Year: 2016

How to save battery when playing Super Mario Run

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 12, 2019

Nintendo's highly-anticipated Super Mario Run launched on the App Store Thursday afternoon as a free download with a non-compulsory $9.99 In-App Purchase to unlock all of the gameplay modes and levels. If you're as excited for this game as I am (amazing what nostalgia can do, eh?), you'll be collecting those coins like there's no tomorrow.

In order to prevent unwanted battery drains, we have some tips for you about minimizing energy consumption while playing Super Mario Run on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

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Twelve South launches all-new Journal case, BookBook for iPhone 7 now available

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 15, 2016

Want to give your new iPhone 7 that vintage look without sacrificing device protection? Look no further than BookBook, the family of stylish leather cases from premium accessory maker Twelve South. Starting today, their BookBook case is available for iPhone 7/Plus and they also have an all-new edition, called Journal. Billed as their most luxurious folio case, Journal uses full-grain leather on both the outside and inside for a clean look.

Like BookBook, Journal features slots for cards, cash and ID. Both BookBook and Journal are now available for $59.99 and $69.99, respectively.

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Deliveries gains full iOS 10/watchOS 3 support & many new features in latest update

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 15, 2016

Deliveries, my favorite package tracker for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, received a major update on the App Store this morning. Bumped to version 8.0, Deliveries is now fully compatible with iOS 10 and watchOS 3 and supports many new iOS 10 features, from rich notifications and haptic feedback to a reworked widget, deeper 3D Touch support, faster background updating for the Deliveries widget and its Apple Watch app, improved suggestions when you add a delivery, an iMessage sticker pack and more.

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Apple’s new Japanese ad shows off FeliCa support on iPhone 7

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 15, 2016

Apple today published a new commercial on its Japanese YouTube channel, titled ”Race”.

The 30-second television spot is all about iPhone 7, which in Japan comes with a special chip supporting Sony-developed FeliCa mobile payments technology.

With FeliCa support, folk in Japan can buy tickets via Apple Pay at terminals supporting Suica, QUICPay or iD. Apple Pay launched in Japan at the end of October 2016.

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Dropbox for iOS gains bulk renaming of photos, offline folders & recent save locations

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 15, 2016

Popular cloud-storage service Dropbox has refreshed its iPhone and iPad application on the App Store with three new features: bulk-renaming of photos, offline folders and recent save locations. In addition, the company announced a major infrastructure push enabling faster sync speeds thanks to several new proxy servers established across the globe, including accelerators in California, Texas, Virginia, New York, Washington, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

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Google Drive becomes Android migration tool with contacts, photos, videos & calendar sync

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 15, 2016

Google wants to make it even easier for Apple fans to switch from iOS to the Android platform so it's turning the mobile Google Drive app into a migration tool of sorts with new features that let you upload and synchronize your contacts, photos, videos and calendar events.

The search giant also provides a Quick Switch Adapter with its Pixel smartphones that allows users to quickly transfers data directly from an iPhone to their Pixel phone.

Google Drive is available at no charge from the App Store.

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Apple has been quietly poaching engineers from automotive mapping company Here

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 15, 2016

Over the past few months, Apple has been quietly hiring engineers away from Here, a Berlin-based automotive mapping company, for mapping jobs in Berlin. Interestingly, Apple's never publicly confirmed that it has an office in Berlin.

According to LinkedIn profiles discovered by Business Insider, Apple's poached at least half a dozen employees from Here, jointly owned by German car makers Audi, BMW and Daimler.

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Aukey’s 30,000 mAh battery pack stores lots of power and charges with Lightning

Anthony Bouchard ∙ December 15, 2016

There are a ton of battery packs out there, and we just showed you a couple of very stout options from Anker last month, but for those who need even more juice, Aukey has a versatile 30,000 mAh battery pack with handy unique features.

Because I was personally impressed with the build quality and features this battery pack had to offer, I’m excited to show you everything it can do.

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10 great gift ideas for travelers

Cody Lee ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

Welcome to the latest edition of iDB’s ongoing Gift Ideas series, where we provide curated roundups of some of our favorite products. Throughout the year we cover and test a number of devices and accessories, so we decided to use that experience to help those searching for the perfect present. Today’s roundup is focused on gift ideas for folks who like to travel.

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watchOS 3.1.1 disables Lock feature in Control Center—here are four workarounds

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 14, 2016

Don't bother trying to lock your Apple Watch by tapping a dedicated Lock button in Control Center!

That's because watchOS 3.1.1 update (currently pulled over bricking complaints) has killed that button. It's not a bug—the feature disappeared from Control Center in the first beta of watchOS 3.1.1.

I'm unsure as to why Apple has tweaked how manual unlocking works, but am certainly not a fan of the change. Actually, I've felt so ticked off by this apparent “feature” of watchOS 3.1.1 that I've decided to come up with a few workaround solutions for those of us who manually lock our watches before going to sleep.

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1Password for Apple Watch is now a native app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 17, 2018

1Password developer AgileBits was there on day one with a brand new Apple Watch app when the wearable device made its April 2015 debut. As useful as it was, the app wasn't exactly a speed demon and was limited in functionality by only supporting items stored in your Primary vault. Those issues are now a thing of the past as 1Password for Apple Watch is now a 100 percent native app that takes full advantage of the speed and performance enhancements afforded by running directly on Apple Watch hardware.

As a bonus, the new app now permits you to add items from any vault to your Apple Watch, including items stored in your 1Password.com account vaults.

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