Apple’s iOS lock screen has remained largely unchanged for the last five years. That’s probably because it serves its purpose pretty well, but sometimes it’s nice to try something different. Thanks to Pinch to Unlock, a new tweak for jailbroken iPhones, you can do just that. Rather than sliding to unlock your device, you just pinch.
Borderlands, Gearbox Software’s awesome first-person shooter series, is set to make its debut on iOS this month. Revealed in a advert within a Borderlands 2 digital strategy guide, the game will be called Borderlands Legends and it’ll allow you to play one of four original Borderlands heroes for the first time on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
A wonderful new news app from Reuters kicks off this week’s must-have apps list, providing you with an “unprecedented photography experience” that allows you to immerse yourself in the biggest news stories from around the world. Also included in the roundup is a terrific app for making mobile websites from your iPhone, a new weather app, and more.
Kicking off this week’s must-have iOS app is the 1997 violent driving sensation that is Carmageddon. It finally makes its debut on iOS, and it’s an exact port of the original. It’s accompanied by Sonic Jump, Sega’s latest release; Mikey Shorts Halloween, and True Skate.
MapMyWalk is one of a range of apps from the people at MapMyFitness. It’s not a pretty app, but mapping walks doesn’t have to be pretty to be functional. And it is functional. Mostly.
Most people will download almost any iOS game, no matter how silly it looks, as long as it’s free. They just won’t stick around for more than one day. A new study on user engagement in free-to-play social games discovered that 85% of new players in the U.S. never go back to the game after the first day.
Earlier this week, Stainless Games brought the 1997 reckless driving sensation that is Carmageddon to iOS, and I haven’t been able to put it down since — it’s as good today as it was 15 years ago on the Dreamcast. However, it does have one issue holding it back: a save game bug that could wipe all your progress.
Here’s a nifty little tweak that’ll help you write new emails a little quicker: It’s called SpotMail, and it lets you create new emails from directly within Spotlight on your jailbreak iOS device. All you have to do is type in the recipient’s email address and hit search.
Be-be, wo-wo, boo-bee. These are the kind of phrases a human being can only get away with uttering in public if still under the age of two. Fortunately, these are also the only words these underdeveloped fools can manage. There’s probably a lesson about ability vs. ambition hidden in there somewhere.
Which is to say that the Belkin Wemo baby monitor is probably the best-named baby monitor ever. Even your dumb infant can ask for it by name.
Days of Wonder have decorated their so-addictive-you-can’t-stop-playing-to-eat iPad train game, Ticket to Ride, with a new Halloween-themed update. As if I don’t lose enough time to this damn game.
Apple’s App Store review policy has received a lot of criticism in the past. Often times it rejects apps for a good reason, like if they contain nudity or they’re offensive. But on the odd occasion, its decision to reject a certain app leaves us puzzled. Here’s a good example of that.
Nuskha Labs recently submitted its new app to the App Store. Called Steve Jobs Timeline, it documents the life story of Apple’s co-founder, and includes famous quotes and images. It sports a nice, creative user interface; it’s not offensive, and it doesn’t break Apple’s App Store terms. But the Cupertino company rejected it anyway.
EA’s free Theme Park game for iOS broke down yesterday, and gamers were unable to access the parks they’d spent time building. The company managed to get everything working again, but once the game was back online, users found that all of their progress had been wiped.
The parks they’d build, the achievements they’d earned, and worse, the items they’d bought using in-app purchases were gone.
Checkmark, the supper-slick location-aware reminders app for the iPhone, has gotten a feature bump in its newest update that almost (almost!) makes it a new app.
And if you don’t already have Checkmark, then shame on you — the $2 app not only makes location-based reminders on your iPhone way easier and way better than the built in reminders, but it also works on your iPad.
I got really used to using Chrome on my desktop and laptop Macs before Mountain Lion came out with Safari 6 at its heels. I try to use Chrome on my iOS devices, for the history and bookmark synching, I really do, but more often than not, I end up using mobile Safari, because a) it’s the default for all clicked links in other apps and b) I really, really like Reader.
Now, if you’re using Safari on both your Mac and your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you’ll be pleased to know that you can access the tabs you’ve opened on your iPhone on your Mac, and vice versa, as long as you’re using iCloud. Let’s take a look at how we do this.
Each time Apple’s made a significant update to a device this year it’s received a significantly larger screen size or resolution. First the iPad came out with a Retina display along with the MacBook Pro, and now the iPhone 5 has a bigger display as well.
That’s great for your eyeballs, but it also means that the average size of apps is growing too, which may end up costing you more in data fees in the long run.
The violent driving sensation that is Carmageddon makes its debut on iOS today, 15 years after it was first released — and subsequently banned for its twisted mix of automotive killing machines — on Mac and PC. It’s available to download right away from the App Store, and it’s free for today only — so grab it quick.
Sega has turned its hand to vertical jumping games with a brand new title called Sonic Jump that’s coming to the App Store tomorrow. The title looks a lot like Doodle Jump, only it features Sega’s beloved blue hedgehog instead, and rather than being just an endless jumper, you’ll have to beat new and familiar stages in pursuit of the infamous Dr. Eggman.
I’m a borderline weather geek. I don’t just like to know the temperature — both inside and out — I even keep a hydrometer in my home so I can keep tabs on the humidity, cause you know, that’s important.
So naturally, when I found out about the Netatmo Weather Station ($179), I was a little excited. With its indoor and outdoor weather modules, the Netatmo tracks a lot more than just the current temperature. Plus, unlike my crappy $5 hydrometer, it relays all its readings in a unified way, presented beautifully in an iOS app optimized for both my iPhone and iPad.
Here’s how it works.
As a great man once sang, there’s 57 channels and nothing on). But that was before iOS and apps came along. Now you don’t need channels. You need something like Vodio.
Foxconn has admitted to finding underage interns as young as 14 working in one of its Chinese plants, where the minimum legal working age is 16. The company, which assembles Apple’s hugely popular iOS devices, has sent all underage workers back to their schools, and it’s now investigating how they were ended up at its plant.
Just days after pulling apart the fifth-generation iPod touch, iFixit have taken their tools to the new, seventh-generation iPod nano. This model marks another major change to the iPod nano lineup; it’s no longer a tiny device you can wear on your rest, but instead it takes a longer form much like the fourth- and fifth-generation devices.
iFixit has given this model a reparability score of 5 out of 10, which means that like the rest of Apple’s new iOS devices, this one isn’t to get into, or easy to repair. Here are some other interesting things the teardown uncovered.
Echofon has announced that it will be “phasing out” its desktop applications for Mac, Windows, and Firefox this fall to focus on its mobile apps for iOS and other platforms. Desktop apps will continue to function normally in the “immediate future,” Echofon says, but it’s not planning any further updates for the popular Twitter client.
We’re always on the lookout for a good peripheral and if there’s one company that does peripherals, it’s Logitech. Their latest creation looks like something of interest for all us multi-device power users. Logitech’s new Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 is as the name applies — an illuminated Bluetooth keyboard. What makes it so special? Its ability to quickly and easily switch between your Bluetooth devices.
It often seems that many of Apple’s competitors decide to launch products based upon what Cupertino is rumored to do, hoping to get a head start on Apple. It’s funny how often this fails. Remember when all of Apple’s competitors announced their own “slates” ahead of the 2010 debut of the original iPad? Or how Amazon launched a crappy cloud locker service for MP3s ahead of iTunes Match?
With rumors swirling that Apple is planning on launching its own streaming music service, it seems curious that Microsoft is now choosing to relaunch their own answer to iTunes, the Zune Music Store, under the Xbox brand, while simultaneously introducing their own… wait for it… streaming music service. And it’s coming to iOS.
Another day, another todo app. There’s a bewildering variety of choice in this category, and newer phones all come with Apple’s own Reminders app, which is capable although not to everyone’s taste.
This one, oddly named DOOO, is nicer than most. For two bucks, it combines a thoughtful approach to feature design with stylish looks and a minimal, simple layout.