iOS 6 Maps. An unmitigated disaster, right? That’s what I’d say as I struggle to get Maps to even give me correct directions from work to my house, but apparently, I’m in the minority: a recent poll suggests that most people don’t think Maps has degraded at all in iOS 6.
According to the sensor-studying pixel peepers at DxOMark, cellphone cameras have already surpassed the compact cameras of five years ago in terms of image quality. Amazing.
Like the iPhone 5, most of today’s competitive smartphones sport a camera with a sensor of at least 8megapixels. This is a far cry from one of the world’s first mass-produced camera cellphones, the Sharp-made J-SH04, which had a sensor resolution of 110,000 pixels, or just 0.1-Mpix.
Go a GoPro HD Hero2? And an iPhone, iPad or (ahem) Android device? Then head over to the App Store right now, because — with a new free app — you can use one to control the other.
When Steve Jobs passed away a little over year ago, he left Apple — the company he started in his parents’ garage back in 1976 — in the hands of Tim Cook, its former Chief Operating Officer.
The question on everyone’s lips at the time was how well Apple would fare without its co-founder at the helm. Jobs was unique. He was an innovator and a visionary, and he had this incredible ability to see into the future.
Jobs knew what we wanted — and what we didn’t — long before we did. He devised exciting new products that have changed our lives and sold in their millions, and he left rival companies playing catch-up. He revolutionized not just one, but a number of different industries.
He really did make a dent in the universe.
So naturally, when Jobs passed away, it was hard to imagine Apple without him. He had spent time away from Apple in the mid-eighties when John Sculley was CEO, and when he returned in 1996, his company was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Some feared that the same thing would happen again — that Apple would lose its way and struggle to maintain its edge without Jobs steering the ship in the right direction. But 12 months on, the company’s in a better position now than it’s ever been in.
So, was Steve Jobs really irreplaceable?
There can’t be much I hate more than a bad ringtone. I have one (because my phone is a Samsung and all of its tones are awful); my neighbor has one, which he takes forever to answer when his family call from overseas at like two in the morning every day; idiots on the bus and metro have them (usually some tinny-sounding “music” snippet of a record I never want to hear in full); and even my parents have them — not that anyone ever calls their cellphones, thank god.
In fact, there are only two things in the world of ringtones that make me optimistic. The first is that — with the slow death of Nokia — the horrible default Gran Vals tone (and its cheesily remixed derivatives) is also dying.
The second is Cleartones Organic, a set of 50 ringtones and 50 notifications which will calm you like a cool forest breeze.
It’s been nearly three years since Rovio’s first Angry Birds game made its debut on iOS devices, and you might have thought that interest in the series may have died down a little in that time. But you’d be very wrong indeed. According to the Finnish firm, Angry Birds games still see more than 200 million active users every single month.
Lacie’s new Thunderbolt Little Big Disk claims to be the fastest portable Thunderbolt drive around, running at up to 635MB/s – “a 33 percent increase from the previous model.”
There’s been plenty of debate over whether or not Microsoft will ever bring its Office productivity suite to Android and iOS devices. Many reports have claimed it will, while Microsoft itself has denied the rumors. But now product manager Petr Bobek has confirmed that it will happen next year.
The Nomad Brush Flex is the latest in Nomad’s line of capacitive touchscreen brushes. That’s right — brushes. When you’re painting into an app like Brushes or Procreate on the iPad, then you really do want to use a stylus os some kind. And if you’re going to go to the trouble of using a stylus, why not make it a brush?
OS X developers are reportedly becoming frustrated with the lengthy delay they must endure to have their applications approved for the Mac App Store. Average wait times have increased to 27 days over the past month, whereas approval for the iOS App Store takes just 7 days on average. Some are blaming the influx of iOS updates for the iPhone 5 and iOS 6, but claim that Apple should be over the worst of it by now.
The SlingPlayer app for both Android and iOS has been discounted to $14.99 (50% off) after receiving a long-overdue update. SlingPlayer is one of the more expensive apps so grabbing it while it’s half-off is a must for anyone considering the purchase of a Slingbox. The SlingPlayer works in conjunction with a compatible Slingbox and smartphone or tablet, allowing users to watch live or recorded TV while on-the-go.
Lytro’s Light Field cameras — the ones which let you refocus an image after you have taken it, are now on general sale. BEtter yet, they come in a range of Nano-tastic colors, and get a whole lot of new controls.
Journalists and PR folk, or hacks and flacks, are supposed to fight like cats and, uh, laser pointers shone onto walls. But like Jedis and ninjas, there are good ones and bad ones. And today, I got the best product tagline from one of the good ones, regarding the ECOXBT Bluetooth speaker:
Think Jambox…if Jambox wasn’t scared of the water and a wimp.
Who can argue with that?
Reliving your childhood with retro games on iOS is, I find, one of the best ways to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon — until you get frustrated with the virtual controls that keep getting you killed and you threaten to throw your iPad out of the window. But thanks to the iCade 8-Bitty, a new Bluetooth control pad for iOS, you can now play your favorite titles with real controls.
The iPhone 5 has quickly become Apple’s fastest-selling iPhone of all-time, meaning it’s incredibly difficult to get hold of — even more than three weeks after its launch. And the situation is about to get a lot worse, according to Bloomberg. Apple has had to increase quality-control at Foxconn to prevent damaged devices with nicks and scratches from leaving the factory. As a result, iPhone 5 production rates have dropped.
Double Fine is putting several fantastic games on sale today, from Stacking and Brutal Legend on consoles to Iron Brigade on Steam.
But the best news of all is that the company has also dropped the price of one of the best games of all time, Psychonauts, to a mere five dollars. Well, $4.99 to be exact. How can this be?
Sure, Rovio just announced its new Star Wars Angry Bird iteration, but they certainly haven’t forgotten about the OG Angry Birds that started it all. Today, Rovio has updated the original Angry Birds with a ton of new content. Chock full of new power-ups, this update includes 15 new Surf & Turf levels as well as 15 pig themed levels.
In a letter to shareholders posted today on the Microsoft Investor website, Steve Ballmer, current CEO of Microsoft, said something surprising.
His comments in the annual letter suggest that Microsoft may take a page out of the Apple playbook and start building its own phones based on the upcoming Surface tablet PCs, similarly to the other hardware made by the Redmond-based tech giant, the XBox 360.
Apple’s much-maligned Maps app, released along with iOS 6, is an easy target, what with mixed up locations, cloud-obscured satellite images, and the infamous melting bridges. However, several developers have come forth to say that they had been warning Apple via reports on developer-only forums since the first beta came out at the beginning of June, 2012.
Some of these developers filed bug reports and sent e-mails to Apple employees as well, all about the poor performance of the upcoming Maps app in iOS 6.
“I posted at least one doomsayer rant after each (developer) beta, and I wasn’t alone,” one developer told CNET. “The mood amongst the developers seemed to be that the maps were so shockingly bad that reporting individual problems was futile. What was needed wasn’t so much an interface for reporting a single point as incorrect, but for selecting an entire region and saying ‘all of this — it’s wrong.'”
LifeProof has definitely made an impact with the digital outdoors; seems I run into their sleek, modular, waterproof iPhone cases everywhere (we love them, btw). Now, the company is focusing on their new Nüüd iPad case, and the second available accessory for the case is the LifeJacket, a flotation device that fits around the waterproof Nüüd case and keeps the iPad from sinking into the murky depths after you’ve, say, calculated your dive profile.
Major League Baseball has been thrilled with the success of Passbook. After integrating with the iOS 6 service only a couple weeks ago, MLB is already seeing 12% of its e-ticket buyers opt for using digital passes on their iPhones.
It doesn’t look like Apple is going to be making its own dock for the iPhone 5 and its new Lightning connector. You could go the third-party route and order something like this unofficial Lightning Dock from TLD, or you could get creative and use Legos.
There’s a 42-peice Lego set available online that’s specifically designed to create a minimalistic dock for the iPhone 5, and it looks awesome.
Apple is widely expected to unveil the rumored ‘iPad mini’ at a press event this month, with many speculating that event invites will be sent to the press as soon as tomorrow, October 10th. The mythical 7-inch tablet will likely be priced between $200-$250 and target competition like the Google Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire. Apple has been poised to enter the cheaper tablet market for quite some time, and the company has reportedly started manufacturing an upwards of 10 million units to sell this holiday season.
A new report today claims that the iPad mini will be Wi-Fi-only, unlike the current third-gen iPad that can operate on 3G and 4G carrier networks. Apple is also expected to unveil an updated version of the current third-gen iPad with 4G support in the U.K. and the new Lighting dock.
I hope you haven’t grown tired of dismembering the undead because Gameloft plans on unleashing another horde of zombies onto Android an iOS this Halloween. You’ll soon have the opportunity to play the part of Stuntman/Movie Star extraordinaire, aimed with ridding the entertainment capital of the world of walking corpses (and I’m not talking Joan Rivers). Arm yourself with weapons sporting wacky names like “Widow Maker” and the “Cyclops,” then annihilate anything without a pulse (pretty much all of Hollywood).
One of the things that was fantastic about vintage PCs is the way your hands never had to leave the keyboard: everything was just a command away. The graphic user interface first introduced to the world with the Macintosh is obviously a big step forward when it comes to general accessibility, pointing an onscreen at an object to click on it can often be a step backwards when it comes to speed for die-hard power users.
If that sounds like you, Shortcat is a new, free app that you should download which aims to bring the command line to the GUI.