News - page 1358

Apple has rolled out what is perhaps the most important update ever to its mobile advertising platform, giving anybody with an Apple ID the ability to create iAds for free.

Using the updated iAd Workbench tool, anyone can make their own iAd campaign in a simple, Apple-style interface. It just got a whole lot easier to make iAds for iOS devices.

And that’s not all Apple has added.

Apple is considering a buyout of a division of Renesas Electronics that specializes in display chips for smartphones. The buyout would give Apple engineering expertise to help improve the iPhone’s display “sharpness and battery life,” according to Japanese business site Nikkei.

Apple already orders all of its liquid crystal display chips from Renesas, and the Japanese company is responsible for powering about a third of the world’s small to midsize LCDs. Instead of using the chip division of Renesas like an outside contractor, Apple wants to bring it in-house.

While the app store is updated every week, many new addicting games come with it. With so many developers creating their own versions of popular apps, only some succeed at adding their own original twists. The new app Tiny Frog is an arcade game that takes a familiar popular style of gameplay and adapts it into a new form. Help the frog reach as many lily pads as possible in 15 seconds. Do you think you can tap quick enough to get the highest score of all your friends?

Take a look at the video and find out what you think.

This is a Cult of Mac video review of the iOS application Tiny Frog – redBit games, brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.

Note: This article previously appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine, available in the App Store.

Godus is the upcoming game from god-game specialist designer Peter Molyneux. The game will play on Mac and iOS seamlessly, letting you create and nurture your own little island paradise on one platform and then watch it develop on the other.

“We want to reinvent the genre of god-games,” Molyneux told Cult of Mac from his vantage point in a suite at the swanky Intercontinental Hotel.

Remember that slick-looking Diablo-style hack and slash game we raved about, KingsRoad? We were astonished that such a full-on console-level action RPG game was available on Facebook when we saw it demoed at the Game Developers Conference a couple of weeks back.

Well, now we can finally come clean and share the news: KingsRoad is coming to iPad. You’ll be able to play with all your Facebook buddies, too, as the game will use the very same servers across all platforms.

Loot and raid on my Mac, and then take it on the go? Yes, please.

Head on over to the Hyper Light Drifter Kickstarter page and you’ll immediately get a sense of just how hot this new bame from Heart Machine is going to be. With a modest goal of $25,000, the project garnered over $645,000 before it finished, and it looks to be well worth every pledge.

Just check out the moody, atmospheric video below, and you’ll see why we’re hyper-excited for this new indie adventure game.

Future iPhones may feature Olloclip-style interchangeable lenses — according to a patent published Tuesday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The newly-published patent describes a mechanism by which an iOS devices could be fitted with a bayonet mount, onto which various different types of lens could be attached.

The bayonet mount would allow lenses to be securely fastened to the body of an iPhone, while also keeping a relatively inconspicuous profile when not being used.

Apple is leading the way when it comes to U.S. companies stockpiling cash, according to a note from Moody’s Investors Service.

Holding $158.8 billion, Apple’s cash pile is close to 30x what it was in 2004, when Apple has cash reserves of “just” $5.46 billion. This means that Apple holds 9.7% of total corporate cash outside the financial sector.

Think sport should be less about good sportsmanship and complex rules, and more about violence?

Clearly developer HooAh agrees on some level, because its upcoming iOS game Bench Clearing re-imagines baseball (a.k.a. “America’s favorite pastime”) as a massive free-for-all battle.

While most of the iBeacon applications so far have involved making retail and entertainment more pleasant to consume, a new exhibition at a New York museum aims to use Apple’s beacon technology to demonstrate the horror of landmines.

Taking place between 11am and 3pm on April 4 at the New Museum, the event lets members of the public experience a “digital minefield” by downloading a smartphone app called Sweeper and putting on a set of headphones.

Visitors then move through the exhibit space, potentially triggering iBeacons if they get too close. If this happens, visitors hear the sound of an explosion through their headphones, followed by a short audio excerpt telling the story of a person affected by landmines.

Apple may be moving ahead with its larger 5.5 inch iPhone, but according to a new report it’s running into a few problems along the way.

Reuters reports that while Apple is set to begin mass producing displays for its 4.7-inch iPhone as early as May, the eagerly anticipated 5.5-inch version is suffering supply chain issues relating to the production of in-cell technology for the larger screens.

Apple watchers and employees might be excited about the forthcoming Apple 2 campus, but its development may not prove so popular with drivers.

For the next phase of construction on Apple’s massive 176-acre campus, work will require lane closures on surrounding streets of the campus site — meaning that traffic will be redirected through Cupertino.

Ultrakam is a video-shooting app that uses more of the iPhone’s pixels than the stock camera app to capture something like 2K video from the iPhone 5, 5S and compatible iPads. Yup, 2K video on your iPhone, and a lot more besides.

Pad&Quill is at it again, this time with a low-profile rear-shell style case for the iPhone 5/S. While calling anything from Brian Holmes’s P&Q “minimal” would be a stretch, the Traveler Case gets pretty close. It is also gorgeous to look at, and would surely be just as lovely for the hands. It looks like the kind of case you couldn’t stop fingering.

Handy Photo has gone from v1 to v2, and has changed from an app I apparently installed and then discarded to something that looks very useful indeed for the mobile photographer.

The update brings iOS 7 support, a complete redesign of the interface, and some sweet new features.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1yW4n17lhc

When we originally posted about winocm’s magic iPad 2 that could boot between iOS 5, iOS 6 and iOS 7 at will, we said that “the elite skills necessary to hack your iPad to dual boot operating systems is beyond the ability of most of us mortals, and it’s unlikely winocm will ever make this process friendly for the everyman.”

Then, just yesterday, we took it all back: winocm was going to release the hack that allowed him to dual boot operating systems on his iPad. Schizo-iPads would soon be available to everyone! We were wrong!

Today, though, winocm has released his hack, and guess what? It’s a bunch of github code that you need to have “elite skills… beyond the ability of most of us mortals” to install… definitely not a “process friendly for the everyman.”

If you’re a big fan of Rdio — after Spotify, the other major streaming music subscription service, which just happens to have much better iOS apps — and you also have a Google Chromecast, good news: Rdio for iOS now supports Google’s streaming HDTV dongle.

If you have a Pebble watch, don’t download the Pebble 2.1 update. It could very well brick your smart watch.

Hate freemium or ad-supported games? Tough noogies.

Round two of what might be the biggest patent trial in tech history will be decided by a plumber, a police officer and a store clerk. Those blue-collar types are among the 10-person jury finalized Monday for the latest legal battle between Apple and Samsung.

“Jury picked,” tweeted San Jose Mercury News reporter Howard Mintz shortly after jury selection concluded. “Plumber, teacher, cop, secretary, store clerk, county worker, etc. Not [a] sniff of a tech geek to decide $billion patent trial.”

Apple has announced that the LTE iPad Air and iPad mini are now available in China. Cellular iPad models have been on sale in the country already, but today marks Apple’s adoption of the local TD-SCDMA network standard.

Here’s the full press release:

Apple will hold its second quarterly earnings call for 2014 on Wednesday, April 23rd. The call will be streamed online at 2:00 p.m. PST.

Tim Cook promised that we would see new stuff from Apple in “both current product categories and new ones” across 2014. There has yet to be a media event or new hardware.

Apple has set revenue expectations at $42-44 billion for Q2. Last quarter’s holiday numbers were an all-time high for the company.

Source: Apple

The most shocking revelation to come out of jury selection for the latest Apple-versus-Samsung trial isn’t that the Silicon Valley jury pool is loaded with people connected to one of the two companies. It’s that one potential juror claims ignorance when it comes to Apple’s nearly ubiquitous tablet.

“I’m kind of a dinosaur,” said one potential juror Monday. “I don’t even know what a iPad is.”

Apple has notified developers that it is increasing App Store prices in certain countries due to “changes in foreign exchange rates.” Affected currencies include the Australian Dollar, Indian Rupee, Indonesian Rupiah, Turkish Lira, and South African Rand.

Prices for Israeli New Shekels and the New Zealand Dollar will also be decreased. All changes should be applied within the next 24 hours.

Source: Apple