You know those big fat puzzle books you used to buy before you went on vacation? They’d be full of so many crosswords, word-searches and other mindless diversions that you could spend an entire week in a foreign country without seeing a single thing but the rough, badly-printed pages.
Now that wonderfully reclusive experience is available on the iPad, in the first game to be sold in the iOS Newsstand.
If you’ve ever searched for a wallpaper in the Google Play Store, chances are you were met by a never ending list of results. That’s because the word “Wallpaper” just happens to be the number one most frequent word in an Android app title. In fact, 26,900 Android app titles contain the word “Wallpaper” according to a list compiled by app discovery site App Brain. App Brain decided to create the list after a similar one consisting of the top most frequent words used in iOS app titles was released by Appsfire.
Mountain Lion is packed with over 200 new features, some of which you may never notice. Like did you know you can change the name of documents just by clicking its name up in the menu bar now? Or there’s tons of neat little things in the Accessibility Settings that will steal 15 minutes of your life as you play with them.
Now that you’ve had a few days to play around with Mountain Lion, what have you found that’s surprised you? Have you found any tricks and hidden features yet? If so, what are they?
Hueless, the excellent monochromatic iPhone photography app, has just launched its v1.2 update. And despite the pedestrian-sounding version number, it packs in quite a lot of new features. Let’s take a look.
Apple isn’t known for attending trade shows. Apple especially isn’t known for attending conferences that revolve around security research and the hacking community. That’s why it was a huge surprise when it was revealed that Apple would be making its first ever appearance at the Black Hat security conference this year. Dallas De Atley, Apple’s head security guru, was slated to give a talk on iOS, the company’s mobile operating system.
You’d think that De Atley’s talk would be pretty interesting, right? Unfortunately, attendees weren’t very impressed.
It’s official: Wi-Fi is the new megapixels. Or something. What’s certain is that the camera phone market has forever mixed up the regular camera world, and in order to offer some form of uploading and editing convenience for their dumb offline boxes, camera makers are adding Wi-Fi. Specifically, Wi-Fi that will connect to your iPhone or Android device.
The latest is the Fujifilm FinePix F800EXR, a compact superzoom which will cost you $380.
Okay, this probably isn’t what you were hoping for from the company that brought us titles such as Final Fantasy XIV and Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, but Square Enix’s next mobile release is none other than SolaRola. If you haven’t heard of it, don’t worry — most of us haven’t. This cute mobile puzzler platformer was actually launched on Java back in 2007, and believe it or not, happens to be among a handful of games to secure a perfect 10 score and Platinum Award from Pocket Gamer.
Best Buy is now selling the iPhone 4 — in white and black — for just $49.99 with a two-year service plan on AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint. This is one of the cheapest iPhone 4 deals we’ve seen so far, and it’s expected to last until Apple unveils the new iPhone later this year.
I’m totally against the wrapping of wires, ever since being shouted at on a movie location for over-enthusiastically coiling audio and power cables around my thumb and elbow. Apparently that’s not how it’s done by the pros, and the experience has made me wince every time I see somebody stretching their headphone cables around their iPod.
Still, I’m clearly in the (superior) minority, and the The Wrap proves it. It’s a plastic 3-D printed widget which wrangles your cable into order.
80 million Instagram users are no longer able to find their friends on Twitter after the micro-blogging site killed the required API. The app’s “Find Friends” feature now presents an error when attempting to connect to Twitter, though the “Tweet Photo” function is still available.
Total Recall, the official game for the upcoming science-fiction thriller, is now available on Android and iOS. It’s a fast-paced first-person shooter that follow’s the movie’s storyline across eight missions, promising a wide variety of weapons for “non-stop, adrenaline-pumping action.”
Replug is a gadget that could – if it had existed a few years ago – would have saved me a fortune; literally hundreds of dollars. It is a simple and excellent idea: a magsafe connector for your headphones, only without the magnets.
Are you wondering why I said anachronistic? Well, seriously, the old-school world of fake leather and book bindings is goofy enough when it’s a real world item (unless it’s the sweet BookBook case for your iPhone…drool), but the skeumorphic leather and book bindings in newly-named Calendar and same-old-name Contacts apps in OS X Mountain Lion are ridiculous. I haven’t used a paper calendar or address book in years, even in the days before the iPhone. I know – gasp – there was life before iPhones.
Here’s an app that will remove this fugly visual choice – then you can forever thank us for helping you use your digital world just a bit more, erm, digitally.
Whenever Apple moves to purchase a company, you know they’ve got something up their sleeves, and it’s not hard to imagine the possibilities of their latest acquisition: maker of fingerprint sensor chips, AuthenTec.
Remember that concept we showed earlier this month you for an awesome email app called .Mail? We pleaded with creator Tobias van Schneider to turn his idea it into a reality, and it looks like he listened, because .Mail is coming to your Mac. And you can sign up now to be the first to know when it drops.
BioWare’s 1998 classic role-playing game Baldur’s Gate is being rebuilt for Mac, PC, and iPad. It will be an enhanced version that incorporates both the original Baldur’s Gate and the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion — with the same classes, races, and plot points — as well as new content and features we’ve never seen before. The title is being developed by Overhaul Games, which just announced a September 18 release date.
Four new cities were treated to some AT&T 4G LTE goodness today, while other experienced increased coverage. Every carrier, other than Verizon, appears to enjoy switching on four markets at a time. Still, those living in the following cities will now feel better about being included in the world of 4G LTE:
During the period of April 2010 and March 2012, gross margins on iPhone sales in the US ran 49 to 58 percent. Gross margins on iPad sales during the same period were much lower, according to a court filing in the Samsung vs Apple patent dispute that begins in earnest on Monday, scheduled to take place in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, called Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 11-1846.
The filing was unveiled today in a statement by an Apple expert witness, though Apple has declined to comment on the filing itself.
US District Judge George Daniels denied Apple’s proposal to move the patent dispute with Eastman Kodak Company out of bankruptcy court and into his own District Court today. If Apple had been granted the proposal, it could have been tough going for Kodak’s plans to actually sell the technology.
Today, a London court granted Apple’s proposal to postpone a controversial order given earlier this month that Apple must post a public notice on Apple UK website as well as several British newspapers. The reprieve will remain in effect until October, when Apple will have a chance to appeal the decision in a British courtroom.
To go along with the recent images of the original iPhone 4 prototype we reported on today, The Verge uncovered a trove of early iPad and iPhone prototype images from the Samsung vs Apple legal documents. At one point Apple was seriously considering an integrated kickstand for the iPad, kind of like the Microsoft Surface.
As far as the iPhone goes, there’s a few ugly prototypes with awkward corners, elongated screens, and bulky cases that look similar to the Lumia 900. It’s interesting to see how much refinement Apple’s design team does on a single idea. Most of the prototypes are a little rough to start out with but as time progresses Apple really nails the simplicity of the device. Check it out:
In the picture above you can see two iPhone prototypes that Apple was working on way back in 2006. They provide an amazing glimpse of just how long the prototyping phases of iPhones can last, because the original iPhone didn’t come out till June 2007, and then the iPhone 4 wasn’t seen till 2010.
The prototype images come from court filings in the Samsung vs Apple legal proceedings where Samsung plans to argue that Apple ripped off Sony’s design as inspiration for the iPhone. In fact, a few of the renders for the iPhone 4 like device have the Sony logo on them as you can see below:
I hate it when people at the office hog the printer with their 5,327 page T.P.S reports. You probably do too. Just make sure not to post a memo stating “PLEASE DO NOT PRINT LARGE JOBS” because someone might think you meant “Jobs” instead of “jobs”, and this whole thing will happen.
If you’re a fan of the Bluth Family and have been eagerly anticipating the return of their adventures you probably already know that after a seven year hiatus, Arrested Development is coming back on the air next year for a fourth season thanks to a streaming partnership with Netflix.
But hey, Franklin, guess what? The fourth season is already being written, and here’s the first episode script being read on narrator and executive producer Ron Howard’s iPad to prove it, who says it’s “very funny” and has “lots of lines for the narrator.”
Okay, there’s not much else here, but if you’re a fan of Arrested Development, just seeing a page from the script is enough to get you pumped. Either way, it sure beats Losing It! or Armageddon II: Armageddon, films that Maeby Funke produced after “conning” her way into a job as a prominent Hollywood executive.