be used as a standalone media storage option, and either accessed through a web browser, or through the desktop or Universal iOS app. And just like Apple did with iCloud, they’re giving the first five gigs away for free.
When you first hear about it, Blueprint 3D doesn’t sound like it could be a compelling iOS puzzle game – but it is.
The premise couldn’t be simpler. Each level shows you the blueprint image of an object, exploded in 3D so that the object itself isn’t immediately obvious. Your task is to move the exploded view around until its identity is revealed. That’s it.
The man behind the popular iA Writer app, Oliver Reichenstein, has posted some interesting observations on the App Store ecosystem. In a Google+ post titled “Revenue = X,” the founder of Information Architects explains how his decision to drop the price of iA Writer on the Mac and iPad has resulted in a way to “increase exposure without affecting profit.”
Dropping iA Writer’s price has resulted in more purchases than expected, and Oliver’s profits have largely stayed the same since he made his app cheaper.
I fell in love with Super Mario Bros. when my parents bought me a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) for Christmas as a young boy, and I’ve been obsessed with Super Mario games ever since. There’s nothing that would please me more than having the chunky plumber in my pocket on my iPhone. But since Nintendo refuses to bring its titles to iOS, we’re forced to play the alternatives.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The absence of Super Mario has spawned a number of terrific platforming alternatives that are just as enjoyable. I’ve been enjoying a number of them over the years, and thought it was about time I shared the best of the bunch.
Two weeks late, Apple’s match-and-mirror music in the cloud service iTunes Match has finally launched while retaining its beta status. In the meantime, iTunes 10.5.1 for both Windows and Mac has been released, so get downloading if you intend on using iTunes Match.
On Mac, the iTunes 10.5.1 update is 102MB, and is available now on the official iTunes homepage or through Software Update.
iTunes Match is Apple’s much anticipated cloud music service. For $24.99 a year, users can match any of the songs on their hard drive into the cloud to be redownloadable on any iOS or Mac device in 256Kbps AAC CD quality, even if their original track was of much lower quality.
iTunes Match is launching as a beta service. However, for subscribing to iTunes Match Beta, we hear you get 15 months of service instead of just 12. Not a bad deal, but be warned that Apple will delete your iTunes Match library at the end of the beta, meaning you’ll have to go through the matching process all over again.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve found that Apple has been having problems getting iTunes Match’s mirroring service to work reliably. We’ll report back and let you know if they’ve worked out the kinks.
One of the advantages to jailbreaking the iPhone — at least for me — is the ability to add shortcuts to your home screen that will quickly adjust your device’s settings. There are a number of tweaks that allow you to change your brightness; and toggle 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Airplane mode, and more.
It’s not so easy if you’re device isn’t jailbroken, but a new app called IconProject changes that — for just $0.99.
A trademark feature at Apple retail stores all over the world is the Genius Bar. Operated by a group of Apple experts, the Genius Bar allows any Mac or iOS device owner to take their device to their nearest Apple store and get technical help, repairs, or replacements.
Along with Apple experts, the Genius Bar sports a line of MacBook Pros which Apple staff use to diagnose problems, order parts for repairs, check the status of your product’s warranty, and more. In this “post-PC” era, however, those MacBook Pros are set to be replaced by the iPad.
Since the announcement of Siri with the iPhone 4S, countless OS X users have been wondering if Siri will eventually makes it’s way to the Mac. Well, you may not know it, but OS X actually includes a Speech Recognition system called Speakable Items, which is very similar to Siri in many ways. In this video, I’ll show you how to set it up, as well as how to tweak Speakable Items to your liking.
First there were posts, then tweets. Now we’ve got a new word to use as a method for sharing bits of ourselves: the cling.
You know about Activity Monitor for your Mac, right? How would you like to have an Activity Monitor for your iPhone too? Something like Activity Monitor Touch might do the trick.
Following a firmware update for its MacBook Pro yesterday, Apple has issued a new firmware update for its AirPort Extreme Base Station and Time Capsule devices, which fixes a number of issues, including a problem with audio streaming through AirPlay.
Wow. Between Twitter for iPhone, the iOS 5 camera app and Instagram, a huge 40% of all pictures shared on Twitter actually originate from iOS. In fact, it could be more, since other Twitter clients are not broken down by platform.
No wonder Twitter struck a deal with Apple to integrate their micro-blogging service into iOS 5. If all of the iPhones suddenly disappeared from Earth in some sort of Cellular Rapture, Twitter would lose a devastating chunk of their user base!
[via The Next Web]
A Hulu Plus application seems like the perfect addition to Apple’s $99 set-top box. While the device already comes packing a native Netflix app, the only way users can access current TV shows is by using the iTunes Store. According to some sources, however, a Hulu Plus app is ready to go, but Apple may not release it.
It seems that panoramic camera feature isn’t the only thing Apple is hiding inside its latest iOS 5 software. There’s also an autocorrect keyboard feature just like that found on Android devices, which suggests words as you type making it quicker and easier than ever to type on an iOS device.
Ever faced with one of those situations where you need to give out your phone number, but you feel a bit iffy about doing it? RingShuffle is a free app that’s ideal to have on your iPhone for exactly those occasions.
Although the iPhone 4S might be dismissed as nothing but a spec bump phone, it does have one distinctive advantage over every other smartphone out there: Siri. Anyone who wants to compete with the iPhone 4S (and, presumably, the future iPad 3) will have to come up with their own answer to Siri, or be lost.
Well, what do you know. The hunt by Apple’s competition to find small voice recognition startups and absorb them has already begun with the revelation that Amazon has already picked up a company in the hopes of launching their own would-be Siri-like speech recognition service.
Siri is undoubtedly one of the biggest selling points for Apple’s new iPhone 4S, so it’s understandable every iOS user wants to see it on their older devices. But despite a report that claimed the Cupertino company is working on Siri for the iPhone 4, it has confirmed it currently has no plans to bring Siri to older devices.
Apple has hidden a field test app in iOS, which will allow you to quickly check the quality of your cellular signal by simply dialing a special code on your iPhone.
We told you a couple of hours ago about security guru Charlie Miller’s new iOS vulnerability that allows an approved App Store app to run unsigned code remotely. Miller has been hacking Apple’s products for years, and this most recent bug is a particularly nefarious exploit that could be used for all kinds of evil purposes.
Charlie Miller is one of the good guys, however, and he is planning to show his cards at the SysCan conference in Taiwan next week. The ends don’t always justify the means in this case, as Apple has now kicked Miller out of the App Store and iOS Developer Program.
When it comes to Mac hacking, there are few security experts more dangerous than Charlie Miller, who can hack a Mac in mere seconds. Luckily, Miller only uses his hacking powers for the forces of good, so his hacks often lead to more secure systems for you and me.
Let’s hope that’s the case for the latest vulnerability Miller identified for the iOS platform. He has discovered a huge bug in iOS that allows malicious devs to write innocuous looking apps that slip by the App Store review process, only to phone home to a remote computer and repurpose all of iOS’s normal functions for malicious ends.
Smule’s been racking up the hits with apps like Ocarina and I Am T-Pain. Their latest is called MadPad, and like the others, it’s well-polished, cooler than an arctic popsicle and impossible to put down. And today, it’s free.
Hackers have been hard at work attempting to port Apple’s new Siri assistant to older devices, but according to one report, their efforts may be wasted, because Apple is doing the same thing. The Cupertino company has reportedly issued a “special build” of iOS 5 to its staff, which introduces Siri to the iPhone 4 for testing.
When Apple seeded its first iOS 5 beta to registered developers back in June, it was discovered the company’s next-generation mobile platform eliminated untethered jailbreaking and meant that hackers must connect their device to their computer every time they wanted to boot it up if they hoped to maintain their jailbreak.
Since then, however, reports surrounding an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5 have surfaced. The latest glimmer of hope comes from the Chronic Dev Team member Pod2g, who claims to have discovered a bug in the latest iOS 5 software that could lead to an untethered jailbreak.
