iOS - page 150

“BOOM!” That’s what Steve Jobs said when he demoed the Slide to Unlock gesture on the iPhone in January of 2007. Whether you’re on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you always have to slide your finger across that slider to get past the Lock screen. It’s become a staple aspect of iOS and Apple’s mobile products.

The United States Patent & Trademark Office granted Apple the patent for Slide to Unlock today. This means that no other company can use the gesture without infringing on Apple’s new patent. Boom.

Tony Fadell is often referred to as the ‘father of the iPod’. He’s a former Apple engineer who helped develop Apple’s first portable music player along with Jeff Robbin, and he’s just announced a new 100-person startup called Nest Labs.

Having been a former DJ and overseeing 18 iterations of the iPod and the three generations of the iPhone, we’ve been keen to find out what Fadell and his company have been working on. But it isn’t a revolutionary new music player or communication device. It’s a thermostat.

While Apple is yet to open its iOS 5 Notification Center up to third-party widgets, developers have been hard at work creating awesome tweaks that can be installed on jailbroken devices. One of the best is a tweak called WeeSpaces, which makes it easier than ever to multitask on an iOS device.

Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus has reportedly left Apple just days after his sophisticated voice-recognition technology made its debut on the iPhone 4S. It was an ‘amicable’ departure, according to sources, that will allow Kittlaus to focus on “new entrepreneurial ideas.”

I’ve got a passcode lock on my iPad 2 so that it cannot be accessed by individuals who weren’t given permission to play with it. However, I also use an Apple Smart Cover, and thanks to a security flaw in the iPad’s iOS software, my passcode lock is now useless, because anyone can use my Smart Cover to gain entry to my iPad.

If you’ve got a bicycle and an iPhone/iPt, here’s a pretty interesting development: iBike, who earlier this year introduced a $200-plus kit that turned the iPhone into a sensor-linked cycling computer, has just released a $70 iPhone cycling package for riders who aren’t Gu-fueled cycling nuts; and it includes what looks like a stellar — and free — cycling app.

Since we posted about AirBeam’s free giveaway (it’s usually $4), developer Heiko Straulino has been busy improving his powerful iDevice surveillance app — and the newest update, released over the weekend, now let’s users stream and record audio as well, and adds an audio detection feature similar in function to motion detection.

Sometimes is seems as though Samsung puts its greatest efforts into causing a ruckus with Apple’s legal team. The Korean electronics giant is already involved in countless legal spats with Apple for allegedly copying the iPhone and iPad, but it continues to closely follow Apple’s products… or just rip them off completely.

It’s USB charger, for example, is an exact replica of Apple’s, only in black instead of white. It recently littered one its retail stores with a bunch of Apple icons for the App Store and Safari. And its latest trick? Using an iPhone screenshot to sell its Galaxy Player 5.0 media device.

The Guardian‘s new iPad app is a triumph. It’s an excellent daily newspaper in tablet form, designed to make the most of the tablet format without over-indulging in it.

I confess: when I first looked at Apple’s new Newsstand app when iOS5 was released last week, I felt nonplussed. There didn’t seem to be any content in the store that I’d want to subscribe to. I became one of the many people who tried to find ways to hide the Newsstand icon altogether.

So, that device that nobody wanted, which looks just like the iPhone 4 with a couple of internal improvements, actually did pretty well for itself during its launch weekend. Apple has just announced that it sold a whopping 4 million iPhone 4S handsets this weekend, which is considerably more than the 1.7 million iPhone 4 units sold during its debut weekend last year.

The past few weeks have seen the passing of a number of computing giants. The world learned this week that Dennis Ritchie, the computer scientist who helped create the UNIX operating system and C programming language, passed away at the age of 70. This software was the progenitor of much of modern computing, including Mac OS X and iOS, and was born (ironically) out of the need to play computer games!

Cloud storage services like Box.net aren’t taking iCloud lightly since on Wednesday they announced a new promotion, which you might find hard to resist considering that Apple’s newly released iCloud only offers users 5GB of free storage.  Box.net is offering 50GB of free online storage for anyone that has a free Box Personal account on any iOS device. Read that again — 10 times the amount of storage that iCloud offers and it is free!

A number of Cult of Mac readers, and many more on Apple’s Discussion boards, have reported problems after trying to upgrade to iOS 5 on Wednesday. A good percentage of the time these updates go well, but they didn’t today. On Friday, we may see problems when people try to upgrade from an existing iPhone to a new iPhone 4S. Therefore, I’ll give you five troubleshooting tips that generally fix most, but not necessarily all iPhone, iPad, iPod touch (aka your iDevices) or iOS problems.

Apple is said to be finalizing deals with major movie studios that will allow the Cupertino company to introduce movie streaming to iCloud for Macs and iOS devices.

Following its unveiling at WWDC back in June, users in the U.S. have been able to enjoy the iTunes in the Cloud beta, which allows them to re-download content purchased from the iTunes Store. Users in other parts of the world were left out, and we were led to believe that iTunes in the Cloud would be U.S.-only upon its launch. Today, however, Apple is rolling out the feature internationally.

We’ve come across some awesome Kickstarter projects for iOS device accessories, and the MobileMount is most certainly up there with the best of them. Its a simple device that uses two suction cups to securely mount your iOS devices — or any device for that matter — to a flat service.

Itching to get iOS 5 onto your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? Yeah, so are we. But according to one man, it won’t arrive until 10 AM PST/6PM GMT.

Following the release of Find My Friends just moments ago, Apple has launched a new AirPort Utility app for iOS devices that allows you to manage your wireless networks.

Rather than complying with Apple’s App Store terms and throwing the Cupertino company 30% of every sale it makes, Audible has launched an iPhone-friendly web app that allows users to add a bookmark to their home screen for quick and easy purchasing.

If you thought untethered jailbreaking was dead, then think again. i0n1c, the jailbreaker behind the iOS 4.3.1, 4.3.2, and 4.3.3 untethered jailbreaks, reports that an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5 is already “covered” — days before the release goes public.

Following the release of the seventh-generation iPod nano earlier this week, iFixit performed its customary teardown to discover that Apple isn’t just producing its own processors for the iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad — but also the iPod nano, too.

Meet Julie Summers. She’s a “street worker” (prostitute) who is dragging her industry into the 21st century. Julie is the first — certainly that I know of — who doesn’t just accept cash, but will also take card using the Square service on her iPhone.

This is it, folks, we’re here: the future. Remember Dave talking to HAL back in Kubrick’s lethargic masterpiece? It’s real.

Just like their older system, Zeo’s new Sleep Manager Mobile tracks your sleep patterns using a transmitter worn on the forehead while sleeping that relays your sleep state to a receiver. Only Zeo’s new gadget transmits the data directly to the iPhone.