Apple - page 3

A curious download hit Apple’s App Store this week: a messaging app called FireChat.

It’s a new kind of app because it uses an iOS feature unavailable until version 7: the Multipeer Connectivity Framework. The app was developed by the crowdsourced connectivity provider Open Garden and this is their first iOS app.

The Multipeer Connectivity Framework enables users to flexibly use WiFi and Bluetooth peer-to-peer connections to chat and share photos even without an Internet connection. Big deal, right?

But here’s the really big deal — it can enable two users to chat not only without an Internet connection, but also when they are far beyond WiFi and Bluetooth range from each other — connected with a chain of peer-to-peer users between one user and a far-away Internet connection.

It’s called wireless mesh networking. And Apple has mainstreamed it in iOS 7. It’s going to change everything. Here’s why. 

Corning — or at least a representative executive of said company — did its best this week to shatter excitement around Apple’s Sapphire embrace — or, at least, make the benefits of Apple’s glass strategy less clear.

Corning Glass senior vice president Tony Tripeny laid on the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) pretty thick during a Morgan Stanley conference this week.

Here’s what Corning doesn’t want you to know about sapphire iPhones. 

Men can be quite particular when it comes to their clothing and with so much being offered in stores, shopping can be nothing more than a headache. Luckily the app Dapper is an application that categorizes clothing for men to check out. Always learning from what you like and dislike, Dapper just may become your new shopping buddy.

Take a look at Dapper and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application Dapper brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

After turning your device on and off throughout the day it can be easy to get tired of your lock screen. While normal wallpapers can offer you a basic lock screen experience, the app FancyLock can offer so much more. Create your own personalized lock screens in seconds, thanks to tons of cool themes.

Take a look at FancyLock and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application FancyLock brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

When going into the App Store it’s inevitable to find clone applications everywhere based off of the late “Flappy Bird”. While many clones can feel exactly like the original experience, the new app Jumpy Jack has taken a new twist on the gameplay genre. Are you up for the challenge in this fast paced game?

Take a look at Jumpy Jack and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the multi-platform application Jumpy Jack brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

We use our devices everyday tapping and swiping to perform the actions we need to. Effortlessly doing these things time after time, it’s only natural for us to become quite good at doing them. In the new fast-paced app Teggle you can put your gesture skills to the test. Do you think you have what it takes to get a high score?

Take a look at Teggle and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application Teggle brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

The Telegraph newspaper brought to light this week an apparently widespread practice in China in which broken old iPhones are stripped for parts, and functioning iPhones are built with those parts.

The newspaper called it a “scam,” because the sellers of such phones often lie and say they’re new. And in fact that is a scam.

Our own Buster Heine calls them “Frankenstein iPhones,” and that’s a monstrously good name for it.

But I call the general idea of a large-scale refurb effort one of the best ways to improve the environmental impact of a dangerously irresponsible industry.

While the iOS 7 software update has brought along a total design revamp, with it has also come irritating wallpaper settings. Not being able to scale your photo to the sizes you’d like and more have been just some of the newly associated issues. The new application Wallpaper Fix claims to be the perfect fix for all of your wallpaper problems. Is Wallpaper Fix the app that will help you get your wallpapers the way you want?

Take a look at Wallpaper Fix and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application Wallpaper Fix brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

While movie streaming applications like Netflix and Hulu Plus remain popular for what they have to offer, Disney has just released their own take on the genre. Disney Movies Anywhere is Disney’s latest application, giving users the ability to access an extensive library of Disney movies on the go. With plenty of great options and features available will Disney Movies Anywhere find its way on your devices.

Take a look at Disney Movies Anywhere and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the application “Disney Movies Anywhere” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

Retro arcade gaming meets today’s latest hits in the application Hoppy Frog. Enjoy reminiscing the days of Frogger with the memories of Flappy Bird, as you progress your way up the high score charts. Will Hoppy Frog become your latest gaming addiction?

Take a look at Hoppy Frog and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the application “Hoppy Frog” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

Keeping themselves in the news, Mark Zuckerberg and the people of Facebook have just recently acquired the hit messaging app WhatsApp for 19 billion dollars. With over 450 million people already using the app each month, they hope to build upon this success. Similar to their purchasing of Instagram in 2012, will you start using WhatsApp for all of your conversations?

Take a look at WhatsApp app and see what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the multi-platform application “WhatsApp” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

A really great article published in Advertising Age this week by data specialist Kate Kaye about Apple and Amazon said (to paraphrase Breaking Bad’s Saul Goodman): “You two suck at peddling ads. Period.”

Well, that’s what Madison Avenue thinks, anyway, according to the piece. Here’s why Madison Avenue is wrong.

TV sucks.

The reason TV sucks is that the companies who control it make it suck on purpose because they believe that’s more profitable.

It’s technically possible for viewers to watch any TV show, movie or online video ever made at any time at either low or no cost.

This possibility is only theoretical. In reality, certain companies artificially prevent viewers from getting what they want. They create artificial scarcity in order to make more money.

A movie comes out in the theaters. But it’s not available for download. This non-availability has nothing to do with technical reasons. The studios are withholding it from you to make you go to the theater and pay for a ticket.

After it’s gone from theaters, there’s often some amount of time before its available online. And when it is available, you often can’t “rent” it. You can only “buy” it. It’s another form of artificial scarcity designed to trick people who are impatient, designed to exploit fandom, designed to manipulate the public into paying more for something.

And then there’s TV. Ugh! What a cesspool of customer-hating manipulation and exploitation.

There are two kinds of companies in existence. There are companies trying to make money enabling you to watch what you want when you want to watch it. And there are companies trying to make money by preventing you from watching what you want when you want to watch it.

With popular music streaming apps like Spotify and Pandora already popular and on devices all over the world, any newcomers are faced with an immediate challenge. The makers behind the popular headphones and speakers Beats By Dre are taking their crack at the genre, with their new app and service Beats Music.

Take a look at the new Beats Music app and see how it compares to the competitors.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application “Beats Music” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

While the smash-hit app Flappy Bird has been removed from the App Store, developer Dong Nguyen has still found success with a few of his other games. Consistently ranking at the top of the app charts how will Nguyen’s new game Shuriken Block rank in your interests?

Take a look at Shuriken Block and see how it compares to the hype and popularity of the late Flappy Bird.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application “Shuriken Block” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

Evidence that Apple is going big with sapphire is overwhelming. But the reasons for Apple’s sapphire obsession range from scratch-resistant screens to solar-charging screens.

I have another theory: Apple wants to eliminate both the need and the desire for an iPhone case, cover or sleeve. There’s a lot more to this idea than simple scratch resistance.

Here’s my case for Apple’s case against cases.

The Super Bowl is tomorrow, and Apple’s iBeacon will be there. The New York Times reported this week that iPhone owners in East Rutherford, New Jersey (where MetLife Stadium where the Super Bowl is) — and also in some areas of New York City — will be part of an iBeacon-based advertising gimmick. The NFL Mobile app has been iBeacon enabled, and users will get pop up messages with advertising, offers to buy merchandise and information about NFL exhibits. Here’s the best part. When iBeacon detects that you’re in a long line at the game, you’ll get an alert telling you where in the stadium you can buy the same junk food but with shorter lines. 

The use of iBeacon creates a high-visibility showcase for Apple’s new indoor location technology. But the Super Bowl is just one of many splashy applications.

Pundits (including me) have been predicting Apple’s entry into the mobile payment space — using a smartphone instead of a credit card to buy stuff in the real world — for years.

It hasn’t been a hard prediction to make. The financial rewards are enormous, and Apple has filed multiple patents around mobile payments over the years.

Now, it’s finally happening. And although Apple hasn’t really started yet, they’re already way, way ahead of just about every other player.

Don’t look now, but here comes India.

While everyone obsessed yesterday over Apple finally launching on the world’s largest carrier, China Mobile — and the Chinese market in general — smart companies are starting to focus on the smartphone market of the future: India.

The country’s 1.2 plus billion people are kinda hard to ignore. Also: India is so much more than the “other China” when you dig into the details of that smartphone market. Everything about India is an opportunity for smartphone companies and providers of mobile anything. And the major companies are each taking radically different approaches.

I think Apple’s strategy is the best one, and I’ll tell you why. 

Apple products are usually over-hyped. But there’s one that’s radically under-hyped: Apple’s iBeacon positioning system.

So I’m here to turn up the noise on this quiet revolution. You really need to know more about this, because it’s going to change everything.

Siri has a dark side. Try to send a text in a movie theater, and you might feel the life-destroying wrath of Apple’s perky AI helper.

That’s the message delivered in a new PSA-style video that’s the Alamo Drafthouse‘s latest salvo in the war on rude moviegoers. The creative clip, which will be shown ahead of screenings of Spike Jonze’s Her at the indie tastemaker’s theaters, uses the voice of Siri to send an anti-texting message.

Apple acquired today a one-man startup called SnappyLabs for an undisclosed amount.

The startup makes just one product: A 99-cent iPhone app called SnappyCam.

Apple hasn’t said why they acquired SnappyLabs, and probably won’t say. But such an acquisition would make sense as both an aqui-hire of founder and sole employee John Papandriopoulos (pictured), who has a PhD in electrical engineering, and also an IP purchase of the amazing thing that Papandriopoulos built.

Here’s what Apple bought and why it makes perfect sense that they bought it.

Apple is increasingly shipping hardware products with specific features that are crazy overkill — far more power than is necessary or even usable.

Here’s why I think that when it comes to some technology features, too much is just right.

Apple, Google and Microsoft all want to be your phone company. But with both competitors’ communication offerings in disarray, Apple has an opportunity to offer the best, most elegant and integrated communication platform.

All they have to do is keep moving in their current direction, make a couple of key rumors come true and keep Steve Jobs’ promise about FaceTime.

Car makers next year will begin selling vehicles that support Apple’s new system for connecting iPhones to the in-car entertainment systems built into the dash.

Nice, but it doesn’t go far enough. Here’s why Apple should start building the in-car entertainment systems themselves.