News - page 1697

I was craving a pumpkin spice lattee from Starbucks the other day. I didn’t have time to go get one myself, but one of my friends was going later in the day. He offered to pick one up for me. Yay!

Starbucks recently added support for Apple’s Passbook service in iOS 6, and I hadn’t yet been able to try paying for Starbucks with Passbook. I had already added my Starbucks Rewards Gold card to Passbook on my iPhone 5, and I like using my Gold card to pay whenever I can because it earns me points towards free drinks. So I had three choices: pay my friend back in cash, give him my Starbucks card from my wallet, or let him use my Passbook. I went with the third option, and it was as easy as taking a screenshot.

It’s been just three weeks since the iPhone 5 started shipping, and Apple’s latest smartphones already accounts for more web traffic than the Samsung Galaxy S III, according to a new report.

It’s thought the handset’s “record-breaking sales numbers” — which have made it the fastest-selling iPhone to date — plus its “new 4G browsing speeds which encourage data usage” are just a couple reasons why the iPhone 5 is so big when it comes to web browsing.

The iPhone 5’s been on sale for three weeks now, and as is always the case with a device this popular, a long list of defects is already building up. There’s Maps, of course — though that’s not really exclusive to the iPhone 5 — the purple haze that sometimes appears in photos, and the black model is susceptible to chips and scratches.

And now some users are reporting that an odd green glow, described as “plasma bleed,” is plaguing the handset’s display.

If you’ve opened up Apple’s new Maps app in iOS 6, you probably have a good idea of the faults everyone’s been complaining about. But it does have one feature that works well: turn-by-turn navigation. In fact, when compared to Google’s turn-by-turn feature on Android, Apple’s service is actually much better in many ways.

What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander. Apple gives other companies a lot of flack for ripping off their intellectual property, but in iOS 6, they ripped off the design of a classic clock designed by Hans Hilfiker which has been both trademarked and copyrighted by the Swiss Federal Railway Service.

It seems unlikely that the transgression was willful, but it was still sloppy of Apple to not do their due dilligence when it came to researching the clock, or seeing if its design was trademarked.

Luckily, Apple has now chosen to do the right thing, having reached out to to the Swiss Federal Railway Service, who today announced that the companies have signed a licensing deal for the famous clock. It’s unknown what the terms are, but it’s good to see Cupertino do the right thing here.

Source: SBB.CH
Via: The Verge

With iOS 6, Apple has officially deprecated the UDID as a valid means for advertisers to track app users. The UDID functioned sort of like a Social Security Number for your iPhone, allowing advertisers and third parties to track your behavior across multiple apps… a troubling privacy concern for many. But UDID tracking also had many beneficial advantages, like allowing developers to troubleshoot crashing apps and the like, which inspired some third-parties when their many companies started releasing their own alternatives to UDID.

Apple wasn’t going to leave advertisers and developers without an alternative to use in their apps, though. New in iOS 6 is two new IDs: IDFA and IDFV. Yes, both IDs still track you, and the IDFA is specifically used by advertisers to collect data on you. But the good news is that this tracking can easily be turned off, and it’s much less invasive than the UDID.

While Apple’s new Maps app has received a lot of criticism since its debut last month, it does offer a number of nifty features that weren’t available in iOS 5, including 3D Flyover and voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation. However, these are features that are only available on the latest devices, including the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 5, the new iPad, and the fifth-generation iPod touch.

At least that’s the case if you handset isn’t jailbroken. If it is, you can now get these features on A4-powered devices like the iPhone 4, and the fourth-generation iPod touch thanks to a new tweak called ‘Unlock iOS 6 Maps’.

Take a magazine. Put an iPad behind an advert on a printed page. Behold: moving pictures.

This is one of the latest advertisements from Lexus, and in reality all the paper is doing is acting as a screen, with images projected on to it from behind. Just as huge buildings have become popular film backdrops using projection mapping technology, now simple printed pages are doing the same thing.

Apple was expected to send out invitations to an upcoming iPad mini announcement on October 10, but that date has now come and gone, and we’re still left wondering when the tiny tablet is going to get its grand unveiling. Recent reports have suggested that the device has been postponed due to production delays, but according to AllThingsD, that’s not the case.

Instead, Apple will be holding its event on October 23, sources claim — just three days before Microsoft’s new Surface tablet begins shipping in the United States.

The just-released seventh generation iPod nano has just started being seen in stores and shipping from online pre-orders, but it already has a software update waiting for it. If you get a new iPod nano and plug it into iTunes to set it up and sync, you’ll likely see a new update that you’ll need to apply before you can use it.

It only took two days, but ClassicMap is no longer available on the Apple iTunes App Store. We reported on the app a couple of days ago, but now clicking on any iTunes link for the app returns a “No longer available in the US iTunes store,” which basically means it’s no longer for sale.

We just saw these linked over at The Loop by Jim Dalrymple, and just had to share. The designer who made the images above and below is Anton Repponen, and they were shared out by Chicago design firm Coudal Partners. We’ve reached out to Repponen via email, and will update this post with his response.

Way back in June, we told you that iOS 6 would have new, integrated emergency alert and AMBER Alert notifications. When you go looking for them, you may not find them. Even if, as some folks out there like to say, you “scroll all the way to the bottom” of the Notifications pane in the Settings app, if your carrier hasn’t implemented the alerts, yet, you won’t see them in there.

I suppose you can keep trying, but we’re here to keep you from wasting your time.

What is Apple’s perfect recipe for the living room TV experience? The tech industry has been asking itself that question since rumors of an Apple-branded TV set started circulating months and months ago. While ‘iTV’ rumors have died down recently due to the iPhone 5 and iPad mini hype, Apple has quietly been trying to work out licensing deals with Hollywood for a mysterious iCloud, TV-ish service. Will it be baked into iTunes, the current Apple TV, or come packaged in a totally new device? These are the questions.

While Apple’s real plans are obviously shrouded in mystery, there’s a very strong case to be made for using existing ingredients to make the TV experience Apple ultimately desires. The recipe is actually a lot simpler than you may think. An Apple TV set-top box and iOS device may be all it takes.

Apple and Samsung are in the midst of what is perhaps the most heated patent lawsuit in history, but that doesn’t mean the two companies won’t still steal from each other’s camps. One of Samsung’s most prominent chip designers has joined Apple, the Korean company’s sworn enemy. “Veteran” processor guru Jim Mergard could help Apple create proprietary chips for the Mac, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Mergard’s expertise could mean that Apple will eventually switch from Intel on the Mac to its own processors, like its in-house “A” chip series for iOS devices.

The two main questions I always get asked about jailbreaking are, “How do I jailbreak?” and “Can my iPhone even be jailbroken?” Because a jailbreak usually has to be manufactured for each new release of iOS, there’s a good chance that certain version of iOS are jailbreak friendly while others are not. For instance, there’s no public jailbreak for iOS 6 yet.

So, how do you check to see if the iOS device you use is jailbreakable or not?. You could search Google for a few minutes trying to find the right tool, or you could visit a handy web app called JailbreakStatus.

We’ve all done it. Passed our beloved iPhone handset to a young child, in hopes that they’ll play a game for a bit and let the grownups continue drinking talking. Then the youngester in question ends up hitting the Home button, dropping into that secret stash of photos, or looking at your web history. Or even worse, playing some splatter-horror game that you forgot was even on the dang thing.

Guided Access is part of iOS 6’s accessibility options, but it can be useful for folks without the need for that specific adaptation. Here’s how to enable it for use. If you’re looking for a feature similar to iPhone guest mode, Guided Access can be a helpful alternative for limiting access to specific apps or features.

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The new Lightning to 30 Pin adapter has not won over many Apple fans. No one wants to pay $30 to be able to use their old iPhone accessories with the new iPhone 5, but it’s better than buying a new accessory altogether, right?

Double Helix Cables finally got their new dock adapter in the mail and naturally decided to tear it apart and find out what is inside. They found out that just like the new Lightning cables, Apple’s gone to some extra lengths to make the Lightning to 30 Pin Adapter unhackable and uncounterfeitable.

There are a few problems with sharing a batch of photos on the internet. You could make a Facebook album and toss around a link, but Facebook is messy, and ugly, and no one likes it. Or you can upload 12 different photos to Instagram in one hour and piss off all your friends. Or you can make a photoset of great pictures, but most people don’t know how to do that.

Tumblr is ready to change all those problems by introducing their new app called Photoset. It let’s you take a group of pictures, organize them, add captions and dates, and then upload them to the internet as a photoset so you can share them all together with just one link.

While Tim Cook has been CEO, Apple’s stock price has been soared into the stratosphere. Some believe Apple’s incredible growth is bound to plummet in the near future because, come on, how many more iPhones and iPads can they really sell to their U.S. and European customers?

In a new story for Fortune, Bill Powell argues that the sky’s still the limit for Apple, they just have to win in China. But Apple – with all its power and iconic devices that consumers lust for – is actually an underdog in the battle to win the Chinese handset market, and they’re going have to learn some new tricks if they hope to beat Samsung and others.

The new Lightning-to-30-pin adapter is a tiny thing, just a little dongle that routes signals from your old iPhone dock or connector to the appropriate pins in the new Lightning adapter. It’s smaller than the size of a matchbook.

Despite this, however, reader Doug P. emailed us with an image of how much packaging the adapter comes in: not only is Apple’s retail packaging for the adapter six times bigger than the adapter itself, but the shipping box it comes in looks like could easily hold up to thirty adapters without their packaging.

You probably don’t need the 10,000-watt iNuke Boom speaker for your iPhone, but you might just find a place in your home for the iNuke Boom Junior, a 1:23 scale model of Behringer’s basbehemoth.

This is a guest post by Ken Segall, a Silicon Valley advertising executive who worked closely with Steve Jobs. Among other things, Segall put that little “i” in front of the iMac and helped develop Apple’s famous Think Different ad campaign. Segall is author of Insanely Simple, a very readable insightful account of what makes Apple tick.

Last time Apple went heavy on advertising in a sporting event, it didn’t exactly end well.

But let us not speak of the Genius anymore. All traces of that campaign have been hidden from our sight.

Now the baseball playoffs are here. And once again, Apple has made a very expensive media buy. This time, it’s blanketing the games with the new iPhone 5 ads.

But look. Someone else has moved into the neighborhood. Samsung showed up for the playoffs with equal force, in the form of its Galaxy S III ads. You know — the ones that make fun of the lost souls who line up to buy an iPhone, when they could just as easily have a much cooler Samsung phone.

It seems right now like Apple has a lot of prospective new products on the horizon. The 7.85-inch iPad mini. The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro. Updated iMacs. Yet despite the fact that all of these products have been highly rumored to debut this month in time of a busy holiday season, we’ve yet to see any of them. Now one report is suggesting a reason why: Apple’s having production problems on both the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro and iPad mini.

Instapaper developer Marco Arment has announced The Magazine for Newsstand, a new publication that’s “loosely about technology, but also gives tech writers a venue to explore other topics that like-minded geeks might find interesting.” The Magazine will get four articles every two weeks, and it costs $1.99 per month to subscribe with a 7-day free trial.