Year: 2012

The realities of the smartphone biz today

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 26, 2016

Different stats and market research all point to the same conclusion: that the mobile market is being reduced to a two-horse race between iOS and Android (or Apple and Samsung, specifically) as once great incumbents such as RIM and Nokia get pushed aside, their market shares seriously declining.

In fact, it's fairly safe to say that on the fifth anniversary of iPhone, both RIM and Nokia are fighting for survival, quite possibly their lifecycle coming to an end. Meanwhile, only four companies are turning profit in the increasingly crowded smartphone space...

SportsYapper: finally, a social network for sports fans

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 22, 2018

Watching sports — even for the most diehard enthusiast — is always more fun with fellow fans around. You can talk coaching decisions, argue over penalties, and relive highlight plays. But what do you do if no one's around?

Take to Twitter is the obvious answer. But it's tough to keep a conversation going with other sports fans in between non-sports tweets, in 140 character increments. So the folks at Yapp Media came up with SportsYapper...

How to enable Passbook in iOS 6

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 5, 2016

One of the more intriguing iOS 6 features that Apple announced at WWDC was the new Passbook application. The app is essentially Apple's first go at a digital wallet.

But unfortunately, Passbook is broken in the developer beta — it's just a splash screen. So there's no way to play with it. That is, unless you follow these few easy steps...

RedSn0w 0.9.13dev2 released to fix SSH issues

Jeff Benjamin ∙ June 25, 2012

The iPhone Dev Team quietly released RedSn0w 0.9.13dev2 to address issues with SSH and app crashes that some users were experiencing.

The developer versions of RedSn0w are for developers wishing to jailbreak their iOS 6 beta installations. Since this version of RedSn0w does not install Cydia, SSH access is imperative, hence the fix for the users experiencing difficulties.

How to jailbreak iOS 6 beta 2 with RedSn0w

Jeff Benjamin ∙ June 25, 2012

As you may have guessed, you can jailbreak iOS 6 beta 2 with RedSn0w 0.9.13dev1. This is a tethered jailbreak, and since the iPhone Dev Team has not updated RedSn0w to work with this latest firmware version, you will need to point to the prior beta firmware in order to jailbreak iOS 6 beta 2.

Check inside for the full step by step tutorial to learn how to easily jailbreak your iOS 6 beta 2 installation.

Facebook Pages Manager gets messaging, check-in Insights, tweaked notifications

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 25, 2012

Facebook rolled out its Pages Manager app for the iPhone a little over a month ago. It initially came with a number of features to give folks the ability to post updates and photos on the go as your Facebook Page.

It also lets you get notifications on new activity, view Page Insights and respond, post and comment as your Page.

Today, the first official update has landed on the App Store, bringing with it a few noteworthy enhancements missing from the original release...

Facebook Messenger 1.8 brings quick conversation switching and more

Cody Lee ∙ June 25, 2012

If WhatsApp and other instant messaging services weren't scared of Facebook's Messenger before, they should be now. The company just rolled out an update to its messaging app that makes it much more competitive.

Messenger 1.8 hit the App Store today, with a handful of new features and UI tweaks in tow. Headlining the additions are a new online buddy list, and revamped push notifications. Keep reading for the full change log...

Instagram gets Facebook likes, Explore section, revamped profile tabs and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 7, 2016

Instagram just pushed out a new version of its iOS app, the first update following its $1 billion deal with Facebook.

Instagram version 2.5 brings out half a dozen new features, including a revamped profiles tab, a brand new Explore section and the ability to share your likes to Facebook, to name a few.

If anything, we now know Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg was telling the truth when he promised to maintain Instagram as a standalone app.

Full changelog and screenies after the break...

Apple could face U.S. ban on products over 3G patent

Cody Lee ∙ June 25, 2012

The U.S.-based court battle between Motorola and Apple may have been dismissed, but Apple's problems are far from over. As far as the ITC is concerned, the company is still facing a possible product import ban.

A new report is out this afternoon, claiming that the International Trade Commission is reviewing a previous ruling that says Apple is in violation of one of Motorola's patents. And the outcome, could be devastating...

iOS 6 beta 2 brings back ‘Enable 3G’ toggle

Cody Lee ∙ June 25, 2012

Apple rolled out iOS 6 beta 2 to developers this morning, exactly two weeks after releasing the original. We've installed the new firmware, and have been looking everywhere for any significant changes.

While we haven't found any major new features yet, we have noticed a few subtle differences. We've already mentioned the animated install icon, but there's one more addition that folks might find useful...

Gmail for iOS gets true Notification Center support and “send-as” feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 25, 2012

Google has just pushed out an incremental update to its native Gmail client for iOS. The new version brings three little nice-to-haves to your email arsenal, including the ability to send email messages from your alternate email addresses and stay logged in longer.

The biggest enhancements is the full support for iOS notifications, meaning you can now finally set up banners, alerts and lock screen options in Notification Center...

Competition: Motorola exiting feature phones, 7″ slates from Amazon, Google loom

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 18, 2016

Several reports this morning sourced from Taiwanese supply chain indicate some pretty interesting reshuffling going on in the mobile space outside Apple. Samsung is shooting to cumulatively sell ten million Galaxy S III units by early July while Motorola Mobility is mulling exiting the feature phones business in order to focus all their energies on "innovative products".

In the non-iPad space, a contract manufacturer has apparently landed orders for both Amazon's seven-inch Kindle Fire tablet and Google's Nexus-branded expected to make an appearance at Google I/O on Wednesday...