Google released a new update for its Gmail iOS that makes it getting email faster than ever thanks to a new background refresh feature.

The Gmail 3.0 update will now retrieve your mail while the app is not open so you don’t have to keep refreshing to see if your boss finally replied to that important email in the last 5 minutes.

Also included in the update is a new simplified sign-in feature that automatically signs you into all of your Google apps once your login to just one. The free update requires iOS 7.0 or greater and is available now in the App Store.

Here are the release notes:

Alright, so your iPhone already has a compass built right into it, but if you want a little more information in your orienteering, you might want to look into this app.

In addition to the standard “North is over there” bit, DueNorth will also give you your latitude and longitude, and plunking your finger down anywhere on the screen will tell you which direction and heading you’re prodding. Plus, the display has a Night Mode, so you can figure out how to get out of the woods without every bear in the vicinity knowing that you’re lost.

Source:DueNorth° Simple Compass – Free | Justin Mueller

You know how it goes: You’re up late, feeling a little peckish, and you don’t have anything in the fridge. What do you do?

I mean, I’d go to the store down the street and get some sour bears. And if you’re Draku, the star of Midnight Bite, you do the same thing. Except substitute “store down the street” with “village at the base of the mountain,” and substitute “sour bears” with “blood of the sleeping townsfolk.”

But he’s a little guy, and the humans are prejudiced against vampire children who stalk up in the night and murder them, so he has to be careful. And as the one controlling him, you also have to be careful because the controls are apparently also racist against the undead.

The perfect presentation is something that has eluded professionals all over the world. Fumbling around with different technology trying to give your presentation that special edge is annoying and can fail miserably. This Cult of Mac Deals offer puts professional presentations at your fingertips.

The iPin Lazer is powered by your smartphone and engineered to fit right inside the earphone jack. iPin allows users to be presentation-ready anytime and anywhere. And Cult of Mac Deals has this little device available for just $46.99…but only for a limited time.

Twitch, the hugely popular video streaming service for gamers, today announced a new SDK that will allow Android and iOS developers to integrate Twitch into their games. It will give users the ability to broadcast, capture, and archive their gaming sessions on their smartphones and tablets.

Sometimes, you might have a certain someone who gets a little, shall we say, overzealous in trying to message you. Since your iPhone and Mac can both receive iMessages, you might get interrupted by the flurry of messages from this certain contact.

While you can block iMessage senders on your iPhone or iPad, it hasn’t been possible in Mac OS X Mavericks until the latest update to 10.9.2, available through the Software Update panel of the Mac App Store.

Now, though, you can block and unblock any contact in your Contacts app with aplomb, right from your Mac.

Flipboard has today confirmed its acquisition of rival news reader Zite from CNN. The company plans to integrate Zite’s technology into its existing service, while Zite as we know it will be killed off.

Apple will finally discontinue the non-Retina MacBook Pro later this year, according to sources in its supply chain. Production is expected to come to a halt during the second half of 2014, reducing Apple’s notebook lineup to just the MacBook Air and the newer, thinner MacBook Pro with Retina display.

We drooled over Dutch designer Joseph Farahi’s iPhone Air concept last month, and now Farahi is back with a beautiful concept for Apple’s next generation iPhone 6c.

According to Farahi’s concept, the next iteration of Apple’s “affordable” iPhone model would come with a 4.7 inch Retina Display, and be just 7.1mm thick, while weighing only 116g.

In addition, he notes that he would opt to include an 8 mega-pixel camera with “True Tone Flash” able to record 120fps video, and Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint sensor: both innovations currently reserved for Apple’s flagship 5s model.

We’ve seen a number of classic patents published recently, referring to iconic Apple inventions, and this week is no different.

The recently published “Multi-Button Mouse” patent refers to Apple’s first steps away from the single-button mouse that Steve Jobs had insisted on ever since the days of the Lisa computer in the early 1980s.

The patent describes what would eventually become the Apple Mighty Mouse, which shipped with iMacs from 2005, before being replaced in 2009 by the multi-touch Magic Mouse currently used.

BlackBerry has confirmed that sponsored content will soon be coming to BBM Channels after ads were spotted in its latest BBM beta release. The Canadian company also insists, however, that it will not be inserting advertisements into your instant messages, and that it will be “very strict” about the amount of content that is pushed to the BBM community.

An investigative magistrate in Belgium reportedly considered forcing Internet service providers to block Apple’s website, after claims that the company is misleading customers over warranty options.

Apple has been involved with a long-running dispute with the European legal system over its one-year limited warranty, which it offers as standard to consumers around the world — but which is in conflict with European regulations that allows buyers a minimum of two years’ free protection.

In news that will come as a shock to absolutely no one, it seems that Corning Glass (makers of Gorilla Glass) aren’t big fans of Sapphire glass.

Asked by Morgan Stanley analyst James Fawcett his thoughts about “one large handset and device maker” planning to use Sapphire in its products, Tony Tripeny, a senior vice president at Corning Glass, responded that:

The Tylt Vu wireless charger looks like it would make a great iDevice stand, even if it didn’t have an induction charger hidden inside. The idea is that it not only charges your iPhone, but the shape of it means that the iPhone is always positioned in just the right spot to let the magnets do their thing, even if you just toss it into the cradle.

Watching so much True Detective — among other shows — that you need an iOS app to track what it is that you’ve already seen?

To help with this very quandary, and generally to help you sift through the television trash pile for the hidden gems, TV-tracking app Trak TV Show has just received a major update — adding universal support for optimizing the app for iPad and iPad mini, in addition to iPhone and iPod touch.

They say cellphones have ruined dramatic fiction. Next time you watch a TV police procedural or read a modern novel, check how many times the characters stray out of cellphone range, or lose their handsets altogether. The truth is that – in fiction just as in real life – the cellphone is just too useful, too good as a means of rescue.

Would Stargate have worked so well if James Spader could have just snapped a photo of those runes and used Google Translate? No. Would Marty McFly have gone back to 1955 if he could have just FaceTimed Doc Brown when he woke up late? Of course not.

And yet it gets worse. Now there’s a case which will let TV characters –and you – get rescued every damn time.

Nikon might be content to lose out to its competitors in every field except SLR bodies and lenses, but it beginning a big comeback, starting at the very top – literally. Two new camera straps – the Quick-Draw and the Quick-Draw S – are made in partnership with Black Rapid, and promise to let you never buy a third-party camera strap ever again.

The Baron Fig Confidant notebook started out on Kickstarter, and is today available to buy for just $16 – $4 less than the original price. I have one here on the desk, laying open at a fresh two-page spread without anything to weigh the pages down and stop the book from closing (that’s a Baron Fig feature by the way).

This isn’t a review – that’ll come later when I’ve filled the book with words and doodles. I just thought you’d like to know you can buy one, becasue it’s a pretty amazing notebook. In short, Moleskine can go suck it.

Neglected iOS and Mac app The Hit List has been snapped up by Karelia software, promising to breath life into a pretty great to-do app. One look at the iOS version of The Hit List tells you all you need to know: it still sports an aged iOS 6-style interface, and there is still no iPad version. That’s pretty bad for an app that costs $50 on the desktop, and requires a $2-per-month subscription to sync with the $10 iPhone app.

Hopefully that’ll be fixed soon now the app is in better hands.

Aether’s Cone speaker is simple, in both its physical design and its interface. Inside, though, it has a brain that learns what you like.

The Cone is a cone-shaped AirPlay-ready speaker which also streams music straight from the internet. It learns your tastes, and even lets you cue up tracks by asking for them, just like Siri.

Your website is often the first interaction customers have with your brand, and effective user experience can boost sales, bolster conversion rates, and improve customer satisfaction. Don’t you owe it to yourself to know how to implement it?

Well, that’s exactly what The Ultimate Guide to User Experience Video Course will teach you. And Cult of Mac Deals has this course for 75% off the regular price – only $49 – for a very limited time.

The fine folks at Twelve South have brought the popular SurfacePad case to the iPad mini. The cover is made from Napa leather, and it bends to form a viewing stand or typing wedge.

One of the coolest design aspects of the new SurfacePad is how the iPad mini is held in place when upright. Instead of resting the iPad in little leather notches like most bendable cases, the edges of the iPad are secured by invisible magnets.

Twenty years ago, if someone had told us we’d be streaming our favorite shows from the internet legally, we would have scoffed at them and disregarded it, never mind how the speed of broadband internet has changed the way we live our everyday lives. Roll on to the last couple of years, where media streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus have taken over and the days when we sat in front of the television flicking through 57 channels with nothing on are no more. Now there’s a whole host of entertainment right at the tap of a button, and we literally have to make no effort to leave our seats as these services take over our smartphones, tablets and electronic devices in a huge way.

But which service to pick? We’ve researched every possible choice out there, engaged in some elaborate hands-on testing, and narrowed down the extensive list to one reigning champion. If you look at the table below, it becomes fairly obvious that each media streaming service provider excels in some aspects but lags behind in others. By comparing each feature, it became much easier to narrow down the overall ultimate media service app.

Apple designed CarPlay “from the ground up” to be the future of car dashboard systems. And while technology is still based on iOS, how it communicates with the car is another matter. CarPlay utilizes QNX, the leading platform in the growing “infotainment system industry” that is owned by none other than Blackberry.

Apple is listed as a partner on the QNX website. QNX runs the embedded systems in many vehicles, including luxury brands Apple has associated CarPlay with, like Mercedes.