News - page 1704

Most software released for Macs and iOS devices is designed for the general public – programs, utilities, games and Apple’s own website. But an important and growing industry exists behind the scenes to keep all that shiny Apple gear working.

GsxWarranty is a small utility for Macs, Windows PCs and iPhones which allows a technician to quickly check warranty status on Apple products. By entering the serial number GsxWarranty displays detailed information concerning AppleCare, service parts and configuration details.

Pelican made a name for itself making tough cases for the military, firemen and other hazardous sorts who generally place their delicate gadgets in harm’s way. Now they’ve taken their extreme-environment case technology and built four new backpacks around it — two of which have crushproof/waterproof compartments.

I’m kind of obsessed with wallpapers for my Apple devices. That’s why I got excited when the guys at 2048pixels contacted me about their site’s 2.0 launch. I wrote about 2048pixels back in May, and it’s been cool to watch the site evolve with more and more awesome wallpapers over the last several months.

In case you didn’t know, 2048pixels is a website that offers free wallpapers for the third-gen iPad’s Retina display. You can discover and download them right from the site on your iPad, and version 2.0 brings a number of improvements, including the ability to edit wallpapers on the iPad before you download.

Apple is widely considered the most secretive company on earth, so any chance to get even a tiny peek behind its walls is a rare one. When you visit Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, you can’t get past the gift shop without a special friend. If you’re lucky, you’ll get treated to a delicious lunch at the company’s Caffe Macs. That leaves the rest of Infinite Loop up to your imagination.

A neat service called Worldcam uses Instagram’s GPS data to gather all of the photos shared from a specific location. We’ve collected some rare shots from inside and around Apple’s top secret HQ:

Ding-a-ling! Wakey wakey! If you have trouble getting up in the morning, why not become a tech blogger? Just kidding. We work, like, super hard. What you really need to do is buy yourself yet another gadget, this time a physical bell for your iPhone which will emit a thunderous TRING at breakfast time.

If your iPhone 5 speakers aren’t loud enough when you’re trying to have an impromptu Lady Gaga dance party, you might wanna look into getting a portable speaker that can keep your beats fast and your base down low.

The iAudio 2 portable bluetooth speaker is perfect for Apple Fanboys. It even looks like something Apple would make and comes with a glowing Apple logo on the front, which really means that Apple’s going to slam iAudio with a cease and desist letter pretty soon, so grab it while you still can.

Yes, we know, Apple Maps sucks. You hate it. It’s the biggest screw up the company’s seen since MobileMe. Maybe even worse. But it’s totally fixable, and Apple might not need to do anything more than just open up their wallet and buy one of the most intriguing tech companies right now that is struggling big time – Nokia.

Right now there are three major players in the mobile maps business: Google, Apple, and Nokia. Everyone applauds Google Maps for having the best data and interface, but Nokia has been doing maps for a long time now, and they have access to even more data than Google. They’re also in a financial deathspiral which makes them the perfect company for Apple to acquire to fix their mapping problem.

Vox’s Amphones is a pretty neat little range of headphones. Named for “amp” and “headphones.” they combine the two. Thus, you just jack the cans direct into your guitar and enjoy various effects as you play.

Apple’s Universal Dock is anything but universal. It won’t work with any iPads, it won’t work with the iPhone 5, and it sure as hell won’t fit a Motorola Xoom. And unless you’re using it two-handed, and you’re wide awake, it doesn’t even work very well with the iPhone or iPod Touch.

The Complete Dock, on the other hand, works with almost anything. Hell, if you wanted to dock your cruise ship in it you probably could.

I want to be able to ditch my wallet so bad, mostly because I have a tendency to lose it or forget it at home. But I never ever leave home without my iPhone, and yeah, Passbook is cool but businesses aren’t really using it yet and I’m impatient. I just want the future to be here right now.

I’ve been really intrigued by Wired’s Christina Bonnington as she’s trying to live a walletless life, and it seems like one of the biggest hurdle right now is knowing where you can ditch your wallet and pay for goods with a service like Square, and where you can’t.  Right now it seems like Square is trying harder than anyone to help you ditch your wallet, and they just made things a little easier by creating Square Directory so you can see all the places you can pay for goods with Square Wallet.

My sense of proportion has been hopelessly corrupted by a lifetime of telling girls that six centimeters is actually six inches, so I’m very excited by the prospect of an app that can tell me the size of something just by taking a photo of it.

That app is called CamRuler, and it works by comparing the size of an unknown object to that of a known object. If you ever put a coin or a small model dinosaur into a photo to help show scale, then you already know how it works.

It looks like Apple is really interested in doing something involving biosecurity in the future. A few months ago Apple acquired fingerprint sensor maker AuthenTec, and now they just signed a deal with an Australian company that specializes in fingerprint and biometric security that is processed via NFC.

Back in 1983, when Apple was first developing MacPaint and its less-featured sister app for the Apple II, MousePaint, they had a menu option called “Aids” which contained image manipulation tools. You can see this menu in documentation for the original AppleMouse II.

Before release, though, this menu was renamed Goodies, and intriguingly, it was done so because of rising awareness of the AIDS epidemic. The more you know!

Source: IMGUR
Via: Reddit

Since the death of Steve Jobs, many have wondered whether Apple’s core senior management team would stick around to continue Apple’s success. Most of Apple’s senior VPs are incredibly wealthy and extremely tired after launching Apple’s hugely successful products over the past decade.

For the most part, Tim Cook has been able to keep everyone on board. Retail VP Ron Johnson decided to leave before Steve’s death, but none of the important VPs have tried to call it quits other than Bob Mansfield who announced his retirement earlier this year. According to insiders, once Mansfield announced his retirements members of his engineering team complained about his replacement, and Tim Cook set out to get Mansfield back by offering an exorbitant salary.

Isn’t it frustrating when you need to reply to an instant message from a friend, but you don’t want to leave the app you’re already in and lose what you’re working on? With QuickIM, a new tweak for jailbroken iPhones, you can quickly respond to messages on Facebook and Google Chat without switching apps.

Even though Apple has already debuted the new Lightning connector, there still aren’t any third-party accessories that actually boast Lightning compatibility. Part of that is because Apple has still not made Lightning connectors — which are hard to counterfeit by design — available to third-parties. Even when Apple does make the connectors available, though, any accessory makers who wants to make gadgets that are “Made for Lightning” will have to do so in Apple-approved manufacturing facilities, which won’t be an option until at least November. That could make it tricky, but by no means impossible, for some accessory makers to get their products on the shelves in time for Christmas.

While iOS 6 may be “the world’s most advanced mobile operating system,” its new Maps app is, quite frankly, a heap of trash. It boasts some terrific features, such as 3D Flyover and voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation, but they’re only terrific when the Maps that power them actually work. And Apple’s don’t in a lot of places.

The Cupertino company’s CEO, Tim Cook, has apologized to customers for the frustration the new app has caused, and it’s led us to wonder why Apple even released it. It still had a year left on its contract with Google, so why did it rush into releasing its own, half-baked service so quickly?

Well, one reason behind the move is that Steve Jobs had grown to hate Google. So much so that he set up a new Maps team just to kick Google Maps off the iOS devices.

The rumors of a T-Mobile/Metro PCS merger have been burning hot over the past 24 hours and it appears for good reason. The merger is real and was announced by T-Mobile a short while ago. T-Mobile USA will be merging with Metro PCS in a $1.5 billion deal. Not only will MetroPCS Shareholders receive $1.5 Billion in cash, but they will also have a 26% ownership in the combined company. Not a bad deal if you ask me.

When you think about it, the iPad 3 is possibly the best platform for simulated pinball, like, ever. Why? Because even though it’s very small, it has a high enough resolution for even the most complicated tables. And it has an accelerometer to activate the tilt warning. But more importantly, the iPad’s great accessibility options (like voiceover) mean that even a deaf, dumb or blind kid should be able to play a mean pinball.

All you need are some buttons to flip the flippers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Zjrv9-Botx8

You know, I really like this Nokia ad mocking iPhone users over their lack of color choices.

Featuring a joyless, shifting line moving slowly forward to consume the monochrome iPhone 5, it shows a gray world thrown into anarchy when one customer dares to ask about their color choices. Then, when that customer steps out of line, he sees a number of bright, vibrant, colorful people wandering around, uniquely bopping and having fun. They are all carrying Lumias.

Samsung has asked Judge Lucy Koh to throw out the patent infringement verdict that saw Apple awarded more than $1 billion in damages this summer and order a new trial. The Korean electronics giant claims that the foreman of the jury, 67-year-old Velvin Hogan, is guilty of misconduct after he failed to answer the court’s questions truthfully and did not disclose a potential conflict of interest.

The iPhone 5 might be the thinnest, sleekest iPhone yet, but it’s not the most environmentally friendly. It’s close, though.

While the App Store has listed Things as an “amazing app” for iPhone 5 for the past week or so, the app didn’t actually support the new handset’s larger display. But it does now, thanks to a brand new update, which also delivers the ability to create new to-dos using Siri.

The Wall Street journal reports that Apple’s upcoming iPad mini has now entered mass production with component suppliers in Asia. According to two people familiar with the matter, the device will have a 7.85-inch LCD display — as previous rumors have suggested — and it will be priced to compete with cheaper tablets like the Google Nexus 7 and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD.

Apple Maps has taken a lot of heat over the last few weeks for its abysmal performance. The data on Apple Maps is pretty terrible, but there’s no denying it’s one of the prettiest maps apps on available. Case in point, take a look at the detail on Apple’s highway icons on their maps verses that found on Google.

Apple’s icons contain details for each particular state, while Google’s is just a bland icon that’s used for every state highway. Now if Apple Maps could just get their data to be as good as Google Maps they might become everyone’s favorite maps app.

Source: Reddit