If you’re an iPhone user who plays Angry Birds and watches YouTube videos all day long, you probably think your handset’s battery life is terrible. In reality, the iPhone often provides you with a lot more energy than many rival smartphones, and as for the iPad, well, no other tablet beats it when it comes to staying awake.
But there are some things you can do to make your battery life even better. In addition to obvious fixes — like turning down your brightness when you don’t need it to melt your retinas, or killing apps like Skype that constantly run in the background — identifying buggy apps that might be using battery unnecessarily could make a huge difference. And Carat for iOS helps you do that.
Unfortunately, Time Capsule failures are an all too common occurrence.
Canadian lawyer Perminder Tung is suing Apple over a Time Capsule failure that cause him to lose laptop backups that included precious photographs of his child’s birth. Tung wants $25,000 in compensation for the broken device and the lost memories after Apple told him the data on his Time Capsule could not be saved.
The iPhone Marimba ringtone is iconic. It’s just a few notes played on an African xylophone, but somehow, it captures everything that is light and breezy about Apple’s platform.
The problem is, everyone uses it as a ringtone. Like Nokia’s overexposed ringtone before it, Marimba’s musical resonance has been oversaturated for most of us.
That’s why I really like the Marimba Take Two mix by Will Neaverson, embedded above. It takes the original Marimba and builds layers upon it, until it almost sounds like a Coldplay track.
As one of Reddit’s commenters note, it sounds so good, you can imagine Apple even using it in a commercial. That’s an ad I’d like to see. (Update: One of our readers made one!)
In yet another patent filing, it appears that Apple is, if nothing else, researching the idea of interchangeable camera lenses on the iPhone. While the chances of an idea like this actually making it to the iPhone are slim to none, it’s an interesting look into what goes on behind closed doors at Apple.
Woz believes Siri went downhill the day Apple bought it.
If you’ve been an iPhone user for a number of years, you may remember that Siri was a third-party app long before it was purchased by Apple and integrated into the iOS operating system. Back then, although it couldn’t remind you to take out the trash or compose text messages, it offered a lot of the same search functionality it does today.
In fact, according to Steve Wozniak, Siri was actually better back then.
Skype has just pushed out its latest update for Mac OS X, which includes a number of enhancements to existing features, as well as support for OS X Mountain Lion. The company promises that contacts lists, video calls to mobile devices, and screen sharing are all much-improved in version 5.8.
The iOS 6 beta has been available for four days now, but we’re still stumbling across new features that Apple didn’t mention during WWDC. One of those is the ability to receive government AMBER and emergency alerts automatically on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
The iPhone's best Google Reader client is now even better.
Reeder is, in my opinion, by far the best Google Reader client for both Mac and iOS. And it just got even better on the iPhone. After being rewritten from the ground up, Reeder now offers stacks of new features, like Fever syncing, support for multiple accounts, the ability to subscribe and unsubscribe from feeds, and more. It even has a pretty new icon.
Phil Zimmerman, the creator of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption for email in the 1990s, has come to the forefront yet again as the spokesman for Silent Circle, a company planning to beta test an encrypted phone call and text message app for the iPhone and other smartphones. The app will be free when it’s released in July of this year, but the service itself will cost somewhere in the $20 per month range.
Zimmerman, long a proponent of technological solutions to civil liberties, thinks people will pay for the privacy.
“I’m not going to apologize for the cost,” he told CNET, “This is not Facebook. Our customers are customers. They’re not products. They’re not part of the inventory.”
That may well be the case, but getting consumers to pay subscription fees is notoriously difficult. Silent Circle plans to offer a solution for easily encrypted email, phone calls, and instant messaging to start, with plans for encrypted SMS in the future.
In addition to the iPhone release, Zimmerman told CNET that the company was planning to roll out an app for Mac and PC as well, but that it’s not ready, yet. They’ll focus on the mobile app first, allowing customers to communicate securely if they both have the app installed. If only one does, the information will be encrypted to Silent Circle’s servers, but not from there to a recipient’s phone.
This sounds great for most consumers needing to keep their legal communication safe and private, but it’s unlikely that lawmakers will see it the same way. It’s possible that Phil Zimmerman may yet again fall under scrutiny as he did when he released his first encryption product nearly two decades ago.
It might be possible in the near future to violate copyright law simply by selling your old iPad 2 or iPod touch to a buyer from eBay or Craigslist, if a case soon to be seen in the Supreme Court goes horribly wrong. The Supreme Court has been asked to examine a lower court decision to prevent the sale of used electronics without securing permission from copyright holders involved in manufacturing the devices.
The annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is an invite-only event that centers on the video gaming industry. Held across two massive halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center, it is a draw for any journalist interested in games and gaming, and a source of endless news stories during the week in June it’s typically held.
No matter where I looked at the Expo this year, I saw mobile games and mobile devices. With a few notable exceptions (Nyko had a huge booth full of Tegra-enabled tablets to show off their gaming controllers for Android), most of the devices I came into contact with were decidedly of the iOS persuasion. I’m fairly sure that Apple is winning this round.
I have a thing for iPhone wallet cases. The ability to carry my iPhone and my credit cards in one unit and leave my wallet at home really pleases me, and I’m disappointed when I have to use a case without this functionality.
When I stumbled across the Zenok leather wallet case on Etsy, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. This unique iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S case is made using a silicone shell that is stitched inside a handmade, leather wallet, which boasts three card slots, and a pocket for your cash.
Each Zenok case is dyed by hand and purposely built to be different and unique, which is why I’m yet to see another iPhone case like it. As you’d expect, it also provides access to all of your iPhone’s buttons and ports, as well as its camera.
It might be pretty and unique, then, but is it worth its $60 price tag?
We know that you Cult of Mac readers are also a bunch of photo nerds, so we thought that this week’s best-of list could be about cameras. You’re iPhone might be great (and even makes it into this list) but sometimes you need something more powerful, more rugged or just plain better. Here’s our list of the best cameras out these.
iOS 6 has some awesome new features, but here's 7 things it's still missing.
We’re super excited for iOS 6. Although it isn’t the complete iOS overhaul many users were hoping for, it does deliver a whole host of new features — like a new Maps app, user interface enhancements, improvements to stock apps, and Siri support on iPad — that we’re certainly looking forward to.
However, it’s hard to ignore the fact that iOS 6 still has some things missing. Things we’ve been waiting for for some time. Here are seven of them.
I suppose that product meeting for the V-Moda Vamp went something like this:
Designer: Here it is! The Vamp case. It’s a metal case for the iPhone.
Boss: What the hell is wrong with you? That thing is huge. It’s an embarrassment to the good name of V-Moda. My god. With a box that size you could fit in literally anything. ANYTHING!
Man, is the Diff case a neat little iPhone case. It starts out as a tough case with a tripod mount (Zzzzz) but quickly picks up thanks to a clever cover and a pro-level lens mount.
Pris is a ridiculously simple new camera app for the iPhone which nonetheless manages to give you all the features you actually need, only without getting in the way. Shoot with the iPhone in portrait orientation and it’ll snap square photos and videos, ready for Instagram. Flip the iPhone into landscape and Pris will shoot super widescreen video and stills in a Star Wars-like 2.25:1 aspect ratio. There’s more, but in principle that’s the entire app.
If you often find yourself using your hand to hold your iPhone while you film or photograph, please allow me to introduce you to the Woxom Slingshot ($15), the neat little gadget that makes it a snap to hand-hold your iPhone while you use its front-facing camera.
Turn-by-turn looks incredible, but it won't be coming to your iPhone 3GS.
Although iOS 6 looks a lot like iOS 5 at a glance, it represents a huge change to some of Apple’s core iOS features. Apps and services like Maps, Mail, Phone, Notification Center and more have all received new features worth talking about, while several new ones have been introduced.
The great thing about it is, is supports a whole host of devices, including every iPhone from the iPhone 3GS onwards. Some devices won’t get access to all features, however. Only the iPhone 4S and the first- and second-generation iPads will enjoy turn-by-turn navigation and 3D maps.
I didn't need to enter my password to download this, because I already owned it.
I’ve never really like the way in which the App Store handles security. Sure, I like the fact that if my iPhone is stolen, thieves can’t run up a huge iTunes bill. But I don’t understand why I have to enter my password each and every time I need to download updates or previous purchases. These have already been paid for; why is this necessary?
Thankfully, in iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion, it isn’t.
When Game Center was announced for iOS 5, some folks were skeptical. They didn’t really see the value in Apple taking on the leader board scene with already established players like OpenFeint, Plus+, Crystal, Gameloft Live, and others.
Those very same people would surely have to eat their words when they heard today at the WWDC in San Francisco that Game Center has over 130 million people using it and those folks submit 5 billion scores every week.
Analysts are offering last minute predictions before today's WWDC keynote
With just a few hours to go before Apple kicks off WWDC, some analysts are rushing to make predictions right up till the last few moments. London-based research firm Ovum, for example, delivered a list of three things that its Chief Telecoms Analyst Jan Dawson feels are essential announcements that Apple needs to make during the WWDC keynote later today.
Dawson’s assessment breaks ranks with many other analysts who have insisted that Apple must unveil its own HDTV at the event or sometime later this year but does think Apple needs to bring apps to the TV experience. The remainder of his comments focus on iOS and changes that a wide swath of iPhone and iPad owners, developers, and tech journalists have suggested since Apple released iOS 5 last fall.
iPhone users consumer more 3G data on average than any other platform
It’s a pretty good bet that iPhones and iPads will be responsible for 3G/4G traffic spikes around the Moscone Center in San Francisco this week as Apple developers lucky enough to score a ticket attend WWDC. Beyond this week, however, it seems that iPhone users have a tendency to gobble up a large amount of data – more so than other platforms including Android.
On average, iPhone owners represent about 20% of smartphone customers for mobile carriers worldwide. You might expect that those customers would amount to around 20% of data usage. That isn’t the case as iPhone users account for an average 45% of carrier data traffic and data use by iPhone users is more consistent than data consumed by Android customers.
App Cubby has made a little teaser video for the forthcoming new app Launch Center Pro. As you may remember, Launch Center is kind of like Quicksilver or Launchbar for your iPhone — you fire it up and tap buttons to perform actions. You can quickly compose a Tweet, or tap a button to open the Mail app with a new draft already pre-populated with a recipient’s address, or even schedule a message, say, to be sent at a certain time (this will pop up a reminder in the Notification Center).
MacPhun's Color Splash Studio is finally on iOS, and it's leading this week's must-have apps roundup.
Heading up this week’s must-have apps roundup is Color Splash Studio, a terrific photo manipulation tool originally built for Mac OS X, which has finally made the leap from MacApp Store to iPhone. We also have a great music video mixing tool from Algoriddim, the guys behind Djay; a camera app that’s perfect for your kids, and more.
