Following a $533 million verdict earlier this week, Apple has been sued by Smartflash, again, for claims it violates patents with devices that use iTunes software. The new lawsuit, filed by the Texas-based company on Wednesday, covers Apple’s new devices like the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPad Air 2. Read More
Apple is looking to hire a Senior Display Systems Engineer for “display systems design and development related to VR environments,” a posting on Apple’s job page revealed on Thursday. The new job posting follows several patents for virtual reality that have popped up this year. Read More
The App Recap is iDB’s daily roundup of notable news from the wonderful world of iOS software. Below you’ll find a list of discounts, updates and new releases we think are worth checking out. Today’s selections include discounts for Duet Display and other apps, and several new games. Read More
iA Writer, one of the best and most popular iPhone, iPad and Mac applications for distraction-free writing on the go, has been ported to Android and is now available for download in the Play store.
German developer Information Architects GmbH broke the news in a blog post earlier today. Like the iOS edition, iA Writer for Android is a paid download costing five bucks.
On Android, the app sports the familiar, polished interface with Focus Mode that highlights the current sentence being written. It also syncs with Dropbox and does Markdown — again, just like its iOS counterpart does. Read More
Apple today removed the beta tag from its iWork for iCloud productivity suite, which it opened up to non-Apple device owners earlier this month. Now, anyone with a modern browser and an Apple ID can utilize the web-based office apps which include Pages, Numbers and Keynote.
As seen in the above screenshot, users who don’t have an Apple ID can create one by following the “Create one now” link, regardless of whether or not they own a Mac or iOS device. All that’s required is that they give their name, email address, date of birth and pick security questions. Read More
Today, developer Tapbots has shared some updates concerning state of development of its popular iOS and Mac Twitter client, Tweetbot, and the whole software lineup for that matter.
For starters, a completely redesigned Tweetbot 2.0 for Mac with Yosemite-friendly look and feel has been in the works for quite some time now. Tweetbot 4.0 for iOS is being readied as well.
“We are going to do a better job keeping our current apps up to date with each new OS release,” they promised. In addition, the company announced closing other projects in order to focus resources on upcoming (and long overdue) updates to Tweetbot for Mac and iPad. Read More
OS X Yosemite introduced a new dark mode option to change the tint color of both the menu bar and the dock in OS X. While I’m a big fan of dark mode, some of the third-party apps that I use have not been updated to play nice with dark mode. This results in menu bar icons that look weird with dark mode enabled, because they don’t invert after toggling dark mode on.
If you’re someone who always uses dark mode and never switches to regular mode, there is a way to force these menu bar icons to look better with dark mode enabled… Read More
Apple updated its website this morning to announce that it will be providing a live video stream of its upcoming March 9th event. On a new Live page at Apple.com, the company has posted the ‘Spring Forward’ image it’s been sending out to media outlets, inviting users to join it at 10 am PDT that day for a “special event.”
We are expecting Apple to use the stage time to reveal further details about its Apple Watch, which is slated to start shipping April. Despite a huge unveiling last fall, the company has been relatively mum about upper tier pricing, battery life, and various other aspects of the device, indicating it has a lot more to talk about. Read More
Apple has started to animate certain landmarks in a three-dimensional Flyover view in Apple Maps, The Daily Mail reported Thursday. Specifically, London’s Big Ben clock and the popular London Eye now feature animated segments in Flyover.
The face of Big Ben’s clock tower is being animated to show the correct local time while London Eye’s rotates slowly when browsed in Apple Maps’ Flyover view. Read More
Apple this morning sent out press invitations for a special event, set to take place on Monday, March 9th. The Loop shared the invite (shown above), which invites attendees to ‘Spring forward,’ and says it will be held in San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
There’s no official word on what Apple will talk about during the event, but the consensus is the company will reveal further details about the Apple Watch. It’s also possible that Tim Cook and Co. could introduce rumored projects such as the 12-inch MacBook or iPad Pro. Read More
The latest indication that even with its minuscule share of smartphone units sold Apple is clobbering everyone when it comes to profits came Thursday via research firm Strategy Analytics. The research company reported that the Cupertino firm took home an astounding 88.7 percent of operating profit share in smartphones during the fourth quarter of last year.
This is no doubt the effect of strong sales of Apple’s well-received iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus handsets. Android, meanwhile, has fallen to a record-low eleven (11.3) percent. Read More
Continuing with our uber-popular weekly giveaways, this week it’s a brand new TV! Over at iDownloadBlog Deals, we’re giving away a 50″ LG TV and hey, why not throw in a sound bar speaker to complete the package? Enter for a chance to win this sweet bundle absolutely free! Read More
Apple’s focus on designing iPhone and iPad processors in-house is reportedly expanding with news that CEO Tim Cook’s visit to Israel this week is linked to efforts to increase its own chip design prowess, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Cook earlier in the week met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
He met with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and is expected to meet with former President Shimon Peres later this week. The newspaper added that Apple’ hired most of the Israeli employees of a chip-design division that Texas Instruments shut down in 2013 in Ra’anana, some 10 miles north of Tel-Aviv. Read More
Google’s Play store has paid about seven billion dollars in revenue to Android app makers over the past 12 months, the company said Thursday. By comparison, Apple paid out ten billion dollars in 2014 App Store revenue to iPhone and iPad devs.
With more than 100 billion searches every month on Google.com, the company has now kicked off a pilot program designed to inject sponsored search results into the Play store apps. Read More
Since its December 2011 debut, wireless printing software Printer Pro has never gone free, excluding a limited one-day promo last April.
That changes today as Apple’s editors have now marked the iPhone and iPad application down to $0 (regularly $6.99), listing the app its Free App of the Week in the App Store’s ongoing weekly promotion.
Created by Ukrainian developer Readdle, Printer Pro has been downloaded two million times. It’s a great app that lets you print attachments, documents, web pages and more right from your iPhone or iPad to any printer.
It automatically finds and connects to a printer on your Wi-Fi network. You can even connect to a USB printer if you install a free helper desktop app on your Mac or PC. Read More
Thanks in no small part to strong sales of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones, Apple has been able to extend its enterprise lead over Android during the fourth quarter of last year.
According to the new Mobility Index Report data (PDF download) by research firm Good Technology, iOS activations in the enterprise market jumped from 69 percent in the third quarter of last year to 73 percent during the last three months of 2014, while Android activations fell from 29 percent to 25 percent. Read More
Spotify, the world’s top music-streaming service, on Thursday announced its desktop apps will be soon getting Musixmatch-powered lyrics engine, making it easy for music lovers to access song lyrics on their Mac or Windows PCs and sing along to their favorite tracks.
Established in early 2010 by Massimo Ciociola and a group of co-founders, the startup, which has offices in Italy’s Bologna, UK’s London and US’s New York, has more than seven million lyrics in 38 languages.
In addition to Spotify integration, Musixmatch is also available as a standalone iPhone and iPad application, available at no cost in the App Store. Read More
Apple, along with other leading Western technology companies, has been taken off the list of approved tech companies for state purchases in China, Reuters reported last evening.
Apparently in response to widespread Western cyber-surveillance, companies like Apple, network equipment maker Cisco Systems and chip giant Intel have now been removed from the Central Government Procurement Center’s (CGPC) list.
The list, maintained and approved by China’s Ministry of Finance, covers regular spending by central ministries. Read More
You may recall my review of Dreeps, which is a role-playing adventure game that plays by itself, even when you don’t have it open. It works great for gamers that just don’t have time to game.
Tap Heroes is similar in that the fighting continues whether you actively participate, or simply watch the action unfold. We have a game review of Tap Heroes for you today. Read More
Traditional match-three games are usually presented on a flat screen with some kind of grid. Players usually flip tiles in order to make a match and point scores go up the more matches you make at one time.
TWIST3D is kind of not at all like that. It is a match-three game, but it is played on a rotating cube instead of a flat grid. You can’t flip tiles, but you can flip the entire cube. You earn the most points for matching tiles that have gems inside of them. Read More
