Apple has bought a company which specializes in low-energy chips that are ideally suited for devices like fitness trackers. The rumor mill is saying that Apple is working on an iWatch to release by the end of 2014, and this small acquisition is likely another way to bring in more expertise for the project.
Been waiting around for a killer deal before jumping all over a new MacBook Pro with Retina display purchase? For the next three days Best Buy is giving away a free Apple TV to customers who buy one of two 15-inch MacBook Pro models that are $200 below MSRP.
The developer behind incredibly successful free to play iOS game, Puzzles & Dragons, is back with a new free to play title called Freak Tower.
Launching the game for the first time allows prospective tower builders to walk through a tutorial that gives a decent overview of the game. The idea here is to build a tower, one floor up at a time, and fight off various monsters that climb said tower to steal the food that’s dubiously placed on the roof.
Since the dawn of time, Verizon has dominated customer satisfaction rankings thanks to its network reliability and customer service. Sadly, the king has been overthrown as AT&T topped J.D. Power’s latest rankings for wireless care satisfaction for the first time ever.
Id Software’s seminal first-person shooter franchise, Doom, came to the iOS platform back in 2009, with Doom Classic. It debuted as a $6.99 game, and we were all willing to pay for admission to a game that stole our hearts (and our free time) as young gamers.
About a year later, Doom II RPG showed up on the App Store at $3.99. It’s the sequel to 2005’s Doom RPG, a turn-based, more strategic take on the Doom universe.
Both titles are a part of gaming history, and they’re both available for $0.99 on the app store today. How long will they stay at this low price? Who knows? Not us.
Rovio’s point and click puzzler, Tiny Thief, has just dropped in price from $2.99 to $0.99. That’s not a bad discount, and it’s happening right now for we don’t know how long.
It just might be time to jump on this one, then, as Tiny Thief is a great game.
I’ve got plenty of headphones lying around the house — and I mean a lot.
I’ve got some in-ear style ones, earbud style ones (which generally came from a variety of iDevices), and a couple of pairs — “over ear” headphones — that cover my ears completely. The thing about headphones is that each type is suited for certain activities better than others, which means that having several pairs available isn’t a bad thing at all…especially if you’re into being productive like me and want to have as little friction as possible going from task to task (or, in this case, from audio-related task to audio-related task).
The in-ear and earbud style headphones are my “daily drivers”. They’re the ones I use for everyday activity, mainly because they take up very little space in any sort of carrying bag I’ve got and they just seem so…disposable. But I’ll use the earbuds more often for exercising (running, for example) than the in-ear ones because they are less likely to fall out while I’m being active. My earbuds and in-ear headphones can be found in various spots throughout the house, that way they can be grabbed quickly – no matter what I plan to use them for.
Netflix has begun to officially roll out user profiles today, meaning you can now share an account with your family and friends without all their horrible movie choices clogging your Instant Queue.
It’s not uncommon that we see accessories for new Apple devices before they’ve even been announced — we covered the first cases for the iPhone 5C earlier this week. But they usually come from no-name manufacturers in China who are scrambling to get their products out there before anyone else, even if it means building them from rumored specifications.
It is uncommon that we see premature releases from big brands, however. But Spigen SGP has already made its first iPhone 5C cases and screen protectors available to order on Amazon.
The fifth-generation iPad is expected to adopt a whole new form factor, much like that of the iPad mini’s, only bigger. And proof of that comes with this leaked rear panel that has surfaced in China. Although the new model will have the same 9.7-inch Retina display as the existing iPad, this panel proves it will be significantly thinner, and narrower, with thinner bezels down the sides of its display.
Bad Piggies, the super popular puzzle game from Rovio, has gone free for the first time since it hit the App Store last September. It’s thought to be thanks to the App Store’s App of the Week promotion, so you have seven days to download the game before its price goes back up.
Reader Bruce C asks,
I just read your article Mastering Evernote on Your Mac. I began using Evernote about a month ago and am now using it exclusively for notes and writing (journal, poetry, etc.). I like the Notebook view but the program opens in the Notes view. Is there a way to set it so the program always opens in Notebook view?
Well, Bruce, there is sort of a way to make sure it opens in whatever view you like, though it’s not quite a set-it-and-forget-it kind of solution. Here’s what to do.
It’s happened to everyone. You’re typing on your Mac, and you suddenly get a phone call on your iPhone. But you only have two hands. On a deadline, you grab your iPhone, and try to talk to whomever is calling by clenching your phone against your shoulder with your chin, but it suddenly slips, and slides down your tucked shirt and into your underpants. And now, here you are, screaming at your crotch to call you back while shaking an iPhone down your pants leg. How embarrassing.
What, that hasn’t happened to you? How strange. Must just be me. Either way, though, wouldn’t it be cool if you could just route incoming iPhone calls to your Mac? Now you can, thanks to Dialogue.
UPDATE: There are some screenshots of BBM for Android at the bottom of this post.
By now you’re probably already aware that BlackBerry Messenger is coming to Android and iOS this summer, but BlackBerry has been pretty quiet about its release since it was announced. We don’t know exactly when the app will arrive — though we do know it’ll be by the end of September.
But the Canadian company has now begun making the BBM beta for other platforms available via the BlackBerry Beta Zone.
There was a time when everyone complained that Apple wasn’t putting USB 3 ports in Macs. Then Apple not only put USB 3.0 in all of their Macs, they introduced Thunderbolt — an incredible new hardware interface that can sustain lightning-fast speeds of up to 10 Gbit per second across four devices simultaneously.
Once Thunderbolt came out, a lot of us forgot about USB 3, and let the USB 3 ports we’d once clamored for get crusty. Thunderbolt was the new hotness. It looks like the group behind the USB 3.0 spec isn’t going to let that stand, though: They’re supercharging USB 3.0 by 400%.
Today’s how-to will show you how to install the command-line picture-manipulation tool ImageMagick, and how to build an Automator system service using shell scripting. The Service will take any number of pictures and make one long photo that contains them all. It’s as if you laid them out in a row on a table, only without a table, and with a computer.
Amazingly, it’s all pretty easy.
Readdle produces some of the best productivity apps money can buy for iOS devices, so it’s no surprise that it’s still going strong as it celebrates its sixth anniversary today. And in honor of this special occasion, the company has slashed up to 70% off all of its paid apps for a limited time.
It has also added a super cool timeline to its website that highlights some of the most important milestones and innovations from over the past six years.
Who better to star in the world’s most famous endless runner than the world’s fastest runner? That’s Imangi Studios’ latest stroke of genius: they’re now offering Olympic world record runner Usain Bolt, that stroke of greased lightning himself, as a playable character in Temple Run 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqIqsA3kTA8
Remember that lady who lost her frickin’ mind in the Apple Store over being told she needed to get an appointment? Jimmy Kimmel asked The Backstreet Boys — looking these days like what they call “rough trade” — to immortalize her immortal Vine loop, which you can see below.
Last month, security researchers figured out there was a Trojan horse built into an iOS device: the charger. If a hacker wanted to, they could use a modified charger (which costs less than $45) that would install malware onto any device running iOS.
True, the hack required physical proximity — not to mention specialized hardware — to work. But it was a universal hack that worked on any device, and it could make a victim out of anyone doing something as simple as asking to borrow someone’s iPhone charger at the local Starbucks.
A bad hack indeed. But Apple’s on the case.
There’s one great feature of the Lightning cable that I didn’t notice until just now: Its thinness compared to the old 30-pin plug means that it’s a lot easier to squeeze through small holes. And that in turn makes custom docks a simple, Dremel-free experience.
Take a look around you and see if there’s anything that could be improved by running a little cable through a hole in the top. That’s just what the folks at Photojojo did, and — almost inevitably — their eyes rested on a vintage film camera.
Will it or won’t it have a Retina display?
That’s the big question everyone is asking about the second-generation iPad mini, and we’ve been seeing conflicting reports about it for several months. But according to sources “familiar with the matter,” who have been speaking to The Wall Street Journal, it’s “likely” the answer to that question is yes.
The very best part of the KEEO is the product video. And the very best part of that is KEEO’s creator Christopher Zenic. Just go and watch it right now and tell me you don’t keep expecting him to say “No, Mr. Bond – I expect you to die.”
Anyhow. The KEEO is a fancy key holder with some special iPhone-friendly extras.
EE has been the United Kingdom’s only 4G provider for around nine months now, but at the end of this month, it’ll finally see some competition. O2 has today announced that its own 4G network will launch on August 29, with prices starting at £26 per month. The service will reach three cities initially, with ten more scheduled to be added by the end of the year.
Zensorium’s Tinke is one of those gadgets that’s a little off the beaten path. Like many fitness gadgets, it can measure heart rate. What makes it different is that it’ll also measure blood oxygen levels and respiratory rate — and what it does with that data is even more unusual.