News - page 1587

I’m a sucker for wood paneling my Apple products, and so I’m absolutely going to have to do this: the guys over at RAWBKNY (whom we’ve written about before) are now selling laser-etched replacement keys for the MacBook Pro.

They look great, and Michael over at RAWBKNY says that while they are only designed for the non-Retina MacBook Pro right now, he’s tweaking it so it should work on the Retina MacBook Pro and MacBook Airs soon.

We’ve got a review unit on the way to see how well these work, but be warned: replacing every key on your MacBook is likely to be a time consuming process. $40 will get you a set.

Source: RAWBKNY

Remember the app Dark Sky? If you’re outside the U.S., what you’ll remember is the frustration of not being able to use its amazing real-time rain warnings, which would literally tell you when it would rain on your location in the next hour or so.

Now, the developers of Dark Sky have come out with Forecast, which works anywhere in the world, and will run on Android, iOS, the desktop, anywhere. How? It’s a web app.

Wow, this is incredible. Redditor Kepgnar works in the tech department of a charter school. Every month, one of the departments has to put together a message for the school’s official announcement chalkboard.

Here’s what Kepgnar came up with: a meticulously drawn “Think Different.” logo with an actually working QR code which, when scanned, leads to the YouTube version of the original commercial narrated by Steve Jobs.

How’d Kepgnar do the QR code? They designed it, then projected it onto the chalkboard and traced it. Talk about thinking differently.

Source: Reddit

Over at Asymco, Horace Dediu has compared Apple’s retail economy versus Amazon, and while the results aren’t anything we haven’t seen before — Amazon has annual revenue about twice the size of Apple’s retail revenue, but makes only 10% of Apple’s same operating income on that revenue — it’s informative to see it laid out so clearly. Check it out.

Source: Asymco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ku0H10_G1X4

One of the curses of being an innovator is every time you innovate, someone comes along and says they had a patent on it first. Apple knows this dilemma well, and the latest patent infringement claim Cupertino has to defend itself against is in China over Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant.

Apple is gearing up to send its much-anticipated “iTV” into mass production during the second half of this year, according to sources in the Cupertino company’s supply chain, who have been speaking to DigiTimes. The set will reportedly boast a 4K “Ultra HD” display with a 3840×2160 resolution, and it’ll be controlled by voice and motion.

Today Flipboard received a huge 2.0 update that brings a slew of new features and additions, most notably the ability to create custom magazines and share them with friends. You can assemble articles, photos, audio and video into a collage of content that Flipboard will format. It’s a big step towards putting curation in the hands of Flipboard users, and it’s implemented beautifully.

What if you tok Twelve South’s neat Plugbug Mac charger extension and shrunk it down to work with the iPad charger? You’d get Scosche’s CoverCharge, that’s what. Just like the Plugbug, the adapter slides onto its host and adds an extra USB port.

T-Mobile will begin selling the iPhone 5 on April 12th, but the model that they’re selling isn’t exactly like those found on other carriers. T-Mobile’s iPhone 5 is actually a tweaked model A1428 iPhone that Apple sells for AT&T, except it comes with AWS support.

Updating your apps on iOS isn’t hard, but for some reason, I suck at remembering to. There are always about nine update notifications waiting for me in the App Store, and I always think I’ll get around to it in a minute, but never do.

One of the best new reasons to jailbreak though, is an app called Auto App Updater. Like its name says, the app makes it so you never have to think about updating your apps on your iPhone or iPad again.

Okay, this is rad. YouTube user HM231 had no use for his car stereo’s old, crusty audio cassette slot, so what did he do? Hollow it out and mount a 30-pin connector inside it so he could slide in his iPod instead to pump up the jams. Rad!

Via: Reddit

If you own a Retina MacBook Pro, here’s a nice little perk to upgrading to OS X 10.8.3: you’ll get about 20 minutes more battery life per charge.

The iPad is great for photographers, but the built-in Photos app sucks. You can’t change the viewing order. Making albums and moving photos is a multi-tap pain in the ass, and navigating is confusing even for the experienced user.

That’s where Focus Point comes in. It’s a photo-viewing app that’s been around for a while, but the latest update adds enough new goodies to make it worth a look.

For Apple to really compete with Samsung in terms of global smartphone marketshare, many analysts believe Apple will have to release a cheaper iPhone to appeal to customers in India and China.

As talk of a cheaper iPhone has ramped up over the last few months, Apple is also planning to increase its presence in India by tripling the number of exclusive authorized reseller stores in the country from 65 to 200 by 2015.

There’s no denying that Twitterrific 5 is a beautiful third-party Twitter client for the iPhone and iPad, but the app has been lacking a huge feature until today: push notifications. Now that push has become an expected feature in modern Twitter apps, it was only a matter of time before The Iconfactory added it to their app.

You can get push notifications for new mentions, direct messages, favorites, retweets, and followers. The catch is that only 1,000 Twitterrific users will get access to the feature initially. Availability will be then rolled out gradually to new users.

Hey, T-Mobile is finally an iPhone carrier now! Not only that, they’re a pretty competitive one, offering you an iPhone 5 for just $100 down and $20 a month over 24 months in what the nation’s fourth-largest carrier is calling a “no bullshit” plan. If you buy an iPhone 5 at T-Mobile, you can leave at any time as long as you pay off your device; otherwise, your service is provided month by month.

Sounds pretty great, but how competitive is T-Mobile’s new iPhone plan compared to the competition really? We compared the cheapest T-Mobile iPhone 5 plan you can get against the 24 month cost of getting one from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Cricket, Virgin Mobile and Straight Talk. The result? T-Mobile is one of the cheaper plans around… but it’s not the cheapest.

Tempted as I am by the likes of the amazing Fujifilm X100s, I know that I’ll keep coming back to my iPhone 5 camera thanks to its combo of convenience, quality, connect-ability and apps. But the Sun & Cloud camera has just the right balance of price to quirky novelty to get me interested.

For some reason, ComScore just hasn’t gotten around to adding mobile users to its measurements on how much traffic websites get until today. Now that mobile traffic is being accounted for, Apple has quickly gone from the 11th most popular website in the world to 8th.

ComScore just released its latest rankings for websites and Apple benefited the most from the addition of mobile audience scoring by adding 54% more unique viewers to its score.

I used to use a sleeve-style case with my original iPad, and I loved it. Sleeves protect the iPad while you carry it, and let you experience the full slimline awesomeness of a naked tablet when you take it out to use. Then Apple made the iPad 2 and the Smart Cover and that was it. The only time I change cases now is if I need something rugged, or if I’m testing one for review.

But I’m tempted by the Calypso Tab, a lovely leather sleeve for the regular iPad and the mini. It’s a softish hard shell, and it looks fantastic.

Apple is on the hunt for a new iOS Communications Application Engineer who will be responsible for implementing new features into FaceTime and iMessage, “taking the revolutionary iPhone to the next level.” The position is based at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, according to a new job listing on the company’s website.

Remember Quicksilver? The lightweight Mac utility used to be the go-to app launcher on the desktop, but that was years ago. A lack of updates combined with the rise of more feature-rich alternatives like Alfred turned the attention away from Quicksilver long ago.

Now the developers behind the app are breathing new life into Quicksilver with a major update. Quicksilver 1.0 has been released, which marks the end of the 10-year beta period the app has been in since 2003.

It’s only taken just under six years, but T-Mobile has finally reached a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone. The iPhone 5 will be one of the first devices available on T-Mobile’s new LTE network, launched today, and it’ll be available to purchase for a $99 up-front fee starting April 12.

Got some old speakers gathering dust at home? Would you love to hook them up to your AirPlay network but don’t want to buy a) an amp and speaker cable and b) an Airport Express? Well, The Vamp is here to save you. It’s a tiny box that sits on top of your speaker and acts as both amp and Bluetooth receiver.

The Touch is a cool-looking new way to control Adobe Lightroom, either using your Magic trackpad or your iPad. It’s a small app that runs alongside Lightroom (or Final Cut Pro X) and lets you control it using all manner of gestures, taps, and swipes, letting you focus less on which slider to grab and more on looking at the image itself.

Logitech has today announced the launch of its new Keyboard Folio cases for iPad and iPad mini. Built from refined fabrics — and available in a whole host of pretty colors — the Keyboard Folio is designed to provide your beloved tablet with all-round protection as well as a physical keyboard that’ll let you get things done on the go.