Facebook is reportedly working on a brand new app that’ll be strictly for celebrities. The app will allow the famous to better interact with fans in the hope that more will be encouraged to use the social network for sharing. It’s currently in testing with a small group of famous people, according to sources familiar with the project.
When I reviewed Kubxlab’s Ampjacket for the iPhone back in May, I found it to be excellent. And as I kept on using it after the review (always a good sign), I got to like it even more. Now, the Ampjacket is available for the iPad mini, and I expect it to be even more useful.
Before I recently discovered that the typing-related wrist pain I was experiencing was caused almost solely by the wrong chair/table height ratio (most tables are too high to be used for typing, even for a tall feller like me), I picked up one of Microsoft’s ergonomic keyboards, the Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. It has two standout features:
The new Sculpt aims to fix the latter.
The Keizus Quadrapod device mount looks remarkably like a human form without a head; it’s also similar in form and function to the Joby GorillaPod, leading to inevitable forthcoming comparisons between ape and man whenever the Quadrapod is mentioned.
Speaker design seems to be drifting further toward the minimalist end of things, at least aesthetically. If that’s true, brand-new San Francisco-based NudeAudio has walked pretty far down this path, as evidenced by their just-introduced, four-model speaker lineup.
While there’s no dearth of choice when it comes to picking a security cam that can viewed over an iPhone, finding one with the ability to pan and zoom remotely is a trickier proposition. And finding one with pan-and-zoom for under $100 is even rarer.
But that’s exactly what D-Link’s new DCS-5010L is: a pan-and-zoom, app-paired security camera, with all the fixings, for $100.
You can’t get music videos on MTV anymore, but that doesn’t mean the 60-inch TV strapped to your wall can’t get jiggy with Beyonce and Katy Perry’s newest music vids. VEVO announced today that it has added full AirPlay support to its iOS app, allowing users to stream audio and video to an Apple TV.
One of Apple’s most-touted features in Maps is Flyover, a mode that lets you see a city in stunning 3D imagery. The feature is limited to select metropolitan areas around the globe, but Apple continues to add more locations as Maps matures.
The Norwegian government is currently blocking Apple from taking aerial photography of the country’s capital city, Oslo, due to privacy concerns.
Here’s an interesting little iOS game for you: Rock Paper Missiles is an evolved version of the classic Rock, Paper, Scissors hand game played by millions of kids across the globe. This game, though, is different in two ways. One, it’s a universal app on iOS, which means you can play it on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
Two, it’s got missiles, flamethrowers and grenades.
Rock Paper Missiles is also gorgeously designed, with a monochromatic red-and-white color scheme that really complements the stark and confusing nature of the gameplay.
AAPL shares rose 5.6% in value today after word came out that billionaire investor Carl Icahn thinks the company is ‘extremely undervalued.’ The stock was trading above $493 a share after 3PM ET today — a nice $26 jump up from the stock’s closing price on Monday.
Icahn revealed on Twitter that he spoke briefly with Tim Cook today about the company’s future and that he’s decided to make a large position with Apple:
When Peter Saghegyi lost his position at gaming developer Rockstar Vienna, the Hungarian native decided it was time for a change. He headed to London, and then ended up in Dubai, one of the more influential United Arab Emirates. He spent the boom years (2006-2008) trying to sell real estate visualizations to companies in the city, and later joined a branding agency to build an interactive content team from friends he had worked with at Rockstar. Unfortunately, that’s when the bust happened, and opportunities in Dubai became scarce.
As they had nothing to lose, the group decided to create a game about the city they now lived in.
The Cartella Linen is Pad & Quill’s bookbindery case for the MacBook Air. I’ve been using the 13-inch version for a few weeks now and it’s great, if a little big. If you’re looking for a handsome, tough case that you can leave on all the time, which you can use on your lap and which you can carry under your arm down the street, then this is it.
Let’s take a closer look.
Apple’s added a lot of Yelp integration into iOS over the past two years, but despite providing copious amounts of reviews for every restaurant in the U.S., the app hasn’t let you actually write a review from your iPhone.
Yelp 7.0 was just pushed to the App Store and now gives users the ability to write reviews from their iPhone. Now you can trash a restaurant’s king salmon tartare on taro chips while waiting for your waitress to bring a check. Not finished with your praise? You can save a draft and publish it later, too.
The free update is available on the App Store now.
Source: iTunes
Steve Cheney is a pretty smart guy, with a serious background in technology and mobile marketing, both as a former TechCrunch author and the current head of business development for iOS and Android chat app, GroupMe.
Cheney’s written a fairly strong analysis of the current Apple/Android war for supremacy and, as he sees it, there’s a clear advantage for Apple in the actual mobile device arena. Cheney calls it “bang per watt,” and he attributes Apple’s dominance here to the vise-like grip the Cupertino company has on the vertical integration of hardware and software.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf5-Prx19ZM&feature=player_embedded
Over the last few years we’ve seen Apple’s competition start to really take it to Cupertino in TV ads. Sometimes it seems petty but according to Samsung’s marketing chief, Arno Lenior, the tsunami of ads mocking Apple fans were a huge boon for the company.
In an interview with AdNews, Samsung’s Lenior says that the ads were brilliant because they got Apple fanboys and Samsung fans to bash with one another over which beloved “brand” is better:
I don’t want to wax too rhapsodic about a gangster game, but Omerta: City of Gangsters has what it takes to keep me engaged for an afternoon of beer and liquor smuggling, along with mafia-style combat justice along the way. The music is delightfully consistent with the period, and the hand-painted interstitial artwork is simply gorgeous.
An omertá is a code of silence, typically associated with the Mafia, that focuses on non-cooperation with the police and non-interference with the activities of others, especially when illegal. Luckily, we don’t have to be too quiet about this enjoyable romp through 1920s America, developed by Haemimont Games and published by Kalypso Studios, the folks behind similar games like Tropico 4.
Populous. The Sims. Minecraft. There’s something about simulation games that I’ve always enjoyed. There are other ones that I’m too fond of (honestly, I find World of Warcraft almost too time-consuming for it to be enjoyable), and others that I will spend hours playing knowing there is a definite end point. Examples of ones I really enjoy would be the Fable series and Star Wars simulation-style games mainly because depending on the choices I make – being good or evil – can really affect the outcome.
Sim City was another I played for hours growing up, and there were several others which caught my attention from time to time that followed a similar theme. The “Tycoon” series of games were personal favorites, and this Cult of Mac Deals offer features one of those games – Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 Platinum – for only $4.99!
There’s been a recurring theme with the iPhone its debut in 2007, and that’s that every model Apple releases sells significantly better than the last. Phil Schiller once said that each new iPhone model sells as many units as all previous models combined, and analysts expect to see a similar trend this fall with the iPhone 5S.
In fact, one analyst predicts the new iPhone will be “the most successful product launch ever in the history of Apple.”
Ember for Mac, the terrific scrapbooking tool from Realmac Software, has just received its first update following its debut late last month. The release adds a new feature called “Smart Drawing,” which magically turns your shaky sketches into “beautifully-smooth shapes.”
Pocket Casts is arguably the finest podcast client on Android, and it’s pretty terrific on iOS, too. But it’s about to get even better. With the upcoming Pocket Casts 4 update, we’ll see a brand new user interface based on iOS 7’s new design, iPad support, cross-platform syncing for subscriptions, playlists, and play states, and lots more.
Apple announced a new charge trade-in program earlier this month, which gives those with third-party iPhone, iPad, and iPod adapters the chance to take them in and swap them for official ones at a special price. At first, it seemed the program was only available to customers in the U.S. and China, but that’s not the case.
According to a new support document on Apple’s website, those in the U.K., Canada, Australia, Japan, and parts of Europe can also take advantage of the offer.
Command-Tab is probably seared into your muscle memory to switch between running applications while on your Mac. I know it is permanently stuck in mine.
You probably also know that Command-Tab can also be used to quit apps as well, right? And hide apps? To be honest, I knew the first tip, but not the second one, which (to me) makes it worth a share.
Continuing its expansion at roughly the same pace as the known universe, Facebook has just announced that they have acquired Mobile Technologies, the developer of Jibbigo, a universal translator app for Android and iOS.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster might be a bit of a laughing stock when it comes to the so-called Apple HDTV, but he’s still one of the go-to soothsayers for investors looking for an early heads-up on what Apple might do next. In a new report, Munster is making a rather strange claim: he says that Apple’s low-budget iPhone 5C will ship without Siri.
iTunes is having an absolutely bonkers sale right now on its movie selection: you can buy every single one of the eight films in the Harry Potter series for just $59.99. The regular price is over $125. And that’s just where the deals get started: chances are, if you’ve got a favorite film series, iTunes is selling it in a bundle right now, at a crazy low price.