Year: 2016

Deck out your iPhone’s respring screen with Springy

Everyone who’s used a jailbroken iPhone before knows what the respring screen looks like. It displays a black screen with a white Apple logo if you have a black device, or a white screen with a black logo if you have a white device. On the other hand, if you’re jailbroken, then why have the same old screen everyone else has? You can customize it!

A new free jailbreak tweak called Springy is going to give you more options to go down this road if you like customization.

Get your green thumb on with Flower Power by Parrot

Flower Power, an iOS app that promises to help you get the best out of your favorite indoor or outdoor plant, has undergone a major face lift this August. The app, developed by Parrot SA has been around since 2013, but both looks and functions have been overhauled in-depth recently. While the app is and has always been free, it requires a hefty upfront investment for the wireless plant monitor itself to supply the app with critical data. So let’s posit you want your beloved indoor plant to live up to its maximum potential - Should you pounce for it?

Report: Apple planning to hold new Mac event October 27

Apple will introduce new Macs at an event on October 27, reports Recode. Citing sources familiar with the company's plans, the outlet says that the event will likely take place at or near Apple's Cupertino campus, rather than its typical venue in San Francisco.

Recode doesn't specify exactly which Mac products we'll see, but most of Apple's laptop and desktop lines are due for an update. A report from Japanese blog Mac Otakara yesterday called for new 13" and 15" MacBook Pro models, and a refreshed 13-inch Air.

Your Stories to begin appearing in Instagram’s Explore tab beginning today

After launching Snapchat-esque Stories two and a half months ago, Instagram today started promoting these auto-dissapearing slideshows within the app's popular Explore tab.

Instagram's been surfacing recommended Stories in the Explore tab for a subset of its users since August. Today, Recommended Stories in Explore has officially started rolling out to everyone.

“Starting today, you’ll begin to see Instagram Stories on Explore,” announced the Facebook-owned service in a blog post Tuesday.

Facebook enhances 360-degree photos with initial viewport selection, album support & more

Facebook yesterday announced some overdue new features designed to elevate the user experience when it comes to posting 360-degree photos, which you have been able to upload to the service since June 2016.

Initially, the experience with these panoramic photos left a lot to be desired: you couldn't upload them to albums nor could you select the area in a 360-degree picture for others to see in their feed.

Both of these omissions have been addressed in the latest version of Facebook for mobile and desktop, the social networking behemoth has confirmed.

Jet black and micro-abrasions: how iPhone 7 holds up a month later

Now that I've been using my jet black iPhone 7 for a little over a month, I figured it'd be depressing interesting to look at the state of that high-gloss finish and see how it's fared over that short period of time.

In previous years, this was not even a concern, but the fragility of the new jet black finish has been under scrutiny since day one, especially as Apple itself noted that jet black devices would be prone to micro-abrasions.

Tim Cook was included in the list of potential VP candidates for Clinton campaign

Was Apple's boss Tim Cook really considered as a possible running mate for Hillary Clinton? WikiLeaks recently dumped another trove of emails and one of the messages detailing the inner workings of the Clinton campaign specifically mention Cook as an early possibility for the Vice President of the U.S.

Cook's name was included in the list with other potential VP candidates like Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg.

Facebook getting ready to ape Snapchat with Messenger Day, a visual storytelling feature

If you live in Poland or Australia, you might have stumbled upon a brand new feature at the top of Facebook's Messenger app, called Messenger Day. As reported by Mashable on Tuesday, Facebook has begun expanding this new feature across the globe following launch of Instagram Stories last month. Available in the mobile Messenger app for iOS and Android, Messenger Day is about sharing what you're up to in the form of auto-dissapearing updates, stickers and sketches.

Netflix offline viewing coming before year-end?

It looks like Netflix offline viewing might finally be coming even though CEO Reed Hastings first said that the feature was “never going to happen”.

As Streaming Observers learned a few days ago, the company has changed its mind and will be reportedly adding offline mode to its mobile application before the end of this year.

Netflix's share prices shot up 20 percent this morning after the company reported better than expected third-quarter earnings.

Candy Crush Saga is coming to CBS as a live action game show

Candy Crush Saga has been a cash cow from its inception on the App Store. King's tremendously popular mobile match-three puzzle video game has made a fortune on platforms like iOS, Android, Facebook and Windows 10.

But now, King is set to boost its profits as the CBS network confirmed Tuesday that it has given a series order to a TV adaptation of Candy Crush Saga from Lionsgate TV.

That's right, they'll be actually turning the mobile Candy Crash Saga game into a live action game show in which teams of two individuals will compete on “enormous, interactive game boards featuring next generation technology.”

Sprint’s new tablet-exclusive unlimited plan degrades your video, music and gaming streams

I don't trust “unlimited” wireless plans because they're all but unlimited and often come with a bunch of caveats one needs to consider carefully. The latest example: Sprint's newly announced data plan for tablets which promises unlimited 4G LTE data in exchange for $20 per month. So far so good, but the devil—as always—is in the detail.

If you take a closer look at the fine print, you soon realize that the plan limits video streaming to DVD-like 480p resolution, music streaming quality to 500kbps and your online gaming streams to up to 2Mbps.