AT&T announced today that it will rollout its own yearly upgrade program, in what seems to be a direct response to T-Mobile’s new ‘Jump’ program that was announced last week.

The new service, dubbed ‘AT&T Next,’ will begin nationwide on July 26th. Customers will be able to get a new smartphone or tablet every year without a down payment, activation fee, upgrade fee or financing fee. Sounds great, except just like with T-Mobile’s Jump plan, you have to pay a monthly fee for the perk for the first 20 months.

Here’s AT&T’s summary of Next:

It’s not exactly the belle of the ball, and its name is in serious need of some marketing help; but the LifeTrak Move C300 activity tracker makes up for its lack of charm with some powerful bonus features, like waterproofness (to 90 feet!) and the ability to also measure heart rate.

On top of all that, the device’s energy requirements are so low that its coin-sized, non-rechargeable battery will last a year.

There have been some rumors of both an iPhone 5S and an iPhone 6 coming out this summer, and while I don’t hold out too much hope of that happening–it’s too far out of Apple’s established iPhone release rhythm–this iPhone 6 concept mockup is interesting, to say the least.

The folks at Designed by M, the makers of the AL13 case we reviewed back in May, decided to put together this rather unique take on a possible iPhone 6 design, with the cut-off corners of a piece of paper straight out of Battlestar Galactica.

Why? We’re not sure, but a blog post on the Designed by M website tells a bit more.

Want to save a bit of cash on the latest Macbook Air? Now might be the time, as Apple has allowed Best Buy to discount the popular Macbook by up to $64. Other retailers, like Amazon and B&H Photo, quickly followed suit, offering their own discounts on the laptops or AppleCare.

Remain calm. Your laptop is not about to bellow wildly and charge while you bolt frantically down a narrow, cobblestoned street with a red scarf around your neck.

No, you’re actually looking at the Amped Wireless ACA1, the first Mac-compatible gizmo to generate a turbocharged 802.11ac wifi signal (it also works with PCs, but who cares).

The words “fun” and “email” probably don’t belong together. But of the small handful of email apps available for the iPad, Birdseye is certainly the most fun. It’s also the most dynamic, with some cool tricks that should come standard with the stock iPad Mail app.

Apple has been trying to get a TV streaming service off the ground for quite some time. Instead of requiring your expensive cable subscription, Apple’s approach would likely be internet-only and rely on individual deals with the networks.

In order to entice the networks, Apple has proposed an interesting business model for advertising. According to a new report, Apple wants to compensate networks by paying them for ads that viewers have skipped.

Apple swears that it can’t read your iMessages, but with the NSA monitoring just about everything you do on the internet these days, complete security is rarely guaranteed. Heml.is is a new messaging app from a group of Swedish developers, including a co-founder of The Pirate Bay.

The main focus of Heml.is is privacy, although the app also boasts a pretty, iOS 7-like design. End-to-end encryption will keep anyone from being able to intercept messages, including the guys behind Heml.is. Since “Hemlis” literally means “secret” in Swedish, the developers want their product to live up to its name.

Uber is a popular car service that is on a mission to make taxis obsolete. It pioneered the idea of using your smartphone to summon and pay for a car, and now Uber has expanded to 35 cities and 14 countries.

Today Uber added a long-awaited feature. You can now split fares between multiple passengers with the app.

Following up on the release of the first full trailer for the new Jobs movie starring Ashton Kutcher, Open Roads Studios has released a new Instagram trailer. It’s only 15 seconds long of course, but it’s packed with scenes of Ashton doing his best Steve Jobs death stare while reciting parts of Apple’s famous “The Crazy Ones” ad.

The movie was originally supposed to hit theaters in April, but the premiere has been pushed back to August 16th due to a need more more marketing. Early reviews were mixed for Jobs, but most seem to agree that the movie isn’t going to be that great. What do you think of the Instagram trailer?
Source: Instagram

IMDB released a new update for it’s iOS and Android apps today that includes a new feature that will allow iOS users to purchase movie tickets via the app. The free update also comes with a tie-in to the Amazon Mobile app that allows you to choose to buy a movie in IMDB and then order it through Amazon.

Ticket purchasing in the IMDB update is powered by Fandango. Once a user purchases a ticket it can be added to your Passbook and then scanned by theater staff for admittance just like in the Fandango iOS app. The app also has a new “Coming Soon” feature that lets you add movie release dates to your iOS calendar.

Here are the full release notes:

Apple is helping look into how the iPhone 5 played a role in the death of Ma Ailun, a 23-year-old woman from the Xinjiang region in western China. Ma, a flight attendant for China Southern Airlines, was electrocuted to death after taking a call on her iPhone while it was charging.

Image editing software can be mysterious and clunky. Not PhotoZoom Classic 5. It’s preloaded with sweet presets specifically designed for different types of photos and graphics, and even lets you create resize profiles – so if you have a preferred resize method you can select it with a single click. Even our non-artistic types (cough developers cough) enjoy using it.

And we’ve got it for $49 during this limited time offer from Cult of Mac Deals.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek has today claimed that Apple’s iPhone 5S will enter mass production this month ahead of its release in late September or early October. Misek also claims that Apple has already begun producing its low-cost iPhone, which he believes will cost $300-$400 without a carrier subsidy.

Apple has issued a software update for those running the third developer preview of OS X Mavericks. The release promises to patch a major graphics bug that could cause machines to “reboot without warning.”

Rovio announced this morning that the next game in its blockbuster Angry Birds franchise will be Angry Birds Star Wars II. Following up on the success of the original Angry Birds Star Wars, the new game will be based off the events in Star Wars episodes I-III.

So far, details on the new game are fairly light, but we do know that it will feature new characters such as young Anakin Skywalker, Mace Windu, Darth Maul, General Grievous and even Jar Jar Binks. Players will finally get to join the dark side and play as one of the villainous pigs too.

Rovio also announced that it’s creating a line of  toys called Telepods that interact with the game and teleport characters into the map.

Here’s the trailer:

Update: Looks like the account wasn’t Apple’s after all, and the videos have been pulled.

Didn’t get a chance to go to WWDC to learn all the new stuff about iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks? Developers have been able to watch all of the WWDC session videos for nearly a month now, but Apple just uploaded them to YouTube as well so even unregistered developers can get in on the action.

Rather than uploading all the videos to Apple’s regular YouTube channel, they’ve been uploaded to a new channel called WWDCVideos channel. Apple hasn’t confirmed that it’s an official channel, but the videos are legit, so head over for a heavy dose of iOS 7 knowledge.

Source: YouTube

Via: MacStories

Of course you know already that you can send iMessages to your iOS or OS X using friends and family via the Notification Center, because we told you that a while ago.

Did you know, however, that you can reply to iMessages sent to you in that very same Notification Center? If not, read on and learn how to do so, and how to make sure that your Mac is set up correctly to allow it to happen.

Samsung Electronics has reached a deal with Apple to supply A9 processors for the iPhone 7 from 2015, The Korea Economic Daily reports. Samsung has been producing Apple’s mobile processors since the iPhone first launched in 2007, but recent rumors have claimed the Cupertino company has been looking to take its business elsewhere.

We’re expecting Apple to refresh almost all of its iOS devices this fall — including the incredibly popular iPad mini. But a new rumor claims we won’t see it equipped with a Retina display until 2014, when it’ll also get a new design with an “almost bezel-free look.”

Lenstag is hoping to give evil camera thieves second thoughts before they steal your gear. It’s a brand-new database by Google engineer Trevor Sehrer which aims to make it harder for thieves to sell their ill-gotten wares.

Bleed that rust hones peripheral of mark of apple

I Kakaru peeling layer of red rust is cracking. split.

It becomes the two works realistic that utilizes the transparent cover.

This incredible piece of poetry is not in fact a finely-honed chunk of verse, but just a clumsy machine translation from Google. Or is it? Perhaps Google’s vast and distributed computer brain has attained consciousness and turned itself into a soft, wooly-brained artist? If so, the nerds at Google are gonna be pissed.

The text above is also the description of a set of rusty cases for the iPad Mini, straight from the Bird Online Shop.

They say that the kids these days don’t listen to vinyl records, nor CDs. And apparently they don’t even use Rdio or Spotify. They use – get this – YouTube.

Which is presumably why Eltima software has made Airy, an app for downloading YouTube videos and extracting the audio to an MP3 file.

The Saidoka is both ingenious and utterly superfluous, both at the same time. It’s an iPhone dock designed to let your iPhone lay almost face-up, letting you charge it and use it when you’re sitting at your desk. It comes in 30-pin and Lightning flavors, and hooks up to a charger or computer via micro-USB.

You know what else keeps your iPhone say on your desk and facing upwards as it charges? Nothing? That is, you can put nothing under your iPhone and it’ll do the exact same thing. And neither will it cost you €50/$50.

The new A4000i electric scooter from Japan’s Terra Motors can hit 65km/h (40mph) and do 65km on a full charge (or “gallon”) of electricity. Used to travel 20km per day. The scooter will cost just $29 per year to run. That’s even less than my bike, which I fuel with a combination of delicious pizza and chocolate.

But the real reason I’m writing about the A4000i Is that it’s a giant, mobile iPhone dock.