iOS - page 77

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Last year, I gave my friend Rachel — a NYC singer/songwriter/comedian with an impressive array of musical proficiencies — my old iPad 2 as a gift. It was her first tablet, or even touchscreen device. I worried she wouldn’t know what to do with it, so when she opened the box and gave me an inquisitive cock of the eyebrow, I told her that the very first thing she needed to do with it was install Garage Band.

To this day, I think it was Garage Band that is the real gift to Rachel, not the actual iPad. Using Garage Band, she can quickly jot out a song idea on the road, or even fully record a fantastic mix, all from a device small enough to fit in her purse. There’s only one trade-off: you have to use the touchscreen. There’s no physical instrument as portable as the iPad to take on the road with you.

That’s where the Jamstik comes in. A product so new and in-concept it doesn’t even have a distributor yet, it’s one of our favorite products of CES. It’s a tiny, ukelele-sized guitar with real strings that connects to your iPad over WiFi, and not only can you use it to record or even perform with your iPad, but it can also teach you how to play the guitar… or serve for an impromptu game of Guitar Hero.

ZeptoLab released Pudding Monsters, its first iOS title since its success with Cut the Rope, back in December. But it hasn’t finished its original physics-based puzzler just yet. The company just released an update on iOS that introduces a brand new box of content with 25 new levels.

Angry Birds Space for Android and iOS has today received yet another big update, introducing a brand new galaxy with 30 new levels. It’s called Splash, and every planet is filled with water, strange aquatic life, and pigs in boats. The update also promises the “ultimate under water boss level.”

Amazon has today launched a new music service called AutoRip, which offers customers a free MP3 version of every album they’ve bought on CD from Amazon since 1998. The service currently boasts more than 50,000 digital albums from all the major record labels, and Amazon insists that new titles are added on a regular basis.

We’ve been itching to get our hands on the Pebble smartwatch since it first hit Kickstarter, but that wait will be over later this month. At CES in Las Vegas today, Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky announced that the device has now entered mass production, and that shipping will begin on January 23.

Here’s a new free puzzle game for young and old alike. It’s called Quento, and it’s colorful, addictive, and more difficult than it looks.

A day after AT&T announced its “best-ever” quarter for smartphone sales, rival operator Verizon Wireless is doing exactly the same thing. The carrier has announced that it expects to have reached a record 9.8 million sales during the fourth quarter of 2012, and it’s attributing that success to the popularity of the iPhone.

If you’re into iOS but don’t know how to turn that passion into revenue, then the latest Cult of Mac Deals offer will be just what the doctor ordered. With The Master iOS Programming Course, you’ll be able to turn your iOS passion into a new lucrative hobby – and for just $47 to boot!

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Big ass tablets “Table PCs”  have been all the rage at CES this year. Lenovo and Panasonic think that you want to throw a dance party on a big iPad on the floor. It’s amazing, but not in a good way.

Rather than waiting for everyone else to jump in on the big ass tablet craze – we’re looking at your Samsung – did you know that you can actually just pay Steven Hu, of T.S. MicroTech, to make you your own 32-inch Android tablet? Heck, he’ll even make you a 65-incher if you pay him enough.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – The truth of the matter is that there’s just no way to have a telescopic lens phallically jutting out of the back of your iPad in a way that Jony Ive’s sense of dignity in design would approve of. Props to Polaroid, then, for not even trying, instead going a more playful route with their brand new line-up of iPad, iPhone and iPad mini cases that support snap-on external lenses.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Don’t leave sports out of CES. There’s lots of fitness accessories here that want to turn nerds into phenomenal athletes. If you’re in the camp that believes golfing is a sport, then the SwingTIP is best new accessory here.

SwingTIP is a bluetooth-enabled 3D motion sensor that attaches to your golf club to capture the motion of your golf swing, analyze it, and then tell you how to fix your game.

Just over 100 years ago, Ford, one of America’s oldest car companies, was selling the model T; my, how far we’ve come.

Back to 2013, Ford has announced they’re opening up their AppLink service to all the iOS and Android app developers of the world, essentially creating an ecosystem full of apps that will make their cars even better. They’re calling their new initiative the Ford Developer Program, and I think it’s pretty cool.

This is Hundreds, a game from the same people who brought you Canablat and Wurdle, among others.

Hundreds is a multi-touch tapping challenge for your mind and your reflexes. Rather like Letterpress, it has a gorgeous minimalist look to it. Where so many games are all about collecting stars, this one encourages you to look for empty spaces.

AT&T will announce its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2012 later this month, but the carrier has today confirmed that the quarter saw its “best-ever” sales of both Android and iOS devices. More than 10 million smartphones were sold during the three-month period, with an average of more than 110,000 smartphone sales a day.

eBay has issued updates to its iOS apps this week to introduce a number of features that promise to make selling from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch a much more pleasant process. When listing a new item, the  apps will now help you choose a category for your item — just like the website does — and they’ll help you select the right shipping charges. What’s more, you can now start listings on your iOS devices and finish them off on your desktop — or vice versa.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Every year Samsung attends CES it seems like they try to guess what Apple is going to do with TV. One year they announced a TV that has Netflix and other apps built in. The next they included swappable processors and voice controls.

This year, Samsung’s bet is that if Apple ever decides to make a TV it will be able to predict what you want to watch. It will help you find out where to buy an actor’s clothes. And it might come in a soccer goal shaped frame?

When you’re designing an app for iOS, you need to take into account what specific devices you’re building for, whether it be just the iPhone, iPad, or both. There are several Retina and non-Retina screen resolutions to remember, and then there are other nerdy elements like PPI and color temperature.

User interface designer Ivo Mynttinen has published an updated version of his handy iOS Design Cheat Sheet, “a collection of useful data about iOS devices and things you have to keep in mind when designing something for iOS.”

Whether you’re a novice iOS dev or a seasoned pro, this cheat sheet is a handy thing to bookmark for future reference. There’s a clean chart for all of the iOS device resolutions, display stats, icons, and common design elements.

Source: Ivo Mynttinen

Ever wonder how long it’s going to take to charge your iPhone up all the way? Would it be helpful if your iPhone made some type of sound if it was ready to be taken off the charging cable?

Cleverly named iOS app, Battery, can help you with both of these things, and it’s free to boot. Check it out.

At CES in Las Vegas, Madfinger Games just announced Dead Trigger 2, the sequel to its mobile first-person shooter Dead Trigger, to be available on iOS and Android in the second quarter of this year.

According to mobile industry analyst, Bernie Evans, Facebook reported a huge growth in mobile app Facebook use, with Android users growing from 66 million users in September 2011 to 175 million users this past September. iPhone users also increased greatly, with the number of users of the iPhone Facebook app growing from 91 million last year to 140 million this year.

You wouldn’t normally associate HP devices with the Android or iOS platforms, but the company’s latest gadget plays nicely with them both. It’s called the Pocket Playlist, and it allows you to stream all of your media wirelessly to all your smartphones and tablets. It boasts 32GB of internal storage, and it can stream to up to five devices simultaneously.

Griffin has a new lineup of charging accessories at CES in Las Vegas, one of which is ideal for those who have collected an entire family of iOS devices. It’s called the PowerDock 5 and it charges up to five devices at any one time, storing them away neatly to save space on your desk.

Apple has today announced that the App Store has surpassed a whopping 40 billion downloads, with almost 20 million seen in 2012 alone. A record-breaking December, helped by another successful Christmas, boosted this year’s figures, with more than two billion downloads during the month.

Picking up a new skill is a very popular new year’s resolution. And this Cult of Mac Deals offer will go a long way in helping you pick up a skill that can bring both pleasure and profit – designing iOS apps.

The iOS App Design Course bundle is just $79 for a limited time, and if you have beginner level knowledge of Photoshop and a desire to learn iOS app design, this course trio will help you quickly learn how to design both iPhone and iPad apps and icons.

Michigan readers, rejoice, as AT&T announced today several new 4G LTE markets in the eighth most populous state in the US.

Users in the following areas of Michigan should start to see the little LTE symbol at the top of their iPhones and Android handsets very soon.

Ann Arbor, Michigan
Beverly Hills, Michigan
Birmingham, Michigan
Monroe County, Michigan
Kent County, Michigan
Ottowa County, Michigan