This cute little iPhone 5 case comes from Poketo, and not only coddles the iPhone within but also packs slots for your cash and cards. The twist here is that the cards sit safely on the inside instead of in a set of rear-cut slots on the back, and the whole thing snaps shut with a clicky clasp.
WordEver is neat new iPad text editor with a big gimmick: the keyboard. Instead of using Apple’s built-in keyboard,it has a custom version which is both good and bad. Good, because it brings some geniunely useful features to the iPad. Bad, because it can be hard to type and lacks auto-correct, which is why the original version of this first paragraph was so bad.
It’s a bit of a challenge to describe Spreecast in a nutshell — hence the clumsy headline.
Watching the service is sort of like eavesdropping on a videochat between a small group of people; only you can also interact with other viewers, and the videochatters (I hereby coin this word) themselves, through live (text) comments. Spreecast has been used by a bunch of big organizations and famous people — a few standout examples include Reese Witherspoon, The Wall Street Journal, VH1 — to broadcast conversations and interviews. Of course, peons like me (or you) can also use Spreecast to broadcast our own chatter.
Spreecast is old news, since it’s been around since late 2011; but now it’s available as an iPhone app.
Previously teased as an untitled Mystery Game, Anomaly 2 is releasing in just a couple of weeks. Coming May 15th for Mac (and PC, Linux), this real time strategy/tower offense game is the sequel to the 11 Bit Studios’ previous efforts, Anomaly: Warzone Earth and Anomaly Korea, both originally made for iOS.
If you pre-order now, you’ll get two copies of the game, one for you and one for a friend, for $13.49, which is 10 percent off the final retail price of $14.99. You can grab this special deal at Steam or the official Anomaly 2 game site. However, before you head off to Steam, the devs promise an extra gift come launch day if you order directly from them. So, there’s that.
Consumer Reports, the popular magazine and website for figuring out what consumers think about all sorts of products and services, just published its annual reader survey on computer tech support.
Apple not only claimed the top spot in the list this year, beating out all other computer manufacturers, it got an even better score than it did in last year’s survey.
Jay Freeman, the creator of Cydia, at JailbreakCon last year.
JailbreakCon, the only convention dedicated solely to the iOS jailbreak community, took place last summer in San Francisco, California. We brought you on-the-ground reporting from the convention floor, including profiles of people like pod2g, the luckiest jailbreak hacker in the world.
Now JailbreakCon is coming to New York City on August 23rd-24th.
Last week, Apple announced its plans to return $100 billion in stock to investors over the next few years. The increase more than doubled Apple’s original capital return program of $45 billion. Quarterly dividend payments also increased 15%, or $3.05 per common share.
Apple may have a huge cash pile, but even the world’s most valuable company will have to go into debt to finance a return program of this size. It’s the first time Apple has borrowed since 1996.
Donald Trump thinks Apple should increase the iPhone’s screen size… or else. The real estate tycoon talked about how much he wants a larger iPhone on his Facebook page today. If Apple doesn’t wise up and release a phablet, The Trump says the company will “lose a lot of business.”
As the CEO of Square, and co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey has quickly become one of Silicon Valley’s most admired CEOs. His Square payment system is quickly changing the way consumers buy things, and it’s making businesses and consumers interact on a more personal level.
Square’s goal is to make payments quicker and easier for both business and consumers, so the company has an intense interest in wearable tech. When asked in a recent interview whether he thinks Google Glass is an interesting product, Dorsey answered that he doesn’t see much value in Google Glass right now, but he’s intrigued by devices that wrap around the wrist – like Apple’s rumored iWatch – because they feel more natural.
When asked whether he’s looked into Google Glass, Dorsey had the following to say:
Working at the Apple Store has its benefits. You get sweet discounts on Macs and iPhones. You get to talk about Apple products all day. And you get an endless supply of cool Apple t-shirts.
A Genius Bar employee posted the photo above of all the t-shirt’s he’s received while working for the Apple Store at the Westchester Mall in New York. There’s 45 t-shirts total, though Apple’s had many more that aren’t pictured. Which one has been your favorite?
With all the sites we visit on a daily basis on our iPhones and iPads, we are capturing and storing where we visit in the background of every web page we see. You may want to clear your browsing history or other stored web data from your iPhone from time to time, if you’re of a security or privacy turn of mind.
Not only is your iPad the greatest time-killer of all-time, but while you’re busy playing games, writing emails, taking pictures, and tweeting, you’re also creating some abstract artwork with each tap and swipe.
Artists Andre Woolery and Victor AbiJaoudi noticed that each iPad app reveals a different pattern of swipes and taps that form a unique piece of artwork. In their collaboration series called Invisible Hieroglyphics, the duo highlight all of the hidden masterpieces you never knew you were making, by tracking the gestures and swipes on the iPad screen and translating them into artwork on acrylic glass you can hang on your wall.
Here’s a look at some of the invisible paintings you create everyday:
Sometimes, a product can really sneak into your heart. Such was the HEX Drake Origin backpack, which I gave a positive review.
Cabana Laptop Duffel by HEX Category: Laptop bag Works With: Up to 15-inch laptops Price: $100
Although I loved it from the first for being a backpack that a fashionably-inclined, full-grown man could wear without looking like a slobbering, buffoonish manchild — no mean feat — the Drake Origin has become even fonder to me in the months since, until I found that I was more inclined to hoist it up onto my shoulder as I left the house than I was some of my other cherished messenger and satchel bags.
What I loved about the HEX Drake Origin wasn’t just its incredibly solid stitching and construction, but the way it made me feel when I picked it up, I felt as if I suddenly went back in time, and becamed a dandyish Oxford student in the 1910s lugging a tweed backpack full of natural philosophy texts across a blustery, autumn-strewn quad. This may seem precious, and is in fact precious, but the way we all look at fashion is through the romanticized lens of nostalgia. Fashion is a way we tell other people a story about ourselves, and I liked the story I thought the HEX Drake Origins told about me.
I don’t feel the same way about the HEX Cabana Laptop Duffel, but it’s not really the bag’s fault. If the Drake turned me into an Oxford student from a hundred years ago, the Cabana Laptop Duffel turns me into that Oxford student’s girlfriend on a day out at the beach. It’s a very feminine bag that I love, but perhaps not the right bag for me.
iPhone theft has become a hugeproblem. Mayor Bloomberg says if it weren’t for Apple’s shiny devices getting stolen so frequently, crime in NYC would have gone down slightly in 2012.
Despite the best efforts of the boys in blue, catching iPhone thieves is hard work. Police really haven’t gotten too much better at it, so they’re changing their target. To get iPhone thieves off the streets, cops in San Francisco are trying a new tactic: rather than waiting around on subways trying to catch thieves in the act of stealing iPhones, The Fuzz has started trapping the buyers of stolen iPhones.
Carriers have made a killing over the last decade by charging customers absurd rates on SMS texting plans, but the times are quickly changing.
To avoid SMS fees, smartphone users have embraced free chat app messaging via apps like iMessage, WhatsApp, and Kik. As a result, SMS is starting to die a slow, and hopefully painful death, because free app messaging has officially overtake SMS as the most popular way to text message on a smartphone.
I am not a psychic, but I have a good idea where you and your iPhone parted ways.
If you’re desperately seeking it on Craigslist, chances are you lost your device – or had it stolen – over the weekend, especially at night. And probably at some fun destination – shopping, the beach, a bar – or heading there on your usual means of transportation (the car, a gas station or parking lot, or bus).
We’ve always thought that Apple’s rumored iWatch probably won’t have the ability to enter text, but maybe we’re wrong. Maybe Apple will use software similar to this ZoomBoard concept that lets you zoom in on a keyboard, tap the letter you want, zoom back out, and then find new characters.
Users who have tested the prototype were able to type about 10 words per minute with it, which is pretty slow compared to average speeds on a real keyboard, but maybe it could be used on a limited basis. We don’t think anyone will ever want to type an email on their iWatch, but what if you want to send a quick reply to a friend without pulling out your iPhone to type it up? This could be the answer.
It looks like Microsoft has been taking a sneaky peek at Samsung’s guide to marketing. Rather than touting new features or specifications in its latest Windows Phone commercial, the company has taken to bashing the competition instead.
The minute-long clip sees Apple face off against Samsung during a massive wedding brawl as the two companies trade insults over smartphones.
Google promised us it was coming, and after a lengthy Google Now today makes its debut on iOS. It’s available as part of an update to the Google Search app, and it’s exactly what users on Android have been enjoying for the past year.
The iPad has earned first place in the J.D. Power and Associates customer satisfaction survey for the second year in a row, just a month after Apple’s iPhone secured the award for the ninth time. The popular slate scored 836 out of a possible 1,000 points having been rated on performance, ease of operation, styling and design, features, and cost.
Apple’s not expected to show much at WWDC that isn’t software. Tim Cook himself pretty much precluded seeing any major updates to Apple’s hardware line until fall. That doesn’t mean, however, that Apple won’t bump the specs of some existing Mac models, and it’s now expected by one of Apple’s more reliable activists that Cupertino will do just that, unveiling upgraded MacBooks across the line at the beginning of June.
One of the best apps to have in the toolkit of the privacy minded, developer Objective Development has just unveiled Little Snitch 3.1, their app that prevents other Mac programs from ‘phoning home’ under certain conditions.
One of the changes in iTunes 11, which debuted in November of last year, was the loss of a “find all duplicates” feature that was really handy for finding and deleting duplicate files in our rather voluminous iTunes libraries. Luckily, Apple re-included the feature in the latest version of iTunes 11, version 11.0.1. Here’s where to find it, and how to use it to help yourself clean up that iTunes library.
Japanese telecom provider KDDI’s mobile branch is planning to kick off its iPhone 5S pre-orders on June 20 ahead of a launch in July, according to an internal document that has been making its way around the web. The carrier expects the device to offer a 13-megapixel camera as well as Apple’s latest iOS 7 operating system.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a note to investors in which he says the second-generation iPad mini with Retina display won’t enter mass production until October due to yield issues with the new high-resolution display. If true, the problem could make a fall launch for the device very unlikely.