Month: September 2012

Grand opening of second Hong Kong store this Saturday

Apple will have grand opening of a new retail store in Hong Kong this coming Saturday, September 29, at 10am local time, per Apple's retail page. Apple already runs a store in the Hong Kong Plaza at Huaihai Zhong Road.

This will be the company's second store in one of two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China (the other being Macau). This incoming store is located in Kowloon Tong in the Festival Walk shopping center, as seen right below...

Apple announces 5 million iPhone 5 sales during launch weekend

Apple has announced that it sold a record-breaking 5 million iPhone 5s during its three day launch weekend, besting its previous record set by the iPhone 4S last year by more than a million.

The numbers shouldn't surprise anyone, considering the amount of demand we've seen for the device thus far. Apple said last week that it sold more than 2 million units in its first 24 hours...

Apple said to be “aggressively” recruiting ex-Google Maps staff

Apple publicly commented on the ongoing criticism of its new Maps application last week, essentially asking users to be patient, as the service would get better over time.

But patience is a hard thing to ask for in a space as competitive as the smartphone market. So it looks like Apple is going to help speed up the process with some ex-Googlers...

Ryan Petrich gets Google Maps working on iOS 6

Apple's new Maps application, which replaces Google Maps in iOS 6, has caused quite a stir in the tech community over the past few days. It's been described as "inaccurate," and "glitchy," and many feel that it's extremely inferior to its predecessor.

But the good news is, there may be light at the end of the tunnel. At least for jailbreakers anyway. Well-known jailbreak developer Ryan Petrich announced earlier today the he was able to get Google Maps working on iOS 6. And here's the video...

List of iOS 6 compatible jailbreak tweaks

Though iOS 6 hasn't been officially jailbroken yet, there is a developer hack available for users on older A4 devices. It's tethered, and requires you to manually install Cydia, so it's not something we really recommend. But it exists.

And because it exists, we decided to try and find out which of our favorite tweaks have been updated to support the new software. Luckily, we came across this list of iOS 6-ready tweaks by theme designer Adam Insull...

Many iPhone 5 pre-orders seen shipping earlier than expected

If you pre-ordered your iPhone 5, either through Apple or your wireless provider, and didn't get it in within the first hour or so, chances are you haven't received the handset yet. Shipping estimates slipped to two weeks shortly after retailers began taking pre-orders last Friday.

But good news today for those of you that fall into that category. It appears that Apple has started shipping many "late" iPhone 5 pre-orders earlier than expected...

The iDownloadBlog top 10 news stories of the week

A new week is coming, but that doesn't mean you have to miss out on what happened last week. If you think you may have missed a few of the top stories from last week, don't sweat it, we've got you covered.

We've gathered the top 10+ most popular stories from iDB last week for you to check out. As always, make sure that you're friends with us on Facebook, Google+, and that you are following us on Twitter...

Motorola spotlights iOS 6 Map flaws in new “iLost” ad

Apple has been taking a lot of heat over the past few days regarding its new Maps application. The company released iOS 6, the latest update to its mobile OS, to the public on Wednesday, which features the new Google Maps replacement.

Inaccuracies and missing features in the app have spawned a parody Tumblr and Twitter account, in addition to quite the uproar in the tech world. And it looks like Motorola is looking to capitalize on the criticism, with its new "iLost" ad...

iPhone 5 parody clip: “a taller change than expected”

 

One of the most noticeable and talked about features of the iPhone 5 is its new display. For the first time, Apple has made the handset's screen larger, bumping it up to right around 4-inches.

But in order to maintain usability, Apple only increased the height of the display, not the width. And this has spawned some criticism from the tech world, as well as this hilarious parody...

Apple asks for another $707 million in damages from Samsung

While fans from around the world were out trying to score the new iPhone 5 yesterday, Apple was busy filing its motions for the final judgement in its high-profile patent trial with Samsung.

As most of you know, a jury found Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple's patents last month, ordering it to pay more than $1 billion in damages. But Apple doesn't think that's enough...

AT&T awards young girl $20,000 for creating anti-texting while driving app

We all know these days that sending text messages while driving is a pretty bad idea. Raising awareness of the risks is always a worthwhile exercise though, and doing just that is what has earned one 11-year old girl a cool $20,000.

As part of a hackathon last month, the young lady created a concept mobile app that hopes to raise awareness for the "It Can Wait" campaign. This led AT&T to award the prize of $20k for the creation.

Not bad for a kid...

New A6 chip confirmed to have three GPU cores

The iPhone 5 launched yesterday, and first impressions seem to be in line with the early reviews: the thing is fast. As most of you know, Apple custom-built an all-new processor for the handset called the A6.

Now that the phone is available, we expect to learn more about the new chip as teardown experts continue to rip the device apart. In fact, a new tidbit has already surfaced: the A6 has triple-core graphics...