News - page 1636

You may have noticed that people are making a lot fuss about Research in Motion’s upcoming BlackBerry 10 devices. And so they should. BlackBerry fans have been waiting for these handsets for several years, and they have high hopes for them. Furthermore, the devices are likely to determine whether or not RIM can save itself amid increasing competition from the iPhone and Android-powered devices.

The first BB10 devices won’t get their official unveiling until later this month, but numerous handsets have already found their way out into the wild. In the video below, a leaked BlackBerry Z10 goes up against the iPhone 5 in a comparison against size and form factor, as well as features.

Samsung Mobile vice president JK Shin has confirmed to a Korean news outlet that the company will unveil the Galaxy Tab 8.0 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month. The device, which is believed to be an iPad mini competitor, is expected to offer an 8-inch display with a 1280×800 resolution, coupled with a 1.6GHz quad-core processor.

If you want to hide some of the apps that come pre-installed with iOS — such as Stocks, Weather, or Game Center — there’s a nifty new trick that’ll allow you to place them into the Newsstand folder. No jailbreak is required — you don’t even need a computer — and you can hide as many apps as you like. You can also open them as you normally would from inside the Newsstand folder.

Here’s how the trick works.

Apple has made the iPhone more enterprise-friendly with almost every release of iOS, but some might say the company’s popular smartphone still isn’t ideal for business. When I say “some,” I mean Samsung. The Korean company just released a strange new advert to promote the enterprise features of its Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II, and it couldn’t help but bash the iPhone and even BlackBerry devices at the same time.

Apple is said to be preparing three new iPhone handsets for launch during 2013, two of which will appear in June, China Times reports. In addition to a slightly updated iPhone 5S, the Cupertino company is expected to unveil the “iPhone Math,” a larger device with a 4.8-inch display. Both devices are to offer improved internals and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera.

Skitch used to be my go-to Mac app for annotating images. Now I just use OS X’s Preview to get basic editing done in a pinch. As a blogger, I frequently deal with screenshots and images for posts. Sometimes you need to draw an arrow or draw attention to a certain part of an image. There’s never really been a good tool to do so, until Napkin.

Created by the guys at Aged & Distilled, Napkin is a new app in the Mac App Store that aims to help you with “concise visual communication.” If you’re a creative type, then this app should be in your tool belt.

Documents, a great new file manager and media player for the iPad — which won’t cost you a penny — kicks off this week’s must-have apps roundup. Finish, a task management app designed for procrastinators, is also featured — along with Poster, the best WordPress client for iOS. We’ve also got a great new camera app that’ll help you take awesome photos on your iOS devices, without applying filters and effects.

Temple Run 2 gets this week’s must-have games roundup up and running (see what I did there?). It’s accompanied by a unique pinball game that features the cutest flying squirrel you’ve ever seen, an awesome new platformer from Ravenous Games, and a title that originally made its debut on the Apple II all those years ago.

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In an internal video released today by web browser company, Opera, the initial programmer of the new concept showed off a beta of the new Opera browser scheduled to go live for iOS and Android in February of this year.

The video, posted on Pocket Lint, shows a browser that looks to redefine the typical mobile browsing experience, with icons instead of tabs and gestures instead of buttons. The focus is on the user and using rich web applications, like Google Maps.

Looks good, right? Today, Eugen Systems announced the Mac version of popular real-time strategy (RTS) game, Wargame European Escalation, with the trailer above.

In even better news, if you own the PC version of the game and own a Mac, you can download the new Mac version for free. How’s that for Mac-friendly?

Lala was the pioneer in online music streaming before services like Spotify and Pandora really took off. If you Googled a song pre-2009, a Lala link was the first result. Founded in 2005, Lala underwent some business model changes until it became a full-fledged music streaming site. A partnership with Google’s Music Beta and good connections with the record industry allowed Lala to grow and gain attention from bigger tech companies.

It made sense for Apple to buy Lala in December of 2009. Lala.com was shut down in May of 2010, and Apple has since introduced products like iTunes Match. When Lala was bought, we all knew that Apple had paid around $80 million for the small startup. Now the inside story of how the deal was reached over dinner at Steve Jobs’s house has surfaced.

Jonathan Berg, aka “Dremel Junkie,” shares our love for the iMac G4. Rather than letting his old G4 waste away in some landfill, he decided to resurrect it by putting an Intel Ivy Bridge processor inside and using some hackery to get it running OS X Mountain Lion.

Even though there’s not much space inside the G4’s base, Jonathan was able to squeeze in a DVD burner, a Core i3 processor, and some other new internal upgrades without compromising the original design. If you’re not afraid of a soldering iron and a Dremel Moto tool, Jonathan made a video explaining how to create your own Ivy Bridge iMac G4 that you can watch below.

No one tell former Vice President Al Gore that it’s a bad time to buy AAPL. He just exercised a big chunk of his Apple stock options, walking off with $29 million worth of shares at a steep discount.

Although the iSpy Tank may not end up in James Bond’s gadget collection, it’s more than ideal for amateur espionage missions. The device is controlled by your iPhone and has a built-in camera relays real-time video directly to your iPhone’s display, so you can see exactly where it’s going even if you’re in another room.

The iOS lock screen is a boring place. It displays the time, any notifications you’ve received since you last unlocked your device, and a shortcut to the Camera app. But that’s it. When you compare it to Android’s lock screen, which now has support for all kinds of cool widgets, it’s clear there’s room for improvement.

One way Apple could start improving it for iOS 7 is with this awesome concept from Jean-Marc Denis.

Apple CEO Tim Cook must provide a deposition in a lawsuit that claims the Cupertino company, along with other major firms in Silicon Valley, violated antitrust rules by entering into an agreement not to recruit each other’s employees. Apple’s lawyer, George Riley, had objected to the order handed out by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, on Thursday.

If you’ve pre-ordered a Pebble smartwatch, the first thing you’ll want to do when it arrives is connect it to your smartphone. After all, that’s the whole idea, right? Then you’ll be pleased to know that Pebble’s official apps for Android and iOS will be available before the device arrives on your doorstep.

Penny Arcade The Game: Gamers vs. Evil and other iOS games from Playdek have been reduced to just $0.99 this weekend. The popular card game only hit the App Store a month ago, and this reduction sees $4 off its regular price tag. Check out our list of other titles in the sale below.

Sharp has “nearly halted” its production of 9.7-inch iPad displays as consumers shift their demand towards the smaller iPad mini, Reuters reports. Sources familiar with Sharp’s plans have claimed that production of the larger panels at Sharp’s Kameyama plant in central Japan has fallen to the “minimal level” this month following a gradual slowdown that began at the end of 2012.

The news follows speculation that the iPad mini has been “cannibalizing” sales of the larger model since its debut last November.

If you believe recent reports and predictions from analysts, Apple must make its iPhone cheaper or introduce a low-cost model if it wants to compete with Samsung going forward. The Korean company currently boasts the largest smartphone market share in the United States, and its lead is expected to increase throughout 2013. But did you know that Apple has actually sold more devices? 88 million more, in fact.

Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt has been comparing Apple’s cumulative smartphone sales with Samsung’s, and it appears the Cupertino company’s iPhone outsold the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note lines 219 million to 131 million.

Back in September, British carrier O2 teamed up with HTC and started an initiative to reduce the number of unwanted smartphone chargers in the United Kingdom. The carrier estimated that around 70% of handset buyers already had a charger that would be compatible with their new device, and so it started selling certain HTC devices without them.

O2 is now reporting that the initiative has been a big success. 82% of customers didn’t need to purchase a charger with their smartphone, the company claims, which surpasses its initial expectations for the effort.

Team Cult is back from Vegas, baby! Yes, we’re still a little, um, foggy minded, but with plenty of new Apple news to discuss, the show must go on.

On this episode of The CultCast, we discuss rumors of iPhone 5S, and ponder how some recent Apple acquisitions means the mystery phone could have some very radical new features.

Then, has Apple lost its mojo? And what about all those rampant rumors that iPhone 5 just isn’t selling? Bollocks! On our newest episode, we sort it all out for you.

Eager to listen but not sure how? Easy! Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.

Click on through for the full show notes.

According to Google engineer, Frank Petterson, on his own Google+ profile page, the search giant’s social network iOS apps just got a little more international, as the app just became available in 48 new countries and territories.

iOS contact aggregation app, Brewster, updated today and added a feature that might make you wonder why it wasn’t there in the first place: the contacts on your iPhone itself. While Brewster already pulled contact info from your Facebook friends, Twitter followers, LinkedIn profile, Gmail account, and Foursquare contacts, this is the first time its connected directly to the native iPhone contacts you carry around with you every day.

Siri is already pretty smart, but Apple wants to take her to the next level. An Apple job listing out of Cupertino calls for a “uniquely creative individual to help us evolve and enrich Siri, our virtual personal assistant.”

“Siri’s known for ‘her’ wit, cultural knowledge, and zeal to explain things in engaging, funny, and practical ways,” says Apple. “The ideal candidate is someone who combines a love for language, wordplay, and conversation with demonstrated experience in bringing creative content to life within an intense technical environment.”