Month: January 2013

Keep track of what you want to watch, listen, and read with ‘Done Not Done’

Mike Schnier ∙ Updated December 29, 2016

Ever make a mental note to watch a movie, listen to an album, or read a book, and realize months later that you forgot what you wanted to do in the first place? This happens to the best of us, but it doesn't have to.

Done Not Done is an automated 'watch/read/listen' list for iOS. You can select movies, books, and albums you've seen or want to see (or hear), and Done Not Done will keep track of them for you. If you connect Done Not Done to Twitter or Facebook, you can even get ideas and recommendations from friends who are using the app...

TwelveSouth’s PlugBug goes on a world tour

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

TwelveSouth makes wonderful accessories for Apple devices and their charging add-on called PlugBug is the perfect epitome of their design approach: not only is the accessory useful, it's damn cute, too. For the uninitiated, the PlugBug will charge your MacBook and iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch) at the same time. The charming little red thingie piggy-backs onto your MacBook's power adapter and has a 10W USB port to connect and charge your iDevice as the MacBook adapter simultaneously juices up your notebook.

How cool is that? Today, a year and half following its debut, TwelveSouth has announced the PlugBug World, an international version with five swappable prong adapters supporting power sockets in the United Kingdom and rest of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America, Hong Kong, China and a bunch of other markets...

Apple offering popular hipKey proximity sensor online

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

How many times have you misplaced your keys in the last few years? Ok, how about your iPhone? Children? Well the good news is that there are actually iOS accessories that can help you with your forgetfulness, like the hipKey.

The hipKey is a simple proximity sensor, powered by Bluetooth, built to help you keep track of your valuables. It has a key ring, allowing you to attach it to your keys, purse, etc., and a companion iPhone app for easy tracking...

Gartner: Samsung supplants Apple as #1 chip buyer

Ed Sutherland ∙ January 23, 2013

South Korea's Samsung has another reason to crow. After enduring talk that rival Apple would drop its rival for TSMC, demand for Samsung smartphones and tablets made it the largest customer of chips in 2012, replacing the iPhone and iPad maker in the worldwide chip eating challeng, reports said Thursday.

A Gartner report on semiconductor purchases also gives a rare glimpse into how much Apple is spending on chips for its smartphones and tablet devices. According to the researcher, Samsung increased spending on chips nearly double that of the Cupertino firm...

Pebble smartwatches shipping to Kickstarters as iOS app lingers in approval limbo

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 23, 2013

As promised, the Pebble E-Paper smartwatch (actually, it has a memory LCD screen) is now shipping to Kickstarter backers around the world, albeit initial volume is limited over some paperwork complications. As you know, the smartwatch device works in conjunction with a free iOS or Android app.

Pebble Technology today updated its Kickstarter page with a note acknowledging that Apple unfortunately has not yet approved the software even though Pebble submitted it two weeks ago. A version for Android devices is scheduled to go live on Google's Play Store tomorrow, January 24...

Apple advertising engraved and gift-wrapped iPads for Valentine’s Day

Cody Lee ∙ January 23, 2013

Now that Christmas is just a tiny spec in our rear-view mirrors, it's time to start looking ahead to the next gift-giving holiday: Valentine's Day. And this morning, Apple started doing just that, highlighting the affair on its web store with a new "There's more than one way to say I love you" iPad advertisement...

What would you say if you met Jay Freeman, the developer behind Cydia?

Mike Schnier ∙ January 23, 2013

For most people, Jay Freeman isn't exactly a household name. Neither is Saurik, his online alias. That said, if you've used a jailbroken iPhone since 2008 then you've definitely seen both names frequently. Saurik is the developer behind Cydia, the package manager we use to easily install tweaks, themes, and other software that Apple won't allow developer to distribute through iTunes.

You might know his name, but would you recognize Jay Freeman if he was walking down the street? If you did, would you approach him? Would you ask him questions? Would you pose for a picture with him and post it on Reddit? Well, that's what the first stranger who recognized him did...

Netflix and YouTube working on an open AirPlay alternative

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 23, 2013

AirPlay, a wireless media technology from Apple featured on the Apple TV, iPhones, iPads, iPods and newer Macs running OS X Mountain Lion, is a major selling point because it allows users to seamlessly beam their photos, music and video from their computer or iDevice to a TV set via an Apple TV set-top box. However, Netflix teamed up with Google's YouTube on an AirPlay alternative and today the two have released official details.

DIAL, as it's called (an acronym for DIscovery And Launch), is an open second screen protocol which automatically discovers compliant devices to stream media. The new standard has impressive support from key content owners and consumer electronics makers, including the likes of BBC, Sony, Hulu and of course Samsung...

How Verizon almost made Siri an Android exclusive

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 23, 2013

Apple's digital secretary, Siri, arrived as an iPhone 4S exclusive in October 2011, but the feature almost ended up being exclusive to Android devices on the Verizon network. According to a new report, Verizon in the fall of 2009 managed to sign a deal with the startup to make Siri a default app on all Android phones set to launch in the new year. It's interesting that the agreement was signed several months before Apple approached Siri and that the carrier even created unreleased ads highlighting Siri on Android.

Several months later, Apple came into full view to acquire the startup outright, effectively making the feature exclusive to its devices and narrowly escape seeing Siri falling into hands of the Android camp...

Steve Jobs threatened Palm with patent suit over employee poaching

Cody Lee ∙ January 23, 2013

By now, you've probably heard of the anti-poaching civil suit that's been brought against Apple, Google, Intel and others. Former employees are suing the companies for allegedly conspiring to keep each other from recruiting out of each other's firms, which is definitely illegal.

The evidence in the case before hand was already pretty damning. But looking at these court documents that were just made public yesterday, it might now be open-and-shut. The filing features emails, between executives, openly discussing an anti-poaching agreement...

The future of jailbreaking is very bright

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Last month, I posted a slightly controversial article entitled: 3 reasons why jailbreaking is waning in popularity. In it, I highlighted several points as to why jailbreaking was on a downturn. In hindsight, although I still stand by the post, I probably should have qualified my reasoning a bit better.

The real reason that jailbreaking is "waning" if you will, is because there simply is no jailbreak available for new devices. The recent bar graph showing jailbroken devices proves as much. I tried to say that, but I don't think it came across that way. Whatever the case may be, it looks as if that primary reason will soon no longer apply.

Hackers pod2g, planetbeing, and others have been working diligently on the iPhone 5/iOS 6 jailbreak for quite some time now. They've made great progress, as highlighted in Mike's post about the collaborative effort.

In fact, things are going so well, that one famous hacker in particular has just proclaimed that the future is looking bright for jailbreaking...

More developers spotted in the iOS 6 jailbreak effort

Mike Schnier ∙ January 22, 2013

You're probably familiar with two developers by the name of David Wang and Cyril Cattiaux, also known as PlanetBeing and pod2g. If you're reading this, you're likely waiting for them to release an untethered jailbreak for iOS 6 and the iPhone 5. The good news is they're not working on the jailbreak alone.

The iOS 6 jailbreaking effort seems to be picking up speed as other developers have begun contributing their own expertise to the movement. Here are the recent developments...