When we first saw Nokia’s 808 PureView — a Symbian-powered phone that can putput SLR caliber photographs thanks to some sophisticated, satellite-grade oversampling technology and an absurd 41MP camera sensor — we were totally blown away by the quality of the images it took, but knew it would never come to the iPhone, because the frickin’ camera module took up half the back of the camera body.
But what if it did? What if Nokia’s PureView technology came to the iPhone. Well, you’d get something that looked like this monstrosity… except it would take way better pictures, because this iPhone only has a 1.2MP cam. What?
Do they really love Foxconn, or were they forced to wear the shirts?
Crappy internships have become a sort of initiation process that American students subject themselves to in order to enter the workplace. Working for free for 4 months – making copies, fetching coffee, and filing paperwork – sounds like hell for a lot of American students, who love to complain about the hardships of their internships.
Well, turns out American interns have a pretty beautiful life compared to their Chinese counterparts at Foxconn who are forced into internships that resemble slave labor and are told they will not graduate unless they spend months working on the production lines.
When Cliff Weitzman emailed me about his Black SMS iPhone app, I was impressed by the pitch alone. An App Store app that encrypts text messages and emails between iPhones and iPads? Sign me up!
Black SMS accomplishes a task that I haven’t seen anything from the App Store come close to replicating. It does indeed encrypt your texts and emails so that they are unreadable without the Black SMS app and an associated password. CIA agents and paranoid boyfriends should take notice of this one.
Apple's going to start asking a lot more from these guys if they want to keep their jobs.
Apple’s retail experiment isn’t just a rousing success, it’s an explosive engine that takes ever increasing numbers of staff members to keep under control. More and more people are getting jobs at their local Apple Stores… and Apple’s demanding more and more out of them if they want to keep their jobs.
The official Facebook for iPad app has finally been updated with Retina graphics for Apple’s third-gen iPad. Version 4.1.1 of the app is available now with offline chat mode, photo bug fixes, added language support and stability improvements.
With its Lumia 900 set to make its much-anticipated debut in the U.S. on April 8, Nokia has kicked off a new advertising campaign called Smartphone Beta Test, in which it mocks devices like the iPhone and Android-powered rivals. Its most noticeable stab is at the iPhone’s “Death Grip,” which can be seen in the clip above.
Foursquare doesn't ever want you thinking about not doing this. That's why you definitely should.
When we broke the story on Friday about Girls Around Me — an iOS app by Russian-based app developer i-Free that allowed users to stalk women in thee neighborhood without those women’s knowledge, right down to their most personal details — Foursquare was quick to respond within hours, cutting off the API access that the app relied upon to function.
Foursquare’s swift response to the issue effectively killed Girls Around Me, and i-Free quickly yanked the app from the App Store in the aftermath until they could figure out a way to restore service. And for a lot of people, the story ended there. The app’s gone. Why keep talking about it?
That’s exactly the way Foursquare (and Facebook) wants things.
Gameloft's Modern Combat series of first-person shooters would be so much better with a physical controller.
As a gamer, I’d love nothing more than to see a proper physical controller for my iOS devices. Sure, the touchscreen works great with titles like Angry Birds or Words With Friends, and accessories like the iCade work well with retro games. But for first-person shooters, soccer sims, 3D platformers and the like, nothing beats a physical controller with real analog sticks and real buttons.
Google’s Android operating system already supports external game controllers, and that’s one of the few things it has over iOS. But maybe not for long. According to one source, Apple is working on a physical controller of its own that will make iOS gaming even more incredible.
Your next iMac may not be this fat, or this shiny.
Apple’s iMac line of all-in-one desktops is set to receive a pretty significant refresh this year. The machine hasn’t really received any design changes since late 2009, when the aluminum unibody enclosure was introduced. But this 2012’s first refresh is expected to bring slimmer models, and new anti-reflective glass displays.
Creepy stalking apps aren't going anywhere, but you can cut off their sources
Thanks to a great article by our own John Brownlee, we now know how easy it is for apps and people to stalk you using location-sharing services like FourSquare and Facebook. And now the more paranoid among you might be wondering, just how do I turn these things off?
Theoretically, you would have already checked the privacy settings when you signed up. But that’s like reading the manual before you switch on a new gadget: Almost nobody ever does it. So here’s a quick guide to locking down FourSquare, and a rather more involved guide to shutting down Facebook.
SwipeBack is a great way to navigate back through iOS menus with a swipe.
SwipeBack is a new tweak for jailbroken iPhones that allows you to elegantly navigate back through your menus by swiping your finger across your screen, rather than tapping on the buttons at the top of the display. It’s currently still in beta, but it works well and you can get your hands on it now.
Your Twitter timeline's story told by falling avatars
Breaking free from the mold of conventional apps like Tweetbot and the official Twitter for iPad, developers Adam Bell and Miles Ponson have created a unique Twitter app for the iPad called Crest. Priced at $1.99 in the App Store, Crest isn’t a power user’s tool for digesting vast amount of tweets. Instead, it’s a fun, leisurely way to view your Twitter stream from the comfort of your new iPad’s Retina display.
No one likes a thief who gets away with stolen items and especially not 8 year old Landon Crabtree. After a burglar broke into his family’s house to get away with the family’s iPad and a few other items, the family got insurance money for the lost goods. But Landon wasn’t going to stand for someone else having his iPad and used Apple’s free Find my iPhone to recover the iPad. However, that’s not the only thing police found.
The “Two and a Half Men” star Ashton Kutcher is set to play Steve Jobs in a new indie film, chronicling the earlier years of the Apple co-founder. The new film is set to start filming in May, when Kutcher takes a break from filming “Two and a Half Men.” It looks like the former “Punk’d” host might have to grow out his hair and grow a beard in the mean time, too.
Historically, developers have earned 70% of the revenue from application downloads from the App Store and 60% from iAd revenue, but today comes good news for those of you who use the iAd platform in your apps. Apple has revealed on its Developer Center that developers will now be earning an extra 10% from iAd revenue, boosting it to 70% in total. Is this Apple’s push to get the advertising service into more apps?
Now i-Free has clarified matters. They pulled the app themselves… but not because they think they did anything wrong. In fact, they’ve gone as far as to say that it is “unethical to pick a scapegoat to talk about the privacy concerns. We see this wave of negative as a serious misunderstanding of the app’s goals, purpose, abilities and restrictions.”
Tim Cook has been in office as Apple’s official CEO for over 200 days now, so how’s he doing? Is he still living in Jobs’ shadow, or has he been busy leaving his own mark on Cupertino. And what about those crazy new rumors about the iPhone we’ve been hearing? Is there any truth to them? The latest episode of The CultCast seeks to answer those questions and more including brief special appearance from Ars Technica’s Chris Foresman.
Once you’ve heard our take on things, comeback and leave a comment telling us your opinion and we just might read your thoughts on the next CultCast episode.
LG's new flexible display heading into mass production.
Some might think that a flexible display is something out of a Sci-Fi film, however, they’re actually real. Samsung has already shown off its OLED flexible display, and today, we’ve gotten word that LG has now put its flexible e-ink display into mass production. Are these leading the way for a larger flexible display to land on the next iPad?
My friend Chris Herbert has released another wallpaper pack, and this time he’s made 200 beautifully minimal designs for the new iPad’s Retina display. His new collection, Subtle Papers II, is available for free now, and you’re sure to find at least one wallpaper that suits your fancy. A lot of sweat and love when into this collection, so be a kind soul and share it with your friends!
Notorious girl tracking app Girls Around Me had its API cut-off by Facebook in response to Cult of Mac's story earlier today.
In direct response to our story from earlier today about Girls Around Me, an iOS app by Russian-based app developer i-Free that tracks and gives personal information about women without their knowledge, Foursquare has released a statement announcing that they have officially killed Girls Around Me’s access to their public API.
This app is meant to all be in good fun, but it's potentially a weapon in the hands of stalkers.
“Boy, you sure have a lot of apps on your phone.”
“Well, it’s my job.”
“What’s your favorite?”
“Oh, I love Daisy Slots, with so many casino games options, I couldn’t choose. But hey, want to see one to set your skin crawling?”
It was the flush end of a pleasurably hot day — 85 degrees in March — and we were all sipping bitter cocktails out in my friend’s backyard, which was both his smoking room, beer garden, viticetum, opossum parlor and barbecue pit. I was enjoying the warm dusk with a group of six of my best friends, all of whom seemed interested, except for my girlfriend… who immediately grimaced.
“Girls Around Me? Again?” she scolded. “Don’t show them that.”
She turned to our friends, apologetically.
“He’s become obsessed with this app. It’s creepy.”
I sputtered, I nevered, and I denied it, but it was true. I had become obsessed with Girls Around Me, an app that perfectly distills many of the most worrying issues related to social networking, privacy and the rise of the smartphone into a perfect case study that anyone can understand.
It’s an app that can be interpreted many ways. It is as innocent as it is insidious; it is just as likely to be reacted to with laughter as it is with tears; it is as much of a novelty as it has the potential to be used a tool for rapists and stalkers.
And more than anything, it’s a wake-up call about privacy.
Music streaming service Spotify has announced that it will continue offering unlimited listening to its free customers in the United States. In case you didn’t know, all that free music you’ve been listening to won’t last forever. Spotify said from the very beginning that free users would only have unlimited listening for 6 months, and it’s been 9 months since the streaming service went stateside. Looks like the honeymoon will last a little longer.
A specific date for the unlimited listening discontinuation has not been given, so you may want to think about coughing up $10 per month for a Spotify Premium account. There’s also some good news for certain Spotify users in Europe.
Apple and Samsung have been duking it out in court for quite sometime now, with Apple claiming that the Korean electronics giant has been “slavishly” copying its iOS products to use in Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets. In its case against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, Apple has leaned heavily on two specific patents for its defense, both having to do with the exterior of the iPad.
As if to point out the absurdity of Apple patenting the exterior of a tablet, Judge Koh, presiding over the case, notably held up both the Galaxy Tab and iPad side-by-side and asked those in the court to tell which was which from a distance. It took lawyers on both sides of the aisles a few seconds to answer the question correctly.
The judge’s point seems simple. Sure, the Galaxy Tab may look like the iPad, but Apple can’t patent that appearance… and to prove her point, she made note that in 1994, a television network portrayed the look of a tablet much before the iPad or Galaxy Tab came on the scene. If true, this could seriously destroy Apple’s case.
Note: Title has been changed to reflect “in-app” revenue
You may have seen this report around the web about the Amazon Appstore generating more in-app revenue than the Google Play Store. While that in itself it impressive, everyone seems to be missing the most important detail of the report: Android is generating more in-app revenue than iOS. At least that’s what this report is claiming.
