Good news, iOS power-nerds! TextExpander Touch 2.0 has just been released into the wilds of the App Store and is available for your keystroke-saving delectation.
The big news? Fill-In snippets finally come to iOS. But that’s not all…
After testing AirPlay speakers against Bluetooth speakers, one thing has jumped out at me: AirPlay is way, way better. In terms of sound at least. Which is why I’m interested in the Wren v5 wireless speaker, an AirPlay speaker from an ex-president at Harman International.
Known for its collectible card and board game business, Cryptozoic Entertainment put its latest creation, a free-to-play digital collectible card game named HEX, up on Kickstarter with an initial goal of $300,000.
As of today, with 17 days left to go in the full fund raising time period, the project has garnered over $970,000. That’s a pretty good pledge amount right there.
HEX is being billed as an massively multiplayer online (MMO) trading card game for Mac and PC, with the deep strategic game play of a collectible card game mashed up with the social and roleplaying aspects of an MMO, all on your Mac, with dungeons, quests, story lines, advanced AI, and–of course–beautifully illustrated card decks to collect, purchase, and use to claim dominion over your opponents.
Yahoo just unveiled a completely redesigned website for Flickr, and it looks great. What makes it even better is that each user now gets 1 TB of free storage and 3 minutes of 1080p video.
The new look is very image-centric, as it should be. Profiles are collages of photos in a scrollable list with a Facebook-like cover photo. You can check it out now at Flickr.com.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is scheduled to appear before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee tomorrow as part of a probe into tax evasion strategies among American corporations. Apple released its official testimony for the hearing earlier today, noting that is is one of the biggest taxpayers in the country.
Among the witnesses tomorrow will be Apple executives, Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, and members of the Treasury Department. “The subcommittee will spotlight Apple’s extensive tax-avoidance strategies,” according to Levin.
How loyal are you to Apple? New research shows that Apple has the most loyal and devoted customer base in the computer business.
Forrester recently conducted a survey to determine how loyal the average computer owner is to a given company. While 85% of worldwide customers don’t claim loyalty to a certain brand (defined in the above chart as “Free Radicals”), the remaining 15% have a strong allegiance to Apple.
Since it was revealed that FaceTime over Cellular was coming to iOS 6 last summer, AT&T has been gradually rolling out the feature to different segments of its subscriber base.
At first, you had to be on a “Mobile Share” plan, and then it was opened up to LTE iOS devices on a traditional tiered plan. Back in January, AT&T gave everyone access except subscribers with grandfathered unlimited plans.
Now FaceTime over Cellular on AT&T will be available to all iOS device owners, including those with unlimited data, by next month.
Alongside Yahoo’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr today, the social network also released a big update to its iOS app.
External battery packs are one of the least sexy aspects of the mobile age. They’re the equivalent of the plastic gas can in the back of your trunk: stinky, unsexy, and probably empty when you need it.
Lenmar’s Helix battery pack isn’t particularly sexy, but it doesn’t smell (despite the “Undead Power” branding, which implies putrifying flesh) and it’s unlikely to be empty when you need it: it has a massive 11,000mAh battery inside, capable in theory of charging a third- or fourth-gen iPad from 0% to full. All in a battery pack not much bigger than a deck of playing cards.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is scheduled to appear before a Senate committee tomorrow morning to talk about Apple’s off-shore cash that’s now worth over $100 billion. Last week, Cook stated that his company believes the entire U.S. corporate tax system needs to be overhauled to encourage companies like Apple to bring earnings from overseas back to the U.S.
This afternoon Apple published its testimony before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, that contained a wish-list for the type of comprehensive corporate tax reform it thinks would be best for the U.S. tax system. Following the company’s ethos to believe in the simple, not the complex, Apple’s tax-wish list would dramatically simplify the U.S. corporate tax system.
In its testimony, Apple states that the comprehensive reform should have the following traits:
It was just last Fall that Apple announced the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display but Apple is already facing some competition from the likes of Google’s Chromebook Pixel and now Samsung is getting in on the game.
This morning Samsung announced that it is manufacturing a 13.3-inch display that will have higher pixel densities than both the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro and the Chromebook Pixel.
Not only are Apple Stores some of the most popular retail stores on the planet, they’re also the most successful. This year Apple Stores have continued to outpace the entire industry, and as a result Apple is now making more money per visitor than ever before.
According to some analysis by Horace Dediu at Asymco, last quarter the number of Apple Store visitors grew 7%, and as a result Apple earned a record of $57.60 in revenue from each visitor.
There’s a lot of talk these days about Google Glass, Google’s new futuristic wearable computer that functions like a set of cyborg glasses, overlaying a HUD of Google products and search services over your life.
It certainly sounds impressive, and early reviews from the usual techno-nerds are positive. But what would Steve Jobs have thought of Google Glass?
He would have thought you were a dork for wearing one, and you needed to get laid.
Apple is well-known for its love of the so-called golden ratio, an “extreme and mean” mathematical ratio that designers as far back as the third-century B.C. identified as most likely to lead to harmonious design. The iCloud logo, for example, is designed with the golden ratio in mind … and it’s widely believed that the iconic Apple logo is also designed using the golden ratio.
It’s a nice thought, isn’t it? That Apple’s logo is constructed out of mathematically perfect circles and partial circles? Unfortunately, not only is it not true, but Apple has different logos it uses even in its own official materials: the Apple icon etched into the back of your iPad is very different than, say, the official Unicode symbol.
If you jailbreak your iOS devices, there usually comes a point where you get stuck on an older firmware because the latest one hasn’t yet been hacked by the jailbreak community. When this time comes, it’s almost impossible to restore your device and start with a clean OS without losing your jailbreak.
But not anymore. A new app called Semi-Restore provides you with a clean install of your current firmware without updating your device and killing your jailbreak.
A fifteen year old boy has been gruesomely killed in Las Vegas while being robbed for his iPad.
Apple doesn’t like OLED displays. Across the board, Apple uses LCD IPS displays in its devices, which have better color accuracy than OLED. Theoretically, though, OLED is better than LCD when it comes to power consumption, though… which is why a new report is floating the possibility that Apple might switch to OLED for the iWatch… and that Foxconn is already building test runs.
Apple’s fifth-generation iPad, which is set to feature an all-new design much like the iPad mini’s, will enter production in July ahead of its September release, according to supply chain sources. Trial production of the device will reportedly begin soon and will ramp up to 2-3 million units this fall.
“Intel Inside.” It’s been called one of the best campaigns to ever come out of Silicon Valley’s Mad Men, and it turned a relatively unknown maker of microprocessors into a $100 billion dollar company, and a household name. All this, thanks to a blue sticker slapped on every Intel PC or laptop.
Every Intel PC or laptop except Apple’s, that is. Even when Cupertino transitioned to Intel processors in 2006, Apple refused to put ‘Intel Inside’ stickers on their new Macs and MacBooks. And with characteristic bluntness, Steve Jobs had no problem explaining why when asked about it back in August 2007, right after the first aluminum iMac was introduced. For the latest updates and insights, check out Intel news today.
How much should Apple have to pay Sony if they use a song on iRadio, but a listener hates it so much that they immediately skip to the next track? A common sense answer would be ‘nothing’ but in the high stakes world of music industry legal mumbo jumbo, common sense doesn’t apply… and Apple and Sony Music’s disagreement over the matter might delay iRadio from launching with iOS 7.
Earlier this month, a hacked carrier update for the T-Mobile iPhone 5 that brought increased data speeds was released by Joe Brown and Sky Zangas, two developers behind iTweakiOS. Now the duo have released a similar hack for AT&T devices, only this time, it’s not just for the iPhone.
The hacked carrier update also supports the iPad and promises to improve data performance on both LTE and HSPA+.
When you’re watching the game, wouldn’t it be awesome if you could replay key moments from any camera angle you choose?
With the latest Sky Sports update for iPad, you can. Launching just in time for the upcoming UEFA Champions League final, Sky Sports 360 is a brand new feature that lets viewers select and replay exciting moments from over 20 different camera angles.
Choosing what to buy when you’re trying to be an ethical consumer is tricky. In a world where hippie holdout Ben and Jerry’s is now a corporate sellout owned by Unilever, how can we know who owns what, and which products we should boycott?
Luckily (and you knew this was coming), There’s An App For That™. It’s called Buycott, and by just scanning a barcode, you can find out which scheming ne’erdowells are behind the brand.
Last seen wrapping the iPhone in chopped-up fire hoses, the folks at Station Supply Co have expanded (pun most definitely intended) into recycled airliner life rafts. That’s right: now you can cover your iPhone or iPad with a swatch snipped from a genuine 1970s-era PanAm life raft.
There are probably more slick-looking weahter apps in the app stoire than there are gimmicky to-do list managers, but if you want a meteorological powerhouse in your pocket then there’s only one option: WeatherPro. In it’s paid form it will give forecasts for up to two weeks, along with all the radar and satellite animations you could need, plus detailed yet easily-read weather info.
Now, if you own a backyard weather station from Netatmo, you can view its data right there in the familiar WeatherPro interface.