New iOS 7 concepts: actionable Notification Center, better Safari

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 15, 2013

What better way to sign off as my weekend starts than a fresh batch of iOS concepts which imagine the capabilities Apple should have long implemented? Above is Shaik Imaduddin’s mockup of a more interactive iOS Notification Center with actionable alerts where you could, say, delete email messages, mark them as read and send new ones, all without ever leaving your iPhone’s Notification Center.

Very doable and frankly, even Android isn’t currently doing that. He’s also envisioning making phone calls, responding to text messages (existing tweaks address this) and setting alerts in Reminders to call back a person. The latter makes me wonder how on Earth Apple missed combining Reminders with the Phone app. I’ve also included a nice iOS 7 Safari mockup right past the fold… Read More

 

Duke Nukem II coming to iOS in April

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 15, 2013

Duke Nukem II side-scroller, which celebrates its 20th anniversary, is coming to Apple’s iPhone and iPad in April, Interceptor Entertainment and 3D Realms announced. The universal binary will be priced at $1.99 and include all of the 32 level from the original levels, enhanced with multitouch controls, a new soundtrack, refreshed graphics, online leaderboards and more. Above is the launch trailer above for a look at Duke Nukem 2 iOS in action and I’ve included a few more details right after the break… Read More

 

How to bring your Google Reader feeds over to Flipboard

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 14, 2013

Some of us are adamant that a bright future lies ahead of RSS. Though the majority of my news discovery happens on Twitter and Facebook these days, I still rely on RSS feeds every now and then. In fact, you could say I am a regular Google Reader user.

But with the impending shutdown of the service, loyal fans like myself have no other choice but find a new home for their feeds.

Cody has put together a useful list of the ten most popular Reader alternatives and there’s also that upcoming Digg Reader app. People who happen to manage their news sources in the excellent Flipboard app can bring their Google Reader feeds quite easily, here’s how… Read More

 

YouTube Capture is now optimized for iPad

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 14, 2013

Google’s standalone YouTube video recording and uploading software, YouTube Capture, has been updated today to work natively on the iPad and iPad mini.

Now a universal binary supporting all your iDevices natively, the program enables you to quickly capture a clip on  your iPad, perform basic touch ups, type in some meta data and upload your work in full HD to YouTube.

We’re not sure who in their right mind would want to record footage on a tablet, but editing and managing those clips surely feels much more natural on the iPad’s bigger canvas… Read More

 

Apple now offering refurbished 4th gen iPads and iPad minis

By Cody Lee on Mar 14, 2013

Good news today for folks looking to score a fourth gen iPad, or iPad mini, on the cheap. Apple has, for the first time, listed refurbished units of both of the tablets for sale on its website.

The discounts aren’t significant—up to 9% off of minis, and 10% off of 4th-generation iPads, depending on the configuration—but they’re good enough to knock $50 off of some models… Read More

 

CBS releases free iOS streaming app

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 14, 2013

Eager to watch episodes of CSI or Survivor on your iPhone, iPod or iPad? Now you can, as CBC this morning released a major new streaming software which gives Apple’s iOS devices free access to the network’s popular shows like The Late Show with David Letterman, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Survivor, Catch NCIS, How I Met Your Mother, The Young and the Restless and Elementary. Some of the shows will stream via the app 24 hours after they air, but most of the shows are being offered eight days following their initial broadcast… Read More

 

PayPal outs in-store payment software for iPad

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 13, 2013

eBay-owned PayPal operates in 190 markets and in 25 currencies around the world and has more than 123 million active accounts.

The company has had the PayPal Here iPhone app available on the App Store since March of last year. The free software has now been released on the iPad, marking PayPal’s first tablet app ever.

Essential to merchants who prefer PayPal and want to get paid directly at the point of sale, the program works in conjunction with a free credit card reader to let you scan an item’s barcode for faster checkout, wirelessly connect to a cash drawer and printer, track sales activity and more… Read More

 

As smaller tablets catch on, IDC expects Android to overtake iPad in 2013

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 12, 2013

Research firm IDC today updated its tablet shipments forecast to reflect the growing popularity of low-cost tablets coming from the Android camp.

IDC now predicts that Android tablets will overtake the iPad in terms of volume during the course of 2013.

The firm pegged Apple’s share of the global tablet market in 2012 at 51 percent, with Android-driven tablets accounting for 41.5 percent of shipments. The new forecast calls for Android’s share hitting a peak of 48.8 percent in 2013, mostly at the expense of Apple’s iOS predicted to drop down to 46 percent this year.

But why stop there, IDC futurists project tablet shipments nearly four years into the future: in 2017, they expect Android to own 46 percent of the market, with the iPad dropping to a 43.5 percent share. As we know all too well, Apple isn’t one to blindly pursue market share, as evident in smartphones where it captures three-quarters of industry profits with barely one-tenth of total handset shipments… Read More

 

Twelve South launches sleek BookArc stand for iPad mini

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 12, 2013

Twelve South makes some of the finest and most beautifully designed accessories for Apple gear, such as its highly-regarded BookBook case series for the MacBook Air, iPad mini, iPhone 4/4S and iPhone 5, the premium, nearly invisible SurfacePad iPhone sleeve or the charming PlugBug charging kit.

Today, Twelve South announced an iPad mini variant of its iPad stand. The arc-shaped BookArc stand looks like a piece of sci-fi furniture and is designed (like its MacBook Air counterpart) to support your iPad in either portrait or landscape on a bunch of flat surfaces… Read More

 

HiddenApps lets you disable iAds and hide stock Apple apps, no jailbreak required

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 11, 2013

Occasionally, an app escapes the watchful eye of Apple’s review team and gets released on the App Store despite ignoring Apple’s stringent rules for third-party iOS development. HiddenApps by David Goelzhaeuser, a 15-year-old German iOS developer, is one such example.

The whole point of this free application is to let you hide Apple’s stock apps from your Home screen, like Passbook, Newsstand or Stocks – no jailbreak required.

It can also disable Apple’s iAds altogether and give you access to a Field Test mode which gives you precise readings of your cellular signal strength. You better download as it’s going down in 5, 4, 3, 2… Read More

 

New Apple supplier concerns drag share down

By Ed Sutherland on Mar 11, 2013

Spring is just around the corner, the sun is shining and new concerns about Apple suppliers appear like so many dandelions. Never mind CEO Tim Cook said it’s impossible to determine the health of the iPhone maker simply by looking at suppliers.

Just as Washington, DC trades in political rumors, Wall Street and Silicon Valley are back with new scuttlebutt about Apple’s supply chain.

As a result, Apple’s stock dipped lower Monday on word that orders to suppliers were the worst on record – at least for one analyst. Others believe higher sales of iPad minis versus the larger tablet is cause for concern, while still others forecast a slow summer and then return to profitability… Read More

 

Rovio to air Toons series through Angry Birds apps

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 11, 2013

As we told you, Finland-based Angry Birds maker Rovio continues to milk its franchise with the announcement of an animated series titled Angry Birds Toons. It’s premiering on the weekend of March 16 and 17 and today Rovio revealed that it will be airing the episodes directly via its Angry Birds apps, in addition to other more traditional distribution channels.

That’s a clever move considering more than 1.7 billion Angry Birds downloads across devices and operating systems. If they offered a standalone Toons app, I don’t think many people would download it. The first episode titled ‘Chuck Time’ will be airing in the Angry Birds Toons channel this Sunday, March 17, with a trailer for it included right after the break… Read More

 

Apple rules the skies: 84% of in-flight Internet use comes from iDevices

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 8, 2013

In-flight Wi-Fi provider GoGo yesterday released an interesting infographic based on its real-world data on what devices passengers are using to access its service and what they are doing online. Apple’s iPhones and iPads dominated 2012 with a commanding 84 percent share, which sounds about right even if the figure is a bit higher than Apple’s other web usage stats.

Android is gaining some ground in the air, so to speak, and in 2012 accounted for sixteen percent of in-flight Internet use, sharply up over just 3.2 percent in 2011. Apple’s share in 2011 was 96.8 percent so clearly the company lost some ground to Android.

Five Apples for every Android on Gogo’s networks is in stark contrast to other surveys highlighting Android’s unit sales lead. Nonetheless, this is a real-world data point, therefore suggesting that either other market share estimates are inherently flawed or that Android-totting passengers are just not as fond of using their devices on a plane as their Apple peers are… Read More

 

The original Angry Birds game goes free for the first time on iOS

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 7, 2013

It appears as if Angry Birds maker Rovio is changing strategy lately and switching away from paid downloads to free ones. Having briefly experimented with a massive 99-cent sale of its iPad titles last month and adding free, ad-supported downloads to its puzzler Amazing Alex, today the company has made the game that started it all – the original Angry Birds - free for the first time ever on Apple’s mobile platform. Unlike free Angry Birds downloads on Android, this one doesn’t come with in-app advertisements and Rovio also has added 15 new levels to keep you going… Read More

 

The VersaCover for iPad mini knows when to hold or fold

By Jim Gresham on Mar 7, 2013

Personally, I am not fond of folding, origami-sytle cases for iPad. Yet, there are a decent amount of them on the market. You know them. They have a folding back that props your iPad in any number of different angles to increase or decrease the viewing angle. Big deal. Up until now, I have never given an origami case a glance. In fact, sometimes I refuse to review them, but I had a hard time telling Moshi ‘no’ for their VersaCover. Finding myself happily surprised, look past the fold to see if these cases are the right fit for you… Read More

 

Six premium Gameloft games slashed to 99 cents each in a limited time sale

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 6, 2013

French publisher Gameloft has some of the finest games for the iPhone and iPad available on the App Store. The “problem” is, the company’s triple-As are not free to play like Electronic Arts’ Real Racing 3 is, for example. And more often than not, these best-sellers will set you back north of five bucks each.

That’s why I’m so excited about Gameloft’s new promotion which slashes five hit iOS games to just 99 cents, including Unreal Engine 3-based Wild Blood, Iron Man 2 and The Dark Knight Rises – which, as you may have guessed, is based on the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. If you’re a hard-core gamer like I am, it’s a no-brainer, really… Read More

 

Twitter refines iOS app search, but also removes Vodpod, Posterous and Mobypicture

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 6, 2013

After discontinuing its mobile TweetDeck apps for iPhone and Android in favor of the web client, the micro-blogging service Twitter today refreshed its iOS client with better search, refined layouts, support for traditional Chinese and other perks.

Unfortunately, this update also kills off support for external video services like Mobypicture, Vodpod and Posterous as the company supposedly is building a rumored video uploading service of its own.

Note that Posterous, a micro-blogging platform Twitter bought a year ago, is shutting down for good on April 30. Twitter also recently acquired Vine and launched a corresponding brand new app for recording and sharing short 6-second clips that can be easily tweeted out and viewed in-line on Twitter. With this update, TwitVid and yFrog are now your only video uploading choices in Twitter’s iOS app… Read More

 

And the winner of our iPad mini giveaway is…

By Jeff Benjamin on Mar 5, 2013

Ladies and gentlemen, we have found the winner for our iPad mini giveaway. First of all, we want to thank everyone who entered, your participation has been nothing short of impressive. We’d also like to lend a huge thanks to our giveaway sponsor, Big Fish Games, for helping us with this giveaway, and for creating awesome iOS games like Fairway Solitaire.

Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. We’ve randomly selected one of our many YouTube subscribers who followed our giveaway instructions to a tee. Now it’s time to tell you who won. Congratulations to…. Read More

 

The best iPad jailbreak tweaks

By Jeff Benjamin on Mar 4, 2013

I’m going to be honest with you — jailbreaking an iPad hasn’t been nearly as appealing to me as jailbreaking my iPhone. But as I started working on this list, I realized that there really are some awesome, and I mean awesome ways to trick out your iPad once it’s jailbroken.

Considering that I do a lot of writing on my iPad, I found that a many of these tweaks immensely helped my writing workflow. Tweaks like BeeKeyboard, and SwipeSelection are absolute essentials for iPad writers, even if you’re not really into the jailbreak scene.

Obviously that’s not all, as virtually everyone will find a jailbreak app or tweak that suits their fancy. Yes, the iPad jailbreak scene is alive, and it’s better than ever. Despite my initial doubts, I was able to come up with this solid list of 15 best jailbreak tweaks for iPad running iOS 6. There’s no filler here, and no fluff — each of these tweaks represent, what in my opinion, is the best of the best. Take a look inside, and see for yourselves. Read More

 

Chrome for iOS with Messages sharing and back button history now available

By Christian Zibreg on Mar 4, 2013

Google on Monday announced a new version of Chrome for the iPhone and iPad containing two new features. In addition to the obligatory stability and security improvements and bug fixes, Chrome build 25.0.1364.86 has brought out the ability to re-visit previously visited web pages by long-taping the back button.

This invokes a drop-down menu listing a history of the web pages you visited in the current session. The feature is also available on the desktop version of Chrome as well as on desktop and mobile version of Apple’s Safari browser. Another nice-to-have enhances Chrome’s Sharing menu with a new option for sending a web page via Messages… Read More

 
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