When Apple launched the iPhone 5 last year, it was the most aggressive launch Apple had ever attempted, requiring entire armies of workers to aggressively line-manufacture their most advanced, difficult-to-make iPhone yet. But what was it like to be one of those workers? Businessweek has published a fantastic, haunting investigative report on one Nepalese worker, who almost starved to death after his stint as an iPhone tester.
What’s causing the Retina iPad mini to launch so late in the year, and why is demand expected to be so limited at launch? Display yield issues tend to be viewed as the culprit, but what exactly is happening? According to a new rumor, LCD burn-in is to blame.
It still hasn’t been officially confirmed by Apple, but reports suggest that the company will soon begin offering iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C repairs in its retail locations — providing minor repairs and screen replacements for the two latest iPhone models.
We just brought you a review of Maclocks’ MacBook Pro lock, and today we come bearing news that Maclocks is now taking pre-orders on the world’s first iPad Air enclosure, available December 2.
Writing that Amazon blasted iPad with its new Kindle Paperwhite ad, or that the iOS market share is about to explode may be an unfortunate choice of words after reports that an iPad Air did, quite literally, blow up in an Australian mobile phone store this week.
I hope you’re ready for yet another case that adds extra lenses to the iPhone’s amazing camera. This one has a twist. Well, I guess they all do, but this one has a different twist. It’s also ruggedized and waterproof.
Ever find yourself stuck without a cable when you need to charge your iPhone? No, me either. I’m a nerd and a professional gadget tester, so at pretty much all times I have some kind of Lightning cable, dock or adapter either on my person or close to hand.
But if I got out more, and was more stylish in general, then I’d be sporting a Kyte & Key Cabelet, or cable bracelet.
Do you ever grab screenshots of websites on your iPhone, then struggle to transfer them to you Mac for further editing, or for – say – putting them into a blog post? Now you can do the exact same thing, only without ever having to touch your iPhone. How? Pixa’s new mobile Web Snapper, that’s how.
I don’t know what it is with wireless chargers and the letters Q and I, but what I do know is that the iQi is the first one I have actually considered using. You see, instead of a fat case to hold the induction circuits, or the flux capacitor, or whatever it is that makes wireless charging possible, the iQi is a tiny slim sheet that slips inside your existing case.
I’m still a little woozy from the 14-hour plane ride from San Francisco, but at first glance this humming tech hub seems like Samsung territory.
For every 10 Galaxy Notes that metro riders are stumbling down the endless escalators watching TV shows or reading comics on, I’ve probably spotted one iPhone.
You’ve seen IK Multimedia’s gear grace the pages of this site before — the company is at the forefront of popping out music-making electronics and software geared toward musicians. So it’s no surprise that now they’ve finally joined the increasingly crowded high-end Bluetooth speaker club, their take, the iLoud, is a reference-grade studio monitor — and as its name suggests, an apparently very loud one.
Alongside a few MacBook-related updates and a fix for Gmail in Mail, Apple has released its first update to iBooks for Mac today in Mavericks. Version 1.0.1 addresses “bug fixes and improvements to performance and stability,” according to Apple. It can be downloaded now in the Mac App Store.
iBooks for Mac hasn’t been particularly buggy, but this first update should fix many of the glitches with slow animations and other minor hiccups that have been affecting the app.
Source: Apple
No matter how computer-savvy you are, sometimes you just can’t avoid issues like a failing hard drive. For those emergency situations, Disk Drill Pro can be your savior. If you lose any data, you just have to click a button and it displays a list of files that can be potentially recovered. Save yourself a ton of time and heartache and get peace of mind with this app.
And right now you can save a ton of money as well by taking advantage of this limited time offer from Cult of Mac Deals. Pick up Disk Drill Pro 2.0 for only $29.99 – that’s 66% off the regular price!
Has using Gmail in Apple’s default Mail app on OS X Mavericks been nearly unbearable? If you’re like me, your inbox rarely fetches new mail or completely skips downloading certain messages at random. Deleting emails from my Gmail account in Mail has also been incredibly frustrating, as they magically reappear three to four times in my inbox after I delete them. My unread message count is almost always inaccurate as well.
Today Apple finally released an update to the Mail app in the Mac App Store that is supposed to fix all of the problems with Gmail. Hallelujah!
Apple acknowledge last week that some of its new 13-inch MacBook Pros with Retina display units were experiencing issues where the trackpad and/or keyboard became unresponsive after a few minutes of use. Any new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro purchased after Apple’s October 22nd iPad event may have been potentially affected by the glitch, but Apple announced today that it has published a fix for the problem.
MacBook Pro Retina EFI Update V1.3 can be downloaded via the Mac App Store and promises to fix any glitches where the users trackpad and keyboard stop working on the late 2013 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina models.
Source: Apple
A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed the Maclocks Lockable Cover for Retina MacBook Pro, and although I had a lot of praise for it, I mentioned it my verdict that there was another Maclocks lock I preferred. That’s the Wedge Lock Bracket, which is the closest you’ll get to an integrated lock for your Retina MacBook Pro.
Older MacBook Pros — those that don’t have a Retina display — have a Kensington lock built-in, but in an effort to save space and make the new models really thin, Apple did away with that, as well as things like FireWire, traditional hard-disk drives, and the optical drive.
That poses a security risk. If you work in a public place, or you frequent to Starbucks to get stuff done while on a caffeine high, then you need a way to prevent your MacBook Pro from being stolen when you leave it unattended.
And I think the Wedge Lock Bracket, which screws into the bottom of your MacBook Pro and almost looks like it’s a part of it, is the best and most elegant solution.
You can join Frodo, Gandalf, Legolas, and (of course) Boromir as they get the Lego treatment from TT Games, the developer of a ton of other Lego-fied video games, including Lego Harry Potter, Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones.
Warner Bros. and TT Games announced Thursday the release of Lego The Lord of the Rings to iOS. In the game, the Fellowship travels to Mount Doom to destroy The One Ring and save the land from utter Lego-style destruction. You’ll get to unlock more than 90 different LoTR characters by exploring Middle-earth, solving puzzles, and battling with the bad guys from Lego Sauron.
Google released an update for its Google Drive iOS app this morning that finally adds iOS 7 support to the could storage app.
The Google Drive update also includes multiple account support so you can switch between personal, work, or any other Google account, similar to what Google has already implemented in its web products. The Dropbox alternative now comes with a Single sign in too so you’ve automatically signed into other Google apps on your iPhone too like YouTube, Google Maps, Chrome and Google+.
The free update is available in the App Store now.
Here are the release notes:
Roman Ruins HD — Reference — $4.99 (special launch price; reg. $9.99)
If you’re a fan of ancient Rome — and who isn’t? — but can’t justify the expense to actually go and look at its old buildings, you might want to have a look at Roman Ruins HD. It’s a new iPad app that collects a wealth of high-definition pictures, virtual tours, and/or 3D overhead shots of over 350 sites. You can read all about the places, and some locations also use the app’s cool Google Street View integration to let you pretend you’re walking through them. But you’ll have to provide your own bored, screaming children, tired feet, and sunburn for the full experience.
Your school experience might have differed from mine, but I remember one day in Industrial Arts (read: Shop class) when the teacher announced we would all be designing and building bridges. And at the end of the week, we would see whose construct could hold the most weight.
Now, I’m not a trained bridge-maker — in fact, none of us were because we were ninth-graders — so I knew that the next week would be among the longest of my young life because all I knew about structural engineering was something vague about triangles. Triangles are good, I think. Anyway, my bridge sucked. If I remember correctly, it snapped in half and then somehow caught fire.
And I’ve never felt that same sense of personal failure again … until I played Project Peon, an iPad game hitting the App Store today.
I had a jokey book trailer made to promote my new book about Jony Ive, Apple’s head designer. And Apple’s had it pulled off YouTube!
The video wasn’t even public. It was unlisted. I offered a sneak peek to readers who pre-ordered the book, which is being released next Thursday November 14.
The video pokes fun at Jony Ive, Apple and myself. But last night I got an email from Google saying that it had been disabled because of a copyright claim from Apple.
I had hoped that the video was protected by fair use. The rules of fair use are ambiguous, but in general, you are allowed to remix and re-use previous material, as long as the resulting work is “transformative.” If it adds “new expression or meaning” to the original, then it’s fair use. I think the book trailer did. It’s a classic remix of several previous Apple product videos. A parody. And parody is a form of expression generally protected from copyright claims.
If there’s anything today’s Bluetooth speakers desperately need – it’s more bass. Too many of them sound too trebly, which often translates to too tinny. That’s not cool. Thankfully, the guys at Soundfreaq have brought back the beat with Sound Stack – a true audiophile’s dream.
With enhanced Bluetooth, docking for 30-pin connected iDevices and innovative audio enhancements, the Sound Stack speaker is a powerhouse. Fill any room with full, accurate sound thanks to Soundfreaq’s proprietary DubSub™ system, a unique 2.2 speaker configuration that pairs two Kevlar-reinforced drivers and two active subwoofers. Combine that with a tuned, triple-ported housing and their UQ3™ spatial sound enhancement technology and you’ve got an acoustic force to be reckoned with.
And Cult of Mac Deals has the Sound Stack for just XXX during this limited time offer — including free shipping!
RunKeeper, one of the most popular fitness trackers for iPhone, now boasts a number of cool new features that take advantage of the M7 motion coprocessor built into the iPhone 5s — thanks to a new update that hit the App Store today. The app also supports AirDrop, allowing you to share your workouts with nearby friends.
Apple has topped the list of world’s most valuable brands for the third straight year in a row, and is now worth almost twice as much as any other brand on the planet, Forbes reports. The Cupertino company is now valued at $104.3 billion, up 20 percent over last year, which puts it way out in front of Microsoft, Samsung, and even Google.
When Everpix announced its shutdown this week, the Internet Sadness Factor spun the dial up to its highest point since the original demise of Del.icio.us, and the euthanization of Loren Brichter’s Tweetie for iPad. I was a lover of the service, and now I, like you, am searching for an alternative.
The good news is that there are plenty of services trying to solve the same problem as Everpix: how to organize your overwhelming mountain of digital photos. The bad news is that none of them is as easy to use as Everpix.
If you want a great head-to-head comparison of the alternatives, take a look at The Verge’s article from the end of August. This article won’t be a feature-for-feature rundown. Instead I’m going to look at some of the good and bad points of the remaining competition. Hopefully I can help you to find something you’ll like.