Month: March 2015

Microsoft announces low-cost $499 Surface 3

Microsoft on Tuesday upped the ante in the tablet race by announcing a new version of its Surface tablet/laptop hybrid, the Surface 3. Matching the iPad Air's starting price, the $499 device is being advertised as Microsoft's lightest, thinnest and least expensive tablet yet.

This non-Pro, low-cost version of the Surface runs Intel's new 1.6GHz quad-core Atom x7 chip (the highest performing Atom processor on the market) rather than an ARM-based processor, putting another nail in the Windows RT coffin.

The hybrid device has two gigabytes of RAM and sixty-four gigabytes of flash storage, runs full Windows 8.1, is upgradable to Windows 10 and offers an optional colorful keyboard at $129 for a $628 total before taxes.

Google+ Photos now appear in Drive, Auto Backup for images and videos available in iOS app

The search giant Google announced yesterday it is adding support for Google+ Photos to the Drive app on iOS, Android and the web. “Starting today, the photos and videos you keep in Google+ Photos will also be available in Google Drive,” said the company.

In addition to storing your photos and files together in Drive, the refreshed Google Drive for iOS app has introduced a new Auto Backup feature to ensure that your Camera Roll photos and videos are safely backed up in the Google cloud.

TouchTone review: this is what crowdsourced NSA research might look like

In this digital age, we are faced with issues about privacy and security. In no point in the history of the United States has more of our personal information been publically available than in the 21st century. What if the NSA sought out the help of everyday citizens to keep watch over each other?

TouchTone is a complex puzzle game with an underlying story that hits on such possibilities. How would our private lives look to an outsider? Would things we consider to be innocent look nefarious to our neighbor? We’ve got a hands-on game review of Touch Tone for you.

Cards and Castles: shuffle up and fight

Cards and Castles mixes two of my favorite things together: turn-based strategy and card battles. It also throws in one of my least favorite terms: free-to-play. Has Bit Mass created a game that perfectly blends these characteristics? Read on, dear adventurer, and let’s find out together.

Jay Z, other prominent artists look to take over music streaming with Tidal

Shawn "Jay Z" Carter has banded together a formation of artists looking to take on the music streaming industry with Tidal, the music streaming company he bought for $56 million. With fierce competition from Spotify, Google, Rdio, and soon Apple, Jay Z has put together an elite list of artists that want the value of music to be recognized again. The group detailed their plans at a media event on Monday evening.  

‘Return’ adds a recent apps launcher to Control Center

Developer William Vabrinskas, creator of jailbreak tweaks like Boxy and InstaURL, is back with a brand new tweak that's sure to turn some heads. His new tweak is called Return, and although it's not yet available on Cydia, it should be soon.

Return allows users to access recently used apps via a launcher placed at the top of the Control Center interface. Instead of wasting the available real estate, Return makes use of the empty area above Control Center by populating it with recently used apps.

ITC to investigate Apple following patent infringement complaints from Ericsson

The US International Trade Commission plans to investigate Apple, following two patent complaints from Ericsson, reports PC World.

It regards Apple’s use of an LTE patent for which it had a licensing agreement with Ericsson, up until earlier this year. When the agreement expired, Apple complained that Ericsson asked for too much money for the patent during re-negotiations and sued Ericsson. Ericsson counter-sued saying Apple infringed on the patents and that it had given the Cupertino-based company a fair price. 

‘Cask’ brings slick animations to iOS table views

Now that his work on Auxo seems to be finished, perhaps this means that we will begin seeing more frequent releases from Ryan Petrich? It doesn’t appear that he’s wasting any time, as Cask, a new jailbreak tweak, just recently appeared on his beta repo.

Cask is a tweak that brings animated table scrolling, inspired by Google Plus, to iOS. Although it may sound like a small thing, when you see Cask in action, you’ll realize that it causes a significant visual change. Be sure to watch our full video walkthrough of Cask in action.

Apple to announce Q2 2015 earnings on April 27

Apple just confirmed via its Investor Relations portal that it will be announcing the financial results for its second fiscal quarter of 2015 on Monday, April 27. As usual, the company will be hosting a live conference call to discussing its earnings, beginning at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET.

While Q2 is typically an uneventful quarter for Apple this one should prove quite interesting. Industry watchers are anxious to see how it follows up its record-breaking holiday quarter, and the firm is sure to share initial thoughts and feedback regarding the just-launched Apple Watch.

Apple seeds OS X 10.10.3 beta 6 to developers, public testers

Apple seeded another beta of OS X 10.10.3 on Monday for both members of the Mac Developer Center and public beta testers. The new build, available to download through the Mac App Store's Software Update mechanism, carries the build number 14D127 - compared to the previous build number of 14D113 that was released one week ago.

Multify is now available for download and comes with a new feature

Good news! Multify has just been released on Cydia. The highly anticipated tweak, which brings true multitasking to iOS 8, is available for purchase right now on Cydia's BigBoss repo.

Since our last review of the tweak, some new changes have been included, headlined by a new auto expanding keyboard. How does this new keyboard feature work? Watch our new hands-on video for the details.