News - page 1359

Apple and Samsung have become very acquainted with one another in the courtroom. Every since Apple’s crushing victory against Samsung in 2012 over patent infringement, the tech giants have been duking it out through a seemingly-endless string of appeals. The culmination of 2012’s verdict is a second trial that begins today in San Jose, California.

Much in this trial is the same as the last: Apple and Samsung are both accusing each other of copying patented ideas, and there are billions of dollars on the table. But enough has changed to make the outcome of this second trial unguessable.

Apple and Samsung are headed back to court today for round two of their billion dollar patent lawsuit that will see the two companies pointing fingers and slamming down arguments on who copied whose patents.

We’ve seen enough evidence to have our own opinion on Samsung’s copying ways and now thanks to this Thai cartoon it all becomes perfectly clear why Samsung just can’t help itself.

Image: Killua51
Thanks: Grahame

This morning’s gallery of iPhone 6 renderings had us drooling for an iPhone 6 but a set of leaked images claiming to originate from Apple supplier Foxconn might be our first glimpse of Cupertino’s next handset, or at least a phase of its development process.

The Weibo account they were posted on claims they’re straight from the Foxconn production floor, but seems how all the April Fools jokes are coming out today, we advise take pairing this with a hearty serving of skepticism.

Here’s another pic:

Sure, we’ll be seeing a host of fun things tomorrow on the internets, many of them having to do with new crazy Apple products.

Today, however, we found this slick little number from site AppleUser: the Mac Air Desktop, a slimmed-down version of the Mac Mini.

What’s great about this sweet little photoshop job is that it meets the requirement of any good April Fools’ prank–it’s totally something we’d want to buy.

Note: This article was originally published in Cult of Mac Magazine, available on the App Store.

Flappy Bird came onto the scene with a bang, ruffling feathers from Hanoi to Hannover. Dong Nguyen, the developer of this seemingly overnight sensation, was as taken aback as the rest of us, evident from his shocking decision to stop offering the game for download as well as his recent decision to bring it back.

Game developers and publishers can only hope to reproduce this kind of crazy success. And each and every one of the people we talked to at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco was eager to share opinions on how Flappy Bird happened, how it might happen again, and why it was such a runaway hit to begin with.

Based upon leaked schematics discovered by Macotakara of the forthcoming 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch variants of the iPhone 6, Nowherelse teamed up with concept designer extraordinaire Martin Hajek to create what may be the most plausible look at what Jony Ive’s next iPhone design would look like yet.

All the proportions here are perfect: althougb it features a larger profile, a super thin design, and an edge-to-edge display, the design still features a beautiful internal symmetry that seems worthy of Apple. There are some changes: the edges are curved, more organic, and the volume buttons have been unified into a single rocker, but otherwise, it looks like an evolution of the current iPhone 5s. Which is exactly what the iPhone 6 would look like.

Check out more images below. What do you think? Could this be the iPhone 6?

Apple is reportedly trying to lure top Swiss watchmakers away from luxury brands in its efforts to build an iWatch.

Jean-Claude Biver, president of luxury brand LVMH’s watches and jewellery division, claims that Apple has tried to recruit staff from his Hublot brand, along with employees from several other top Swiss watchmakers.

“Apple has contacted some of my employees – I saw the emails personally,” he said, noting that none of the individuals contacted jumped ship.

Barrel-inspired jailbreak tweak Cylinder has been updated and listed on Cydia’s BigBoss repo.

The tweak allows users to add animations to their iPhone Home screen. These animations can be created via special Lua scripts — a lightweight, but powerful scripting language — and then layered on top of one another to create customized effects.

A bumper is a great option for folks who don’t care for cases, but are clumsy enough that they need some protection for their iPhone. And the brand-new Grovemade wooden bumpers not only offer protection but look great too. Also, they have names that you’ll want to lollop around your tongue, over and over.

Degauss Labs’ new Pocket earbuds cost $35, which puts them on the cusp of “quality possibility” (a term I just made up) – they might sound good, or they may just use the same crappy old internals of every other cheap earbud under $50.

But what this Swedish-designed gadget does have is style, and that’s probably the most important spec in this price range.

Oh man, soon you won’t even be able to break into an old abandoned building without running into a bunch of other folks who are doing the same thing, only instead of being all cool and “urban” and fearless like you, they just got guided there by an app.

Which is my way of complaining about Kamino, an app which lets you share “Urban Hikes” (seriously) using your iPhone, and forces to use Facebook to do it.

Long-time gamers know that nine times out of ten getting excited about a movie tie-in will in end in disappointment. At the same time, the last few years have been pretty good when it comes to comic book titles making their way onto consoles, computers, and mobile devices.

I find anything that promises one-handed operation of your iDevices suspicious, but then I have a dirty mind. The Grip&Shoot – seen by Buster last week and Macworld – is one such gadget, and it adds a trigger grip to the iPhone to make shooting videos and photos way easier.

Like the current bloom of retro-styled shooters, but don’t like the $500+ prices? Unsurprisingly, Olympus has you covered – the new Stylus SH1 looks hot in a silver and black/white body, and packs Wi-Fi, a built-in zoom lens and 5-axis image stabilization.

Sony’s Digital Paper is so odd that if it were released tomorrow on April 1st, I’d wonder whether or not it was just a cruel prank. But apart from the absurd price, digital paper is a pretty great-looking product.

Over at the Hotel Club, they’ve posted a fantastic interactive infographic showing the differences between traveling at the dawn of tourism — 1863 — and today, 150 years later.

But this particular section, showing how the gadgets and guides that people relied upon in the Victorian era when traveling overseas have been totally made obsolete by the iPhone, really stood out to me. We’ve previously seen how the iPhone made everything Radio Shack sold 20 years ago obsolete, but as this infographic shows, the iPhone has made centuries — not just decades — worth of gadgets obsolete. It’s one of the most important inventions ever.

Source: Hotel Club

Do you like Facebook’s Chat Heads as a notification system for Facebook messages? On Android, Chat Heads can run universally in any app, but on iOS, they only show up in Facebook, Paper or Facebook Messages. It’s in-app only. But if you have a jailbroken device, a new tweak will allow you to break Chat Heads out into the rest of the iOS operating system.

It was just a few hours ago that we told you that Apple had patented new transparent texting system which would help users who walk while typing be more aware of their surroundings.

If you thought the patent sounded like a great idea for a jailbreak tweak, you weren’t alone. CamText is a new tweak for jailbroken devices that replaces the default Messages.app background with a live stream from your camera’s video feed.

So if you have a jailbroken iPhone, why wait until iOS 8 to get Transparent Texting today? It’s fully compatible with both Messages and BiteSMS, although not the iPad. You can buy it through Cydia today for just $1.50.

Via: iClarified

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

Last week, we posted a video by iOS hacker extraordinaire winocm, showing that he had managed to hack an iPad 2 so that it could boot between iOS 5, iOS 6 and iOS 7 at will. At the time, we said “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.”

Well, we’ve got egg all over our face on this one, because that’s exactly what winocm intends on doing. The legendary hacker has said on Twitter that he’ll be releasing the hack to the public. Unfortunately, there aren’t many details outside of that, including what devices this hack will work on, but if you want to have a schizo-iPad that can dual boot between Scott Forstall’s skeuomorphic iOS 6 and Jony Ive’s flat iOS 7, it’s coming!

Via: Redmond Pie

Getting a new Mac delivered to your door is always an exciting experience… but imagine opening the door and seeing, not your postman, but Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak at your door? You’d lose your mind, just like the girl in this video, Emma, does when she realizes that er idol is at the door. As Emma’s father notes, it’s like having your lightbulbs delivered by Thomas Edison!

Source: Sploid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MyTEfBRCjg

Before iOS 7 came along and Apple borrowed its approach to multitasking wholesale, Auxo was one of the best reasons to jailbreak your iPhone or iPad. Since iOS 7 took many of its tricks, though, we’ve been waiting to see what, if anything, an updated version would look like.

We’ve just gotten our hands on the first trailer of Auxo 2, and while it’s just 30 seconds long, it’s enough of a look to get us excited. Featuring iOS 7’s advanced animations, a beautiful new split-paned Control Center view, the ability to close all running apps at once, and much, much more, Auxo 2 is shaping up to be just as revolutionary to jailbroken iOS devices as Auxo was to iOS 6 devices.

It looks as if Auxo 2 will be released on Cydia on Wednesaday, April 2nd. There’s no word on pricing yet, although the original tweak cost $1.99. We’ll let you know when it’s out!

It’s no secret that Steve Jobs was inspired by the incredible work Xerox was doing over at PARC Labs when he came up with the Mac: he borrowed the computer mouse, the desktop, and even the Macintosh business plan from the famous tech think tank.

Now, it looks like we also owe the ubiquitous hamburger icon — widely used in iOS as a menu shortcut, as well as a way to order draggable lists — to Xerox PARC as well. It turns out that the first example of the hamburger icon shows up in a 1981 video for the Xerox Star workstation.

Here’s an interesting financial. Robert Paul Leitao, founder of the AAPL Independent Analysts, shows how Apple’s revenue has grown over 1,127% since 2006, and earnings per share has grown an incredible 2,457%.

Fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2012 have been particularly kind to Apple: 66% in 2011, and 54% in fiscal 2012, largely thanks to new deals such as the Verizon Wireless iPhone deal, and the announcement of a new product line in the iPad. In 2013, though, Apple grew only 9.2%, and so far, Apple’s guidance for the latest quarter suggests nearly no growth at all.

Leitao’s conclusion? Apple’s growth is dependent on the successful release of new and currently unannounced new products. “Apple is an episodic enterprise,” he writes. The best reason to believe that Apple has an iWatch coming this year is that, without one, Apple will stop growing.

Source: Posts At Eventide Via: CNN

Considering their nearly ubiquitous status in retail cuture, it’s easy to forget that the Apple Store is a relatively new creation. Although Apple brought in over $7 billion in revenue last quarter across 400 physical locations, the first one was opened in just 2001… but ever since then, the Apple Store has spread like wildfire across the planet.

Here’s a great reminder of how far Apple has come, courtesy of Business Insider. Watch this animated map showing Apple Stores’ openings internationally. Check out how far the greatest retail success story since Wal-Mart has come!

Source: Business Insider

Sick of colliding with lampposts and the elderly whilst walking and texting? A new Apple patent for ‘Transparent Texting’ might be right up your alley, using your iPhone’s video camera to pipe through a live feed of what’s happening in the real world behind your Messages window.