Wall Street has spent most of the last six months hyperventilating about the future of Apple, chomping at their fingernails and openly wondering if Apple is taking too long to innovate in the post-Jobs era.
Over at the Apple Gazette, Robin Parrish has put together a simple graphic, showing Apple’s historic product pillars. Essentially, if you add it all up, the average time between major product pillars for Apple is three years and ten months.
Have you ever written this in a forum, addressed to a software developer: “I have $50 here which I’ll totally give you if you make this app”? No, of course not, because that would make you a thoughtless individual — we all know that software costs way more than that to develop.
Take NumLock, for example. It’s exactly the kind of app that forum-begging is made for. It turns back on the num-lock that Apple removed from its keyboards for seemingly no reason other than the aesthetic. How much would you promise a developer that you’d “totally pay” for an app to re-enable the number keypad? Well, now you can put that money where your, uh, keyboard is, and pitch in to DenVog’s cheap-as-chips Kickstarter campaign.
Do you use icon view in the Finder? Do you often find yourself double clicking folders and using Get Info commands to find out more about the files in your Finder windows? Well, it turns out there’s a View Option which will add a little bit of information to any item in a Finder window, provided you’re in icon view.
Here’s how to enable it.
Samsung has today lost its High Court battle against Apple in the United Kingdom after a judge deemed that the patents the Korean company was using in its case should have never been granted.
Apple has now fended off 24 patent-infringement claims from Samsung, and Samsung’s bid to secure a 2.4% royalty on every 3G-equipped device the Cupertino company sells is looking increasingly unlikely.
Rovio’s original Angry Birds game for iOS has today been updated with 15 new Bad Piggies levels, and is now available for free for the first time ever on both iPhone and iPad. The incredibly popular title was first introduced to the iPhone back in December 2009, and it’s been priced at $0.99 ever since.
But if you’re not one of the many millions who have already downloaded it, now is the perfect time to grab it.
Flexibits’ fantastic calendar app Fantastical has reached v1.1. In numerical terms, this is just the addition of 0.1 to the original 1.0. But in terms of app goodness, it’s much more hugerer.
Nokia has sided with Apple in an effort to help the Cupertino company in its fight against Samsung. The Finnish firm filed an amicus brief on behalf of Apple in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Monday, asking the court to permit permanent injunctions on the sale of Samsung smartphones that were found guilty of infringing Apple’s patents.
There’s no shortage of weather apps in the App Store. Every week it seems like a new weather app is enticing us with beautiful graphics and a unique design aesthetic.
While the apps are plentiful, there hasn’t been any mobile-oriented hardware related to checking the weather. It’s an untapped market many haven’t given much thought to. In the age of the iPhone, what value does a traditional thermometer even have?
Robocat has already put out some great iOS weather apps, and now it’s launching a Kickstarter campaign for Thermodo, a physical thermometer which integrates with the iPhone.
Wish you could access your computer located a thousand miles away?
Now you can.
Jump Desktop is your solution to staying connected to all of your devices while your out on the road, in a plane, or simply down the street. And you can get it simply – and inexpensively – right here courtesy of Cult of Mac Deals for 50% off the regular price: only $15!
Our Killian Bell tossed around words like “terrific” and “impressive” when he reviewed the Nuu MiniKey for the iPhone 4/S two years ago. Now, the little backlit Bluetooth keyboard-case has almost arrived (it drops March 15) for the iPhone 5, with a whole slew of improvements.
Leading mobile comics app developer, Comixology, has finally opened up the program they teased last fall: Comixology Submit, a new publishing idea that may help independent comics creators find their audience.
Basically, it allows comics creators the ability to submit their comics to the program and potentially be distributed on one of the biggest platforms for digital comics today, right next to the likes of Spiderman, Superman, and other professionally produced books. Users on iOS, Android, Windows 8, and the web can then find and download these indie gems, and creators split the profits down the middle with Comixology.
Infinite Dreams has come a long way since we first discovered their virtual-pottery app, Let’s Create Pottery HD, at the App Store in 2010. They’ve since created a smash-hit tower defense game, and unveiled the first touchscreen coin-slot arcade console based off an iOS game.
Now, with the help of 3D printing, they’re turning virtual pottery into the real thing.
Social media iOS app, Path, updated today to version 3.0.1, adding some new features to the purported all-in-one personal social network’s iOS app. The update adds private messaging along with photo filters and stickers designed by a small group of indie artists for the app.
The sequel to classic puzzler/adventure game, The 7th Guest, is currently in development for iOS, Mac, Android, and Windows PC, according to Polygon, who spoke with Trilobyte Games’ co-founder, Charlie McHenry, today. The game should feature the atmospheric horror and clever puzzles that the series, which includes The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour, is known for. The 7th Guest 3 will be set in the Stauf Mansion, as well, and should be in real-time 3D, instead of that pre-rendered stuff of the past. Whew.
Adding photos and videos to a conversation in the iOS Messages app isn’t as streamlined as it could be. You have to tap the little camera icon, then tap whether you want to take a new photo or select one from your Camera Roll. It’s functional, but not optimal.
Let’s take a look at two jailbreak tweaks that help streamline the process of adding photos to messages.
Did you know that Chipotle had an iPhone app? Well it does, and that app allows you to order from your iPhone and skip the line when you arrive to inhale your burrito goodness. It’s a beautiful idea, but the app itself has not been so beautiful for the past few years. Today Chipotle updated its app with iPhone 5 support, the ability to select brown rice, and so, so much more.
As of January 26th, it is now illegal for you to unlock your smartphone if you want to use it on another network. Carrier unlocking has been legal in the U.S. for years, but in October the Library of Congress ruled that unauthorized unlocking is a crime.
The Obama Administration has already voiced its opinion that citizens should be allowed to unlock their smartphones without risking criminal penalties, and a senator from Oregon just introduced a bill that would making unlocking legal again.
If you’re using Twitter on your iPhone instead of a third-party client like Twitteriffic or Tweetbot, version 5.4 has just rolled off the App Store updates pipeline, bringing better search, better conversation views and more. But it also yanks some features, including the ability to upload from Mobypicture, Vodpod and Posterous.
Do you present a lot? Maybe PowerPoint or Keynote presentations in front of lots of busy professionals? Have you ever had that nightmare where you get to your hotel and realize that you forgot to make the presentation you give the next morning? Yeah, me neither.
However, if I did wake up to that horrifying reality, I’d grab Stitch, an iPhone app that lets you make video presentations using your own pictures and text in minutes, right from your iPhone. Here’s how.
Last year, Apple launched its Labor and Human Rights page to give some transparency to the human rights controversy’s it’s been having with supply chain workers. Along with numerous explanations on what Apple is doing to make sure its supply chain workers are treated fairly, the company releases the percentage of supplier work-hour compliance every month.
For the first time since Apple started tracking its supplier work-hour compliance metric, they just hit 99% compliance in January 2013.
You know those black balls in the kid’s section of the Apple Store? Yeah, you probably shouldn’t sit on them: underneath the fabric exterior, they are essentially gigantic sponges soaked with the pee of a thousand children with such weak bladder control that they just hose off when they get excited, even in the Apple Store.
Don’t believe me? Here’s a picture of one black ball Apple was getting rid of after a bunch of kids had whizzed all over it. As the former Apple employee and Redditor who posted it says: “Just one of the nasty little “ewwws” lurking in arguable the coolest retail environments around.”
Source: Reddit
The Beamhaus Pocket is a premium leather sleeve for the iPhone 5 that’s “inspired by old baseball mitts, broken-in leather jackets, and long-loved boots.” It’s made from hand-selected leather from the Horween Leather Company, the oldest tannery in the United States, and it’s built to provide your iPhone with complete protection from everyday scratches and scrapes.
On the front of the Pocket, there’s a little pouch that’ll hold up to three credit cards — according to Beamhaus — plus a large cutout at the bottom that allows you to access your Lightning connector and hear your speaker. The Pocket is also lined with suede, which aims to prevent your shiny iPhone 5 from getting damaged as you slip it in and out of the case.
The Pocket is available in black and tan, and it’s priced at $59.99. Read on to find out whether it’s worth it.
Miguel de Icaza isn’t a casual PC user. He’s a life-long Linux user whose main claim to fame is the creation of GNOME, a completely free desktop environment for Linux and other Unix operating systems.
But de Icaza no longer bothers with Linux. He’s abandoned the platform for a Mac.
Use Evernote on iOS? Wish it had proper saved searches? Or note links? Wish it was a little faster to browse and find what you’re looking for? Then you might want to take a look at the rather excellent Clever HD for iPad, a full-featured Evernote client which could even replace the official app on your iDevice.
In the competition between iOS and Android, Google’s Android operating system has been growing in the U.S. much faster than iOS until now. For the first time, Android actually lost some of its U.S. marketshare in 2013 while iOS gained a few points.
comScore just released its report on the U.S. smartphone market and had some very encouraging news for Apple. While most other manufacturers are slumping, Apple is increasing its lead on Samsung, HTC, Motorola and LG in the U.S.