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.
If you’re an Apple fan (and who reading this isn’t?), there are few conversations that would be better than sitting down with one of the company’s top execs to quiz them over all things Cupertino.
That was the rationale behind a 2013 auction to raise money for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The prize? A cup of coffee with Tim Cook at 1 Infinite Loop. The eye-watering (iWatering?) price tag: $610,000.
Even at that price he’s not going to tell you what the iPhone 7 looks like, or if Jony Ive is working on an aluminum hover board, but it would still be the conversation of a lifetime. If you’re feeling a bit cash-strapped, you could try lunch with Mr. Fix-It Eddy Cue. A related auction went for "just" $10,000.
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.
T-Mobile finally has the iPhone 5. It’s great, and cheap, but unfortunately its data speeds are slower than an iPhone 5 on AT&T. Not satisfied with their slower iPhone 5s, Joseph Brown and Sky Zangas did some digging around in carrier update files and figured out a way to boost data speeds on the T-Mobile iPhone 5.
To get faster data speeds on T-Mobile’s network with the iPhone 5 all you have to do is install a custom carrier update. That sounds like a tough task, but it’s actually pretty easy, and thanks to the guys at TmoNews, here’s a quick guide on how to do it:
Earlier this week we reported that ABC plans to be the first major network in the U.S. to offer live TV programming on your iPad. Well the rebranded ‘Watch ABC’ app just hit the App Store, which means if you live in certain areas you could get free live TV on your iPad now.
Watch ABC’s live video feature currently only works in Philadelphia and New York City, but more cities should be added throughout the year. To get the live streaming service running after July 1st you’ll have to confirm that you have an active cable subscription with either Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, AT&T U-Verse, Charter and Midcontinent.
Here are the release notes:
Apple’s got to keep the ever-mounting demands on its Siri servers down somehow, so here’s a new one. If you ask her something too long, Siri will respond with trite quotes upon the power of brevity, such as this one by William Strunk of Strunk & White fame:
A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
Of course, it’s not up to a voice-recognition program to dictate what is an unnnecessary word or sentence, any more than it is up to a pencil which line in a drawing is “unnecessary”, or an engine schematic which part isn’t needed.
But here’s something ironic! Take that exact quote above by Strunk and modify it into a question. “Siri, should a sentence contain any unnecessary words, or a paragraph any unnecessary sentences, for the same reasons that a drawing should not have any unnecessary lines or a machine any unnecessary parts?” And guess what! Siri will accuse Strunk of being long-winded. Take that Elements of Style!
Source: iLounge
Square is quickly becoming one of the most convenient and coolest ways for small businesses to process transactions. If you’ve ever visited a shop that uses Square you’ve probably seen a number of improvised iPad cash registers, but Square just debuted its own iPad register called Square Stand.
The Square Stand will go on sale starting June 8th for $299, but you can already pre-order it on Square’s website. The new hardware is to be utilized in conjunction with the Square Register app that is already used by thousands of businesses across the country.
Philips Hue lightbulbs have quickly become one of our favorite iPhone accessories for the home. Not only can change your lighting to fit any mood, you can also create light shows with your music, and now Philips is adding some new features to the bulbs to make them even more powerful.
Philips released a new update for its Philips Hue app for iOS today that adds a number of features including geo-fencing, timers, alarms, and IFTTT support.
Here’s a video of some of the new features:
Realmac Software, the creators of Clear, today announced Analog Camera for iPhone, a brand new camera app that’s coming to the App Store soon. Just like Realmac’s Analog app for Mac, the iPhone version will offer “stunning filters” and a fluid user interface that’s “incredibly easy to use.”
Facebook for iOS has received another new update today, which adds a new “photo viewer button” which allows you to save and share images, and make them your profile picture. It also makes improvements to places editing, and more.
By now, you’ve probably see Commander Chris Hadfield’s tear-jerking farewell to the International Space Station: a cover of David Bowie’s classic space song, Space Oddity, filmed and performed by Hadfield himself in zero-g. In case you haven’t, we’ve embedded it above: it’s hard not to be proud of humanity after watching it.
But do you know how Hadfield actually recorded it? With his iPad, of course.
Jefferies & Co.’s Peter Misek is our favorite know-nothing analyst, having been proven hysterically, horribly wrong on about every major Apple prediction he’s ever made. He’s probably safe on this prediction, though: even Misek doesn’t think Apple’s going to surprise us with a new iPhone in June. But he’s still kind of an idiot, since it directly contradicts his own prophecies back in December.
Twitterrific, one of my favorite Twitter clients on iOS, got a new update this week that adds Readability integration for bookmarking tweets you want to catch up with later, as well as support for image hosting service Droplr. The update also comes with a ton of bug fixes and improvements.
What would a budget or mid-range iPhone mini look like with a radical new vision of iOS 7 installed on it, fronted by that skeuomorph-hating design perfectionist, Jony Ive?
Martin Hajek — one of the most talented Apple concept designers around — wanted to know, so he created a new budget iPhone concept that features bighter colors, a smaller screen, and a plastic backshell inspired by the iPad mini, then “installed” Dámaso Benítez’ “really nice concept” of how Jony Ive might flatten iOS 7.
On my part, I seriously doubt iOS 7 will look anything like this: Ive’s sense of design sophistication is not going to have him making app icons that look as if they would be right at home in a preschoolers sticker book. But it’s a nice concept none the less.
Some more images after the break to wet your whistle.
The iPhone 5S could come with a sapphire crystal capacitive touch home button that incorporates a new fingerprint sensor, according to supply chain sources in Taiwan.
Apple is expected to do away with the traditional physical home button, which has long been one of the most unreliable components on iOS devices. It’s thought that using sapphire crystal, which has a hardness second only to diamond, will prevent the button from getting scratched and ruining the fingerprint sensor.
Crowd-sourced funding is hot these days, with outfits like Kickstarter and Indiegogo allowing anyone with a hot business idea to pitch their service, product, or–in this case–app to those bleeding edge enough to want to support an idea before it’s even built.
MiWallet has that hot idea, and now they want you to help fund it. Think of the convenience of the Apple Store app checkout via iTunes connected with the security of Google Wallet, and you’ve got the general idea.