News - page 1462

I turn down a lot of offers to review gadgets, either because I figure that you folks won’t care about whatever it is the PR folks are trying to hawk, or because it’s obvious that the product is too lame even to ridicule on these pages.

And sometimes it’s because I’m not equipped to review the item in question. I almost turned down the iOgrapher for this reason, as I have no LED lighting rigs; I recently gave away my tripod and I almost never shoot video. But I’m glad i didn’t, as the iOgrapher turns out to be a pretty excellent all-round iPhoneography case for the iPad mini.

One of the last Apple apps to be redesigned for iOS 7 is Find My Friends, the company’s network for sharing your location and viewing the location of friends on a map. Before today’s update, Find My Friends looked incredibly outdated with leather stitching and an old-style map design.

Now the app looks much more at home in iOS 7. No new features have been added, but the design includes a new icon, lightweight interface, and an orange color scheme (orange is apparently the new black, if Apple’s recent iOS 7 app updates are any indication).

Find My Friends was first introduced before the release of iOS 5 in 2011. Version 3.0 of the app is available in the App Store now.

Source: App Store

FiftyThree, the team of software developers behind the popular iPad drawing-app ‘Paper’ are moving beyond the digital wares with their first piece of hardware – a Bluetooth rechargeable stylus dubbed ‘Pencil,’ that’s customized to work in tandem with the Paper drawing app.

The new stylus comes in the form of a carpenter pencil with two different color options – walnut and graphite. One of the unique features of Pencil is the eraser end that artists can use to carve away errors without having to switch tools inside the app.  Pencil features a lithium-ion battery that can be charged via USB in 90 minutes and last a month and to pair the device to your iPad you simply press the tip to the screen and Bluetooth Smart wireless does the rest of the work.

Here’s a video of Pencil in action:

On Saturday Cult of Mac reported that a working Apple 1 failed to sell at auction in Germany, a notable result in the growing market for vintage Apple collectibles. It turns out that result was premature: the Apple 1 did sell for €246,000 ($330,000), after bidding on the item had closed.

Bigger is always better, right? That’s been Samsung’s philosophy when it comes to smartphone screens, but the latest bits of gossip from the rumor mill suggest Apple might be looking to embrace that matra with its iPad displays.

A new report claims that Apple is preparing to build a 12.9-inch iPad for release in 2014, which may sound somewhat outlandish, except we’ve heard similar claims from the WSJ and other analysts.

According to Korea Times’ sources, Apple has already asked its top suppliers to start making the 12.9-inch touchscreens screens that will be included in its 2014 iPad lineup that is  expected to improve picture quality as consumers move away from PCs and towards tablets as their main computing device:

Apple has added another two new channels to the Apple TV today in the form of Yahoo Screen and PBS. The former provides access to the Yahoo video portal, which delivers popular clips from shows such as Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show; while the latter allows users to enjoy their favorite PBS shows like Frontline.

There’s no Downton Abbey, though, unfortunately.

It was only six months ago that the White House officially went on record saying that they thought cell phone unlocking should be legalized. The statement was issued in response to a 114,000+ signature petition, which rightfully argued that if you have paid off a device on-contract, it should belong to you, full-stop.

The Obama Administration said flat-out they agreed… which is why it’s distressing to find out that they may have been misleading us. In fact, while telling the American public that it supported laws to make cell phone unlocking legal, it appears that the Obama Administration has secretly been working against it.

The fines just keep mounting for Google. In the wake of last year’s Safarigate, in which Google was revealed to be tracking millions of iOS & Mac Safari users against their knowledge, Google first agreed to pay a $22.5 million fine to the FTC, the largest such fine in history. But it’s not stopping there, with Google now agreeing to pay $17 million to settle the issue with 37 states.

Just looking at it, it’s clear that the iPad mini with Retina Display has improved upon its predecessor down to the pixel. But what about the pixels you can’t see? The ones inside the built-in iSight camera?

The bad news is the iSight Camera hasn’t changed from last year from a hardware perspective. It’s still a 5 megapixel, backside-illuminated, five-element, hybrid IR file red camera with a f/2.4 aperture. But the good news is it does a little better with low-light performance anyway.

If you’re a hardcore gamer who has never quite gotten over the fact that your iPhone doesn’t have a D-pad, Moga has just made available for purchase the first iOS 7 compatible game controller, the Ace Power. But you might want to hold onto your money for now.

Word on the street (and by “the street” we mean Tim Cook himself) was that Apple might not have enough iPad Minis to see it through this quarter — with Cult of Mac even opining that, “Good luck getting one of these before Christmas.”

Three letter ran through my mind the moment this photo of the LaFonction appeared on my screen: “W.T.F.” Then I pasted it into our Hipchat chatroom, where Killian said “Haha. WTF is that?!”

The answer? It’s a giant, €840 office-in-a-bag for your MacBook.

What’s worse than buying a brand new iPad, getting home and opening the box — only to find out that what you’ve bought isn’t an iPad at all, but rather a lump of clay?

Well, trying to return said lump of clay, only to find yourself arrested under suspicion of pulling the prank yourself.

One of my regrets when moving from sunny Barcelona to chilly Leipzig was that I couldn’t ring my Steelcase Leap chair, which despite its ugly blue leather squab and back is the best chair I’ve ever sat in.

But no matter, as I now have my eye on the new Steelcase Gesture, an office chair designed for the slouching and leaning associated with using an iPhone or iPad. The chair is designed to be comfortable even when you sit in it wrong, with arms that “move like the human arm” and a seat that’s soft all the way to the edges.

Otherwise the Gesture looks a lot like my old Leap, with the same supportive back design that bends as you move, and the same ultra-adjustable everything else. And it also has the same kind of price, $979. Still, at least the colors are way better.

Source: Steelcase
Thanks: Trisha

He may feel more than comfortable publishing an open letter to Tim Cook calling for Apple to engage in an immediate $150 billion buyback of shares, but (vocal) activist investor Carl Icahn has said that he would never push Apple to buy Nuance Communications Inc., maker of the software that runs the Siri feature on Apple’s iPhones.

Folks love to complain about Apple, but I figure that a lot of that bitching is down to the inadequacies of the bitchers themselves: It’s easier to just whine about something than to strive for greatness yourself. Which is to say, Apple is far from perfect, but it tries harder than almost anyone else. And the new solar farm which powers it’s North Carolina data center is a great example of this.

I find the idea of “distraction-free” writing apps to be bunk: after all, why on Earth would the presence or lack of a menubar make any difference to your ability to concentrate? I am, however, a sworn enemy of clutter, and so I immediately downloaded the $0.99 Focus app, which is kind of like a virtual rug under which you can sweep your mess of Mac application windows.

As the holidays draw near, shipping estimates for the iPhone 5s are starting to be more reasonable. Today the Apple Store’s estimates for all models of the 5s improved to 3-5 business days, which is significantly better than the 1-2 week estimates Apple was giving just last week.

Before that, shipping estimates were 2-3 weeks. Supplies for the 5s have been very tight since its launch, and it’s still hard to find the phone in gold. It looks like Apple planned on the demand for the iPhone 5c to be above and beyond the 5s, but the company reportedly cut orders for the 5c recently. A report from this morning said that an entire Foxconn factory has stopped producing the 5c and is now making the 5s.

Source: Apple

I’m not a guitar amp nut; I have little appreciation for old-and-moldy audio components and purist babble (oh yes, I know! “Vacuum tubes! Blah blah blah!”) But a look at the promo video for Positive Grid’s new Bias iPad app has even me drooling.

Think your inbox is a dizzying mass of junkmail? The serial entrepreneur who started About.com wants to help you unclutter; not by getting rid of spam, which has been pretty much wiped out at this point — but by allowing you to group or unsubscribe from commercial emails with laser precision.

The big idea behind Looxcie’s video cameras is that they can live-stream video to a variety of audiences (including Facebook) by linking, via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, to an iPhone or Android phone running Looxcie’s free companion app.

But unlike the action-oriented $200, 1080p Looxcie HD, which is pretty expensive, or the lightweight Looxcie 2, which is only capable of 480p, the more social Looxcie 3 seems to have found a $100, 720p sweet spot. Plus it looks far less dorky when worn.

“Siri, what are your political views?” You’d think that Siri would answer that question with a clever quip about how she doesn’t take sides, but no, she has an answer. And it’s not what you would think.

For some odd reason, asking Siri her political views will take you to Ron Paul’s Wikipedia page every time.

This morning Apple released its first major beta build of iOS 7 to developers since the release of iOS 7 in September. On the surface the update seems to be just a bunch of bug fixes and performance improvements for a number of apps, but once you dig into the new software a little more there are a couple UI changes and new features that we’ve found.

Here are the new changes to iOS 7.1 that you might actually notice:

Today Sprint announced a limited time deal that gives students a full year of free cellular service with the purchase of a smartphone at any Best Buy location. The offer includes unlimited talk/text and 1GB of data per month, with the option to have unlimited data for $10 per month.

The typical two-year contract isn’t required, but Sprint is charing a “student activated price” that’s actually a little more than the full, unsubsidized cost of most phones.

Along with the iOS 7.1 beta, Apple has also released a new beta for Apple TV to developers today. According to the installation guide, the new Apple TV Software beta “enables users to mirror content of an iPad to an Apple TV using AirPlay.”

Developers can find the Apple TV Software beta in the iOS developer center, Apple notes that the beta is being provided to test the latest AirPlay functionality with your iOS apps and websites. We’re downloading the software now and will let you know what’s inside.

Stay tuned. More to follow.