For those of you wondering if Apple still has a strong cult following, here you go: a new survey from Goldman Sachs finds that 21% of iOS users wouldn’t switch to another platform, for any price.
The securities firm recently surveyed over 1000 smartphone users, in an effort to better understand the costs that consumers face when switching ecosystems. And this is what they found… Read More
A few minutes ago John Gruber tweeted about the lack of bookmarklet support in Chrome for iOS. I responded to him stating that support is indeed there, it just wasn’t as straightforward as it is on Safari.
To tell the truth, I too thought that bookmarklets, or the lack thereof, was simply a medium sized oversight made by Google; after all, such things are instrumental when it comes to using tools like LastPass, Instapaper, etc.
After some tinkering around, however, I was able to confirm that bookmarklet support is indeed included in the version of Chrome that shipped a few days ago. In fact, using them is a fairly straightforward exercise. Check inside for the full how-to… Read More
Late last night I had the privilege of posting our 1,000th YouTube video. I’ve been creating videos for iDownloadBlog for almost two years now, and it’s been an insanely rewarding and invigorating journey.
Oddly enough, doing video walkthroughs started off as just a test, something to spice things up every now and then at most. I never had the intentions of doing this to any great degree, let alone full time. To tell the truth, it was your kind feedback and helpful suggestions that made me want to keep going.
Of course, we started off small in our endeavors. In fact, some of the earliest creations were downright terrible in my opinion, both from a image quality and sound perpective. Despite these early hiccups, you, the viewers, have stuck with us from the beginning until now, and for that we want to thank you.
To celebrate video number 1,000, I’ve put together a special montage of some of my favorite moments from the last year and a half. Granted, this represents only a smidgen of what I’d like to share, but due to time I had to be realistic and limit the amount of content included.
What’s been your favorite video moment thus far? We invite you inside to watch and to share your thoughts… Read More
Earlier in the day we covered BrowserChooser, a jailbreak tweak developed by Ryan Petrich, which allows you to assign Google Chrome as your default web browser.
It’s a great tweak, and works exactly as expected; it was even recently updated with a few new additions such as the ability to have a dialogue to select your browser of choice when opening a link, and the ability to make the dialogue sheets say “Open with Chrome” instead of “Open with Safari”.
One thing BrowserChooser doesn’t do, however, (at least for the time being that is) is allow you to open Home screen shortcuts/bookmarks created via Safari with Google Chrome. Browser Changer is a tweak that’s been around for a very long time, and it was recently updated to allow you to do just that.
Check out our hands-on walkthrough inside… Read More
Google’s social thing, Google+, may be lagging behind Facebook (250 million users versus Facebook’s nearly one billion globally), but the search Goliath has no intention of sitting on the sidelines.
Earlier this week, it announced that the official Google+ client would hit the iPad very soon and today the company took to the blogs to announce the official software development kit for iOS and Android.
Francis Ma, product manager with Google+, wrote in a blog post that Google+ platform for mobile is available beginning today in early developer preview… Read More
It was inevitable that after Google’s Nexus 7 announcement, the “iPad Mini” rumors would start surfacing again. The 7-inch Asus-branded tablet has garnered quite a bit of attention this week.
Apple has long been believed to be working on its own 7-inch slate, with reports coming from both Apple-insiders and news outlets alike that such a product exists. But will we ever see it? Read More
Confirming earlier reports, prepaid iPhones are now available at Virgin Mobile, a Sprint-owned carrier in the United States. The 16GB/32GB iPhone 4S will set you back $649 ($549 for the 8GB iPhone 4) with one of Virgin’s no-commit plans priced between $30-$50.
The plans offer unlimited data and messaging and you can also get a $5 discount if you sign up for automatic monthly payments. The devices is available at Virgin’s ten brand spanking new retail stores (their first retail outlets in the U.S.), but also over at Best Buy, RadioShack and select local retailers… Read More
According to a former executive from Taiwanese supply chain, Foxconn’s recent investments into the Japanese electronics giant Sharp and its cutting-edge display factory is in fact part of preparations for a large-scale manufacturing of a rumored Apple television set, dubbed by the media the iTV… Read More
Apple has just been granted a preliminary injunction on the sales of Samsung’s popular Galaxy Nexus handset here in the U.S., based on possible patent infringement. The ruling comes just a week after the company won a similar injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablet… Read More
Have you been having trouble finding apps in the App Store lately? Try it now. Word has it that Apple has undone whatever it did to to the Store’s search algorithm last weekend.
Last Saturday, search results in the App Store appeared to all of a sudden start favoring download numbers and other factors ahead of app names and keywords. It was bad… Read More
As we reported yesterday, Google Chrome was released on iOS and it was met with much fanfare. Although it’s not, and probably never will be as fast as Safari (unless Apple decides to even the playing field), it tries to make up for the speed difference with awesome features like cross-platform syncing, the Omnibox, and much more.
With this in mind, we’ve decided to cover 10 of our favorite things about Google Chrome for iOS. Who knows? Perhaps there will be a few items on the list that you weren’t even aware of… Read More
Yeah as far as crazy rumors go, this one could be among the craziest. A new report is out this morning claiming that Apple is set to release a revamped version of its third generation iPad this summer.
The difference between this tablet and the one that Apple released three months ago is that it’s supposedly going to be thinner, have better battery life, and its Retina display is going to be made by Sharp… Read More
With the “new” iPad, Apple stopped applying numerical suffixes to distinguish iPad iterrations, a practice many expect to continue with a sixth-generation iPhone (think “the new iPhone”).
The fact doesn’t stop the company from fighting to secure ownership of the attractive iPad3.com domain name. Looks like someone’s plans to pocket a little profit from serving a bunch of ads on a single homepage just got curbed by Cupertino… Read More
A bunch of numbers have been tossed around thus far to illustrate how valuable the iOS ecosystem and its users are to Apple, but this tops it all. According to none other than Goldman Sachs, a total combined value of the iPhone and iPad customer base is nearly $295 billion (you read that right).
Talk about the value of loyalty! The figure represents more than half the Apple’s value of $543 billion and easily exceeds market capitalization of Microsoft ($256 billion), Google ($188 billion) or IBM ($225 billion)… Read More
Curious to figure out which is more accurate for searching, Apple’s Siri or Google’s traditional search engine, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster pitted Siri’s voice-activated search against Google’s old-fashioned text-based searching. He and his team set out to ask their iPhones a total of 1,600 questions, 800 on the busy streets of Minneapolis, 800 in a quiet room. His findings will no doubt come as a surprise to even the most vocal Siri proponents out there… Read More
In less than 24 hours following its official introduction, Google’s Chrome browser for the iPhone and iPad has risen to become the No. 1 free app on the App Store. That’s a remarkable achievement, one clearly highlighting the popularity of Google’s excellent web browser. Although it doesn’t use the speedy Safari Nitro engine, Chrome for iOS is very zippy (speed test here) and enables seamless synchronization of browsing preferences and open tabs across desktop and mobile installations via your Google Account… Read More
Last fall, Adobe announced that it was going to be discontinuing its work on mobile Flash. The announcement essentially reaffirmed Apple’s, and more specifically Steve Jobs’, stance on the tech.
But in case that wasn’t clear enough, the developer has just given a deadline for the cease and desist. As of August 15th, Flash will no longer be installable from Android’s Google Play Store… Read More
“An iPod… A phone… And an Internet communicator,” Steve Jobs quipped as a few in the audience broke out into sporadic laughter. Clearly on top of his game, Apple’s mercurial chief executive is delivering a career-defining presentation. Behind him, three icons on a giant screen representing a music player, a phone and a Safari browser rotate in sync as each gets a mention.
It is January 2007 and the air is sucked out of the Moscone West building. As Jobs confidently strides on stage, holding the audience in the palm of his hand, MacWorld Expo attendees, journalists attending the CES show in Las Vegas and fans the world over, their eyes glued to news sites, are all beginning to realize that something really, really profound is going down in San Francisco.
Following years of ambiguous denials and many, many, many months of rampant speculation, Apple – a Cupertino, California-based Macintosh and iPod creator – is about to tell the world it would revolutionize the phone… Read More
So that didn’t take long. It hasn’t been 12 hours since Chrome popped up in the App Store, and there’s already a jailbreak tweak available that allows you to make it the default browser in iOS.
BrowserChooser comes courtesy of jailbreak developer Ryan Petrich. And if you’re a fan of Google’s mobile browser, you’re going to want to download this package as soon as possible… Read More
As part of Atari’s 40th birthday, the publisher just announced an interesting promotion that lets you grab all of its classic game ports for the iPhone and iPad totally free of charge.
The Atari’s Greatest Hits app has always been a free download, but each of a hundred Atari 2600 and arcade games found in this collection is normally a paid download through in-app purchases (except Missile Command).
You don’t want to pass on this one, but there are some caveats you should know about… Read More
