News - page 1551

Amazon announced today that it has struck a deal with NBC/Universal to bring more popular TV shows to Amazon Prime Instant Video. The new deal gives exclusive streaming rights to a number of shows for the next four years as Amazon continues to beef up its catalogue of shows to do battle against Netflix.

Among the shows that you’ll be able to find on Prime Instant Video (but not on Netflix) you’ll find Grimm Season 1 and Covert Affairs Seasons 1-2 starting today, and then Hannibal and Defiance will be added later this year.

Jeff Bezos announced the deal this morning via a public letter on Amazon’s homepage. An accompanying press release detailed the news shows from the deal as follows:

Blackberry Messenger might finally be coming to iOS this summer… but it’s just been confirmed that doesn’t mean a native iPad version.

See that girl in the MacBook Air on the right? She’s a professional model for stock image site Shutterstock.com, who once did an entire set of images called “Pretty Woman Lying On The Sofa Holding Her Smartphone.” And that smartphone in question is clearly an iPhone 3G/S.

Okay. Now see the image on the left? That’s from a recent Samsung ad, and what do you know? The model’s iPhone has been artlessly photoshopped into a Samsung Galaxy S4… even though that device features a 5-inch display that is so large, the phone’s tiny size in the model’s hand implies a woman who is over eight-feel tall. Here’s proof. 

On the one hand, this is a photo from a stock photo site, meaning as long as Samsung paid for the image, they can do what they like with it. But still…. jeez, Samsung. Surely there’s one pretty girl in the world who prefers her Galaxy to an iPhone that you could track down for a photoshoot, right?

Via: Samsung Copies Apple

What if your iOS lockscreen intelligently pulled together all the data inside your iPhone and made sure that you could keep track with your real-world life without even sliding-to-unlock?

This beautiful iOS 7 concept by Jürgen Ulbrich of Apfellike.de reimagines iOS as something a lot more similar to Google Now than we’ve ever seen in iOS before.

Stylistically, we can quibble about it — the visual style of this concept obviously is more in Google’s school than Apple’s — but the functionality is exquisite. I would love a Google Now-like experience on my iOS 7 lockscreen, wouldn’t you?

With the exception of the possibility of new color offerings, we all know that the iPhone 5S will likely look pretty much identical to the iPhone 5… but that doesn’t mean things aren’t changing significantly on the inside. And BGR thinks they have proof.

Apple’s current flagship store in San Francisco is in something of a cramped location, so Apple wants to move it three blocks away, to Union Square.

We’re big fans of Pixelmator here at Cult of Mac — it’s one of the finest image editors you can buy for your Mac, and it’s just $14.99. And it appears we’re not the only ones who love it. Pixelmator just announced that its latest 2.2 Blueberry update has seen over 500,000 downloads in just one week, becoming its most successful release to date.

iOS is a fantastic platform, but as it approaches its sixth birthday, it’s in desperate need of a lick of paint. If you jailbreak your devices, then you don’t need to sit and wait for Apple to administer that, because you can take the design refresh into your own hands by theming.

The only issue with that is finding a theme that’s as beautiful as the hardware it’s running on. There aren’t many out there that fit this description, but iMIUI from Xiaomi is one of them.

Apple has today announced the winner of its $10,000 App Store gift card after the App Store surpassed 50 billion downloads on Wednesday. The lucky customer is Brandon Ashmore of Mentor, Ohio, who downloaded Say the Same Thing, a word game from Space Inch.

Mobileaks says the above render comes from a tipster who has seen the iPad mini 2 with Retina display. We’re not so convinced.

Snapshots is a fantastic idea, and one I can see being used pretty heavily at weddings — or by, say, a gaggle of journalists who shoot an event and might need to pool their images.

The band, OK Go, known as much for its fabulously nerdy and complex videos as for its quirky and upbeat pop music, have made an app. Before you go, “meh,” and move on, thinking that this is another one of those record publishing tie-in apps that, really, no one loves but the publicist trying to push it, take a look at the video here.

Get it? These guys made the app. Ok, mostly guitarist Andy Ross, but the other guys certainly had a hand in the app. They definitely appear in the video above. Singer and bassist, Tim Nordwind, had this to say when we asked about the app.

So, the game we’ve been telling you about since before it even had a name is out now for Mac, PC, and Linux, and it looks as good as the developers promised. It’s a sequel to Anomaly Warzone Earth, originally released on iOS, and it will only cost you $13.49 for the first week after launch. You can grab it on Steam, or Anomaly2Game should you so desire. And really, it’s a pretty desirable game.

Warsaw, Poland-based 11 bit studios kicked things off last February when they announced a mystery game that you could purchase before you even knew what it was, and then announced the name of the game not too long after.

Well, here we are, and there it is, ready for you to grab for less than a decently sized pizza at 10 percent off the eventual retail price of $15.

Since the beginning of February, Mophie has gone from having zero iPhone 5 battery cases to having three. Today the popular case maker announced yet another battery case tailored for the iPhone 5, the Juice Pack Plus. The case costs $120, and it contains more juice than its predecessors.

Apple has fallen under plenty of scrutiny for storing a majority of its $100+ billion cash horde overseas to avoid paying U.S. corporate taxes, the highest tax rate in the world. Now Apple CEO Tim Cook has been summoned to speak at a Senate hearing next week as part of an investigation into the offshore tax practices of U.S businesses.

Last week we told you that Verizon would be selling the iPhone 5 for 50% off later this month. The promotion has now begun, and the iPhone 5 is being offered for $99 with a carrier contract instead of the normal $199 retail price.

But there’s a catch that severely limits eligibility.

Apple just announced that the App Store just hit its 50 billionth app download ever. To celebrate the event, Apple said it would give a $10,000 App Store Gift Card to the person who downloads the 50 billionth app. Apple’s also giving $500 App Store Gift Cards to the next 50 people to download an app after the 50 billion mark.

Siri’s got a ton of talents. She’s an amateur movie critic. She knows all about robotics. Plus, she’s pretty decent at her main job as a personal assistant.

Siri’s never been a great comedian, and whoever was put in charge of making Siri more witty and conversational  is just making her look more dorky. Now whenever you ask Siri to tell you a joke, she replies with, “Get Siri-ous. Ha ha!” The joke is bad enough, but the little “Ha ha!” at the end makes Siri sound like some high school nerd at open mic night. Hopefully Tim Cook and the gang will teach Siri some better jokes before WWDC 2013.

Source: Reddit

There are some nifty tweaks for jailbroken iOS devices that allow you to add blank spaces to your home screen and arrange your app icons any way you like. Well now you don’t need to jailbreak to have this option, because a newly-discovered glitch in iOS lets you create blank spaces with a bit of trickery.

I have a handful of docks that I’ve stowed away in a drawer because I no longer own the iOS devices I bought them for; they were all bought for specific iOS devices, and they’re not compatible with my latest ones.

With the iDockAll, that’s not an issue, because it’s designed to fit any iOS device you own — including your iPhone, your iPad, and your iPod touch. It looks darn good, too, and it doesn’t prevent your iOS device from being used while it’s charging.

Wireless interference from an iPhone has been blamed for disrupting the compasses on a regional airliner and sending pilots several miles off course. The incident happened on a 2011 flight as it climbed past 9,000 feet, but the issue was resolved when a flight attendant asked a passenger to turn their iPhone off.

The new Yahoo! Mail app for iOS has received another update just two weeks after its big revamp. This release adds support for Apple’s AirPrint service, allowing you to wirelessly print emails and attachments from your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

According to Reuters, US authorities have called Apple out for collusion with electronic book publishers, saying that the Cupertino-based company conspired with publishers to raise eBook prices when negotiating iBooks by playing them all against each other and against rival eBook retailer, Amazon.

The US Justice Department accused Apple of price fixing in April 2012 in relation to Apple’s negotiations with five publishers when it was launching the iPad in early 2010. The Justice Department has settled out of court with each of the publishers, which included HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, and Pearson’s Penguin Group.

People love to sue Apple whenever they can, and now a Florida woman is seeking $5+ million in damages because her iPhone 4’s power button doesn’t work. The class action lawsuit is intended to fight for the iPhone 4 users who have reported defective on/off buttons over the past several years.

The charity auction to score a coffee date in Cupertino with Apple CEO Tim Cook has closed, and the winning bid ended up being $610,00. Yes, that’s more than a half million dollars for an hour of Cook’s time. The estimated price was originally $50,000.

After 86 bids that quickly sent the auction into the stratosphere, an anonymous bidder known only as “a********s” swooped in today and won with the closing bid.