Apple has launched a new service in Japan called iTunes Pass. The program is actually quite interesting, as it appears to allow customers to purchase iTunes Store credit from an Apple retail store, using Passbook instead of physical gift cards.
Users have long been able to store gift cards in Passbook, but we've never seen a direct-to-Passbook service like this, without the need to redeem a code. It almost looks like this could be a prequel to Apple's oft-rumored mobile payment system...
Apple has updated its App Store support page for developers this week to reflect new information regarding iOS 7 adoption. According to the company’s usage data, the latest versions of its OS are running on 90% of iOS devices accessing the App Store.
That’s just a small jump from Apple's report a few months ago, where it claimed iOS 7 adoption had reached 87% of compatible devices. But it's still impressive given what the adoption rate looks like for competitors, and how hard it is to move the needle...
Shazam has updated its free and Encore iOS apps, bringing them both to version 7.7.0. The update brings about a new feature to both clients that allows users to play back recognized songs in-app, courtesy of Rdio.
While users have long been able to do this—play recognized tracks through Rdio—past functionality required them to switch out of Shazam and into Rdio. They can now playback [full] songs without switching apps...
Episode 37: We discuss the latest Apple ongoings along with a breakdown of each of our go-to accessories for our iOS devices.
Subscribe on iTunes
Gossip along Madison Avenue is growing more fluent about Apple tiring of its longtime ad agency TBWA Media Labs over a series of disappointing ads. The client-agency relationship is said to have deteriorated to the point where the iPhone maker ostensibly appears on the brink of putting its ad account up for a formal review and firing the ad agency after 30 years of fruitful collaboration.
The rumor arrives just as Apple has found itself under fire from Samsung, which aired the snarky 'Wall Huggers' ad last week to paint the iPhone users as mindless zombies who huddle around power outlets trying to charge up their devices.
The New York Post asserted Monday, without mentioning sources, that Apple and TBWA are at the break-up point. TBWA is a unit of Omnicom Group, the world's largest advertising agency holding company. Apple, the story goes, also appears ready to look to music mogul Jimmy Iovine, now an Apple employee following the $3 billion Beats buy, to help it "regain its marketing mojo"...
Ever since the iOS 7 jailbreak was released, there has been no shortage of tweaks for Control Center. Nonetheless, there's always room for more refinements to iOS 7's quick settings panel. CCSliders isn't a new tweak, but, for the most part, it has remained tucked away in a third-party repo without a lot of attention. That is, until now.
CCSliders allows users to tap on icons to the left or right of the brightness slider in Control Center to cycle through several other types of sliders, including media volume, ringer volume, and flashlight brightness. There's even an add-on for a f.lux slider in the same repo. CCSliders is simple in concept, but it adds unique and handy functionality to iOS 7's Control Center...
To me, calculator apps are a lot like weather apps - I can never get enough of them. In an effort to help you increase your mobile productivity, Apple is now featuring several great third-party calculators in an App Store section titled Productivity Monday.
Featured iPhone and iPad software includes both paid and free calculators, including the gorgeously designed minimalist Digits app with the ability to edit complex calculations and get instantly updated results...
Pundits and fans are in agreement that a bigger screen will be the #1 selling point of Apple's forthcoming iPhone 6 refresh. With two models in tow, one with a 4.7-inch screen and the other using a phablet-class 5.5-inch display, the iconic smartphone will for the first time go comfortably past four inches.
So, who's willing to trade a bigger screen for a much-improved battery that could keep you going for 24 hours or more, on a single charge? For the sake of completeness, One survey identified a longer-lasting battery as the top feature request by early iPhone 5 adopters ahead of the handset's September 2012 launch...
SwipeExpander is a new jailbreak tweak that brings powerful keyboard shortcut gestures to the iPhone à la AltKeyboard. The tweak employs swipe-up and swipe-down keyboard gestures to invoke a variety of different actions, from mundane copy/paste shortcuts, to insert text shortcuts.
One of the cool things about SwipeExpander is that lowercase and uppercase keys are deemed separate, meaning you can have a large variety of keyboard gestures across the 26 letters in the english alphabet. But that's not all, SwipeExpander plays nice with well-known and respected keyboard related tweaks like SwipeSelection, PredictiveKeyboard, and more. Check out our hands-on video inside.
Heavy Dropbox users may have noticed that large files sixteen megabytes in size and up won't start downloading to their other devices until they've finished uploading fully to the Dropbox cloud on the device which has initiated sync.
A new Dropbox technology dubbed Streaming Sync promises to speed up sync times of large files by up to two times, by downloading small slices of a large file as it's still being uploaded to the servers.
Before you can start taking advantage of this technology, you must update your desktop Dropbox client to the latest version...
Rumor has it that Apple has secretly partnered with a British fuel-cell firm called Intelligent Energy on deploying its fuel cells in electronic devices such as MacBooks, iPhones and iPads within a few years.
Intelligent Energy's technology converts chemical energy from fuel stored in the cells into electricity.
The technology could potentially allow future iPhones and iPads to run on a single charge for days or even weeks. As a bonus, the process is green and highly efficient...
If you use iCloud Mail, you may have noticed by now that your emails are not arriving, or are having difficulties accessing the web interface or your account in Apple's stock iOS Mail app and third-party email clients.
If so, you're among a tiny 0.1 percent of users who've been unable to receive mail for 20 hours and counting, according to Apple's iCloud dashboard on the web...