Year: 2014

Apple seeds second iOS 8.2 beta to developers

Apple this morning posted the second beta of iOS 8.2 for developers. The release comes nearly three weeks after the first 8.2 beta, and follows yesterday's public launch of iOS 8.1.2, which brought about a fix for disappearing ringtones.

The new 8.2 beta can be downloaded either over-the-air, or via Apple's developer portal, by all registered iOS developers. It's unknown what new features the firmware will bring, but beta one enabled support for Apple's WatchKit platform.

HERE Maps coming to iPhone in early 2015

HERE Maps had been available in the App Store briefly before it got pulled in December 2013 because “iOS 7 ruined the experience”. Nokia later admitted the app was “a rushed product” that “went horribly wrong” because it was “never thoroughly proven.”

The Finnish firm has now officially confirmed that HERE Maps will return to the iPhone in early 2015 following today's release of HERE for Android and a relaunch of a new web-based experience over at here.com.

“Our iOS app development team is working hard on this and we plan to officially launch HERE for iOS in early 2015,” said the team. The revamped iOS navigation app will be joining several big-name mapping products in the App Store from the likes of Google, Garmin, TomTom and many more.

Ubisoft teases Heroes of Might & Magic III for iPad, due in January

The classic PC game, Heroes of Might & Magic III, is coming to the iPad next month, French games maker Ubisoft confirmed Wednesday.

The fantasy turn-based strategy game has you controlling a bunch of heroes that command an army of creatures inspired by myth and legend.

As you may have guessed, it's been optimized for the 21st century gameplay with updated Retina graphics, touch controls and more.

In addition to the turn-based combat system, the game focuses on tactical overland exploration, resource management, RPG-like character progression and strategizing.

Instagram hits 300M monthly users, rolls out verified badges

Facebook-owned Instagram shared a new milestone today as the popular mobile photo-sharing service hit 300 million monthly users, making it bigger than Twitter which on October 27 had 284 million active users.

The figure is sharply up from 200 million active users Instagram had at the end of March, meaning the service has grown 50 percent in the past 9 months alone.

Facebook confirms Trending coming to iPhone soon, now available on the web and Android

Wednesday, the social networking giant Facebook announced that Trending is coming to iOS soon, with the Android app getting the feature today. Announced in January, the feature lets you discover timely and relevant conversations happening in the world in the form of stories from different sources.

The feature groups together only public posts and those that you are in the audience for such as updates from friends or groups that you belong to.

T-Mobile’s new family promo gives you two lines with unlimited 4G LTE for $100 per month

T-Mobile USA, the self-proclaimed “Uncarrier,” on Wednesday launched a new family plan promotion which starts at $100 per month for two lines with unlimited 4G LTE data (2.5GB per line with no sharing required), with an additional $40 per line cost on up to ten people.

Additionally, the Deutsche-Telekom owned carrier is again offering four lines for $100 with ten gigabytes of 4G LTE data. That particular offering used to be available before and has grown to become T-Mobile's most successful promotion.

IBM and Apple launch first batch of enterprise ‘IBM MobileFirst’ iPhone and iPad apps

Following their major enterprise mobility partnership which was announced this summer, Apple and IBM this morning launched the first batch of MobileFirst apps for enterprise iOS users. The new suite of business-focused apps are available exclusively for the iPhone and iPad starting today and include apps for insurance, retail, telecom, government, travel, transportation, banking and more.

Major Shazam update adds Counts feature, in-app player, deeper Spotify integration and more

The popular music-identification service Shazam on Wednesday issued a major update to its iOS client adding richer Spotify integration letting you listen to Spotify songs without leaving Shazam and automatically add Shazamed tracks to a specific playlist, an in-app player allowing you to quickly listen to the Shazam charts, a new Shazam Counts feature which displays how many Shazams each track has and more.

Bose products return to Online Apple Store in time for holiday shopping

As hinted earlier this week, Bose products have in fact returned to the Online Apple Store following their removal last month. According to some watchers, the iPhone maker pulled Beats products following an alleged patent infringement on Beats' part.

Some but not all Bose audio products can now be purchased through Apple's webstore ahead of the Christmas shopping frenzy, such as the $196 SoundLink Mini Bluetooth Speaker, the $300 SoundLink Bluetooth Speaker III and the $300 QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones.

This micro USB to Lightning cable adapter can help eliminate cable clutter

Tired of carrying around multiple cables? Of course you are! Lots of gadgets pile up around iOS devices. There are battery cases, portable Bluetooth speakers, powered headphones, and the like. Unfortunately, none of them use Lightning cables for charging as they instead require a micro USB.

I keep both a Lightning cable and micro USB cable in my daypack at all times. Actually, I keep two Lightning and two micro USB cables in my pack. My forgetfulness only proves the challenge of keeping enough cords around. If only there was a cable to satisfy both standards. Thanks to accessory maker TYLT, the Syncable-Duo is just the solution.

Let’s Talk Jailbreak 85: Giving up on television

Episode 85: iOS 8.1.2 is released. The future of jailbreaking. TaiG for OS X. Jeff laments about Dell's terrible customer support. Giving up on TV and buying a projector. Our experience with a new CarPlay tweak.

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How to jailbreak iOS 8.1.2 with TaiG 1.2

TaiG has released version 1.2 of its iOS 8 jailbreak tool, and it's now capable of jailbreaking iOS 8.1.2. As has been the norm with the past few jailbreak releases, this is a Windows only jailbreak tool. If you're running Windows, you can follow our step-by-step tutorial. If you're on a Mac, you can use our virtual machine tutorial to run Windows on OS X and jailbreak.