iPhone - page 292

The Speck CandyShell is a dual-layer case with a patented design that aims to give you all-around protection for your iPhone 5. It combines a soft, rubber interior with a hard outer shell that offers plenty of impact resistance for those unfortunate yet inevitable drops.

The CandyShell also provides protection for your volume keys and sleep/wake button, while providing access to your headphone jack, Lightning connector, mute switch, and camera.

It costs $34.95 and comes in a plethora of color combinations, including black and slate, white and charcoal, raspberry and black, grape and malachite, and many more.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was at the Churchill Club in Santa Clara this week to be interviewed by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. One of the most interesting subjects he talked about was Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, and how it compares to its two main rivals, Apple’s iOS, and Google’s Android.

As you might expect, he didn’t have many good things to say about his competitors. In fact, he called Android “wild” and “uncontrolled,” before saying the iPhone is too expensive and too controlled. Windows Phone, he feels, sits in a sweet spot between the two.

For quickly punching up a photo on your iPad or iPhone, it’s hard to beat the amazing Snapseed. At other times, you want a little more control, so you may pick something like Photogene. But what if you kinda want both? Then go grab Pixlr.

Hello, reader. while you’ve obviously found a source of news you like for Apple-related info, where do you go for non Apple-related news? (I know: “If it’s not Apple-related, I don’t wanna read it!” But just bear with me here).

Telltale Games today announced that the season finale, Episode 5 of Walking Dead The Game, “No Time Left,” is slated to launch on all platforms next week, November 20th. This will be the first episode that comes out simultaneously on console, Mac, iOS, and PC. This is the final episode of critically acclaimed episodic game based on Robert Kirkman’s comic series, The Walking Dead.

I’ve never really been able to get behind the whole augmented reality thing. I tried it with the Yelp iPhone app once while I was on vacation in a large city, but it hasn’t really changed my life in any way. If there’s any platform I can see augmented reality really taking off, it’s on smartphones.

The developers at Crossfader have released something really cool: an augmented reality layer for Maps on the iPhone. Both Apple and Google Maps are supported, and the app itself is totally free.

We all have too many apps, I’m guessing. As an app aficionado, I have hundreds of apps across several pages, many of them buried within folders. iOS is organized for visual memory; I’m usually flipping through pages and looking for the app I need based on where it is on the page, how the icon looks, and what other apps it’s near.

Once past the first page or two, however, and especially in folders filled with a bunch of apps, that visual strategy starts to break down. Typically, I’ll swipe right from the Home screen and type in the name of the app, then tap on it to launch it. This works fine, but eventually takes more time than just knowing what folder the app resides in. Here’s how to find out.

Back in the good old days of the 20th Century, a person’s edge-beaten leather suitcase might be the accessory they traveled with the most, with which they had visited the most exotic of foreign, jasmine-scented climes, and it would be covered with stickers of all the places they’d visited.

These days, people don’t have as personal of a connection with their suitcases, and showing someone you’ve been somewhere is usually done by checking-in on Foursquare. Your iPhone is the accessory you’re most likely to travel the world with, which is why I love the iPhone (Suit)Case, a conceptual iPhone case by Dallas illustrators / artists David Soames and Dustin Taylor that makes your iPhone look like a miniature suitcase.

Sadly, it’s just a concept right now, but voting’s open on Threadless to turn this product into a reality. Hopefully one made with real leather.

Source: Threadless
Via: Laughing Squid

As Apple and Samsung try to purge themselves of dependency on one another things are bound to get even more ugly over the next 12-18months. A report came out earlier this week that Samsung was planning to raise the price on Apple’s processors by 20%.

The significant price increase would mean Apple’s cash cow – the iPhone – wouldn’t have as profitable margins which would negatively effect Apple’s bottom line. However, an official at Samsung has come out today to deny the changes and says that a 20% price hike isn’t coming.

Tap Tap Tap has updated its hugely popular Camera+ app for iPhone today, introducing a stack of great new features and lots of improvements. It claims to have “made the impossible possible” by introducing a front-facing flash, in addition to a horizontal level, live exposure, and more.

The last few weeks have been a bit rocky for Apple and its new CEO Tim Cook, but that hasn’t stopped it from enjoying record breaking successes thanks to the iPhone 5 and iPad.

Every year the people at Fierce Wireless rank the top 25 most powerful people in the U.S. wireless industry, and for their rankings this year Tim Cook managed to grab the number one spot.

So, you think the panorama feature on your new iPhone is pretty sweet, right? It allows you to take panoramic photos without any special post-shot software, and you can shoot left to right or right to left.

But what if you want to take a picture of a super tall Sequoia tree, for example? Or a skyscraper, for that matter? Turns out you can shoot really tall things, too, using this vertical panorama picture tip.

Apple’s new Maps app leaves a lot to be desired, and while there are some decent alternatives out there, the only worthy replacement for Apple Maps is either Google Maps or Nokia’s Maps. Neither company has an iOS app ready to go just yet, but Nokia is planning to change all that.

In a few weeks Nokia plans to release a maps app for iOS called Here. The app will be free for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch owners, and Nokia is hoping that it will persuade some iOS users to try out their smartphones as well.

The Jawbone UP wristband first launched back in 2011, and it became quite a popular product. Everyone wanted to get their hands on the fitness- and sleep-tracking iPhone accessory, which came with plenty of promise. Unfortunately, it launched with all kinds of problems, too — including water leaks and inflexible components that broke too easily — and Jawbone was forced to pull it.

The company’s now giving the device a second shot. Today it announced the second-generation Jawbone UP, which is now shipping for $129.99.

Despite losing some of the tablet marketshare to Android tablets this year, the iPad and iPhone are still the two most popular non-PC devices to watch video on. A new study on video monetization conducted by FreeWheel found that Apple iOS devices make up more than 60% of all non-PC/Mac video viewing.

Even though Android tablets and smartphones have seen major gains, they’re still a work in progress and their users don’t consume media as heavily as iOS users.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II launched today, and with it comes a new update to the Call of Duty Elite app for iOS. In addition to support for the latest game, the app brings an “all-new iPad experience,” which includes a new feature called Elite TV that allows you to live-stream Black Ops II gameplay and multiplayer guides.

Citizen has announced the latest edition to its Eco-Drive watch lineup, and it’s the perfect partner to your iPhone 4S or iPhone 5. Called the Eco-Drive Proximity Watch, it has Bluetooth 4.0 built-in, and vibrates when you receive calls, text messages, emails, and more on your iPhone. It also synchronizes its time and date with your iPhone to ensure it’s always spot-on.

The Eco-Drive Proximity Watch has been available in the U.S. for a couple of months, but it’s just landed in the U.K.

It sure would be nice to change the order of the many calendars on the iPhone. Sadly, iOS 6 only lets you show or hide specific calendars with a tap on the calendar in question from within the Calendar app on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

You can, however, reorder the different calendars on your iPhone, just in a different way. Here’s how.

Writing Kit, the app with which I write each and every Cult of Mac post for your daily enjoyment, has received an update. And it’s a big one. If you never use the app much, it might at first appear to have changed very little. But if you’re a regular writer, then the changes are huge.

Samsung has dealt Apple a nasty blow by increasing the price of its mobile processors — the ones built into every iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch — by 20%. According to a person familiar with negotiations between the two companies, Apple initially disapproved the price hike, but was forced to accept it with no replacement supplier available.

Following the supply problems Apple has faced with the iPhone 5, the Cupertino company is reportedly woking to ensure that it is better prepared for the iPhone 5S by trialling production way ahead of the handset’s public release. According to one Chinese newspaper, it will begin production of up to 100,000 iPhone 5S units this December.

Microsoft’s awesome Xbox app for iOS got a major update this week, and it’s kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup. It’s accompanied by another great update to Clear, a terrific list-management tool; plus a nifty counting app for iPhone, and a new photography app that lets you apply awesome effects to your photos.

Apple’s current “hobby” — also known as Apple TV — doesn’t tell us much about Apple’s future plans for the living room.

It’s a good product under the right circumstances. But five years from now, living rooms are going to be transformed by all-encompassing systems that turn TVs into video phones, gaming systems, home automation control centers and artificial intelligence assistants.

Does Apple have what it takes to compete in the living room? 

Lucky Frame made one of my favorite games on iOS ever, Pugs Luv Beats. It’s no surprise, given the game’s focus on my favorite dogs of all time and a wicked-cool beat-making mechanic, adorable graphics, and a spin-off app, Pug Synth. They put out Bad Hotel, next, a quirky and innovative take on the castle defense genre that has the games studio’s signature graphic style and musical theme.

Now they’re taking a similar electronica vibe and marrying it with a two-button, arcade-style side-scrolling game on iOS called Wave Trip. And it looks a beaut.

Mike Schramm writes about technology and games for Joystiq and TUAW during the week. He’s also a pretty decent guy. He also finds it fun to code on the weekends. I know, it makes no sense to me, either.

Schramm has just released his second iOS game to the iTunes app store, and it’s called Benediction. Actually, the full name is Benediction – a game by Mike Schramm, a name most likely necessitated by the many other apps out there with a version of the word ‘benediction’ in the title.

Benediction has three things going for it. Those three things got me to download the game, then play the game, then continue playing the game until I was forced to set my iPhone down and actually do some work. This is a great game, and you’ll be sad if you don’t check it out for yourself.