Notification Center has new tabs now, including Today, All, and Missed notifications. Even with this bit of filtering, things can get overwhelming fast, especially if you have a ton of apps that default to sending notifications to you for darn near everything.
If you want to lower the amount of information overload in your Notifications Center, it’s a fairly simple affair. Here’s how.
Looks like Apple’s Maps app is in the spotlight again, as it is directing folks directly across a taxiway where airplanes take off in Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaska Dispatch reports that at least two out-of-town drivers relying on Apple’s navigation system for turn-by-turn directions to the Fairbanks International Airport (FAI) were directed across the runway to the airport ramp side of the passenger terminal.
That could be pretty dangerous if a plane was taking off or landing.
I got married earlier this month, but my new wife has already threatened to divorce me due to my newfound obsession with GTA V. I’ve only had it since Saturday, but I literally can’t put it down. I’m not the only one, of course; the game has been a massive success so far, with $800 million made on launch day alone.
If you’ve been playing it, you may have noticed their are a number of references to Apple and its devices within the game, one of which is iFruit, and iPhone clone used by Michael De Santa, one of the game’s main characters. And now you, too, can have your own iFruit with this awesome iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s conversion kit for just $13.
AppleCare+ subscribers can now get repairs and replacements for their iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches while they’re abroad following recent changes to the service. Subscribers were previously required to contact Apple in their home country, but now they can pop into any Apple retail store in territories where AppleCare+ is sold.
Nothing makes Microsoft happier than seeing an iPhone user ditch their device for a Windows Phone smartphone. In fact, the company will even buy your iPhone off you if you promise to make the switch.
Starting this Friday, you’ll be able to take your old iPhone 4s or iPhone 5 into select Microsoft stores across the U.S. and Canada and receive a minimum of $200 in-store credit for a new Windows Phone device. The move comes weeks after Microsoft kicked off an iPad trade-in program to encourage consumers to switch to its Surface tablet.
Oh, man, this is an invention likely to make it impossible for me to ever leave the house. It’s called the Brewbot, and it’s an iPhone controlled machine which brews “high quality craft beers” without leaving your armchair.
Is nothing sacred? I had thought that paper airplanes might be the last holdout for fully-analog toys. After all, all you need is a sheet of paper, a pair of functioning hands and a place to throw stuff. Even in jail these things can be found, and while your first attempts might not fly so well, the joy of the game is in the tuning and improving of your designs.
But now even that simple pleasure has been ruined by technology: the PowerUp 3.0 iPhone-Controlled Paper Airplane is a thing which will soon be available.
Up until today, my page scanner of choice has been Scanner Pro from Readdle, a universal app which uses the iPhone/iPad camera to snap pictures of your documents and send them off to any and every cloud service.
But after today, my new favorite might just be the new PDFPen Scan+, a universal app from Smile Software that not only scans but turns your images into searchable PDFs using OCR.
While we’re all looking over here at the big, bulky, ruggedized mounts that let us carry our iPhones on our bike handlebars, over there in Austria they’re making a minimal mount that you can leave on the bike or carry in your pocket. It’s called the Finn, and according to at least two of my German friends, it’s excellent.
Good thing you listened to us this morning when we posted about a new Google Play app that seemed to let you send Apple iMessages via an Android app.
When something seems to good to be true, it usually is.
In this instance, Google agrees, and has pulled the app from the Google Play Store for violating its terms of use. A spokesperson emailed ComputerWorld, saying, “We remove apps from Google Play that violate our policies.”
Fairly clear, right? As we pointed out this morning, the iMessage Chat app for Android devices turned out to be sending data, including users’ Apple IDs, through another server in China, which is kind of an easy way to steal people’s sensitive information. Apple IDs and passwords can be used to purchase apps, books, and music from the App Store, as well as connect to iCloud data, which can have addresses and more personal info.
It used to be simple to delete text messages from your iPhone (or, I suppose, your iPad if you use iMessages), but with iOS 7, the cute little Edit button has gone away from the upper right corner. Instead, there’s a Contact button up there, which–while useful–used up the space where the Edit button used to be.
You can still delete entire message conversations by swiping to the left in the list of all your text messages, but how do you delete specific messages within a conversation? Swiping to the left just shows you the timestamps of the messages.
Never fear, we’ve got the answer.
An early teardown of the iPhone 5s by research firm IHS found that even though Apple has added a new A7 processor, fingerprint sensor and improved camera to its high-end iPhone, the company pays less for the components of the iPhone 5s than it did for the iPhone 5.
The new teardown revealed that Apple pays about $191 on the components to build one 16GB iPhone 5s unit. Add in an extra eight bucks to assemble all the parts, and the $199 total it costs to build the iPhone 5s is six dollars cheaper than the $205 build price IHS estimated for the iPhone 5 last year. The teardown didn’t stop with the iPhone 5s though, as the company put the 5c under the knife as well and estimated it costs about $173 to build a 16GB iPhone 5c.
Apple made the iPhone 5s available for in-store pickup on Monday, allowing customers to order their new device online, then collect it from their local Apple retail store later the same day. But just a day later, the option has already been pulled — probably due to the incredible demand Apple seen for the device since it launched last Friday.
As you guys probably know, I’m a sucker for wood on my iGadgets. My MacBook keyboard is covered in wood. My iPhone has wood paneling. Even my iPad is swatched from power button to Lightning port in a wooden smart cover and case.
Given the borderline hysteria I feel for love, it should come as no surprise that I want some wood in my iPhone dock… and Grove is about to make it happen for me.
Apple’s iMessage service is pretty terrific, but it has one big limitation, and that is that it’s only available on Macs and iOS devices. At least officially. But there is an unofficial app that brings iMessage to your Android-powered smartphone. It works just as advertised, but we strongly advise you not to use it.
BBM’s cross-platform launch failed miserably this weekend. The app made its way to the iPhone in a small few countries, but the rollout was halted before it could reach the United States — or Google Play.
BlackBerry’s excuse for the catastrophic failure was that a leaked BBM APK for Android was causing some server troubles, and now the Canadian company has told fans that it will “take some time” to fix the problem, and that we should not expect to see the app this week.
EA Sports has brought the controversial free-to-play game model to the world’s biggest soccer franchise in FIFA 14 for iOS, which is now available to download from the App Store — three days before the big console release.
The title boasts a whole heap of improvements, including a new and intuitive control system, online multiplayer, a game of the week feature, and the hugely popular FIFA Ultimate Team mode.
Here at Cult of Mac, we love Mailbox, the third-party Gmail client for iOS. But since it was optimized for iOS 7, it has been plagued by a hugely frustrating bug that causes email accounts to be deleted at random. Fortunately, the app’s latest update — which is available from the App Store now — finally fixes the problem.
But at what cost?
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and while Apple has tested this assumption in court against Samsung and other mobile device manufacturers, Android users and developers might have a different opinion.
Because, as you can see from the screenshot above, a whole bunch of apps have appeared in the Google Play store with the express purpose of making your Android handset look just like…well, an iPhone running iOS 7.
Of course, the argument could be made that only Android is open enough to actually allow its users to change the look and feel of their devices to a competing system’s visual system, but the result is still clear: Android developers, at least, think that you should be able to have a mobile phone that looks like the latest iOS devices on the screen as well as in the design of the handset itself.
There are lock screen apps for Android that mimic the parallax of the new iOS 7, apps that call themselves iOS 7 wallpaper, when they really aren’t, and apps that are just plain honest, titled iOS 7 Fake iPhone.
Hit some of those links above to try these out on your own, because we all know it’d be cool to have an Android phone that looks like an iPhone running iOS 7.
Right?
Discuss.
With iOS 7, you are no longer a slave to the constant need to update your apps. John McCain should be totally happy.
With this new automatic update feature, though, it might be nice to see what’s been updated lately. To do that, it’s just a quick trip into the guts of iOS 7. Here’s how.
When the iPhone was originally launched in 2007, experts across the globe claimed it would never be able to compete against the #1 smartphone maker at the time – BlackBerry. Fast-forward six years and the iPhone 5s and 5c just had the best smartphone launch weekend ever, while BlackBerry just entered a letter of intent to sell itself for $4.7 billion.
The iPhone 5s might be the closest any smartphone’s ever come to perfection, but none of its shiny glass, metal and chamfered surfaces really matter if they can stand up to some daily wear and tear. To see which new smartphone is the most durable, the gadget insurance company SquareTrade pitted the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c against the Moto X and Samsung Galaxy S4, in a series of damage tests, including getting dunked in water.
In the end, Moto X came out on top, with the iPhone 5s coming in a close second. The Galaxy S4 on the other hand didn’t fair too well, and was dominated by everyone, including the cheaper the iPhone 5c.
Watch the full results below:
The iPhone 5s is undoubtedly the biggest iPhone ‘S’ upgrade Apple has released to date. Not only does it come with the usual improvements you’d expect from an “incremental” upgrade — a faster processor, better graphics, and an improved camera — but it also boasts Touch ID, a fingerprint scanner built into its home button; the M7 coprocessor, and a new dual-LED flash
Touch ID will change the way we manage security on our iPhones. No longer must we remember 4-digit pass codes that have to be entered dozens of times a day; we can simply scan our fingerprint to quickly gain access to our device. It takes the hassle out of securing our data, and there’s no good reason why you wouldn’t use it.
The iPhone 5s is the biggest iPhone ‘S’ upgrade to date.
As for the M7 coprocessor, that’s “like a sidekick to the A7 chip,” Apple says. It’s specifically designed to measure motion data recorded by your iPhone’s built-in accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass — a task which was previously handled by the processor itself. Why? Well, the M7 chip is more efficient and handling this task, and with little input needed from the main processor, there’s less drain on your iPhone’s battery.
While the iPhone 5s make look identical to its predecessor on the outside, then, there are lots of improvements under the hood. But are those improvements worth your hard-earned cash?
There’s no question that the iPhone 5S and iOS 7 together make for the best phone ever made.
The din of offhand, dismissive criticism from the Android fan base that Apple never innovates should be silenced, at least for awhile, given that Apple now sells the only dual-tone LED flash; the only 64-bit mobile CPU; the only 64-bit OS; the fastest touch-screen performance phones by far; the only wide-scale deployment of Multipath TCP; and the only useful, usable and widely used fingerprint scanner ever placed on any consumer electronics device.
Yes, there’s plenty of petty grousing. And who knows what competitors will ship tomorrow?
But today, it’s clear that Apple rules the smartphone market.
The Android fan critics now also have to contend with a razor sharp, concise rebuttal to the cacophony of general criticism of Apple by Apple VP Craig Federighi: “New is easy. Right is hard.” He said that after referring to Samsung by saying that Apple “didn’t start opportunistically with 10 bits of technology that we could try to find a use for to add to our features list.” Ouch!
Unfortunately, iOS 7 is going to cause some huge problems that nobody is talking about yet, but will do when the unwanted bricking epidemic starts.
This week: iOS 7, available on an iDevice near you! And on our all-new CultCast, joined by special guest Mac OS Ken, we offer our thoughts on the controversial new OS plus a few of our favorite tips. Then, the NDAs are up and the reviews are in, we’ll tell you what critics think of the 5S and why we all agree—the 5C feels great in the pants.
Have a few laughs whilst getting caught up on each week’s finest Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the unadulterated audio enjoyment begin. Show notes up next.
