Twitter has updated its official iPhone app in the App Store with several new features, including added settings for notifications, enhancements to the Discover tab, the new expandable tweets feature for viewing media content in the timeline, stability improvements, and the new Twitter icon.
Twitter for iPhone 4.3 is available now in the App Store for free. Change log after the break:
In 2006, Apple released an iPod that, to this day, is unique amongst all of the iPods it sells in that it didn’t come with a standard Dock Connector: the iPod shuffle.
In order to save space in a design that was built from the ground up to be as tiny as possible, Apple jettisoned the traditional 30-Pin Dock Connector in the second-gen shuffle in favor of a clever implementation of USB that plugged in right through the 3.5mm audio jack.
For the last six years, Apple has favored this implementation of USB syncing and charging in its line of iPod shuffles, even as every other model of iPhone, iPod or iPad shipped with a much bulkier 30-Pin Apple Dock Connector.
As rumors have heated up that Apple will abandon the 30-Pin Dock Connector in the next iPhone for a slimmer 19-Pin Connector, a natural question to ask is, “why?” If Apple just wants to save space in the next iPhone, why not just adopt the time-tested iPod shuffle’s approach, which is about the most efficient and elegant implementation of USB ever designed?
The answer’s simple: while the iPod shuffle’s USB design is ingenious at syncing and charging, it’s really crappy at everything else that the 30-Pin Dock Connector is designed to do. But what does the 30-Pin Dock Connector do, why doesn’t Apple just use USB like most of its competitors, and why is 19-Pin — not 30 — the way to go?
When Apple opened the App Store in 2008, it began a revolution that would lead to the largest and most vibrant mobile apps ecosystem in existence. It should then come as no surprise that Objective-C, the object-oriented coding language used by developers to build apps for iOS and OS X, has become the third most popular coding language, right behind Java and C itself.
The Audio Xciter music player’s press release is full of the usual superlatives, and I quickly glossed over them in my usual cynical manner looking for something to make fun of (which I found – more on that in a bit). But one listen of the audio-processing iOS app is enough to make you sit up and, uh, listen.
It really is amazing.
Struggling to find beautiful wallpapers for your new MacBook Pro’s high-resolution Retina display? With Wallpaper Wizard for Mac OS X, you can browse over 100,000 high-definition wallpapers with resolutions up to 2880 x 1800 all in one place, saving only the images ones you want to keep. And best of all, Wallpaper Wizard is today’s Two Dollar Tuesday pick, meaning it has 80% off its normal $9.99 price tag.
Sometimes a jailbreak tweak comes along that is so subtle and yet so brilliant. Banner notifications in iOS are great, but Apple made a poor design choice: incoming banners push in on the top of whatever app you’re using at the moment. If you’re using Safari, the address/search bar is momentarily obscured by a banner notification. That’s no good.
A new Cydia tweak called CoverMeNot keeps banner notifications out of the way by automatically doubling the height of your iOS status bar. No more obtrusive banners covering the top of your favorite apps.
Last March, Twitter told the developer community to stop making third-party apps and clients that “mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.” Twitter said, “We need to move to a less fragmented world, where every user can experience Twitter in a consistent way.”
Fast forward more than a year later, and Twitter is slowly moving away from an open platform for developers to build upon. Twitter plans to implement stricter API guidelines for developers, and while there’s no concrete evidence that Twitter will shut down third-party apps altogether, the current landscape of great apps like Tweetbot and Twitterrific could look very different in coming months.
Oh man, I can totally see myself taking this mechanical Bluetooth keyboard to the local bar and clackety clacking out a few posts every morning. It’s called the KBtalKing Pro and it is a rather clever little beast, a pro keyboard which is designed to work with – and switch seamlessly between – up to ten of your devices.
It’s getting almost painful to read reports about RIM. The ongoing hype about how great BlackBerry 10 will be mixed with the reports of layoffs, inventory sitting around warehouses, the company’s share price plummeting – it all reminds me of the time one of my high school friends broke her ankle in gym class and hobbled around for nearly half a day trying to convince herself that she’d only sprained it.
Among all that news, however, is a question – can organizations that need incredible security manage in a world without RIM and the manageability made possible by its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES)? Is iOS up to that challenge? Is Apple up to or interested in making a major play for the enterprise market?
The Opus hotel in Vancouver made a somewhat shocking announcement last week. The hotel was ripping the landline phones out of its rooms and replacing them with iPhones. While that seems extravagant, it’s actually a rather brilliant plan.
The hotel, which already offers guests an iPad that can act as a concierge service, points out that offering guests, particularly international guests, an iPhone adds a lot of value. In addition to the value for customers, Apple’s free iOS management tools could make implementing such a program simple and relatively inexpensive – beyond the cost of the iPhones themselves anyway.
Tones looks to be just about the coolest way to create custom ringtones for your iPhone that I have seen. Then again, I haven’t seen many as I’m not a thoughtless teenager who thinks that other people want to hear his crappy music every time a call comes in.
Better still, Tones puts iPhone ringtone editing just where it should be: on the iPhone itself.
Although a new iPhone didn’t show its face during Apple’s WWDC keynote back in June, the Cupertino company did release a number of new products, including refreshed MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, and Mac Pros; a new “next generation” MacBook Pro, and more. But according to one analyst, the Cupertino company’s fall event will be even bigger, with a new iPhone, a new iPad, and a new Apple TV all on their way.
Let me tell you a story. Many years ago, I was a cocktail bartender in a busy London bar. I had just gotten a brand new dumb-phone (a Siemens if I remember correctly), a little silver candy-bar of crap, but it was my candy-bar of crap, and I’d owned it only a few hours.
On shift, I switched the phone to silent and put it in a rocks glass on the backbar, behind my station. The bottom shelf of the backbar had a small lip at the front. Partway through the busy shift I needed some Kahlua (for a Vodka Espresso, not a White Russian). I grabbed the bottle and the base caught the shelf-edge and sheared clean off. The Kahlua – of course – was dumped into the glass with my brand new phone.
I was lucky: this was before the days of moisture sensors and a quick wash later and I got a new handset from the store. Today, you might not fare so well.
Which is why I have mixed (no pun intended) opinions of the Cube.
There’s no denying that the iPad is far to big to be a telephone, but there are times when it would be nice to make calls on the device. For example, I’ve previously used Skype to make a call on mine while my iPhone was being updated. But a new smartphone app called ‘TU Go’, on its way from U.K. carrier O2, will allow you to use a device connected to your iPhone — such as an iPad — to make and receive calls from your existing phone number.
As reported by Marc Gurman over at 9 to 5 Mac, Twitter’s official iPhone app is getting a big update soon.
The beta iOS 6 App Store has mistakenly loaded some app update screens for the new Twitter client, version 4.3. Twitter’s apps have been lagging farther and farther behind recently, due to changes in Twitter’s mobile API and third-party apps that include more power features than the official ones. The changes are substantive, however, in the upcoming Twitter app, as shown in the leaked release notes.
The #BoycottApple hashtag was trending hard on Google+ last week.
No, I’m not talking about the boycott-Apple-to-save-Chinese-workers, the boycott-Apple-because-they-discriminate-against-Iranians or even the boycott-Apple-because-they-support-gay-marriage movements.
I’m talking about the boycott-Apple-because-they’re-using-the-courts-to-compete-against-Android-devices movement.
Specifically, the call to boycott is based on anger over Apple’s successful attempt to ban both the Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and the Galaxy 10.1 tablet. An appeals court temporarily lifted the ban on the phone yesterday, but upheld the tablet ban.
Here’s why the call for a boycott is misguided and futile.
I’ve been jailbreaking my iOS devices for a couple of years now, and to be perfectly honest, I’ve thought about going back to the stock version of iOS many times. Sometimes I’ll ask myself if it’s really worth jailbreaking my iPhone. iOS 5 brought a lot of features that were only available for jailbreakers previously, and iOS 6 is adding several more.
Before the jailbreak for iOS 5.1.1 came out, I was considering abandoning Cydia, the jailbreak’s App Store equivalent, for good. I didn’t think I needed to jailbreak anymore.
And in most cases, you don’t really need to jailbreak ever. But since the iOS 5.1.1 jailbreak, I’ve fallen in love with my jailbroken iPhone 4S all over again. Here’s why.
Kicking off this week’s must-have games roundup is a fantastic first-person shooter from the creators of Shadowgun, in which you must take down hoards of bloodthirsty zombies before they take control of planet Earth. We also have a wonderfully unique astronaut simulator called Astronaut Spacewalk, plus lots more.
We’ve all been waiting with bated breath for Apple to take the mobile payment industry by storm and bring it to the mass consumer market. For years, there have been whispers that Apple is working on its own approach to reinventing mobile payments, including the possibility of a NFC-equipped iPhone. When Apple unveiled Passbook in iOS 6 last month, the company announced its first real foray into mobile payments by partnering with select companies for handling virtual goods like coupons and airline tickets.
According to a new report on The Wall Street Journal, Apple’s Passbook is only a shadow of things to come. The company is “deliberately” working on its own mobile payment system, and while the rest of its competitors scramble to test the waters, Apple is sitting back and developing the right strategy.
Popular online streaming music service Pandora started it all. They grew out of the Music Genome Project in January of 2000 and haven’t looked back. Pandora has a web streaming option, is built into many home and car audio products, and, of course, can be found on iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. While their algorithms can be hit and miss in my experience, they’re still the go-to app when Spotify, Grooveshark, or Rdio don’t quite cut it.
Today, Pandora updated its iPhone app with several new features and a nice face lift to boot.
Killspencer might sound like an order to murder somebody with a fancy name, but it is in fact just an innocent iPhone card-case made from Rosenkrantz*. No. Wait… I mean rosewood.
Apple has already conquered the world of PCs, mobile phones, tablets, and soon, television. But Steve Jobs had aspirations of dominating more than just the world of computers, and on our newest CultCast, we’ll tell you where we’d love to see Apple head next.
And then: we’ve been iffy on ever seeing an iPad Mini, but we now have reason to believe that the mystical device will indeed see the light of day. Don’t buy that Kindle Fire just yet!
All that and more on The CultCast. Go on and hit the ‘ol subscribe button here, or download Apple’s brilliant new Podcasts app and effortlessly stream The CultCast whenever you’d like!
Show notes ahead!
Italian designer Federico Ciccarese is well known throughout the blogosphere for his Apple product concepts. Chances are that you’ve seen his gorgeous iPad Mini and iPhone 5 concept designs in recent months.
Ciccarese has released a futuristic iPhone concept that takes a very different approach to wearable technology. Kinda creepy, right?
U.K. carrier O2 decided to survey its users to determine which devices iPhones or other smartphones commonly replace in the lives of its customers. The most commonly replaced device turned out to be one of the more low-tech devices in daily life – the alarm clock.
54% of O2’s iPhone and smartphone customers have relegated their alarm clocks to the dustbin of history.
The second most commonly replaced device was also a time-keeping device: the watch.
Well, here’s a good idea that’s been a long time coming: AT&T is about to launch a new service that will make it easy for you to report and block your iPhone or iPad’s service if it has been stolen.