News - page 1424

Thirty years ago, Apple Computer introduced Macintosh.

The computing universe was far different back then, and this groundbreaking little computer represented a major change from the status quo. Appealing to creativity and emotion, the Mac introduced the world at large to the Graphical User Interface, the mouse, and a computer that was friendly and non-intimidating. Many of those ideas became new industry paradigms and survive with us to this day.

Computers come and go, it’s a fast changing industry and the pace accelerates every year. But the Mac as a brand has survived 3 decades. This is notable for any product and unheard of for computers! Why, what’s so special? What’s the meaning of the Macintosh turning 30?

Hot Rod Hustle wants to bring bitcoin wagering to the Mac and PC, with real money betting available on iOS and Android. This is the first time we’ve heard of a racing game with available real-world money rewards on any platform.

All versions of Hot Rod Hustle will use the same servers, letting those on iOS play with those on Mac, for example. The Mac and PC version of Hot Rod Hustle will allow for Bitcoin wagering, while the mobile versions will use Skillz.com, an online wagering system, which is limited to 37 states as well as the UK and Scandanavia. The cross-platform compatibility means that you can build up your hot rod on your iPhone, then log in on your Mac and race for Bitcoins. Exciting!

It has been nearly two years since Apple has released a major update to its set-top box. And now a fourth-gen Apple TV could be announced as soon as March. Today a pair of reports from iLounge and 9to5Mac claim that a new Apple TV will be unveiled within the next couple months.

While the hardware probably won’t be that exciting, Apple is rumored to finally give the product’s software the overhaul it so desperately needs. Some kind of dedicated gaming experience may even be in the cards.

The iPhone 5c’s lifespan will be short-lived, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. Apple will reportedly discontinue the 5c this year and release two larger iPhone models.

The initial success of the iPhone 5c has been questioned amidst reports that Apple cut orders by as much as 35% shortly after releasing the phone last fall.

Rumors of larger iPhone designs have been swirling for months now, and the Journal is saying to expect screens larger than 4½ inches and 5 inches.

Update: A SteelSeries representative sent us the following in an email asking why the price had been reduced so soon after the initial release.

“The response of this product coming out of CES was incredibly positive, [but] the largest concern was with the price set at $99.99 MSRP. Our goal with the Stratus goes beyond just selling a controller; it’s really about helping to define a new platform. We want to see that succeed and took initiative immediately after CES to find ways where we could improve the odds of that success by lower[ing] the price. The outcome is that our team was able to work with our partners to bring the cost for the consumer down to $79.99.”

Original Post: Well, it looks like the price wars have begun in earnest. SteelSeries’ Stratus is now $79.99, instead of the $99.99 it launched for at CES. If you pre-ordered this at the older price, you’re in luck: SteelSeries will honor the new, lower cost for all pre-orders.

SwiftKey, the most popular third-party keyboard on Android, is coming to iOS through a new note-taking app called SwiftKey Note. A leaked promotional image for the app has been leaked on Twitter today, but it’s not yet clear when it will be available to download from the App Store.

External USB battery packs are a dime a dozen, and most of them look pretty similar. Why bother with one of those, though, when you can power your iPhone with Darth Vader’s fricking lightsaber?

What’s in an app name? That’s the question an developer had to ask himself after accidentally naming his app that was sexually suggestive enough that no one actually wanted to use it.

A new Apple patent application published today relates to iAd technology that will allow Apple to target users with specific content based on a person’s predicted mood, their likely interest level, other content they are currently interacting with, their current geographic location, and the time of day.

In some applications, mood would be gauged using a camera which, equipped with facial recognition algorithms, would be able to measure specific expressions.

One month after its launch in the App Store, Codeacademy: Hour of Code has gone universal — being optimized for iPad and iPad mini, as well as iPhone and iPod touch.

Sony Pictures Television has a new iOS game available in the App Store and, unlike previous titles, this one’s based on an original property.

Called Suits and Swords, the game is a cross between a blackjack card game and an RPG, set in four different fantasy realms.

You’ve most probably seen Apple’s tear-jerking “Misunderstood” Christmas commercial: an ad about a seemingly isolated teenager who spends the holidays with their face buried in their iPhone — only to reveal at the end that they’ve been using the device’s camera to create a touching tribute to family togetherness.

Well, it seems that someone from Universal Studios Orlando’s ad agency David&Goliath also watched it (or else this whole thing is an amazing coincidence) because the theme park’s new ad — embedded above — bears an uncanny resemblance to Apple’s much-lauded commercial.

If your New Year’s resolution was to age in style, then you’re clearly thinking along the same lines as the makers of The Sims FreePlay for iOS.

In its first update of 2014, the freemium mobile version of the EA life sim now lets you “complete your family tree” by aging your teen Sims into adults by completing the “Adulthood” quest, while also letting you socialize with senior sims by completing the “Seniors” quest.

Evernote continues to suck as an app, and excel as a back-end service for better-designed apps. EverMemo is yet another quick note taking app which posts your important scribblings direct to your Evernote account to be indexed and assimilated, all without having to launch Evernote’s own bloated monster and tap desperately as you try to find the new-note button before you forget whatever it was you were trying to remember.

You’re most likely using one of two calendar services, or maybe both: Google Calendar and/or iCloud. Now – if you’re using the truly excellent Fastmail email service – you can test out the beta version of its new calendar. It’s as clean and simple as the mail service, and syncs perfectly with your iDevice or Mac using CalDAV.

A large number of users have reported issues with a problematic status bar in iOS immediately following a jailbreak.

While it’s hardly the biggest issue for a liberated iOS device to encounter, having the carrier name, signal status and remaining battery turn from white to black — or sometimes not vanish when it’s supposed to — while using certain apps can be both annoying and overall detrimental to user experience. Thanks to a straightforward resolution , however, that issue can now be sorted out in the form of a Cydia package installation by following these steps:

Got a car? Got an iPhone? Like to tap away at the iPhone screen and distract yourself instead of watching the road ahead and earning the trust that pedestrians and cyclists put in your every time they venture out onto the road? Then I have good news! Now you can careen down the highway, secure in the knowledge that your precious iPhone will never slip off the dash, nor even deviate from it’s perfectly-chosen angle.

If you have a modern Mac, there’s almost no reason not to use FileVault, the all-disk encryption that’s built in to OS X. It doesn’t slow the computer down, it keeps your data safe and – if the machine is switched off – then even if a baddie pulls your drive he’s stuck with a useless chunk of silicon.

And now Apple has added one more convenience for the cautious user: authenticated reboots.

Seemingly just moments after an iTunes update added the ability to browse our App Store wish lists, along comes Mentio, an iPhone app to do the exact same thing. Only instead of using your existing iTunes wish list, it lets you build your own, and buy apps, movies and music from within the app itself.

To quote the all-seeing Strobist, “Memo to @Nikon: THIS is how you do a retro-dialed digital camera.” Take a look. These are the official product shots of the Fujifilm X-T1, an SLR-style mirrorless camera joining Fujifilm’s X-Series lineup. Isn’t she purdy?

More than two million videos from the web are being saved to Pocket each week now. To make the viewing experience more seamless, Pocket has integrated AirPlay into its iOS app for sharing with the Apple TV. The update went live today in the App Store.

Thanks to the slickness of AirPlay, users can exit the Pocket app when a video is streaming. There’s a new AirPlay button embedded in the app’s video player.

“This is just the beginning of how Pocket plans on truly becoming the DVR for the Web, and we think it’s going to be a great addition to our users’ experience in general,” said Pocket.

Source: App Store

Twitterrific 5, a popular third-party Twitter app for iOS from The Iconfactory, was updated today with a few new features.

Beats Music launched yesterday as a Spotify/Rdio alternative, and the new music service is already having scaling issues.

Due to an “extremely high volume of interest,” Beats Music has stopped adding new users until it can support the unexpected demand. The app is currently sitting in the number one position in the free chart of the App Store’s Music category.

Have you had problems with iOS 7 randomly crashing and rebooting? For many, the white screen of death (or black, depending on your device color) has been a big enough problem to fill countless pages of complaints on Apple’s support forum.

“We have a fix in an upcoming software update for a bug that can occasionally cause a home screen crash,” said Apple today in a statement. While Apple hasn’t specified when the fix will be released, iOS 7.1 would be a safe bet. The software is rumored to drop in March.

Source: Mashable

I’ll be honest: Missile Command was never my favorite classic game from the glory days of Atari. Originally released as a coin-op in 1980, designed by Dave Theurer (the man who also created Tempest and the world’s first commercial game to feature 3-D polygonal graphics, I, Robot), Missile Command came straight out of an era in which the scariest thing imaginable was a nuclear attack.