Year: 2014

Best Buy launches pre-Black Friday sale with discounts on iPods and iPads

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Joining Walmart and other retailers looking to get a head start on next week's Black Friday festivities, Best Buy today began offering limited-time deals on a number of products. Among those products is a first generation iPad Air, and fifth-gen iPod touch, both of which have been significantly discounted.

For the next three days, Best Buy is taking between $80 and $100 off all iPad Air models—the discount depends on the model you buy. While the original Air is more than a year old now, it still features a newer hardware design and packs plenty of power. The 16GB Wi-Fi-only model is a steal at just $319.

Apple seeds first OS X 10.10.2 beta to developers

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Apple has seeded the first beta of OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 this afternoon. The update, labeled build 14C68k, is available through the Update tab in the Mac App Store and the Dev Center for all registered Mac developers.

Today’s release comes just a few days after Apple officially launched 10.10.1 to the public, which featured bug fixes and Wi-Fi improvements—although some users are still complaining of Wi-Fi issues after updating.

How to downgrade to iOS 8.1

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

If you want to jailbreak iOS 8.1, but you're running iOS 8.1.1 or the new iOS 8.2 beta, you can downgrade your firmware to iOS 8.1 and jailbreak as long as Apple is still signing the iOS 8.1 firmware. As of this post, 8.1 is still being signed, but that will change in the future, so use this post to determine whether or not this tutorial is still valid.

If Apple is signing iOS 8.1, it's extremely easy to downgrade your device, even if you're running the iOS 8.2 beta or iOS 8.1.1. Neither of those firmwares are jailbreakable at the moment, but iOS 8.1 is jailbreakable, hence the need to downgrade. Follow our simple tutorial after the break to downgrade your device back to iOS 8.1.

Billboard to begin incorporating streaming services in top 200 chart

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

On Wednesday, December 3, Billboard says it will premiere its biggest upgrade to its 200 chart in more than 23 years. The chart, which currently tracks the top 200 albums of the week by sales, will be the first to include on-demand streaming and digital track sales.

To do this, the chart will incorporate streaming service data measured by Nielsen Entertainment by way of a new algorithm. Billboard says it's the "most substantial methodology update since 1991," when Billboard began using point-of-sale data to measure album sales.

Vimeo gains finely graded notification settings, more informative layouts

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 20, 2014

Following up on its August update which brought out uploading functionality in addition to some interesting private sharing options, Vimeo on Thursday issued a brand new version of its iPhone and iPad client.

Now at version 5.1.1, Vimeo's video pages have gained more informative layouts with the title, creator, play count and other information.

Active Vimeo users often complained about an avalanche of notifications from the site. Feeling their pain, the video sharing site has finally made it possible to cherry-pick notifications to receive in the Vimeo app.

Jump past the fold for other Vimeo 5.1.1 highlights.

Telltale posts first trailer of upcoming ‘Game of Thrones’ game

Cody Lee ∙ November 20, 2014

After dropping some details regarding its upcoming 'Game of Thrones' game last week, Telltale Games today released its first trailer. The video sets the stage for what could be Telltale's biggest releases, given how popular HBO's GOT franchise has become.

The game will tell the story of the House Forrester, a noble family from the north of Westerns, loyal to the Starks Winterfell. Players will take on the role of different members of the Forrester household, and determine their fates. Here's the new trailer.

Evernote for Mac rewritten for speed and energy performance, iOS app gets Work Chat and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 20, 2014

Evernote, the popular note-taking and productivity platform, on Thursday issued a major refresh to its Mac app while adding a new Work Chat for sharing and collaborating to the iPhone and iPad client, among other items.

After a complete rewrite, Evernote 6.0 for Mac is now significantly faster, more reliable and consumes less energy than ever before.

As if that weren't enough, the new Mac app comes with half a dozen new features, including sleek new look optimized for OS X Yosemite, search improvements, the ability to resize images and tables, to mention just a few.

iOS and OS X editions of Evernote are available free of charge.

You can now privately share tweets in DMs

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 28, 2018

After previewing future platform enhancements and features during its Analyst’s Day event, the popular social service Twitter on Thursday began rolling out one of the mentioned new features: the ability to private share a tweet through Twitter's direct messaging function.

Think about sharing tweets privately with any of your followers in terms of discussing public content in private conversations, the micro-blogging platform suggested.

To do this from Twitter's main iPhone client, long-press the tweet in your timeline and choose the new “Share via Direct Message” option. The person you share a tweet with will get a push notification, said the company.

Moreover, the tweet will display directly in the conversation.

The iDownloadBlog + Sphero bonanza giveaway

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

Christmas might still be a month away but we want to beat Santa Claus to the punch and offer you a chance to get something fun without you having to wait until December 25th. That is why we teamed up with the folks at Orbotix, the company behind the famous Sphero, to offer you a chance to win one of the three connected gadgets we're putting up for grabs.

Sega’s Football Manager Handheld 2015 hits iOS

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 30, 2018

Japanese games maker Sega on Thursday rolled out Football Manager Handheld 2015 to the App Store. Featuring improved look and feel, a brand new match engine, a Scouting Agency feature and new world rankings with dynamic league reputation, the latest installment in the award-winning Football Manager series lets smartphone and tablet gamers live out the dream of managing their favorite real-life club.

And with enhancements such as richer club stats and a Manager Achievements page to get a run-down on all trophies, awards and achievements won, Football Manager Handheld 2015 should be an insta-buy for anyone in the market for a football manager.

The iPhone and iPad download will set you back ten bucks a pop. Additional features such as challenges and an in-game editor are available through In-App Purchases.

You can now adjust focus and lighting of photos in Facebook Messenger

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 20, 2014

Facebook on Thursday issued a small update to its Messenger app for the iPhone and iPad, bringing out additional features to touch up the photos you take within the software using the built-in camera feature.

Now available in the App Store at no cost, Facebook Messenger 16.0 fixed an issue with sending messages while introducing a pair of new controls to adjust the focus and lighting of photos you take in the app.

Foxconn building $2.9 billion plant to churn out displays exclusively for Apple

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 20, 2014

Foxconn, the world's top contract manufacturer and Apple's favorite gadget assembly shop, is planning on burning NT$80 billion, or approximately $2.6 billion, on a brand new manufacturing facility in Taiwan that will produce displays exclusively for Apple, Bloomberg reported Thursday morning.

The plant will employ more than two-thousand workers and is being built after “an urgent request for exclusive capacity” from Apple, indicating that the iPhone maker is anticipating growing demand for its devices in the coming years.