News - page 1513

Next-gen iPhone parts have been leaking like crazy this summer. There’s a new component or shell leak nearly every day now. Two new iPhone models, the 5C and 5S, are expected to come out this fall, and a new hands-on video compares the devices side by side.

AppAdvice is claiming its video shows “what may be Apple’s iPhone 5S and 5C,” but at this point it’s a pretty safe bet that what is shown is legit. The iPhone 5 is also included for comparison’s sake. We’ve seen the blue iPhone 5C shell before, and the gold champagne 5C has been the most annoying relentless Apple rumor for the past few weeks.

An iPhone or iPad dock is a very nice thing to have for keeping one’s desktop regimented and tidy, but they have drawbacks.

For one, a dock that you buy for one generation of iPhone might not work if Apple changes the handset design in the next generation. In addition, iPhone and iPad docks tend not to be cross-compatible, so if you have a dock that fits your iPhone, you usually can’t force an iPad into it, and vice versa. And then, of course, there’s the case problem. Docks and cases tend not to play well together, but most of us like to use a case to protect our devices. That means we usually go without a dock.

Twelve South’s latest product, the HiRise for iPhone and iPad mini, is a combination dock and stand that very cleverly finds a way around all of these problems. We love using it, but putting it together? That’s another story.

This morning we were treated to some leaked images of an alleged graphite-colored iPhone 5S, but now Sonny Dickson has a new set of leaked next-generation iPad mini back housings to feast our eyes on.

The shells looks similar to ones we posted earlier this month. Based on the cases it looks like the iPad mini 2 will predictably have the same form factor as the original iPad mini with the option for 4G service or Wi-Fi only. The rear shell also sports the new embedded Apple logo, but is void of any other info, like whether it will really have a Retina display.

Here are some close-ups:

Google may have won a lot of new admirers thanks to its fancy Glass headwear, but Siri isn’t impressed one bit. In fact, if you try to talk to Siri about Google Glass she will just give you the cold shoulder.

A recently discovered easter egg in Siri spits back frustrated responses when you use the Glass prompt, “Okay Glass.”

Here are some of Siri’s other responses:

48,000 people are about to descend on Black Rock City, Nevada to join in the Burning Man festival experiment. There’s going to be art galore, crazy events, weird costumes for days, and the brutal Black Rock Desert meting out its hellish punishments on each and every Burner.

Making the trip to BRC is easy, but surviving is entirely different, so we’ve found eight great apps that will help you get out of the desert alive:

When last we heard about Apple’s 64-bit aspirations, a notable CPU designer was saying that Apple couldn’t outrun Moore’s Law, and that the earliest Cupertino would manage to swing a 64-bit A7 processor was by 2014.

According to a new report by Fox News reporter Clayton Morris, though, Cupertino might have been juicing. A 64-bit A7 processor could be included in the iPhone 5S.

You know what everyone should do if they have an Apple TV? Install Plex, the incredible media server that can stream any digital media file on your Mac to your Apple TV, no jailbreak required.

I’m dead serious: Plex is awesome, and installing it on my Mac has been a total game changer in regards to the way I watch media in my own house. From my Apple TV, my MacBook Air, my iPad or my iPhone, I can stream my entire video library anywhere with no hassle.

It’s actually pretty easy to shoot sneaky pictures of people using the iPhone. You can pretend you’re doing something else as you point the camera at your unwitting/unwilling subject, or you can just hold the iPhone up to your ear, walk past them and snap a picture using the volume button.

Now there’s a third way: the Smartphone Spy Lens, an add-on that lets you shoot sneaky shots at 90-degrees to the camera’s own axis.

Right now, the iPhone 5 comes in white-and-silver and black-and-slate. When the iPhone 5S debuts on September 10th, there’s every reason to believe that Apple will supplement the traditional two color choices with a third option, a golden color (champagne gold, rather than ingot).

Is that it, though? Not according to new leaked images suggesting that the iPhone 5S will actually come in four colors. The last one? Graphite.

In every country, there’s the holdouts, the also-ran carriers that haven’t inked a deal with Apple and so soldier valiantly on, selling Android and (gasp) Blackberries to their sad clientele. In Japan, this also-ran carrier happens to be the nation’s largest, NTT DoCoMo. But eventually, even the holdouts come around, and shares of NTT DoCoMo are up this morning following reports that Apple is in talks to bring the iPhone to the network.

You know how it’s almost impossible to keep track of all the photos you take with your iPhone, iPad, and your regular camera? Imagine if you had another device that clipped to your clothes and captured video and stills all day long. It would be a nightmare of organization, right?

Then again, if you’re, say, a photographer who regualarly gets harrassed by police and “security” “guards,” then having an always-on camera capturing the 65-degree slice of life in front of you might actually turn out to be rather useful.

RayFlash’s new ringflash adapter is called the Universal, and it is. Well, almost. There are actually two different sizes, so you’ll have to choose the “Universal” model that fits your camera.

I kid. Kinda. The Universal part of the name actually refers to the flash-hole, which can now accommodate pretty much any flashgun, not just the handful of Canon and Nikon strobes that the old RayFlash supported.

A plain text adventure for the iPhone? That’s right. A plain text adventure with a bunch of the words covered up with black censorship bars? ██████ A!

It’s called ████████, and it comes from Neven Mrgan and James Moore.

In my tireless efforts to inform and entertain you, I find myself wrangling a lot of pictures for posts here on CoM. And now that many people are coming at us from Retina-screened devices, we try to use big pictures whenever we can. But how big is a picture?

Clicking the image and tapping the spacebar will give you a preview, but it won’t give you the image’s pixel dimensions. Not unless you install QuickLook plugin qlImageSize.

If you take a trip to the local laboratory supply store, and then follow it up by dropping into the vintage camera shop (or just a thrift store) then you could make your own beautiful lamp, just like those fashioned from dead photo gear by the Taiwanese Ystudio. It sure beats the usual crap you get from Ikea.

Rumor has it that Apple might soon get a gold member… of the iPhone family. But on this week’s CultCast, we’ll ask the important question: why would anyone want a gold iPhone?! We’ll ponder the color choice and rumors of a big bump in 5S storage space. Then, Kyle Wiens from iFixit.com joins us to discuss why Apple is purposely building devices only a Genius can fix, and the toxic wastelands where our iDevices go to die.

Have a few laughs and get caught up on this 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 audio adventure begin.

This one caught me off guard this week as I played through the new offerings on the iOS app store, looking for choice games to show off to you.

Little Galaxy is surprisingly captivating, encouraging yet another try to beat my previous high scores, or–in a recent round of the game on the couch with my daughter–trying to beat each other’s score.

Needless to say, she won.

Apple began running its Mac Pro teaser ad in theaters before showings Jobs last week, but now that no one is up to seeing Kutcher doing his worst Steve impression, Apple’s pushed the ad out onto YouTube.

The ad is essentially the same as one that was shown during the Mac Pro announcement at WWDC, except they’ve added some new cinematic-styled text at the end.

Here’s the full teaser:

As the public release of iOS 7 looms, momentum behind the world of jailbreaking has stalled. There hasn’t been a big jailbreak release in months and there likely won’t be one for many months to come.

But a mid-year funk hasn’t stopped talented hackers and developers from gathering yet again at JailbreakCon, the world’s only convention dedicated solely to the jailbreaking community. 

Apple has been experimenting with how it calculates chart rankings in the App Store, according to a new report from Fiksu. In the past, where an app sat on the top charts was related to its sheer amount of downloads and the daily velocity of those downloads. Now Apple is incorporating user ratings to determine rankings.

The obvious question to ask: why?

Apple’s iTunes Radio service doesn’t launch in the U.S. for a few more weeks, but Rdio’s been pumping some awesome updates into its iOS app to get ready. The latest Rdio update for iOS today added the much needed Station Tuning that’s been available on desktop since the launch of You FM earlier this month.

The Rdio 2.3.1 update also comes with a redesigned view for Collection that features a new album art view. Some UI tweaks and bug fixes were also tossed in for good measure along with improved search.

Here are the full notes:

When last we left the Department of Justice’s e-book antitrust case with Apple, things weren’t looking good. After Apple was found guilty of price fixing, the DoJ dismissed Apple’s rebuttal. Apple is on track to lose the ability to sell e-books in the iBookstore for several years. Third-parties like Amazon are also to be given back the ability to sell their e-books directly to iOS users within their apps. The outcome of this case will likely be a blow to Apple’s business and an even bigger blow to its pride.

Today the DoJ filed a revised remedy proposal for Apple. Besides reducing the amount of time Apple has to stay out of the e-book market from ten years to five, there are no other major changes. The most interesting tidbit is an email between Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller from 2010.

What the hell is wrong with wireless SD card makers? They manage to cram an entire Wi-Fi router into an SD card, along with the memory that’s already in there, and yet the software looks like they got their idiot cousin to write it in a weekend for like $100.

Toshiba’s FlashAir is a great example. The hardware is sound, and has some really great features. But the software is awful. Truly, breathtakingly terrible.

Rovio just released two new videos on YouTube. Above is the actual teaser trailer for the upcoming Angry Birds Star Wars II, itself revealed last month.

In the trailer, the dark side Emperor pig is seen making a recruiting video of sorts for all the young piggies who need new weaponry to fight those upstart Jedi birds. It doesn’t go as well as planned, of course; this is Rovio in the director’s chair, not George Lucas.

The cool thing here is that the Emperor is voiced by none other than Ian McDiarmid himself, the actor who plays the Emperor in the real Star Wars films.

1Password has been one of the most essential Mac apps for years, but it hasn’t seen a major upgrade since November 2009. Agile Bits is hard at work on the redesign of 1Password 4 for Mac, but they sent us a sneak peek of the reengineered password management app that’s been in the making for over a year.

Here’s what’s new: