Microsoft has inadvertently leaked plans to release a new chat app for iPhone called Flow, which will allow users to have “rapid email conversations.” The service will be a part of Outlook, but it will focus on quick communication with “no subject lines, salutations, or signatures.”
The Apple-watching world lost its shiz yesterday when Obama made his first tweet from his brand-new presidential Twitter account using an iPhone. But don’t get too excited, because the White House has revealed that the phone in question isn’t Obama’s regular handset after all.
Which prompts the question, “Who did it belong to?” Maybe Apple should commission JFK director Oliver Stone to shoot an advert/paranoid conspiracy thriller on the subject of the Obama iPhone.
The iPhone is a distracting gadget. There’s texting, Facebook and a dozen-odd games I keep on the thing. I’m constantly being notified that there is something new to look at, a new Instagram post, a new Twitter reply, a new email.
Sometimes I just want to get away from it all, but I keep my iPhone with me all the time because, essentially, it makes sure I’m able to make a phone call in an emergency.
Now there’s a new Kickstarter project that aims to let you leave your iPhone at home but still remain connected with the one essential function: phone calls. The Light Phone is “a credit card-sized cell phone designed to be used as little as possible. The Light Phone is your phone away from phone.”
That sounds pretty neat, actually. Too bad I hate making phone calls.
President Barack Obama is finally ready to enter the age of social media. After sitting behind the Resolute desk for six years, the president finally opened his own Twitter account today, but rather than using his hacker-proof BlackBerry to send his first message, POTUS turned to an Apple product.
Here’s his first tweet, sent from an iPhone:
Luxury carmakers Bentley have once again turned to the iPhone to shoot the company’s latest short film: A video showcasing four major designers on London’s Savile Row, each given a commission to create a bespoke “driving jacket” for the high-end auto company.
Check out the short film and a special behind-the-scenes video below:
The iPhone 6s is set to get a considerable camera boost, as per a Weibo posting from Kevin Wang, IHS Technology’s research director in China.
After years of using 8MP cameras in its iPhones, Wang claims the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are likely to boast 12MP cameras — theoretically greatly improving the current standard of iPhone photography, which is already pretty darn high.
But there’s a twist.
Apple filed a patent application today that could someday help you use Touch ID to run everything on your iPhone or iPad without covering the screen with your fat digits.
According to a new research note issued by UBS’s Evidence Lab, the latest quarterly sales for the iPhone are set to be even more impressive than most people are anticipating.
And given that nobody is sleeping on the iPhone’s success as it is, that means some astonishingly big numbers.
It’s easy to think that Steve Jobs’ biggest contribution to movies was his work at Pixar. In fact, according to no less an authority than Walt Disney and Pixar chief creative officer John Lasseter, Jobs’ biggest lasting influence on cinema could turn out to be none other than the invention of the iPhone.
Speaking at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday, Lasseter said he can easily see a day when the big award-winning movies we watch are produced by filmmakers using only their iPhones and GoPro cameras.
Android Wear isn’t officially iPhone-friendly just yet (though it should be very soon) but you can already connect a Moto 360 to your iPhone. A new Android app called Wear Connect makes the unlikely pairing possible, and it requires no jailbreak or unauthorized hacks.
The video below shows you how to get set up.
Take your phone on the road without risking a ticket with the ExoMount Touch. Saving 33% off the list price, this safe and solid mobile phone dock can be yours for only $19.99 with Cult of Mac Deals.
Europe was supplanted by China this past quarter as the second most important market for Apple, but according to a new report from Kantar, the iPhone-maker is gaining grown in Europe thanks to Android switchers.
Over 30% of Apple’s new customers in Europe last quarter switched over from Android. All the new converts have pushed iOS’ marketshare in Europes five largest countries to 20.3%, marking a 1.8% increase from 2014.
Check out the graph below:
The next big feature for the iPhone might involve a lot of spitting. Apple is planning to launch new Research Kit studies at WWDC in June that will focus on DNA studies, according to a new report, claiming Apple is collaborating with researchers in the U.S. to create two new apps.
The new apps will be based on ResearchKit, Apple’s software platform that helps scientists and hospitals run medical studies on the iPhone. If successful, the new studies could give many iPhone users their first look at their genetic information by sending a ‘spit-kit’ to an Apple-approved laboratory.
With its small screen and 0.46-inch thickness, the original iPhone from 2007 looks like an antique these days. Put it next to the Apple Watch, however, and it’s remarkable how similar the two devices look in terms of their design language.
At 0.45 inches, the Apple Watch is ever so slightly thinner, but its rounded edges, color and overall aesthetic certainly appear reminiscent of the first-generation Apple handset, don’t you think?
One of the hundreds of great touches I love about Grand Theft Auto V is the way that it uses in-game smartphones as menus for added realism — giving players the opportunity of sending and receiving messages, taking photos, and managing their contacts in a way that feels real-world authentic.
With the arrival of GTA V on PC, some smart iPhone-using modders have taken this as the basis for a nifty Xcode tweak, which allows the user to control the in-game phone via a real iPhone app.
Check out the video below.
Manny Pacquiao is expected to have made $80 million off the very boring ‘fight of the Century’ this past weekend just off the ticket sales. Pac-Man made a few extra million on the side too by becoming the latest iPhone-loving celebrity to convert to a Samsung salesman.
As part of the sponsorship, Pacquiao – who’s tweeted from an iPhone from years – crafted his tweets on a Samsung Galaxy S6, including two selfies he posted at weigh-in and on his way to the ring with Jimmy Kimmel. Samsung also filmed an entire behind-the-scenes video of Pacquiao on a Galaxy S6 Edge. But now that the fight’s over and Pac-Man’s cashed in, he’s back to using Apple devices.
Here’s the Samsung spokesman’s latest tweet, sent from an iPhone.
Apple is closing in on becoming the number one smartphone company in China, according to new figures released by Strategy Analytics.
Although Apple ripoff Xiaomi remains in the number one position — thanks to its strategy of selling low-cost devices — analysts note that the company’s momentum is starting to slow down, while Apple’s just keeps on building!
Samsung, by comparison, fell to an embarrassing fourth place after Huawei.
Adobe’s Behance, Adobe Color CC, and Creative Cloud apps have all been updated to include Apple Watch support in a move designed to both sell more iOS apps as well as inspire their current customers to get outside of the computer and create.
“That’s because designers get a lot of their best ideas,” writes Adobe’s David Macy, “not while sitting at our desks, but from interacting with and observing the world around us.”
There are two different channels for audio on your iOS device: there are ringers and alert sounds and there are media sounds, like from the Music app or various games on your iPhone.
The hardware volume buttons on the side of your iPhone are set to control both by default, but you can separate it out, making the hardware buttons only turn down the media sounds instead of both media and ringer sound.
Here’s our recipe on how to make sure you never miss a call because someone “accidentally” turned your volume all the way down.
Metallica lead guitarist and songwriter Kirk Hammett has lost his super-valuable iPhone. No, it’s not one of those gold-plated ones favored by celebrities like Justin Bieber — it’s the iPhone on which he’d stored 250 riffs for the band’s next album.
In terms of money lost, this has to make you feel better about that time you dropped your iPhone in the bath, right?
Apple is reportedly keeping its options open when it comes to selecting manufacturing partners for the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch by broadening the number of companies it contracts work out to.
In other words, those supply-and-demand issues that have hit Apple in recent years shortly after new product releases could soon be a thing of the past.
It can be tricky to get the best shot when taking a selfie or group shot with your iPhone. If you want a better angle than the length of your arm can provide (or your ridiculous selfie stick will telescope to), you might consider setting your iPhone on a ledge or tripod and using the built-in timer mode to get yourself and everyone else into position before the shutter goes off.
It’s not super-tricky, but you do need to know where to look. Here’s our recipe to enable timer mode on your iPhone.
We cover all the best Apples stories on each week’s CultCast, but this week we take it to the next level. Hit play to hear: why trying on the Apple Watch will make you a believer; our WWDC hardware predictions; why a recent acquisition might mean a revolutionary new iPhone camera; and Leander reviews the new Macbook.
Our thanks for Freshbooks for supporting this episode. FreshBooks is the easy-to-use invoicing software designed to help small business owners get organized, save time invoicing and get paid faster. It also makes tax time a cinch. Get started now with a 30-day free trial.
Full show notes ahead!
Two roommates in Tulsa, Oklahoma, took fanboyism to a whole new extreme after stabbing each other with broken beer bottles during an iPhone vs. Android debate.
With the advent of Apple’s motion coprocessor chip (the M8 in recent iOS devices), any apps that you download and grant permission to can use this data to enhance their offerings.
This lets apps like RunKeeper, Carrot Fitness and others both gather fitness data from your iPhone as well as send it to the Health app.
This could raise privacy concerns for some, so being able to decide which apps we allow to access our fitness-tracking data — or whether the iPhone tracks these activities at all — can be a helpful.
Here’s our recipe for getting finer-grained control over your fitness-tracking data.