Remember those cool, ultra-light wooden iPhone 5 cases from Kubxlab? Now they’re available with the skins of exotic animals replacing the slivers of rare-tree flesh on the back panel. They’re called “Exotics” and “Elegance.” Let’s see if they live up to that.

There’s a great little trick with the latest Google Maps for iOS (the v2.0 that shipped earlier this week). Just by typing a magic phrase into the search box, you can cache the current map view for online use.

VLC, the popular open-source media player, has made its comeback on iOS and is available to download now from the App Store. The release comes more than two years after VLC was pulled from iOS due to licensing issues, but this time it’s back for good — with lots of improvements.

The official Evernote app for iOS now allows you to mark up images, PDFs, and notes thanks to the Skitch integration added in its latest update today. The release also brings shortcuts, recent notes, the ability to submit support requests, and more.

Gather up a substantial clump of geeks in any one place and you’re bound to get some interesting concoctions. In this case, two Comic Con pilgrims have taken a certain favored S-themed superhero and combined it with a certain favored S-themed smartphone. Behold, the Superphone.

If you like flight simulators, especially those of the more arcade variety, the Sky Gamblers series is a great place to start.

Originally published by Namco Bandai Games, the last couple of installments have come directly from California-based developer Atypical Games. Sky Gamblers: Cold War is, appropriately enough, set in the 1980s with all the weaponry and aircraft that implies. Your task will be to learn how to fly a Cold War-era fighter plane, head out on covert and not-so-covert ops, and blow stuff up. Sounds fun, right?

New Zealand-based games developer Ninja Kiwi just released Bloons TD Battles to the iOS App Store. It’s a faster, more multiplayer take on popular Bloons TD, a single-player fixed path tower defense game with loads of depth, with wacky monkeys that stand in for towers as well.

The new, free Bloons TD Battles lets you go head to head against other random or known opponents on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, while using ninja monkeys, sniper monkeys, and helicopters (among other equally bizarre characters and items) to keep your enemy’s “bloons” from making their way to your base.

Panasonic’s new Lumix DMC-FZ70 flaunts a nonsensical 60x optical zoom range, completely unaided through the use of Viagra.

The fine folks at Lucky Frame are at it again, this time with an iPad-only multiplayer dueling game, Gentlemen!. It’s a bit of a departure for the team that brought us music-based games like Pugs Love Beatz, Bad Hotel, and Wave Trip, but it’s intriguing nonetheless.

UpTo might be the best social calendar app ever made. I’ve never really seen anything like it; so if it isn’t the best (or really the only) social calendar app around, whatever else is out there must be perfect — because UpTo is pretty damn fantastic.

The whole point of UpTo is to create a social experience around calendars, in a way that’s at once instantly recognizable and ridiculously simple to use.

It seems like summer is just getting started but Best Buy is anxious to start raking in some money from the upcoming back-to-school season. To kick things off, Best Buy just reduced the price on two of the most popular MacBook Pros by $200.

Students can get a 13-inch MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive for $999.99 (regular price $1,199.99) or a 13-inch MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM and a 750GB hard drive for $1,299.99 (regular price $1,499.99).

To take advantage of the deal you have to sign up with a “.edu” email address. If you don’t have one you just get $100 off the regular price, which isn’t a bad deal either. Promo starts today and ends on July 27th

Source: Best Buy

Via: ATD

If you use Reddit and own an iPhone, chances are you’ve heard of Alien Blue. It’s considered the go-to client for Reddit on the iPhone and iPad, and up until now it didn’t have any real competition.

A new app called Ruby for Reddit is out, and it offers a load of features while adhering to a more minimalist, clean design.

On the right, the iPad mini, with its distinctive thin bezel design. On the left, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, with its distinctive thin bezel design. Both are eight inch tablets that look pretty much identical. I’m sure this will be the last time that Samsung follows Apple’s lead though, right? Absolutely shameless.

Source: Gizmag

Remember when Microsoft unveiled the Surface RT last year and people said it totally makes the iPad and the MacBook Air obsolete? So far the Surface RT has been anything but an iPad-killer and according to Microsoft’s latest earnings, it’s losing them a shit ton of money too.

Government officials have hired security experts from the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center to crack Apple’s new security methods in iOS 7. In a preemptive attempt to curb an influx in smartphone theft, San Francisco’s District Attorney and New York’s Attorney General are putting Apple to the test. Samsung’s Galaxy S4 will also be examined.

Leap Motion is a futuristic, Minority Report-like desktop platform that uses physical gestures to interact with apps. The hardware controller has been delayed a couple times, but it is finally scheduled to ship alongside a dedicated app store on July 22nd.

All kinds of content creators are working on integrating Leap Motion into their apps, including The New York Times. The American publication will offer a “Top News” app for Leap Motion customers that uses hand gestures to browse and read articles.

Savvy Apps makes Agenda, one of the most popular third-party calendar apps for iOS. Today Agenda hit version 4.0 with a complete redesign, new gestures, and integration with other great third-party apps.

“With over 3 million updates since launch, we did something right with Agenda,” said Savvy Apps. “That’s why Agenda Calendar 4 is a brand new app that maintains the spirit of what everyone has loved, while reimagining every last detail of what makes a great calendar app.”

Nokia’s decision to only make Windows smartphones has been heavily scrutinized ever since CEO Stephen Elop made the announcement in 2011. Why go with Microsoft’s new platform when Android was already better established?

In a recent interview Elop revealed the reason Nokia didn’t switch to Android was because they felt it was going to get dominated by one company: Samsung.

VLC for iOS is making a return to the App Store after a licensing dispute got the popular video player pulled from the App Store over two years ago.

The visual appearance of the app has remained fairly consistent to the old version from 2010. The app was completely rewritten and is much faster thanks to modern output modules for audio and video, and offers multi-core decoding and support for any video files available in VLC media player for desktop operating systems.

Not satisfied with the 100 million download whooping it laid down on the App Store and Google Play, Rovio is taking Angry Birds Star Wars to almost every major gaming console for a scheduled launch of October 29th, 2013.

You’ll be able to flick lightsaber-wielding birds across your HDTV’s screen to your heart’s delight on Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, Xbox 360, Wii U, Wii, and the Nintendo 3DS. Rovio is adding 20 exclusive levels to the game, along with some cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes, to make things a little extra special for those wanting to conquer the galaxy again.

Here’s the trailer:

In response to the public’s outcry that tech companies are working with the NSA to pilfer personal info on targets of interest, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and others announced an alliance with civil liberties groups today demanding for more transparency by the U.S. government concerning wiretapping.

The coalition sent a letter today to President Obama and other leaders in Congress, urging for greater transparency around national security-related requests. Portions of the letter were published last night, but we now have a copy it in its entirety, which can be read below:

Our iDevices have become an essential part of our digital lives. Don’t they deserve a little bit more protection when (and where) you can get it? Cult of Mac Deals has both the “when” and “where” covered with the latest offer: The Mini Utility Mac Bundle.

With this bundle, you’ll get 3 apps that will take the protection of your data on your iPhone, iPod, and iPad to a whole new level. For a limited time, you can get that protection for just $19.99 from Cult of Mac Deals!

Earlier today, we learned that Verizon actually sold a lot more iPhones last quarter than anyone expected, and now it looks like Apple might also be able to say the same. In fact, a Morgan Stanley analyst is now saying that her supply chain checks say Apple will beat their guidance this quarter by a sizable margin.

Apple’s in the process of doubling down on the Apple TV. Following a report that Apple was working on deals with cable networks that would allow for commercial-skipping comes word that Apple is looking to cooperate with TV content providers to bring their own channels to the Apple TV.