Year: 2012

Apple tightens terms for ‘Made for iPhone’ Lightning accessories

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 10, 2018

The tiny Lightning connector that debuted on the new iPhone, iPod touch and iPod nano allows Apple to exercise a much tighter control over the accessories ecosystem, it has been revealed. According to a new report out this morning, all vendors seeking to make products bearing the 'Made for iPhone' (MFi) trademark must be approved by Apple.

Additionally, club Cupertino is requiring vendors to manufacture their gear in Apple-approved facilities. Apple is currently educating them on the new terms so don't expect first officially approved third-party Lightning accessories before late-October or November...

Nokia ad slams the iPhone over lack of color

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 3, 2012

Nokia took issue with Apple's black and white iPhone color options in an interesting new commercial for its Lumia range of smartphones. The ad, included right after the break, sets the tone by depicting a gloomy world where mindless drones come to Apple Stores to buy iPhones. When a customer suggest color other than standard black and white iPhone options, hell breaks loose. The clip then switches to Nokia's recently refreshed Lumia lineup, available in a bunch of colors...

How Steve Jobs initiated Maps project, almost dropped Google search from iPhone

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 12, 2017

Bloomberg Businessweek has an interesting story up this morning which takes a look at Tim Cook's first year as Apple's CEO. The article also offers a few previously unknown tidbits related to late CEO Steve Jobs's role in the iOS 6 Maps project (originally an afterthought during the iPhone development). It also touches upon the retirement of hardware boss Bob Mansfield and his $2 million a month advisory agreement with Cook, Apple moving away from Intel, the iPad mini later this month and more...

Apple tapping retail employees to improve Maps?

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 3, 2012

Apple is allegedly crowd-sourcing its retail army to help improve iOS Maps, if a pair of reports out this morning are to be trusted. A pilot program, allegedly voluntary for employees, would have a team of ten employees at one store dedicate 40 hours of staff time per week toward manually examining melted bridges, street addresses that are off and other Maps inaccuracies related to their respective areas...

Google Street View rolling out to iOS tomorrow?

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 3, 2012

iDB discovered a week ago that Google is set to introduce street-level photography on the iOS platform in form of a web app in about two weeks. Today, The Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg made it a fact, claiming that the software is coming as early as Thursday, possibly tomorrow. The journalist had some hands-on time with the web app which includes both360-degree photographic street views and interior photographic views of certain businesses...

T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS to become one

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 10, 2018

Following its failed acquisition with AT&T, T-Mobile USA's parent company Deutsche Telekom just announced that it has reached a deal to combine its U.S. operations with MetroPCS, the nation's fifth-largest carrier. What's in it for you?

For starters, T-Mobile gets to finally jump on the 4G LTE bandwagon as MetroPCS has been deploying this technology over the past two years. This could be a bargaining chip the merged carriers may just need to finally land the iPhone...

WSJ confirms mass production of the iPad mini

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 3, 2012

The Wall Street Journal lent its aura of credibility to the iPad mini rumor with a report out this morning declaring that Apple's manufacturing partners in Asia have started mass-producing the device, in time for a rumored October 17 announcement and early-November availability.

According to "people with knowledge of the situation", the device will indeed have a 7.85-inch liquid-crystal display with a lower resolution than the third-generation iPad with a 2,048-by-1,536 pixel Retina display, meaning the iPad mini will quite possibly run a 1024-by-768 display just as the original iPad and iPad 2 do...

Things updated with iPhone 5, iOS 6, Siri support

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

One of the best task management apps available on iOS or the Mac, just received a fairly substantial update.

Things, a darling app among many Apple enthusiasts and the Getting Things Done crowd, receives support for the iPhone 5's larger display, support for iOS 6, and the ability to create new inbox items using Siri.

The tale of my three days at the epicenter of the jailbreak community

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

I went to JailbreakCon full of good intentions. I was going to live tweet the event, I was going to write posts about every speak, and I was going to interview as many speakers as I could. As it turned out, I did none of that. Instead, I soaked in as much as I could from everyone around me. I did what I hadn't done for a long time: I socialized!

When I say that I socialized, I'm not saying that I pretended to be friends with some people I mostly knew on Twitter. No, I actually lived with these people for three days, learned about their lives, their habits, and their personality. I learned about the real "them", not the image they sometimes give of them on Twitter or IRC.

This is the story of my three days at the epicenter of the jailbreak community. You won't learn anything here about the iOS 6 jailbreak, because what happens at JailbreakCon stays at JailbreakCon, but hopefully, you will get a glimpse a the other side of the jailbreak community...

iPhone share rising, everyone else looks flat or down

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 2, 2012

Analytics firm comScore is out with new research data concerning the mobile landscape in the United States during August. Good news for Apple: the iOS is on the rise among smartphones, going from 31.9 percent during the three-month period ending in May 2012 to 34.3 percent in June, July and August.

During the same timeframe, Google's Android went from 50.9 percent to 52.6 percent smartphone market share. Better still, Apple grew at a faster clip than Google. Microsoft's Windows Phone, Research In Motion's BlackBerry and Symbian? All losing ground...

Consumer Reports says nice things of Apple Maps

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 13, 2018

Consumer Reports, an influential U.S. magazine published monthly since 1936 by Consumers Union, gave Apple's iPhone 5 a thumbs-up recently but initially slammed iOS 6 Maps navigation ("we were disappointed"). Melted bridges aside, the publication known for its reviews and comparisons of popular products took both Apple Maps and Google Maps for a spin, concluding that Apple's offering is "certainly more favorable than comments and articles that we've been reading online"...

Lawsuit against Apple’s Passbook is Lodsys redux

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Apple is again in the sights of a company with patents and an itchy trigger finger. The iPhone's Passbook feature, which allows consumers to store tickets, loyalty cards, coupons and such digitally, is the target of San Diego-based Ameranth. The company is seeking triple damages, claiming in the lawsuit that the Cupertino, Calif. technology giant willfully infringed on Ameranth patents on wireless mobile payments.

The company has already sued the likes of Hilton, Marriott and Ticketmaster and gotten 14 other companies to ink licensing pacts. TechCrunch spoke to the CEO of one of the companies who'd rather pay than suffer some long drawn-out legal fight. The interview is enough to send cold shivers up Apple developers who survived the 2011 patent uproar from Lodsys...