Month: March 2013

PanoPerfect moves to the iPad and adds web galleries

Since our first look at PanoPerfect for the iPhone, it has become more widely accepted as a great way to share only panoramic photographs. I am a big fan of the ability to take panoramic photos with my iPhone and it only makes sense that HalfPeeled provides a great new way to view and share them. As featured in the App Store's "New and Noteworthy" section, PanoPerfect lands for the iPad and boasts a new web browsing feature...

Get rid of those pesky app icon badges with Clear Badges

When it comes to getting rid of those little red bubbles that hover over your app icons, there's been no shortage of options in Cydia. Let's see, there was BadgeClear, BadgeRemover and No Badges, to name a few.

But unfortunately, most of these tweaks either haven't been updated for iOS 6 or cost money, making them non-options for a lot of folks. And that's where the new jailbreak package Clear Badges comes in...

Apple beats Samsung in U.S. smartphone sales

Here's some good news: research firm comScore Wednesday announced that during a three-month average ending January 2013 Apple crushed Samsung in United States smartphone sales. Specifically, the iPhone maker was the top US smartphone vendor with a 37.8 percent market share in January 2013, which was up 3.5 percentage points from October 2012. Samsung was second with a notably lower market share of 21.4 percent, a slight 1.9 percentage point increase from October 2012. All told, Apple's 3.5 percentage point gain was Android's loss as we see Google's mobile operating system dropping for the first time. So much about the supposedly "weaker than expected" iPhone 5 demand...

Flashorama lets you use the iPhone’s LED flash during panorama mode

Flashorama is a new jailbreak tweak that allows you to enable the iPhone's LED flash when using panorama mode. Normally, when switching over to panorama mode, the LED flash is completely unavailable for use. This tweak "fixes" that issue.

Although in most cases you'll likely be shooting panorama pictures in well lit public areas, it's nice to have the option to enable the flash if necessary. Take a look inside for a few more details...

Path 3.0 brings private messaging and new digital content shop

Personal social network Path released a significant update to its iOS app this afternoon, bringing the software to version 3.0. The update includes your usual bug fixes and improvements, as well as two new major features.

The first one is private messaging, allowing you to talk with your Path friends in real time and share various types of media. And the other is The Shop—a digital content store of sorts, with premium photo filters and more...

AnyAttach updated with support for iOS 6 and other improvements

Good news today for AnyAttach fans. The popular jailbreak tweak, which allows you to attach any file available on your iOS device to an outgoing e-mail, has been updated to support iOS 6.

Pimskeks, known for his work on the evasi0n jailbreak, released the update yesterday. And in addition to iOS 6 support, it also includes new Dropbox features and other improvements...

Facebook Messenger improved with updates to group chats

Facebook has just updated its Messenger iOS app with a few new features and "other improvements and bug fixes." The new Facebook Messenger version 2.3 is all about enhancements to group conversations, says the social networking behemoth. It contains one feature I've been yearning for ever since the program's debut on the iPhone: you can finally name a group by tapping on the top of your active conversation.

And just like Facebook's main iOS client (and a growing number of other third-party apps for the Apple platform, for that matter), you can now get to your active group conversations by swipe left, which reveals them in your sidebar. I've included a few screenies along with other nice tweaks right after the break...

This is Rupert Murdoch’s iPad killer for education

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT8s66oXP_A

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and his publishing empire, News Corp, used to be strong believers in Apple's iPad and its digital publishing prowess, so much so that he greenlit a substantial investment in The Daily, an iPad-exclusive magazine.

Apple and News Corp had worked side-by-side to develop The Daily, having launched the app on February 2, 2011 during a lavish press conference at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Apple's online services head Eddy Cue joined Rupert Murdoch on stage, who publicly praised Apple for being “a highly disciplined company that makes beautiful products”, attributing late co-founder Steve Jobs with having "such power inspiring the people around him."

But after slashing staff by a third last summer, News Corp soon pulled the plug on the project. Enter 2013: News Corp's education division called Amplify Wednesday announced it is launching its own Android tablet mean to compete with Apple's iPad in education...

Google and Samsung go up every time Apple goes down, but not for long

With Apple's market capitalization having fallen below the $400 billion mark, the first such drop since January 2012, many armchair analysts are observing on Twitter and elsewhere a worrying correlation between stock prices of Apple and its chief rivals Google and Samsung. Looking at the period from Apple's September 2012 peak, each time Apple went down, Google and Samsung seemingly rose.

And with this weird correspondence between Apple's lows and Google’s and Samsung's highs, some analysts are calling the Internet giant "the next Apple", estimating that Google is on its way to join the $1,000 a share club. What a difference a few months make: one analyst in April 2012 said Apple would become the world’s first $1 trillion company. While Apple's pain = Google's gain, luck in the stock market changes quickly...

‘CalliFy’ lets you change the Call button text in the stock Phone app

Have you been searching for a way to customize the text on your Phone app's green "Call" button? Yeah, me neither. But now that a tweak has appeared in Cydia that allows you to do so, I've been giving it a try.

CalliFy is the name of the tweak, and as you would expect, it's extremely simple and straightforward. Installing it lends a new preference panel in the Settings app, which can be used to customize the green Call button's text.

‘LastPic’ released on Cydia

LastPic, the jailbreak tweak that allows you to attach the last taken photograph into an iMessage conversation, has been released on Cydia. The tweak, which we discussed on Monday, is an iMessage implementation of a feature that has been a staple in the popular Tweetbot Twitter client.

LastPic is a free download, and it's available on Cydia's BigBoss repo right now. For those of you browsing this post on an iOS device, you can click here to be taken directly to Cydia for the download.

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

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...