Like its predecessor, the new prototype Linkase Pro LTE iPhone case supposedly boosts your iPhone’s ability to connect to the Internet. But where the previous version was claimed to strengthen the iPhone’s wifi radio, this new LTE version is supposed to boost, you guessed it, your iPhone’s LTE data radio. Absolute Technology, the company behind the case, also claims it will add 20 percent to your battery life due to less power wasted while trying to send and receive data.
RadioShack has one of those deals coming tomorrow that’s just too good to pass up. Starting April 18th, the 16GB iPhone 5s will be sold in RadioShack stores for only $99 with a two-year contract on AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint. That’s a 50% discount off the retail $199 value.
And that’s not all; iPhone 4s owners get an even sweeter deal. If you’re upgrading from eligible an iPhone 4s, you get a $100 trade-in credit on top of the $99 5s price. So you could effectively get a 5s for free.
No word on how long the promotion will last, so head to your local RadioShack tomorrow if you’re interested.
Source: RadioShack
Flickr’s redesigned mobile apps, which are out today, look very much Instagram. And I think it’s safe to say that the design decision was intentional. The question now is whether Flickr can set itself apart with its pro-friendly features and more free cloud storage than most know what to do with.
Apple has begun selling refurbished models of the iPad mini with Retina display for about 15% off in its online store. Only WiFi models are being offered right now in 32GB and 64GB variants.
A 32GB Retina iPad mini refurb runs $419, which is $80 cheaper than retail price. Not many third-party retailers can match that kind of discount.
While the Apple Store is the last place to normally shop for discounts, it does have one thing going for it: refurbished products. When you buy a refurb from Apple, you’re buying hardware that Apple has replaced with even newer parts than stock items in most cases. Refurbs also come with a full, one-year warranty.
Source: Apple Store
Dropbox has been very busy lately. After announcing big updates to Mailbox and the all-new Carousel photo app, a new service is joining its repertoire. Loom, a popular photo and video storage service, announced today that it has been bought by Dropbox.
The news isn’t a complete surprise given the recent launch of Carousel. While it’s sad to see Loom go, the acquisition is very smart on Dropbox’s part.
Facebook announced this morning that it’s adding a new Nearby Friends feature to its mobile app for iOS and Android that lets you stay more connected than ever with your buddies by letting you stalk every step they take.
Eli Hodapp is the Editor in Chief of popular iOS gaming site, TouchArcade. He’s just released his vanity project, Hodappy Bird, a humorous take on the Flappy Bird phenomenon. The game plays just like its inspiration, with a bird that looks a lot like Hodapp and a Chicago skyline background (Eli lives in the city). Hodapp gave developer Paul Pridham $50 as a joke to build the game, and Pridham made it in the course of a weekend.
It’s all in good fun, of course, but also perhaps a commentary on the recent explosion of Flappy Bird into the market. We wanted to know more, so we contacted him.
Eli took a few moments to chat with Cult of Mac via email today about his project.
If you’ve ever wanted to play Blizzard Entertainment’s wildly successful MMO World of Warcraft on your iPad, you just got your wish. Uh, kind of. After debuting on Mac and PC, Hearthstone: Heroes Of Warcraft has now been released on App Stores worldwide. But it’s actually a lot more like Magic: The Gathering than the MMO you’d expect.
In the past, when Apple has grown the screen of an iOS device — for example, with the transition from the iPhone 4s to the iPhone 5 — Apple has taken pains to keep the pixel density the same. The Retina Display on the iPhone 5 is 326 pixels per inch, just like the iPhone 4s. This makes it easier for developers and helps prevent the widespread fragmentation seen in the Android operating system.
With many rumors pegging the forthcoming iPhone 6 as having a much bigger 4.7-inch display, a practical issue presents itself: what would that mean for resolution and pixel-density? If Apple increases the display size, will they increase the resolution to compete with the likes of HTC and Samsung’s 1080p Android smartphones? And if so, what does that mean for app developers?
Gone are the days when simply taking a photo of a document was enough. Today, if you care enough to scan or photograph a piece of text, chances are you’re also going to want to edit it.
This is where a tool like Smile’s popular PDFpen Scan+ app comes in — which has just been updated for iOS 7.
PDDpen Scan+ differs from rival apps like Scanbot by performing optical character recognition (OCR) to create creating fully-searchable PDFs. The app’s latest update — Version 1.3 — adds an enhanced user interface, new paper sizes for scanned documents, the ability to preview OCR text as page overlays, and many more new features.
Apple’s incoming SVP of Retail, Angela Ahrendts, is one of Cupertino’s most widely anticipated hires in ages. The CEO of popular fashion chain Burberry, Ahrendts is so well-suited to lead Apple’s retail ambitions, and such a powerhouse executive in her own right, that many have wondered if Tim Cook is planning to have her replace him as CEO when he retires.
But when is Ahrendts going to join Apple officially? She was originally expected this month, but it’s now looking like she might push her start until June.
Why? Why else. Money.
In November 2013, Apple acquired PrimeSense, a 3-D technology sensing company that could hint at the ability for future iPhones, iPads and Macs to have a Kinect-like ability to sense where users are and react to their movements.
Given the acquisition, you’d think Apple would be the first company to use one of PrimeSense’s hot 3-D imaging systems-on-a-chip, maybe in the iPhone 6, but no. Google has beaten Apple to the punch, using PrimeSense’s Capri PS1200 3-D imaging SoC in the experimental Project Tango device, the world’s first motion-sensing smartphone.
Want to ask Siri what song is playing and get a definitive answer? In iOS 8 you might be able to, according to a new report.
Apple will reportedly partner with Shazam for a song-recognition feature in the next version of its mobile operating system. For those who don’t know, Shazam has been operating its own song-identification app (a personal favorite of mine) for years.
The app pulls in data from an iPhone or iPad’s microphone, sends it to the cloud for processing, and then returns results to users — allowing you to track down those hard-to-find tracks, without having to spend ages googling lyric fragments.
Having seen its shares jump recently, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has another plan she hopes will continue her company’s turnaround: convincing Apple to adopt Yahoo as the default search engine for Safari on iOS.
Yahoo has reportedly been working on two secret projects designed to build “a viable mobile search engine and monetization platform to convince Apple to make Yahoo the default search engine on its Safari browser on the iPhone and iPad,” according to a new report from Re/code.
Codenamed “Fast Break” and “Curveball,” the projects will be the subject of an upcoming presentation Mayer will make to Apple at some point in the near future — with the aim of getting the company to ditch Google as its search partner.
This mockup of a case suggests that Apple might be working on a successor to the iPhone 5c, the cheaper iPhone that supposedly flopped.
On display at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair, the case appears to be designed for a large-screen iPhone. But that phone does not appear to be the iPhone 6, which is all but officially confirmed to be bigger than current models. The Hong Kong case has a slot on the back only for a single camera flash, suggesting that it’s designed for a successor to the iPhone 5c, which is equipped with a single flash. The iPhone 5s has a double flash.
With so much buzz about the possibility of Apple’s expansion into the wearables sector, it’s no surprise that we’re not exactly short of iWatch concept designs.
The folks behind the universal CircleTime app have added another one to the pile, though — and it’s certainly eye-catching.
“Available” in black and silver, and featuring a 2-inch display with curved anti-scratch glass, full version of iOS, and a Li-ion battery that last seven days before needing to be recharged, HedgeHog’s design is more robust and high quality than some of the other variations out there — even if it does somewhat resemble the heavy duty bracelets worn by He-Man in Masters of the Universe.
On a Bags is at it again, launching three new bags for the laydeez and gennelmen out there. Do you like leather and canvas? Do you like style? Do you like protection for your camera gear and iOS devices? Then read on.
You might as well delete all the layer-blending apps on your iPhone or iPad right now, becasue Union is better than all of them. It comes from Pixite apps, the developer behind Unbound, LoryStrips, Flickring, Tangent and more, and it lets you stack images, then blend and manipulate them to stunning effect. How stunning? Take a look:
This combined Bluetooth attack alarm, flashlight and pepper spray is called the Peacekeeper. LOL.
The Peacekeeper keeps the peace by letting its user deliver a does of “military-grade” pepper spray into the face of another human being. Here’s what that means, according to a paper from the European Parliament Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA).
The effects of pepper spray are far more severe, including temporary blindness which lasts from 15–30 minutes, a burning sensation of the skin which lasts from 45 to 60 minutes, upper body spasms which force a person to bend forward and uncontrollable coughing making it difficult to breathe or speak for between 3 to 15 minutes.
Sometimes the simplest things are the best. A pen and paper for writing shopping lists. A broom instead of a Roomba. An Aeropress instead of a crappy K-cup. And now, a Lifta iMac stand instead of, uh, more complicated iMac stands.
Among Jony Ive’s many changes brought to iOS 7 was the tinkering of the keyboard’s Shift key which has inexplicably gotten worse over time.
Streaks of successfully guessing whether the shift key is on or not should be award with showers of iTunes credits, but as designer Geoff Teehan points out, Apple could fix its keyboard woes with one simple change.
Check it out:
I didn’t pay much attention in high school chemistry class, which probably put my grades even lower than Jesse Pinkman’s, but if the study of matter and science gets your curiosity boiling, ChemLabs has a chemistry learning app that would please Mr. White himself.
One of the most popular trends in app store gaming is incorporating birds into gameplay. While developers have created games based off of angry and flappy birds, one of the newest additions Burds keeps it plain and simple. Swipe and remove like colored birds from the board while coming across bombs, coins and so much more. Do you think you can handle this fast-paced race against the clock?
Take a look at the video and see what you think.
The Apple vs Samsung legal battle has been full of low points for both companies as they spare for global domination, but an email from Samsung’s VP of Sales fired off just two days after Steve Jobs’ death shows how heartless the war has gotten.
Shortly after Jobs’ passing in 2011, Michael Pennington, head of national sales for Samsung Telecommunications America, told company leadership in an email acquired by CNET that Steve’s death was the best opportunity Samsung was going to get to attack the iPhone.
Here’s the full email:
Knights of Pen & Paper +1 Edition combines two fantastic things: a brilliantly funny de-construction of a pen and paper role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons and a mobile game that uses those very same mechanics to create a habit-forming experience.
Best of all? It’s going free on Wednesday at 8 am Pacific, so you should go get yourself a copy of it. Like, right now.