News - page 1688

On Thursday, Jefferies analyst James Kisner revealed that the much-anticipated Apple television, the product we’ve been talking about for well over a year, is almost ready to make its big debut. In fact, Kisner said its launch was “imminent.”

According to sources for AllThingsD, however, it’s not quite as close as Kisner would have you believe. While Apple has indeed held talks with a number of large cable companies, it seems it hasn’t yet spoken to TV programmers. With that in mind, it seems the Apple television is some way off just yet.

Here’s a super-cool little idea. It’s a keyboard case for your iPad, only instead of packing a small, cramped iPad-sized keyboard it’s a case which’ll hold both the iPad and your Apple aluminum Bluetooth keyboard. Better still, it folds out to make a stand to keep your iPad propped up while you work.

Last year, Apple joined forces with Microsoft, Research in Motion, and Sony to form the “Rockstar Bidco consortium,” which outbid Google for more than 6,000 Nortel patents covering wireless and LTE technologies. Together, the consortium paid $4.5 billion for the portfolio, most of which — around $2.6 billion — came from Apple.

However, the Cupertino company has reportedly been quietly handing over more cash to secure sole ownership of select patents.

Well, today appears to officially be launch day of the iPad mini Wi-Fi + Cellular at carriers around the country. Hot on the heels of the announcement that Sprint would be selling iPad minis with LTE support in store starting today, AT&T has followed suit. Press release below.

Sprint has announced that it will begin selling the iPad mini + LTE and the fourth-generation iPad + LTE from today, November 16. It promises a range of “attractive” data plans that will connect customers to its super speedy 4G network, which are all available without a contract.

Apple’s primed and ready to take over your entire world of media; Microsoft’s paid cavalcade of celebrity Windows Phone endorsements make us sad; and the big plans Apple has to fan the flames of employee innovation; as you’ll soon hear, no topic is safe from discussion on this week’s CultCast. We even dive deep into the ancient practice of platonic male hand holding.

You think I’m joking…

All that and a Faves and Raves controversy meltdown! Subscribe now to The CultCast on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.

Read on for the show notes and to learn how you could promote your product or service on one of our future episodes.

Today, both Apple and Samsung were given the go ahead to include newer devices in their continuing legal battle over mobile smartphone and tablet supremacy, raising the stakes between the two tech giants. Samsung was granted the ability to include the iPhone 5 in its lawsuit against Cupertino-based Apple.

According to the Wall Street Journal, US Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal accepted Samsung’s revised request, thus allowing the company to attempt to prove infringement against Apple’s newest iPhone, a course of action the Korea-based company announced soon after its own defeat in the case against Samsung by Apple last month.

The jude also accepted Apple’s request to amend its own infringement lawsuit against Samsung to include newer products, including the Galaxy Note 10.1, the Galaxy S III, and the Jelly Bean Android Operating System.

If you haven’t played Rochard, yet, you might want to check this out. The gravity-bending, scifi adventuring, sarcastic-remark making space mechanic with a gravity gun is on the Mac for a mere $6.99. The latest update features iCloud support as well as some new language localizations, like Russian, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Czech and Turkish.

You can play Rochard with the keyboard and mouse, hook up a bluetooth PS3 controller, or grab a wired Xbox 360 controller to get your puzzle-solving, Metroid-Castlevania groove on.

The sequel to Shadowgun, one of the better looking third person shooters on smartphones, is out today in the form of a sequel, Shadowgun: DeadZone. This is console-quality multiplayer action brought to your Android phone, and it got to Google Play before the iOS App Store (but not by much).

The game lets you hop into tactical combat with up to 12 players at a time, letting you battle online across a ton of maps with 10 different playable characters.

If there’s any company that gets content creation on the iOS platform, it’s Algoriddim. The Germany-based development firm is behind djay, the most intuitive and polished software of its kind on iPhone and iPad.

Music mixing isn’t Algoriddim’s only forte. Back in June, vjay for iPad was announced. The app brought live video remixing to the tablet experience, and today vjay has arrived on the iPhone. To celebrate the release, Algoriddim is also discounting all its iOS apps for a limited time in the App Store.

Facebook just rolled out a big update to its iOS app in the App Store. Most notably, version 5.2 of Facebook’s app brings the long-awaited “Share” button.

Like Twitter’s ability to retweet, Facebook is now letting users quickly share links and posts on their timeline. You’ve been able to do this on the desktop and Facebook’s mobile website, but now the sharing functionality is integrated in the native Facebook iOS experience.

Today’s update brings a number of other additions, including emoticons in messages and the ability to tag your friends in status updates and comments.

Google is putting the finishing touches on its standalone Maps app for iOS, according to a new report today from The Wall Street Journal. A beta version of the app has reportedly been distributed to select testers within and outside Google as the search giant gets ready to submit the final version to Apple’s App Store.

Since Apple introduced its own Maps app in iOS 6, there has been much speculation surrounding Google’s plans for its own mapping service on the iPhone. Unless Apple says no, Google Maps should be arriving in the App Store soon.

Apple has been trying to get some sort of new TV product off the ground for quite some time. We’ve seen prototypes of an actual Apple iTV, and there’s also been speculation that Apple will introduce a TV set-top box that streams live broadcasts over the internet.

While licensing agreements still need to be reached with Hollywood studios and cable companies, Apple’s mythical TV device is gearing up for an “imminent” launch, according to a new report.

Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs is filled with a lot of personal anecdotes about what the charismatic Apple co-founder and ex-CEO was like in his personal life… and most of them were not very good at making Jobs look likable or human.

That’s why I was grateful to see this thread pop up on Quora, in which Tim Smith, the principal at the Applied Design Group talks about the time that Steve Jobs, his son and Laurene Powell Jobs tried to fix his car back in the 1990s… along with a mysterious man in a tuxedo who looked eerily like James Bond.

That’s right: The game Verticus, which dropped onto the App Store today, was crafted with input from comic legend Stan Lee (is the “comic” part even necessary?), who wrote the story and created the titular character. Oh, and did I mention that he also lent his 89-year-old voice for the game’s Mission Commander?

The natural upgrade for iPhoneographers wanting a little bit more than their awesome cameraphone can offer is Micro Four Thirds — it’s small but gives fantastic results.

And the obvious, almost obligatory Micro Four Thirds lens was — until now — the Panasonic Lumix 20mm ƒ1.7, a fixed-focal-length wonder: perfect for low-light and amazing shallow depth-of-field images.

But there’s a new challenger from Olympus: the M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 17mm f1.8.

Famed screenwriter and producer Aaron Sorkin’s background is in the theater, and started his career as a promising playwright before going on to write such films as A Few Good Men and The Social Network, along with television shows like Sports Night and The West Wing.

Sorkin’s theater background is worth keeping mind, given the latest revelation he has dropped concerning the plot and structure of his upcoming bio-pic based on the life of Steve Jobs.

The Projecteo is pretty frikkin’ awesome. It’s a teeny-tiny projector that throws an image from a little circle of film up onto the wall of a darkened room.

The interchangeable disks are loaded with cut-down 35mm film stock, and each one can fit on nine of your amazing Instagrams.

Even though they’re not leading in marketshare, Apple’s iOS devices account for more than 60% of all mobile web consumption. Because of this, many websites provide custom layouts for multiple devices so that users can enjoy an optimized experience regardless of whether they’re viewing a website from their iPad, iPhone or MacBook.

However, with the new iPad mini Apple has made it impossible for developers to deliver an optimized experience for the device, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon.

Prediction: A lot of East-Coasters are going to be getting solar panels and hand-cranked battery chargers this Christmas – what better stable-door/bolted-horse gift could there be?

So, if you are somehow optimistic enough to think that the sun will shine in New York in the winter, and pessimistic enough to think that global warming will send yet another squall of squirrelly weather this year, then the Switch 8 is for you.

If you own a lot of shares of Apple stock, today is going to be a great day. For the second time this year, Apple is set to give its investors $2.5 billion worth of dividends. This is the second time Apple’s done a payout this year, with the first payout occurring on August 16th 2012.

Apple announced their $45 billion stock dividend and repurchase plan back in March 2012, and they expect to spend $45 billion over the next three years.

JBL has become the first accessory maker to announce a duo of Lightning-compatible speaker docks for Apple’s latest iOS devices. Priced at $99.95 and $199.95, the OnBeat Micro and the OnBeat Venue Lightning are both available to pre-order today.

You know what kids really love? They love it when they ask you to buy them something, and you cheap out and buy them a kids’ version, a cut-price imitation of the original. Oh yeah. They totally dig that.

And you know what else they love? Garish colors. “Cool” names. And extra-long battery life. Wait, they actually do like that last one…

A person’s birthday is the one day of the year where it’s totally ok to gloat as people shower you with their affections throughout the day. It’s the one day where it’s ok to want to feel a little special.

Even Siri wants to make you feel special. If you tell Siri, “It’s my birthday,” she’ll start singing a sprited version of “Happy Birthday” before remembering that, oh crap, that song is copyrighted. Better luck next year.

Via: Reddit

You know what your super-slick, plain and simple AirPort Express needs to complement its minimalist design? A pair of rabbit ears, that’s what. And QuickerTeck, purveyor of crazily-priced Apple accessories, isn’t one to shy away when it sees a revenue opportunity.

Behold: The Antenna Express.