iPhone - page 234

Disclaimer: Seriously, folks, iOS 7 beta is a pre-release version of iOS. Don’t use these tips as proof that anything will be in the final release, or that they’ll work past the beta. We’re providing these as a fun way to explore Apple’s new mobile OS, is all.

The iPhone’s built-in navigation system has profoundly changed my life. No longer do I need to plan extra time to get to a meeting so I can deal with my ability to get lost on even the most benign route in my own hometown, since I can use turn by turn spoken directions to get me to my destination.

When walking however, I’m the guy who’s usually staring down at his iPhone, waving it around in some weird figure eight pattern to resolve interference, and generally bumping into things along the way.

No longer, though, as iOS 7 beta has turn by turn walking directions. Here’s how to use them.

Do you have an easier time remembering faces than names? Have a ton of contacts with the first name “Mike” but want to reach a specific one that you know by seeing him rather than hearing his name? If so, Cult of Mac Deals has an offer that is going to help you deal with your contacts with that sensibility in mind.

Ensoul is the easiest way to create perfectly sized wallpapers and full-size contact images for your iPhone, and Cult of Mac Deals has it for a limited time for the low price of only $5.

Nokia has a new ad out for its latest Lumia 925 smartphone, and it attempts to praise the handset’s camera abilities by depicting iPhone owners as brain-dead zombies who have to use flash to take photos in the dark. Yeah, it makes no sense to me, either. Check it out below.

I like smartphones with big displays, which is why I’m a fan of the Samsung Galaxy Note, so I’d certainly be in line for an iPhone “phablet” if Apple ever decided to release one. With rival smartphones getting bigger by the day, that seems like only a matter of time.

But how big could the iPhone go? A recent report claimed Apple has been considering iPhones with 4.7- and 5.7-inch displays, and the concept video below shows what the latter might look like.

A Tokyo court has today found Samsung guilty of infringing an Apple “bounce-back” or “rubber banding” patent that covers the popular scrolling feature built into its iOS platform. Apple has been using the patent against Samsung in a number of courtrooms all over the world, but back in April, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office deemed it invalid.

Best Buy has today begun a new nine-day deal that gives you $150 when you trade-in any working iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S. That’s enough to cover the cost of a brand new 16GB iPhone 5 on a two-year contract with a $50 instant rebate, which means there couldn’t be a better time to upgrade.

If you’re growing tired of the way iOS 6 keeps your photos together in one big shoebox of sorts, only letting you categorize photos and create albums manually, there’s a new app out that will help you do much more than that, and it’s free to boot.

Photoful is a new, free app that offers something of what you can expect to find in the upcoming iOS 7 version of Apple’s own Photos: an elegant, good-looking, well-designed app focused on helping you organize and display your camera photos in a better way.

A lot of people were saddened when the new iPod Nano sported a design that was no longer “watch-like”. That meant that the idea of making a watch out of the device was no longer an option. But with this Cult of Mac Deals offer, iPod Generation 6 owners get a stylish, hands-free solution in Nanox. And it can be had for just $34.99 – and this sale price includes the cost of shipping anywhere in the continental USA.

When I wrote up the Kubxlab Ultra Thin iPhone Case a short while back, I liked the look of it but figured that it would be yet another iPhone shell case to add to my stack of potential gifts (I’m serious – if you visit my home you won;t be allowed to leave without an iPhone or iPad case in your hands).

Then one arrived. Or rather three arrived, one in each color (dark, light and brown). I carelessly ripped open the packaging, picked one of the three (dark, I think) and pressed it onto my naked iPhone 4, still warm from my damp front pocket.

And I was so surprised that I actually put down my coffee.

We’ve been talking a lot recently about the so-called “budget iPhone” that Apple will in all probability announce in September, but exactly how “budget” are we talking about here?

Now, the CEO of the rumored manufacturer of the budget iPhone is speaking up, and telling shareholders not to expect it to be cheap.

Over at The Atlantic, a fascinating study has been published that connects location data from smartphones with the layout of a heavily populated city. The findings are that the most iPhone activity is coming from wealthier areas, while Android usually dominates lower income districts. 

Lytro, makers of the crazy Light Field camera that will let you refocus an image after it’s taken, is bringing its incredible editing powers to the iPhone and iPad.

This afternoon Lytro released a new iOS app that can connect to Lytro camera to import images, edit them, and then share to Twitter or Facebook. Wait, you didn’t know the Lytro had Wifi capabilities? Yep, Lytro kept it a secret from everyone but is now enabling the feature with a firmware update.

Fed up of changing your iPhone case every time you want to use an external battery pack or add a kickstand? Well, Boostcase for iPhone 5 hopes to make that a thing of the past. It’s just one case, but it’s compatible with a ton of attachments that slide into little grooves on its back and add all kinds of extra functionality to your phone.

I’ve been using Boostcase for the past two weeks, thanks to MyBanana, with a kickstand and a hand strap. But you can also get an external battery pack, a card holder, a wallet case, a clutch case, a studded jacket (which isn’t as saucy as it sounds), and more — all of which can be applied in seconds without ever having to remove the Boostcase from your iPhone.

The Boostcase itself costs $35 in a range of different colors and patterns, and for that you also get the hand strap and the kickstand. The other attachments range from $20 to $100.

So, let’s find out whether Boostcase is the only case you’ll ever need for your iPhone.

Ever since Jony Ive took over Apple’s industrial design, it has been important to Cupertino to make their products out of material with authenticity and substance, not just cheap plastic. In the pursuit of these goals, Apple has managed to revolutionize the mass-production of not one, but two different materials that had previously gone virtually unused in gadgets, at least externally: glass and aluminum. And Apple’s made big plays to experiment with even more cutting-edge materials, like Liquid Metal.

Here’s a question, then. Apple likes to make its Macs and iPhones out of materials that feel authentic, that give them a unique look and feel. In the pursuit of those materials, Apple has revolutionized at least a couple of industrial design processes.

So what if Jony Ive got it in his head to make iPhones out of wood?

When you set up a personal hotspot on your iOS device, the first thing you should do is delete the password Apple generates for your and enter your own. Researchers at the University of Erlangen in Germany have discovered a way to crack Apple’s hotspot passwords in under a minute, leaving your iOS device vulnerable to attack.

NEC became the world’s first and only smartphone manufacturer to launch a liquid-cooled handset back in May, but it may quickly lose that claim later this year. According to some sources, a number of high-profile smartphones makers, including Apple, Samsung, and HTC, will be launching their own liquid-cooled devices in the fourth quarter.

I’m completely reliant on Mailbox for my mail processing now: it’s just so easy to swipe and tap my way to an empty inbox that I prefer using my iPhone over the iPad or even the Mac to get things done (the iPad version of Mailbox is plain terrible, with a janky layout and tiny tiny body text for many messages).

But iPhone mail newcomer Ninja Mail might usurp Mailbox’s place in my daily e-mail “workflow.” No, it can’t file things for later, or even send the messages to folders. But it has one thing that makes it amazing fun to use: Swishing sword sounds that accompany every swipe.

Admit it: When your iPhone/iPad/camera lens/spectacles get greasy fingerprints all over it, you don't reach for a microfiber cloth,right? Nope. You do exactly what everyone else does, and polish off the dirt with a corner of your shirt.

But what if you could continue with your filthy (if rather popular) habit, but with the magical results of microfiber? Thanks to the Voy Voy Summer Oxford, you can.

Hitcase Pro, like Tony Stark’s iron suit, is the penultimate protection for your iPhone 5, even when it’s flying through the air.

That’s because, like the red Avenger, Hitcase Pro isn’t just a suit of armor, like so many cases before it. No, this one’s built for action, with some special mounting and lens capabilities that encourage you take your lovely iPhone on adventures you ordinarily should not, all so you can use its camera to record the chaos and prove you survived.

With the iPhone 5S shaping up to be pretty much an identical device to last year’s iPhone 5 except a marginally faster processor and (fingers crossed!) some cool new fingerprint sensor technology, eyes are on the so-called “budget iPhone” as 2013’s new hotness.

Although the ‘budget iPhone’ will address the mid-market, it’s still an exciting device, rumored to be the first iPhone to come in an iPod-palette of colors. Otherwise, though, we don’t know a lot about what it looks like.

Far East case makers might, though. MGM Corporation, an Asian casemaker, has posted a first look at a case for the budget iPhone. It doesn’t show much, except that the budget iPhone is about 2mm thicker than the iPhone 5, and has rounded corners instead of the iPhone 5’s square shape.

Here’s some video, showing it from all sides.

I play the street life
Because there’s no place I can go
Street life
It’s the only life I know
Street life
And there’s a thousand cards to play
Street life
Until you play your life away

So go the lyrics to Randy Crawford’s fantastic Street Life, which is not — as far as I know — the official song of AT&T and Goal Zero’s new “collabo” Street Charge.

Street Charge is a new scheme which will see AT&T deploying solar charging stations throughout New York City.

PhotoStation 2.0 brings layer support to the powerful but unintuitive photo editing app. Now you can use bezier clipping paths to adjust and fine-tune your image selections on multiple layers, letting you make edits that you usually expect to do on the desktop.

Shazam released version 6.1 of its iOS today on the App Store. The new version comes with a special feature called ‘Pulse’ that can be used to discover new music that is trending on Shazam’s charts.

Included in the big update is a new look for the tab bar, better chart updates, improved Friends page loading, and of course some bug fixes. The new version is available on both iPhone and iPad in the App Store for free.

Here are the release notes:

As you may know, Apple released the first beta for its upcoming iOS 7 this past week, after an announcement at WWDC just prior.

We’ll take you through some lesser known features with our tips for a bit, giving you a sneak peek into the workings of the newest system to hit the iPhone. Be aware, however, that as this is beta software, any of these features and tips could change before iOS 7 hits the streets this coming fall. In addition, be sure that you’re not using a beta iOS 7 on an iPhone you need to get work done on–Apple has provided it without guarantee for developers to start working with, not for you to use on any mission critical tasks.

That said, let’s check out Mail, the built-in app for checking and sending your email from Apple. One of the biggest things I’ve always wished for in the previous app is a way to mark all the messages in my inbox as read in one fell swoop.

It looks like, in iOS 7 beta, anyway, that you can do just that. Here’s how.

You know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking it’s been three whole days since I posted about a wooden iPhone case. And since the last one before that was maybe at the beginning of last week, I’m thinking it’s about time for another one. So here it is: The Colors Handcarved Wood iPhone 5 Case.