News - page 1644

It’s hard to believe we’ve just finished our 50th CultCast! But we’re not stopping to celebrate just yet.

On our newest episode, we say why Apple Maps integrating with Waze maps makes too much sense not to happen; why Bill Gates just made Microsoft Surface the new Christmas coal; and as we prepare to journey to Las Vegas for CES, we review which new gadgets and tech we’re most excited about, and give you the inside scoop on what it’s really like to report live from one of the biggest tech conventions in the world.

All that and more on our all-new CultCast! Subscribe now on iTunes or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.

This is one Google Now bug that Google won’t be too happy about: a glitch that causes the service to randomly “praise the iPad” when a user performs certain voice searches. Google Now reads out its response, but adds “he now praises the iPad” to the end of it. Check out the video below.

Corning has today announced its third-generation Gorilla Glass, and as you’d expect, it’s significantly tougher than its predecessors. Gorilla Glass 3 boasts a new feature called Native Damage Resistance (NDR), which promises to provide three times the scratch resistance of Gorilla Glass 2. It’ll be on show at CES next week before making its way to the next generation of smartphones, tablets, and more.

And so it begins… iHome has kicked off the CES Lightning accessory announcements with a typically indigestible press release containing roughly one zillion new gadgets.

If you want to hear about the Bluetooth headphones and alarm clocks, and all the other stuff, then visit the link below. For the neat new do-everything iDL100 alarm dock, read on.

This year is likely to be another big one for Apple — even if we don’t see that much-anticipated television set. One new product the Cupertino could have up its sleeve is an internet radio service called “iRadio.” It’s reportedly been negotiating the necessary deals with the music labels, and one analyst expects the service to be integrated into iTunes within the next 12 months, competing with the likes of Pandora.

Samsung and Apple are the only two smartphone vendors currently seeing growth in the United States, and although it was Apple that saw the most between September and November of last year, it’s Samsung who will attract most customers throughout 2013. The Korean electronics giant will see 35% growth over the next 12 months, according to Strategy Analytics, further increasing the lead over its arch rival in Cupertino.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqLBZ4Dh8Hk

Using QuickIO, an iOS app we reported on a couple of weeks back, you can stream your media from your Mac to your iOS device, be it an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Today, the app was updated to include support for streaming that very same media to your Apple TV.

Today, Facebook updated its Messenger app for both iOS and Android, adding a voice messaging capability to the app on both platforms.

There have also been reports that Facebook has been rolling out a pilot VOIP feature to the Messenger app, which will let users call other Facebook Messenger friends for free, or at least without incurring carrier voice minute debits.

The VOIP option is not available for all users, as the iOS app is the only one with even a mention of the feature in the app description. TechCrunch reported that the pilot program is only available in Canada for now, as well.

As we reported earlier, the collaboration between Canabalt developer Adam Saltsman and PuzzleJuice developer, Greg Wohlwend produced a fantastic game called Hundreds. Well, it’s out and available in the App Store right now, for a mere $2.99.

It’s a delightful puzzle game that teaches you how to play while you’re actually playing it, which is one of the best ways to learn anything, really. The colors are monochromatic shades of gray, with some reds thrown in for good design measure, and while the solutions to each level do promise to get fairly brutal, Hundreds is looking to be one of those games that wins the hearts of both critics, journalists, and gamers alike.

Are you ready for the glory that is Ashton Kutcher doing his best Steve Jobs impression? He’s got the hair. The clothes. An LSD lovin smile. And the smolder.

jOBS will make its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival to a select audience, but the Ashton Kutcher starred film will get a wide release in April 2013.

Yesterday, we reported with intense skepticism the “rumor” (in actuality, baseless speculation) that Apple had offered Waze, the social turn-by-turn navigation company, $500 million in a potential buy-out deal.

The deal didn’t make a lot of sense for a number of reasons, and now, it looks we were right to scoff. Techcrunch — the same publication that initially publicized the so-called Apple/Waze “deal” — is now saying that no deal has ever been on the table.

If you want your iPad mini to feel extra special, or if you’re worried about friends coming over and scratching it, or stealing it, this heavy-duty acrylic security base looks just like the ones Apple uses to keep hardware safe at the Apple Store.

The iPad Mini Security Base can turn your iPad mini into a kiosk display, or protect it from thieves with its tamper-proof screws, while still giving you full access to your beloved iPad mini.

The battle for smartphone supremacy between iOS and Android has been going on for years now, and even though a host of other manufacturers and operating systems have been introduced, no one has been able to slow down the popularity of the iPhone and Android.

The iPhone continued to increase its marketshare at the end of 2012 according to the latest analysis from comScore. While other platforms shrank in size, Apple’s iPhone now accounts for 35% of the U.S. smartphone marketshare, with Android smartphones taking 53.7%.

While iOS may not be as flexible or as customizable as Android, on the whole it looks a whole lot nicer. Android is steadily improving, that’s for sure, but it’s hard to deny that iOS developers appear to spend more time making their apps prettier, even if you’re a diehard Android fan.

And that was proven when Chris Hulbert, an iOS developer, went to work at Google for three months. In a post on his blog, Hulbert reveals the differences in attitude towards design for iOS and Android, which help explain why Android apps aren’t quite as pretty as they could be.

Next week sees the beginning of CES, and with it I’m hoping to see a deluge of new Lightning accessories. All of Apple’s star mobile devices have switched over to the new connector, but the accessories industry still hasn’t caught up.

I have a few adapters to make my old gadgets play nice with my new iDevices, and they work great. But the tiny new Lightning plug will not only shrink current accessories, but also make whole new classes of gear possible.

Automatica is a very clever take on in-car audio. It’s a USB stick which grabs new audio content whenever it is in range of a known Wi-Fi network, and it can be managed right from your iPhone via a custom web app.

Zinio, the popular digital newsstand available to Android and iOS devices, has slashed up to 50% off its top 100 magazine subscriptions until. The deal includes titles like Macworld, GQ, Wired, Playboy, PC Magazine, and many more, and it’s valid until Monday, January 7.

Apple’s Newton platform was considered to be ahead of its time, even though Steve Jobs eventually axed the iPhone-like device when he made his return back to Apple. But even though the Newton was futuristic, it could have been even better if Apple had listened to Qualcomm’s advice.

During an interview with Charlie Rose, Qualcomm’s CEO Paul Jacobs said that he tried to convince Apple to put a radio chip in the Newton PDA during the 90s, but was shot down, so he struck up a deal with Palm instead.

Apple and Samsung are the only two smartphone manufacturers currently seeing any growth in the United States. The pair are slowly eating away at the market share held by their rivals, including LG, Motorola, Research in Motion, and HTC. In the three months leading up to November 2012, Samsung increased its market share from 25.7% to 26.9%, but Apple is catching up with the Cupertino company enjoying slightly more growth.

Just because you’re blind and can’t see what you’re taking pictures of does not mean you can’t use Instagram. Thanks to the Accessibility features in iOS, Tommy Edison is able to use an iPhone and take pictures through Instagram to give his followers a view of his world, even though he can’t see.

The process is mind blowing and seems incredibly tedious, but it’s awesome that even blind people can connect with people through Instagram. And you know what, Tommy’s photos aren’t all that bad compared to some of my friends’.

Source: Tommy Edison

Via: Kottke

Angry Birds continues to be one of the most successful games available on Android and iOS, and despite already racking up more than 1 billion downloads across all platforms, it continues to be a big seller. This Christmas, the surge in Android and iOS sales saw Angry Birds downloads boosted again. In just one week, the title was downloaded more than 30 million times.

Microsoft has beaten Apple and Google to the acquisition of R2 Studios, a small home entertainment technology startup from the founder of Sling Media. R2 is famous for an Android app that allows users to control things like lighting and appliances throughout their homes, and its thought the company’s technology will help Microsoft push its Xbox console even further into home entertainment.

Even for a guy like Steve Jobs, you don’t just wake up one day knowing how to build a phone, let alone the iPhone. So when Jobs had questions about the nitty-gritty of mobile phone design back in 2006, he called up AT&T (then Cingular’s) COO, Ralph de la Vega, for help… but in typical Steve fashion, he became angry when Cingular told him his phone needed to have physical keys.

DockMinimal is – surprise! – a minimal dock. It’s only minimal in looks, though, as this thing not only holds your iPad at pretty much any angle you want, it also works with almost any tablet-like device you have.

Hell, there’s even a hidden stylus.

If you believe all the rumors you read about the next iPhone, then you’re probably expecting it to come in all kinds of sizes and a wide variety of colors. The latest claims that Apple is set to ditch the iPhone 5’s in-cell touch technology after just one year in favor of a new “touch-on-display” technology from Chimei Innolux. According to the report, the move will prevent the interference issues Apple has had with the iPhone 5’s display.