Writing that Amazon blasted iPad with its new Kindle Paperwhite ad, or that the iOS market share is about to explode may be an unfortunate choice of words after reports that an iPad Air did, quite literally, blow up in an Australian mobile phone store this week.
I hope you’re ready for yet another case that adds extra lenses to the iPhone’s amazing camera. This one has a twist. Well, I guess they all do, but this one has a different twist. It’s also ruggedized and waterproof.
Ever find yourself stuck without a cable when you need to charge your iPhone? No, me either. I’m a nerd and a professional gadget tester, so at pretty much all times I have some kind of Lightning cable, dock or adapter either on my person or close to hand.
But if I got out more, and was more stylish in general, then I’d be sporting a Kyte & Key Cabelet, or cable bracelet.
Do you ever grab screenshots of websites on your iPhone, then struggle to transfer them to you Mac for further editing, or for – say – putting them into a blog post? Now you can do the exact same thing, only without ever having to touch your iPhone. How? Pixa’s new mobile Web Snapper, that’s how.
I don’t know what it is with wireless chargers and the letters Q and I, but what I do know is that the iQi is the first one I have actually considered using. You see, instead of a fat case to hold the induction circuits, or the flux capacitor, or whatever it is that makes wireless charging possible, the iQi is a tiny slim sheet that slips inside your existing case.
You’ve seen IK Multimedia’s gear grace the pages of this site before — the company is at the forefront of popping out music-making electronics and software geared toward musicians. So it’s no surprise that now they’ve finally joined the increasingly crowded high-end Bluetooth speaker club, their take, the iLoud, is a reference-grade studio monitor — and as its name suggests, an apparently very loud one.
Alongside a few MacBook-related updates and a fix for Gmail in Mail, Apple has released its first update to iBooks for Mac today in Mavericks. Version 1.0.1 addresses “bug fixes and improvements to performance and stability,” according to Apple. It can be downloaded now in the Mac App Store.
iBooks for Mac hasn’t been particularly buggy, but this first update should fix many of the glitches with slow animations and other minor hiccups that have been affecting the app.
Source: Apple
Has using Gmail in Apple’s default Mail app on OS X Mavericks been nearly unbearable? If you’re like me, your inbox rarely fetches new mail or completely skips downloading certain messages at random. Deleting emails from my Gmail account in Mail has also been incredibly frustrating, as they magically reappear three to four times in my inbox after I delete them. My unread message count is almost always inaccurate as well.
Today Apple finally released an update to the Mail app in the Mac App Store that is supposed to fix all of the problems with Gmail. Hallelujah!
Apple acknowledge last week that some of its new 13-inch MacBook Pros with Retina display units were experiencing issues where the trackpad and/or keyboard became unresponsive after a few minutes of use. Any new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro purchased after Apple’s October 22nd iPad event may have been potentially affected by the glitch, but Apple announced today that it has published a fix for the problem.
MacBook Pro Retina EFI Update V1.3 can be downloaded via the Mac App Store and promises to fix any glitches where the users trackpad and keyboard stop working on the late 2013 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina models.
Source: Apple
You can join Frodo, Gandalf, Legolas, and (of course) Boromir as they get the Lego treatment from TT Games, the developer of a ton of other Lego-fied video games, including Lego Harry Potter, Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones.
Warner Bros. and TT Games announced Thursday the release of Lego The Lord of the Rings to iOS. In the game, the Fellowship travels to Mount Doom to destroy The One Ring and save the land from utter Lego-style destruction. You’ll get to unlock more than 90 different LoTR characters by exploring Middle-earth, solving puzzles, and battling with the bad guys from Lego Sauron.
Google released an update for its Google Drive iOS app this morning that finally adds iOS 7 support to the could storage app.
The Google Drive update also includes multiple account support so you can switch between personal, work, or any other Google account, similar to what Google has already implemented in its web products. The Dropbox alternative now comes with a Single sign in too so you’ve automatically signed into other Google apps on your iPhone too like YouTube, Google Maps, Chrome and Google+.
The free update is available in the App Store now.
Here are the release notes:
I had a jokey book trailer made to promote my new book about Jony Ive, Apple’s head designer. And Apple’s had it pulled off YouTube!
The video wasn’t even public. It was unlisted. I offered a sneak peek to readers who pre-ordered the book, which is being released next Thursday November 14.
The video pokes fun at Jony Ive, Apple and myself. But last night I got an email from Google saying that it had been disabled because of a copyright claim from Apple.
I had hoped that the video was protected by fair use. The rules of fair use are ambiguous, but in general, you are allowed to remix and re-use previous material, as long as the resulting work is “transformative.” If it adds “new expression or meaning” to the original, then it’s fair use. I think the book trailer did. It’s a classic remix of several previous Apple product videos. A parody. And parody is a form of expression generally protected from copyright claims.
RunKeeper, one of the most popular fitness trackers for iPhone, now boasts a number of cool new features that take advantage of the M7 motion coprocessor built into the iPhone 5s — thanks to a new update that hit the App Store today. The app also supports AirDrop, allowing you to share your workouts with nearby friends.
Apple has topped the list of world’s most valuable brands for the third straight year in a row, and is now worth almost twice as much as any other brand on the planet, Forbes reports. The Cupertino company is now valued at $104.3 billion, up 20 percent over last year, which puts it way out in front of Microsoft, Samsung, and even Google.
Tiny Tower, Nimble Bit’s effortlessly charming 8-bit tower sim from 2011, has come to a galaxy far, far away with Star Wars: Tiny Death Star, a tongue-in-cheek game set in the Star Wars universe that, for some reason, features characters like Yoda, R2-D2, Jabba the Hutt, and Boba Fett, all living in the Death Star forever. Pretty sure that’s not canon, but who cares? This game is super cute.
I’ve always loved Lego’s series of video games. They aren’t exactly deep examples of game design, but they get charm and quick pick-up-and-play, all-ages fun down pat. I’m delighted to see, then, that just in time for the next Hobbit movie, Warner Bros. and Lego have unveiled Lego Lord Of The Rings for iOS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrJ4LNZrIkM
I’m a genuine believer that even if you have an iPad, there’s room for an e-ink Kindle in your life if you love to read. No one is questioning the design or hardware superiority of the iPad, but the truth is, it’s the distinction between a general use device and a specialized device. An iPad may game, check email, play video, and more, but a Kindle is perfectly suited to the one task it’s meant for — reading books — in a way that the iPad never really can be.
It’s hard for me to really get too bent out of shape about Amazon’s newest ad for the Kindle Paperwhite (a fantastic e-reader), showing users trying to read books on the iPad and Kindle in bright outdoor light. The iPad is criticized for the constant glare bouncing off the screen, while the Kindle is praised for being easy-on-the-eyes.
That’s all true. The iPad kind of sucks at outdoor reading compared to the Kindle. But in the dark, it can do so much more.
IFTTT has gotten a big update today in the form of proper Reminders and Photos integration for iOS. Before, you could have it do some clever automatic thing when you added a new photo or reminder to the respective iPhone apps, but now IFTTT can create reminders and add pictures to any album. It’s pretty sweet, and would be awesome but for one big gotcha.
The question of whether there exists such a thing as an objectively perfect work of art remains the stuff of artistic scholarship and debates, but one particular artist feels they’ve cracked the question of how to improve a time-honored masterpiece — by adding in a number of Apple products.
If you’re a user of the new, improved GarageBand 10 for OS X, you may want to head over to the Mac App Store to download the latest free update.
Instapaper was once the king of the read later services, but was usurped by fuller-featured upstarts with better features and more liberal sharing policies (Instapaper, unlike Pocket, has no IFTTT triggers for instance). But it is slowly pulling itself back into the future, and this latest iPad update adds support for video and a new Browse function.
Is this enough to pull me back to Instapaper from Pocket? Actually yes, but not for the reason you think.
Apple has clashed with comic creators over its decision to ban Matt Fraction and artist Chip Zdarsky’s Sex Criminals from selling on the iOS version of Comixology. The title, published by Image Comics, tells the story of two people whose orgasms give them the power to stop time (!).
Somewhat confusingly, at time of writing Apple was still selling the comic via its iBooks storefront.
Doxie has filled a gap in the market with its new Flip, an oddball flatbed scanner that has a see-through bottom so you can flip it over and scan anything, even the wallpaper or carpet. It works a lot like a book-sized piece of electronic tracing paper.
Sorry bird-lovers, this post isn’t about reversing extinction — rather, it’s about DODOcase’s custom case builder coming to the iPad Air.
DODOcase’s book-like cases are pretty spiffy — they’re apparently distinguished enough even for presidential use — so being able to build one to fit any taste makes sense.
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple went from being chump of the tech world to champ, and what was the product that turned it all around?
That was the question posed to a panel of ex-Apple designers at a special event here in the city.
The answers might surprise you.