The courtroom battles between Apple and Samsung seem never-ending. The latest chapter: Apple now claims its South Korean patent pal is copying not just smartphones and tablets, but also their cases. During an Australian court hearing, Samsung’s lawyer said Apple believes the cases infringe 10 patents.
One of the more useful features that Apple has introduced to the iTunes Store over the past couple years is the “Complete My Album” feature, which lets you take a single track of an album you like and easily upgrade to owning the full album. The only problem was it only worked for songs, when it seemed like a natural extension to take the functionality to TV shows.
Well, looks like Apple’s finally wised up. Now, if you have a couple of episodes of a show, you can “Complete My Season Pass,” which not only gets you the rest of the episodes of the season of that particular show at a substantial discount over buying the episodes individually. A welcome addition, I think.
[via MacRumors]
Not all of the best apps available for the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad are sold on the App Store. For jailbroken phones, there’s also Cydia, the equivalent of the App Store black market… and for those brave enough to experiment with the very cortex of their device, the benefits of hacking can be great indeed.
In many ways, some of the most innovative and daring development work is happening on Cydia these days, so here’s our list of the best jailbreak apps and tweaks for 2011. Check out our choices below, then help us pick the best jailbreak app or tweak of the year by taking part in our poll!
The NFL has announced that NBC’s broadcasts of wild card Saturday, the Pro Bowl and the Super Bowl will be available online as well as via Verizon’s NFL Mobile app. This will mark the first time said events were streamed through a mobile platform and it comes as no surprise that their partner Verizon gets the honor. Here’s what Hans Shroeder, NFL senior vice president of media strategy and development had to say about the news:
Having held just one event in 2010, MacTech increased that to seven this year, with events across the U.S. Next year’s going to be even bigger, with 15 events spanning the country from February 16 when MacTech Boot Camp kicks off in Phoenix, Arizona, to December 5 when it wraps up the year in Miami, Florida.
After more than 15 years without paying quarterly dividends to investors, the long drought may be over for Apple fans on Wall Street. A large Apple investor expects the tech giant will announce a “significant” dividend during the first half of 2012.
iOS hacker Pod2g, who has become increasingly famous over the last few weeks thanks to the progress he’s made on an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5, is one step closer to jailbreaking the iPhone 4S. Apple’s latest iPhone was tricky to hack thanks to its new dual-core A5 processor, but Pod2g reports the new chip “is not a problem anymore.”
(Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament, under Creative Commons license.)
The UK Parliament spent £17,000 (about $26,000) on a total of 34 iPads for official use this year.
Apple has joined a number of digital music vendors, including Amazon and Napster, in introducing the official Parental Advisory warning label to tracks and albums that contain explicit content, mirroring the warning found on physical CDs.
The introduction of this label is intended to make it clearer for parents to understand whether or not the music their children are purchasing is unsuitable for their age.
The rumor is now official: Apple, the world’s largest consumer of flash memory, has paid $500 million for consumer-grade flash memory maker Anobit. The move solidifies Apple’s supply of solid-state memory used by the iPhone, iPad, iPod and MacBook Air. The half-billion dollar price tag tops the inflation-adjusted $472 million acquisition of NeXT back in 1997.
Proceeds from of a pile of great Mac and iOS apps sold today (December 20th) will be donated to a charity working to provide clean water to those who don’t have it.
One of the biggest ways Apple has changed the world is by inspiring people across the globe to focus on great design. Take Rainer Spehl for example.
Rainer is a European furniture designer who, after purchasing a 12inch iBook in 2003, was so inspired by Apple’s design ambitions that he set out to create the perfect case for his new machine despite lacking any previous experience in case making. A series of prototypes were created and ideas where tossed around, but it wasn’t until five years later that he settled on a design that he loved. His passion for his craft would be inspiring to anyone and his products speak for themselves. His MacBook Pro cases are gorgeous.
Made from solid oak and lined with genuine cow-leather, the cases are friendly and subtle. Something that reunites nostalgia with the high-tech world of the present in a way that is comfortable and sincere. Rainer Spehl is a true master craftsman striving for perfection. It takes fives hours just to complete one case over the course of three days.
If you’ve been looking to get some great music at a ridiculous price, now’s the time. Google Music has kicked off their “Music Blowout Sale,” discounting over half a million albums to $4.99 and over ten million tracks for only $.49! Now that’s a deal worth listening to. I’ve already perused over a bunch of discounted tracks and I’ve found a plethora of alternative classics from Radiohead, Beck, and Nirvana.
If you thought Android was on a roll and RIM was toast — surprise, surprise. The mobile operating system that Google built continues to cool down while Apple and the Waterloo, Ont. gang that can’t shoot straight gain momentum. Just half of November mobile ad requests came from Android-based devices, a new report shows.
EA has kicked off a huge iOS sale that has seen dozens of popular games reduced to just $0.99 in a bid to top the App Store’s charts this Christmas. Some of the company’s hottest games are included, a number of which haven’t only just been released, such as Dead Space, FIFA 12, Tetris, and Trenches II.
Here’s the complete list of titles on sale for just $0.99!
New at PhotoJojo is this crazy Holga iPhone lens case that gives you nine special effects for your photos.
Users who are still running the iOS 3.1.3 software on their iPhones and iPod touches are reporting that a recent App Store update has blocked them from downloading new apps directly to their devices. The update was issued on December 16, and users have been unable to download new apps since, though they can still download updates to existing apps.
It seems Apple’s stock of refurbished first-generation iPod nanos has now run out following the launch of its worldwide replacement program last month. Customers who have applied for a replacement device in recent weeks report that they are now set to receive the current sixth-generation model instead.
Apple is offering the popular Bejeweled game for free to customers who ‘like’ the App Store on Facebook. The limited-time sale is a continuation of app giveaways that Apple has been offering on Facebook for the last couple of months.
The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) has ruled in favor of Apple and declared a ban on the import of many HTC devices in the US, including flagship phones like the Sprint Evo 4G and Verizon Droid Incredible. The ruling would effectively end HTC’s business in the US.
After a lengthy back-and-forth between the two companies, the ITC has ruled that HTC infringes on two of Apple’s patents. Should the President of the United States decide to let the decision pass through, the ban will be put into effect on April 19, 2012. HTC plans to implement “alternate solutions” to combat the ruling.
Though it wasn’t in our readers’ top 10, Apple named Localscope the best navigation app of 2011. Yeah, well they ain’t seen nuthin’ — its new update adds a whole new exploratory facet to the app that’s arguably cooler than the app’s original focus.
VoxOx’s free telephony app was already heavy on features when it launched earlier this year. Now it adds two more big features: outbound faxing capability (previously the app only had the ability to receive faxes) and two-way, realtime SMS translations.
According to a report from App Data, Facebook for Android garners more daily users than Facebook for iPhone. Android’s very own Facebook app boasts 58.8 million daily active users while Facebook for iPhone attracts 57.6 million.
Based on App Data’s projections, the Android adoption of Facebook’s app is accelerating faster than iPhone user adoption.
AT&T has officially backed out its proposed merger with T-Mobile. The deal has been undergoing intense scrutiny from the FCC and DOJ. A $4 billion pre-tax fee charge will be paid by AT&T as agreed upon.
We’ve seen Siri do nearly everything imaginable, but did you know that Apple’s virtual assistant is also a musician? The Yamaha Disklavier can be controlled by Siri, as demonstrated in the above video.
Siri takes a song from your iPhone’s Music library and sends it through an Airport Express to then get analyzed and played perfectly by the piano. Hey, it’s a lot easier than learning the piano yourself, right?