iPhone - page 271

We’re huge fans of the new SurfacePad case from TwelveSouth. It’s just like a Smart Cover, with just one drawback: it doesn’t turn your iPhone on and off automatically when you open it or close it.

We hated that, so we figured out a way to turn the SurfacePad, or any other wallet-style iPhone case, into a working Smart Cover just like the iPad has. The hack doesn’t take much work, and you’ll save yourself from having to unlock your iPhone every time you just want to check something really quick.

Here’s how to do it:

On Sunday, Cult of Mac and Cult of Android will be kicking off our Mobile World Congress 2013 coverage.

The Android side of the Mobile World Congress will be — as ever — an orgy of new handsets and tablets of every conceivable screen size. Apple stuff will be limited to accessories and apps, and Killian Bell will be covering that for us over at Cult of Android.

But what is there to get excited about for Apple fans? I’ll be looking for Mac and iPhone-related news, and I wonder what the hell there’s going to be this year.

Since nobody wants to know what I think is coming next week in the world of iPad cases, lets take a look instead at how the rest of the mobile world could (or might not) predict the features of future iDevices.

Throughout the Samsung vs. Apple patent trial, Judge Lucy Koh has been a stern and sardonic overseer that has more often than not resembled a fight between children than an actual lawsuit. Now Koh is speaking up again, telling Samsung and Apple that, once again, they are wasting everyone’s time throwing a million and one allegations at one another, and that they need to “focus and streamline” their cases against one another.

When you buy your iPhone 5, you have tons of options to choose from. Yes, there are different storage sizes, but you also have the two color options, and then have to get the right iPhone for your carrier. In the U.S. that means you have 18 different models to chose from if you don’t have a carrier preference.

If Apple could just manufacture one iPhone that works on all the LTE carriers, then they’d be able to simplify their supply chain considerably. Luckily, Qualcomm announced a new wireless chip that might make that possible.

The latest commercial for the Optimus G Pro starts as a homage to Apple’s iPhone 5 ad, “Cheese!”, which famously advertised iOS 6’s Panorama functionality.

Man, though, does LG one-up Apple in this advertisement, not only showing how the Optimus G Pro can create a 180 degree panorama of a scene… you can actually use the camera to stitch together a full 360 panorama as well, which LG calls a VR Panorama.

Street View is a new $0.99 iOS app from FutureTap that promises to bring Google Street View back to Apple’s Maps app on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Once installed, you’ll be able to access Street View from within Apple Maps with a series of simple taps. It’s not seamless, but it works.

Google has updated its Google Maps SDK for iOS to version 1.1, opening up its API to all third-party developers who now have the ability to build iOS apps with Google Maps embedded. The update also adds support for ground overlays, gesture controls, and more.

Now that you’ve upgraded to the latest iOS devices, you’re probably wondering what to do with all your old 30-pin speaker docks. You could get a $30 Lightning to 30-pin adapter from Apple and continue to use them, but for just $15 extra, you can get the auris and turn them into wireless Bluetooth speakers.

The official Call of Duty Elite app for iOS has today been updated to version 2.2.0, which adds a number of handy new features. Players can now compare their statistics with those of their friends, and track their progress during clan operations and challenges.

There are many Craigslist apps out there, but let’s be honest, most of them suck. A new app for Craigslist on Android and iPhone has arrived, and it’s beautiful. It comes from Mokriya, the development company behind high profile apps like Path.

Mokriya’s app is officially licensed by Craigslist, and it’s available now for free in Google Play and the App Store.

The only time I ever really care about Major League Baseball is during the Spring. And that’s only because I live in Arizona, where half of the league’s teams come for Spring training, and I can go watch tons of all-stars play games for cheap.

Whether you love baseball or not, you can certainly appreciate the amount of work that goes into the MLB At Bat app. It’s got tons of information, video, and photos, and it got a big update just in time for Spring training.

Jailbreaking allows you to do all sorts of wonderful things to your iPhone that Apple wouldn’t trust you with. It’s totally awesome and can completely change the look of your iPhone, which could be great, or horrible depending on your taste in design, fonts, and wallpapers.

We’ve seen some really beautiful iPhone themes and tweaks over the last year, which got us thinking, “How beautiful could you make your homescreen with jailbreak tweaks?”

We could go down this lovely path alone, but we’d love to have our pals accompany us. So what do you say? Make your iPhone homescreen as pretty and different as possible, take a screenshot, and then post it in the Cult of Mac Flickr group. The five best homescreens will win a free copy of Kuvva Wallpapers, so hurry up and beautify your homescreens.

Here’s how to enter the contest:

Apple stock plummeted recently after a rumor went around that Foxconn had instituted a hiring freeze based upon a slowdown in iPhone 5 production. Foxconn quickly and emphatically deniedthat the freeze had anything to do with the iPhone 5… but what was the cause of the hiring freeze, then?

Here’s an interesting theory: Foxconn had to freeze hirings this year because, under pressure from Apple, they are treating employees so much more nicely that workers are no longer abandoning their jobs in droves after Chinese New Year.

Ray-Ban, the sunglasses company, has a rather neat take on Instagram-style retrification filters. Instead of releasing yet another photo-filtering app, Ray-Ban’s Ambermatic actually shoots your photos through a real pair of Ambermatic shades.

You know when your friend posts an awesome picture of their latte or the tasty dessert they had after their big plate of pasta last night to Instagram, and you really want to save that picture so that you can drool over it more than once? Well now you can, thanks to Instahancer, a new tweak for jailbroken iPhones.

As its name suggests, Instahancer enhances the Instagram app with a number of useful features, including zoom, the ability to share pictures to your camera roll, and the option to share them via email.

PopCap’s beloved Plants vs. Zombies has today been made available for free in the App Store. The reduction applies to both the iPhone and iPad titles, which were previously priced at $2.99 and $6.99 respectively. If you don’t already have it, it’s well worth adding to your collection.

Twitterrific for iOS has received its first major update since it was overhauled with version 5.0 back in December. In addition to mute filters for users, hashtags, and domains, version 5.1 brings support for new image services, a new font, and a whole stack of improvements. Check out the full list of changes below.

Yesterday it was reported that malware had infiltrated the Macs of Apple’s employees. It was big news because this is the first attack to affect Apple internally on such a big scale. The source of the malware was traced back to a popular forum for iPhone developers called iPhoneDevSDK. A vulnerability in a Java plugin on the site allowed for hackers to hijack the plugin and use it to insert malware.

While iPhoneDevSDK has been a dangerous site to visit due to the hack, the site’s administration has confirmed that it is “clean” to use again.

Despite the fact that you’ll probably end up killing someone because of it, you’re going to keep using your phone in the car. With this in mind, I bring tidings of the Airframe from Kenu, a tiny smartphone mount which clips to the louvers of your car’s ventilation holes and hugs the phone tightly. The idea is that your iPhone is now secure and convenient, making it less likely that you’ll mow down a cyclist while you try to compose a Tweet.

Unless it’s full of unread notifications, the iPhone’s lock screen is already pretty bare — Apple has designed it to be clean and clear, like the rest of iOS. But you can take it a step further with SubtleLock, a new tweak for jailbroken iPhones that adds a touch of minimalism to your lock screen to provide you with more space and a cleaner look.

The more and more we all use social network tools like Facebook and Twitter, the more we can see the benefit of using them in smaller, more unique groups. How great would it be to have a social network that is only open to members of a school project, a church group, or a hot rod club? Instead of going through the hassle of building a Facebook group, figuring out privacy and membership, you could just connect folks together easily and quickly and be done with it.

Well, the folks at Celly seem to have thought of that already, offering a build your own social network that you can create and manage while you’re on the go.

Earlier today it was reported that Apple’s computers had been compromised by a zero-day exploit in Java. Apple quickly released an update to patch the flaw for all Macs, but not before some of its own employees had been hacked.

The hack in question affected more than just Apple; Silicon Valley giants like Facebook and Twitter were also compromised. How exactly were hackers able to gain access to some of the biggest tech companies’ computers? The source is a single web forum for iPhone development.

Over the last couple months, we’ve seen Apple fanboys’ obsession move away from an Apple TV set, and focus on the iWatch. As rumors have ramped up that Apple might make their own wearable computer very soon, people have wondered what an iWatch might look like.

We’ve seen a lot of concept renderings of iWatches over the past two years, and while many of them have been a bit crazy, some are pretty neat and feasible. We don’t really know much about the iWatch other than it will have a curved glass display and be worn on the wrist, but if you combine a few aspects from each of these concepts, you might get a ballpark idea of what the iWatch will look like.

Forget 8-megapixel pictures and HDR — if you want photos that instantly look cool, then it’s time to take a step back… all the way back to the eighties. Camera C64 is a free iPhone app that helps you relive the days when the Commodore C64 was considered cutting-edge technology by delivering authentic 16-color photos that are almost guaranteed to look good.

Apple could launch its $330 “iPhone mini” as early as this summer to boost the company’s smartphone sales in China, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty. It’s expected the low-cost device could provide Apple with an additional 20% of the smartphone market, adding to the 10% it has already claimed with the iPhone 5. And with smartphone prices now beginning to stabilize in China, now would be an ideal time for such a device.