iPhone - page 218

Most of us are aware that the iPhone can be an effective security tool; there are countless clips on YouTube proving its worth as a recording device, and FaceTime, Skype and the like allow someone on the other end to watch, and if needed send help, when things get sketchy.

A recording of a mugging, however, is no use if the muggers steal the phone; and initiating a FaceTime call under extreme stress is probably more difficult than it might seem.

Enter Eye Got You Covered, a $4 app that fixes both those problems and adds other thoughtful features.

Since there are relatively few good alternatives to the iPhone’s stock Mail app, a newcomer to the group usually sparks our curiosity and interest; what’s the cool new spin? Will we actually use it? Will we use it enough that it eventually replaces the Mail app on our home screen?

In the case of attachment-obsessed newcomer Inbox Cube, the answers are fun, yes and possibly.

After years of negotiations, Apple and China Mobile have finally closed a deal for the carrier to sell the iPhone. Rumors of the two companies working together started gaining momentum a few months ago with a report from the The Wall Street Journal, and now the same publication is reporting that the deal has been finalized.

We’re still waiting on an official confirmation from Apple and China Mobile, but now is probably a good time to buy Apple stock. Why? There are 700 million reasons.

iOS 7 has brought some great new gestural support, like being able to swipe from the left side of the screen to go back a page in apps like Settings, Mail, and Safari.

Did you know, though, that you can use the same gesture to peek at your list of email or iMessages from within those specific apps? I didn’t either, so figured I’d pass it along to you.

Has it really been less than three months since the roll out of iOS 7?

Well, however long it has been that has clearly been enough time for most users — since new data from online ad network Chitika reveals that iOS 7 is currently running on more than 70 percent of North American iOS devices.

Bokeh is an iPhone app (and web service) for easily “lifeblogging” your photos and thoughts. And because nobody but you really cares about the mundane details of your days, Bokeh can be used as a private diary, too, albeit a private diary that you access via the web. So what’s the gimmick? What sets Bokeh apart from all the other lifeblogging apps out there? It has a great calendar view, making it easy to browse and zero-in on the exact memory you forgot.

RotoView is an app that lets you zoom in super close on your iPhone photos, and then scroll around them by tilting the iPhone itself. It is also a great example of how iOS 7-native design can help an app look great, when otherwise it would very likely look awful.

Yes, Joshua Young is a doctor. And yes, the strange device he built and now wields is indeed sonic. But no, it’s not a screwdriver.

Instead, Joshua’s intricate alloy AUUG controller is an imaginative musical device that turns the iPhone or iPod into a unique instrument that uses accelerometer magic to bend and blend sound.

It’s lacking the iPhone’s speaker slit, but otherwise all sources indicate that Darth Vader is an iOS user, most likely using either an iPhone 4 or iPhone 5.

The above selfie — which just appeared on the official Star Wars Instagram account — is designed to help launch the marketing platform that will be used to help build up to the new batch of sequels, currently being worked on by Disney.

It’s official: riding-a fixed-gear-bike-past-some-old-city-warehouses is the new perky-and-quirky-guitar-music in Kickstarter pitch videos, and the latest people to put an Urban Warrior in their video spot are Martin Fredewess and Philip Perera. What are they selling? A pretty cool-looking iPhone keychain carabiner called the TiStand. And spoiler alert, it’s made of titanium.

Wireless phone carrier Consumer Cellular has announced a deal that will allow it to start carrying the new model iPhone 5c and 5s.

We’ve seen roughly one zillion iPhone wallet cases passing through the pages of Cult of Mac, and like neutrinos there are surely untold others which we never even detect. And yes, the Access Case is another wallet case, and yes, it’s even a Kickstarter project. But it has one thing none of the others do: it has a sweet-looking sister that fits the iPad, and which knows how to suck…

If I cut out the middle of a sentence from the Indiegogo page for the Apple Worm case, I get the following nugget of comedy gold:

You may need a phone holder […] at any time when you […] go to toilet, etc. Our “Apple Worm” can meet all your needs.

But aside from the toilet/worms gags, the case looks pretty handy.

360 degree video – like the experiential imagery you see in Google StreetView – is an exceptional way to share one-of-a-kind experiences. And now it’s possible on your iPhone with this latest offer from Cult of Mac Deals.

With the Kogeto Dot and the free Looker app, you’ll instantly have a fast and fun way to shoot fully interactive 360 degree video and share it online. The regular price for the Kogeto Dot and iStabilizer is $89, but through this promotion you’ll get it for 44% off – just $49!

Apple agreed this week to buy Israel-based PrimeSense for $350 million.

PrimeSense is best known for making the 3D motion-tracking technology inside Microsoft’s Kinect.

Does this mean Apple plans to make its own Kinect? Maybe. But I think Apple may be thinking about something far more interesting.

In this increasingly noisy, digital age – simple is the new style.

That’s what Native Union had in mind with the POP Desk – a handset and custom-designed stand to hold your smartphone. The large, classic style of the handset allows you to make mobile, Skype and other VoIP calls comfortably – like an old-school business pro – while the anti-slip rubberized pad holds your smartphone securely in place. And when you’re done at the office, keep it classy on the move with the CLIC Wooden iPhone case. Individually cut from natural cherry wood and hand-polished – each case is as unique as the owner carrying it.

You can have all that simplicity and style for a fraction of the regular price thanks to this Cult of Mac Deals limited offer – just $64.99.

Readdle, the team behind some of the best productivity apps and utilities for iOS, has slashed 50% off five of its top offerings for Black Friday. The sale includes titles like PDF Expert for iPhone and iPad, Calendars 5, and Printer Pro — all of which are now half price for a limited time.

Yahoo! has released its list of top searches for 2013 and, when it comes to tech, Apple is once again leading the way.

The iPhone had the most searches (the second most searched subject overall), with the iPad making it to fourth place — ahead of PS4 and XBox One — and the iPod to eighth, above the Nokia Lumia and just below the Blackberry.

There are different ways to measure the success of a tech company — thing like how many lucrative patents it’s sitting on, how much money it’s giving back to shareholders, and what its overall market penetration is in whatever area it’s operating in.

Well, there’s another way also: how much do its product launches correlate with a spike rates. You can keep your reports about Apple’s recent financial quarters disappointing Wall Street analysts — as far as San Francisco’s criminal element is concerned, Apple is doing better than it has in years.

When I ordered a Retina iPad mini, I went for the cellular version – and not only because it means I can get online anywhere without draining my iPhone’s battery by tethering. I got it for the GPS, which is pretty fantastic to have when traveling, especially in the (big) pocket-sized mini.

But if you didn’t have the foresight to spend the extra $130 on a cellular, you can now spend that exact same $130 on a dongle that adds GPS through the Lightning port.

If the new iPad Air or Mini with Retina display is on your or a loved one’s list this holiday season – this bundle from the award-winning designers at Just Mobile is a deal that’s too good to pass up.

The Slide iPad stand and the AluPen stylus are winners of nearly a dozen prestigious awards, including Best of Show, Design, and other Category awards from the likes of MacWorld, iF International Forum, Reddot, iLounge, Computex, Spark, and others. And Cult of Mac Deals has them packaged together for just $59.99 for a limited time.

Hatch, the cute virtual pet for iPhone from the makers of Clear, has received its first update just one week after making its App Store debut. The release adds some beautiful wallpapers for your iPhone, introduces some new shop items, and makes a long list of fixes, tweaks, and improvements.

An astonishing 76 percent of new smartphone sales in Japan for the month of October were either iPhone 5s or 5c handsets, according to recent data.

The report comes from a Kantar World Panel, and demonstrates just how far Apple’s share of the Japanese smartphone market has increased over the present quarter.

Just when you thought you had heard every wacky app concept going, here’s another you might not have considered: Facebook for dogs.

Okay, it’s not exactly Facebook, but the free Woof iOS app (from developer Woof Labs) is pretty much that — describing itself as “an ecosystem to bring dog lovers closer to their dogs and local dog communities.”

Imagine that your task list was made up of a bunch of little slips of paper that you can slide around in any order, only these slips can’t blow away. That’s the central metaphor for Gneo, a universal task manager app which starts out looking like the ultra-simple Clear app, but hides a lot of power under the hood.