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Latest iOS 6 Beta Makes App Store Updates Super Snappy

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App updates appear to be a little snappier in the latest iOS 6 beta.
App updates appear to be snappier in the latest iOS 6 beta.

While Apple’s latest iOS 6 beta didn’t make any significant changes to the platform’s front-end — aside from removing the YouTube app — it did make some changes under the hood. In addition to “bug fixes,” it appears the fourth beta has made some improvements to App Store download times that make updating your apps super snappy.

Panasonic’s New Rugged SD Cards Will Commit Suicide To Save Your Photos

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Go on without me... Save yourself... I'm just holding you back...

Panasonic’s new ruggedized SD cards are neat and all, protecting your precious photos from water, weather, impacts and even super-strong magnets (like the one used by Wil E. Coyote to try to catch the Road Runner) and X-rays. But, like Steve Rogers throwing himself upon a grenade in the Captain America movie, it will also sacrifice itself in order to save your data.

iOS 6 Allows Apps To Use ‘Wi-Fi Plus Cellular’ Connections

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Finally!
Finally!

Have you ever watched your iPhone attempt to load a webpage with a poor Wi-Fi connection, and wondered why it doesn’t just switch to 3G automatically? In currently iOS releases, your device can’t do that. If you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network, it will only use the Wi-Fi network. But iOS 6 changes that. You’ll soon be able to use “Wi-Fi Plus Cellular” connections, which allows apps to switch to a cellular data connection automatically when Wi-Fi is poor.

AT&T’s New Shared Data Plans Will Be Available On August 23rd

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AT&T announced last month that it would be launching shared plans for pooling monthly data allotments between up to 10 devices per account. Instead of paying for a separate data plan for each smartphone, subscribers would be able to use a 1-20GB shared plan across multiple devices, including tablets and desktop computers. Verizon announced a similar strategy in June.

Today AT&T has confirmed that its shared data plans will be available to new and existing subscribers on Thursday, August 23rd.

Yet Another Financial Analysis Shows That iPad Rules The Tablet Space

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iPhone and iPad continued to grow, the Mac outpaced the PC industry for a 25th quarter - just a couple of facts from Apple's latest financial call.
Yeah, we'll just keep making these, ok?

The International Data Corporation (IDC) released preliminary data yesterday from its Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet Tracker. The study shows that total worldwide tablet shipments for the second quarter of 2012 are estimated at 25 million units, which is up from 18.7 last quarter. That’s a quarter-over-quarter increase of 33.6 percent, says the data analysis company, reflecting the total year-over-year growth rate of 66.2 percent of retail tablets in the US.

Guess which tablet is the largest part of those numbers?

Carriers Charging For FaceTime Over 3G? Listen To Us Nerd-Rage On Our All-New CultCast

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We’ve had it with wireless providers charging us more money for less data and fewer features, and on our brand new CultCast, we’ll tell you why the prospect of carriers charging for FaceTime over 3G makes us mad as hell!

And then, Faves and Raves! The fun and poorly-named segment where we pitch our favorite apps and gear then vote on which is best.

Don’t miss a very fun new episode of The CultCast. Subscribe now on iTunes, or get all techie like the Dark Knight and stream new episodes right on your iPhone or iPad with Apple’s new Podcasts App.

Show notes below!

19% Of iOS Apps Access Your Address Book Without Your Permission… Until iOS 6 [Report]

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Do you know which apps are accessing your personal data?
Do you know which apps are accessing your personal data?

Antivirus software specialist Bitdefender has found that nearly 19% of iOS apps access your address book without your knowledge — or your consent — when you’re using them, and 41% track your location. What’s most concerning is over 40% of them don’t encrypt your data once it has been collected.

That’s all going to change when iOS 6 makes its debut later this year, however.

The iPhone Comes To Virgin Mobile, And Here’s Why You Should Be Its Next Customer

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The iPhone just got a lot cheaper thanks to Virgin Mobile.

Following the iPhone’s prepaid debut on Cricket Wireless just a week ago, Apple’s hugely popular smartphone is now available on Virgin Mobile. Like Cricket, Virgin is offering the handset on a prepaid basis, with prices starting at as little as $31 per month on the company’s Beyond Talk plan — which includes unlimited data, and unlimited texts.

Take advantage of the company’s offer and you could save yourself around $800 a year.

Never Worry About Your Data Limit Again With DataMan Pro for iPad [Review]

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Having the ability to connect to the ‘net over a cellular network from almost anywhere is a huge asset, and one of the best things abput the iPad (if you have the 3G/4G version — which you should). But there’s nothing like the shock of suddenly discovering a $300 bill for data overage to make one extremely skittish about ever using data again — which completely ruins the whole point of getting a 4G iPad in the first place (unless, of course, you just bought it for the GPS receiver).

To banish this evil conundrum, you’ll need DataMan Pro for iPad ($4), an app that watches your data usage like a hawk and alerts you when you’re gobbling data too quickly. It’ll even tell you which apps are the most data hungry.

SignalRefresh Promises To Boost Your iPhone’s Weak Network Signal [Jailbreak]

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If the next iPhone has LTE, Sprint still wants to offer you an unlimited plan.
Full signal a rare sight on your iPhone? Try SignalRefresh.

Struggling to get a decent signal on your iPhone? If you’ve jailbroken your handset with the latest Absinthe 2.0 release, then you may be in luck. SignalRefresh is a new, $0.99 iPhone tweak that promises to boost your signal strength to give you “the strongest possible voice/data signal at your current location.”

Want To Know Which iOS Apps Are Accessing Your Personal Data? Clueful Tells You Everything

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Clueful helped identify
Clueful promises to identify "misdemeanant apps on your iPhone."

There has recently been a lot of concern into the way in which our iOS apps access our personal data, and then what they do with it once it has been collected. Since the whole Path debacle in particular, users seem to be more concerned by the issue than ever before.

BitDefender is one security firm looking to capitalize upon that concern with a new app called Clueful, which promises reveal what each of your apps is doing with your data and identify the “misdemeanant apps on your iPhone.”

AT&T CEO: Family Data Sharing Plans Coming Soon

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Your iPad and iPhone might soon share the same data allowance.
Your iPad and iPhone might soon share the same data allowance.

Would you like to share your monthly data allotment between you and your partner, or your iPhone and your iPad? AT&T and Verizon have been hemming and hawing about shared data plans since 2011, but recent comments by Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T’s mobile business, seemingly indicate that for Ma Bell’s customers, shared data plans may be coming very soon indeed.

Environmental Protestors Block Trains Full Of Coal Meant To Power Apple’s iCloud Data Center

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Environmental protesters in 2012 block coal trains meant to power Apple's Maiden, NC data facility.
Environmental protesters block coal trains meant to power Apple's Maiden, NC data facility.

Greenpeace likes to target Apple every year or so to keep them environmentally honest, and lately, the environmental access group has been going after Apple’s giant data supercenter in Maiden, North Carolina, claiming that it helps make iCloud one of the dirtiest things on the planet.

What Greenpeace is upset about is how much of the data center’s power comes from non-renewable resources, particularly coal. And they don’t think that Apple’s going far enough with its plans for solar energy plans.

Now the protests are getting real, with seven Greenpeace activists blocking train tracks used by Duke Energy and Apple use to ship coal.

New iPad Requires Reboot To Connect To 3G Networks

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The new iPad drops its data connection after it connects to Wi-Fi
The new iPad drops its data connection after it connects to Wi-Fi

[UPDATE: See the end of the post for a possible solution, which works for some people.]

Many iPad 3 users are experiencing a bug which kills their 3G connection every time they connect to a Wi-Fi network. The cellular connection looks normal, with the carrier name, the 3G logo and reception bars, but when you try to do anything that requires a connection, it either times out or throws the error messages “Could not activate cellular data network.”

I am having the exact same problem, and here’s what’s happening.

Data Usage Monitor Ensures That You Will Never Exceed Your iPhone’s Data Limit Again [Jailbreak]

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What happened to the time?
What happened to the time?

Have you ever wished that there was an easier way to check your data usage on the iPhone? For those of us that aren’t lucky enough to have a grandfathered unlimited plan, bits are precious. It can be too easy to blow through a 1GB data plan in a month’s time.

If your iPhone is jailbroken, you have access to a great tweak called Data Usage Monitor. Once installed, your usage will be shown unobtrusively in your iPhone’s status bar. The beauty is that it will only appear whenever you are using data.

Ubisoft’s Future iOS Games Will Allow You To Sync Your Progress Across Different Devices Via The Cloud

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Ubisoft's new cloud-based syncing system means you'll no longer have to complete the same levels on multiple devices.
Ubisoft's new cloud-based syncing system means you'll no longer have to complete the same levels on multiple devices.

Ubisoft has confirmed that its future iOS games will store your save data in the cloud, allowing you to sync your progress across multiple devices. That means you can beat missions and levels on your iPhone in your lunch break, then continue your game right where you left off on your iPad when you get home.

It’s a feature that almost every game — especially those build for both the iPhone and the iPad — should not be without.

Apple Offers Refunds To 4G iPad Owners In Australia Who Were ‘Misled’ By Its Advertising

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The new iPad may feature a 4G chip, but it's not compatible with all 4G networks.
The new iPad may have 4G connectivity, but it doesn't support all 4G networks.

Following yesterday’s report that revealed Australian regulators are preparing to sue Apple over its “misleading” advertising for the new iPad down under, the Cupertino company has begun offering refunds to those customers who feel they’ve been misled.

AT&T Clarifies Data Throttling, Numbers Are Surprising

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No one likes to be throttled — just ask Shep Smith — so when AT&T started sending throttling warnings to “unlimited” customers they considered to be the “Top 5%” data hogs, outrage and confusion ensued. After multiple complaints and an online petition, AT&T was forced to clarify their throttling policy and what it means to be in the “Top 5%.”

Google’s New Privacy Policy Went Into Effect Today, Why There’s No Need To Panic

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In case you haven’t heard, Google made a few changes to their privacy policy that has some people up in arms. No matter who you are, or what OS you use, chances are you use a Google product, so this news is concerning. Now we say Google made changes but the reality of it is, Google didn’t really change much of anything. They haven’t changed what data they collect or any of your privacy settings. Everything remains the way it has always been, aside from the fact that they can now share your data across their own services. That means if you’ve been searching luxury cars on Google and head into Youtube, you’ll probably see video suggestions for Mercedes-Benz. To me, it’s more personalization rather than a cause for concern.

How To Check Your iPhone’s Data Usage From The iOS 5 Notification Center [Jailbreak]

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A really nifty jailbreak widget for iOS 5’s Notification Center is now available in Cydia. WeeTrackData lets you quickly check your iPhone’s data usage from Notification Center, and you can set a monthly limit to make sure you don’t exceed your allowance.

While most Notification Center widgets seem to be rather trivial functionality-wise, WeeTrackData is one of the first jailbreak widgets with some real practicality.