To paraphrase serial sheet-folder Jill Cooper, one of the biggest challenges you’re going to face in your life is to control your cables. And although there’s no Jill Cooper to teach you how fold your cables into a perfect bundle, there are now two new gadgets to make things a little easier. They’re called the Rolio and the CableDrop Mini, and they’re from BlueLounge.
Remember Lodsys? The small LLC that basically invented the term ‘patent troll’ made news in 2011 when it started going after App Store developers for infringing on obscure, abstract patent filings. It sued small app developers for outrageous amounts because it claimed to own the definitive patents on in-app purchases and the general concept of an upgrade button.
The issue with Lodsys was that its sole business was buying up patents in bulk and using them to sue the pants off devs. Many devs don’t have the resources to finance a legal battle of that nature, so Lodsys would then settle with a lot of its victims outside of court. Apple went up to bat for its third-party devs in court a couple years ago, and today Apple’s motion to intervene was thrown out.
If you’ve been itching to get your hands on a 126GB iPad, Apple has started offering refurbished models at a discount in its online store. The fourth-gen iPad that was released back in January is available in a 128GB WiFi/Cellular configuration that normally prices at $799/$929 retail.
Now Apple is selling refurbished 128GB iPads at a 15% discount of $679 for WiFi-only and $689 for Cellular. That’s a great deal when you consider that refurbs are Apple-certified models that come with a 1-year warranty.
New iPads are supposed to arrive in October, so if you care about having the newest hardware, then it’s best to wait. Otherwise, take advantage of this discount Apple is offering.
Source: Apple Store
Today Dropbox released an update to its Mac app that adds the ability to automatically upload all screenshots you take. The feature is called Camera Uploads in Dropbox’s mobile apps, and now it’s finally coming to the desktop.
Not only can screenshots be automatically uploaded to your Dropbox, but a share link for each image is also pasted into your clipboard as screenshots are taken.
Another addition in today’s update is a new import tool that lets you transfer photos from your iPhoto library to Dropbox.
Source: Dropbox
As the battle for global smartphone supremacy has matured into just a two company battle pitting Apple against Samsung, Cupertino is looking to add more between itself and its archenemy by becoming less dependent on Samsung to build chips like the A7 processor featured in the iPhone 5s.
While Apple can’t totally rid itself of Samsung components just yet, a new report claims that Apple plans to lean on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) to handle more of the manufacturing of the A8 processor next year, rather than giving all the work to Samsung.
Given that it’s the most popular cross-platform messaging service on the planet, you might have thought that WhatsApp would have a new redesign ready to go when iOS 7 was made available to the public earlier this month, but as things stand, it’s still rocking its old look.
Presumably the team behind it are hard at work on the update as we speak, however, and hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for it. But in the meantime, check out these awesome WhatsApp for iOS 7 concept designs that give us a taster of what might be in store for our favorite messaging app.
The iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c will soon be available on Boost Mobile, according to two promotional posters that have been leaked today. Both devices will be supported by Boost’s Shrinking Payments plans, but their official release dates and price tags are yet to be confirmed.
You can now purchase the iPhone 5s from Apple.com and collect your order from your local Apple retail store. The Cupertino has the brought in-store pickup service back to the new device following a very brief stint this time last week — but who knows how long it will last.
At this point, there have been eight iPhones, and with the exception of this year’s iPhone 5c, each has a faster chip and more all around chutzpah than the model that precedes it. You’d naturally think, then, that if you lined them all up in a row and ran a speed test on them, each successive model would accomplish tasks faster than the model that precedes it. But as this video proves, the reality is more complicated than that.
Coca-Cola is often held up as that most American of brands, but it’s certainly not the most valuable American brand. In fact, that upstart Apple — a company 90 years younger than Coke — has just pushed the sugar-water purveyor off the list of most valuable brand in the world.
Apple doesn’t like to allow emulators into the App Store, so try submitting one for approval and you’ll quickly get a big fat no. But some cunning iOS developers have found a way to sneak emulators through Apple’s App Store approval process by making them look like innocent apps.
The latest hit the App Store today. It’s called Earthquake 7 and its App Store description promises “the latest earthquake news.” But enter a secret phrase into its search bar and you have an emulator that plays all of your favorite Game Boy and Game Boy Advance titles.
Edgar Rios is not only a Photoshop whizz, but also pretty good at imagining the future. Extrapolating from iOS 7, Edgar has come up with what he thinks could be the next version of the Mac OS, and I really, really like it.
The MiStand might look like a big, heavy, over-engineered iPad desk stand, and it probably is. But it has one standout feature that makes it interesting: A big magnetic ball.
You know what’s great about Spotify and Rdio? The fact that they both exist, and that they’re both great services. Why? Competition. It’s hard to think of two other arch rivals which are adding great new features to their services so quickly.
Today it’s the turn of Rdio, which has slipped recommendations into its music-streaming service, taking the pressure off you to pick a song for yourself.
Whatever it is you want to know about cellphone camera sensors, you’ll probably find it in DP Review’s absurdly in-depth article on the subject. It details not only the common misconceptions about megapixels, but also many real world differences. And it contains the diagram shown at the top of this post, showing the size differences between the sensors in various phones, measured in pixels.
The SideCar is a lump of silicone that’ll let you use a dual-monitor setup even when you’re on a plane. It’s a simple connector that hangs your iPad off the side of your MacBook screen, either just to keep it handy, or to use as a second monitor using one of many screen-spanning apps in the store.
Lusting after an iPhone 5S for that sweet slo-mo camera? Don;t worry, because there’s an app that’ll add the same function to your lame old iPhone 5. Well, kinda – it’s not 120fps, but it’s close bad.
FaceTime just keeps getting better. The recent addition of audio calls in iOS 7 is great news, right? Well, sort of.
There are plenty of apps in the App Store that let you make calls over your data connection rather than through the carrier’s phone network.
FaceTime audio calls are great — something that Google+ Hangouts have had for a long time. (Hangouts actually lets you add a voice call to a group video Hangout.) They enable free international calls, for starters. The protocols underlying FaceTime enable high-quality audio calls.
More importantly, they give users one more reason to get into the FaceTime habit.
Unfortunately, FaceTime has a fatal flaw. It’s still — inexplicably — an exclusive phone system for Apple customers to call each other. What kind of phone system is that?
Nine meeeel-leon iPhones… nine meeel-leon! Yes sir, Apple’s opening weekend iPhone sales were better than they’ve ever been, and that’s got to feel great after months of analysts asking if they’ve lost their touch. We’ll discuss the feat on our newest CultCast, plus, scoop you up a heapin’ helpin’ of iOS 7 tips and tricks, and wait… is that really our sweet Tim Cook that just joined twitter?
Have a few laughs whilst getting caught up on each week’s finest Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the unadulterated audio enjoyment begin. Show notes up next.
The new fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 5s brings with it a touch of the future: one where we won’t keep losing or forgetting our passwords. If we can get the sensors to work right, that is.
In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, reporter Sarah Stirland talks to a host of experts who give you the low-down on what this future will mean and we also get a breakdown of the new feature from a security expert.
We’ll also tell you how to win one of those gold iPhones and in our exclusive Ask a Genius column you’ll find out how much those smarties get paid as well as how to best the best Wi-Fi set-up for upstairs/downstairs signals.
The latest issue is available in the App Store.
We hope you’ll dig it – and keep in touch with comments, questions, shout-outs.
If you want to store two classrooms of third graders’ fingerprints on one iPhone 5s, then we’ve got the bug for you.
YouTuber Tom Rich found this interesting feature with Touch ID on the new iPhone 5s. So he did what any other good videographer would and made a video of it.
Have you ever realized just how much random chance is involved in your favorite video games?
Consider dashing through Diablo III dungeons, mashing buttons and watching your little avatar cut through swathes of demon enemies. Each of those hits is managed by a vast mathematical model in the background, deciding how many hit points each swing of your sword or blast of your magic will take off of each monster in your path.
Tower of Fortune 2, like it’s predecessor, seems like an indie meditation on the RPG genre itself by exposing the mechanics in the background of typical RPGs with the biggest symbol of luck ever: the slot machine.
A German court has ruled that one of Apple’s patents for the “rubber-banding” feature in iOS is invalid, but not because Samsung and Motorola had valid claims to it before Apple. No, the bullet that killed Apple’s patent was actually fired by El Jobso himself when he unveiled the iPhone at a keynote back in 2007.
Both Samsung and Motorola had injunctions laid against by Apple using its patent in different European jurisdictions, but thanks to the keynote video of Jobs presenting the original iPhone features back in January 2007, the Munich-based Federal Patent Court of Germany ruled that Steve disclosed the “bounce-back-effect” to the public five months before the priority date of the German patent of June 2007:
There are a bunch of apps out on iOS for kids, from educational apps to sports apps and more. Sure, you can get reviews of these games by adults, sometimes even from parents of kids who use them.
We thought it’d be fun, though, to ask the kids themselves.
Welcome to Kid APProved, a series of videos in which we ask our own children what they think of apps on the App Store that they’re using.
This week, it’s highlights, game stats, player news, and all sorts of Football fun with NFL Mobile, from NFL Enterprises. Here’s what our Kid APProved reporters think.
Delta Airlines announced today that it plans to equip its pilots with Microsoft’s new Surface 2 tablet running Windows 8.1 RT. The company is moving to Microsoft tablets despite the fact that it was the first airline to roll-out iPads to pilots to replace heavy flight bags.
Delta gave 22 pilots iPads back in 2011, but thanks to a deal with Nokia – which is now owned by Microsoft – the company will be a going with an all-Windows approach. The company already gave its 19,000 flight attendants with a company-issued Nokia Lumia 820 Windows handset back in August of this year.