Cody Lee

Cody Lee, iDownloadBlog.com’s longest-serving Editor, joined the site in 2008. He specializes in uncovering the best deals on Apple products, apps, and accessories. With years of experience in technology journalism, Cody helps readers save money while staying informed about the latest trends and updates in the Apple ecosystem. Cody’s history with smartphones goes almost as far back as he does. As the son of a Nokia employee, he was exposed early on to handsets like the N91 and the Communicator. He has since been involved in nearly every aspect of the mobile phone industry. While going to college, he worked at a Nokia factory, building handsets, and later moved on to a sales position at a major wireless carrier.

Tim Cook: iOS in the Car is a ‘key focus’ for the company

Cody Lee ∙ July 23, 2013

Apple held its quarterly earnings conference call this afternoon, for the June Quarter, where Tim Cook and his CFO Peter Oppenheimer shared financial information and other insights into the company's operations with analysts, shareholders and reporters.

During the Q&A portion of the call, Cook was asked about Apple's 'iOS in the Car' initiative. The feature, which allows users to interact with their iOS devices via an in-car display, was one of the few that Apple spotlighted during its WWDC keynote last month...

Nike+ Running update brings new Nike+ Challenges feature

Cody Lee ∙ Updated December 4, 2013

Nike has posted a significant update to its popular Running app today, bringing it to version 4.3. While the update only includes a handful of improvements, and one new feature, that new feature is a pretty big deal.

It's called Nike+ Challenges, and just as you'd expect, it allows you to challenge your friends to a race. You simply set the distance, send an invite to another Nike+ user, and the app will track each of your progresses...

15 interesting points from today’s earnings call

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

Apple just announced its earnings for its June quarter, and despite all of the ‘doom’ talk and lowball analyst predictions, the numbers are actually pretty good. In fact, the company set a record for iPhone sales during the 3-month period.

We're just finishing up the conference call, where Tim Cook and his CFO Peter Oppenheimer talked about the quarter, offered some insight and fielded several questions. And as usual, we’ve rounded up the 15 most interesting points for you...

Apple Q3 2013 earnings: 31.2M iPhones, 14.6M iPads, $35.3B revenue

Cody Lee ∙ July 23, 2013

Facing increasing competition from Samsung and other vendors, without a new product in several months, most analysts predicted that Apple's earnings for the June quarter would be somewhat of a disappointment. But Apple just beat most of the Street's estimates.

Apple's earnings are out, and for the most part the numbers are impressive. The company managed to sell 31.2 million iPhones during the 3-month period, where most analysts predicted 26 million. And it also sold 14.6M iPads (very low), and posted $35.3B in revenue...

AT&T activates 3.7 million iPhones in Q2

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

As we sit and wait for Apple to release its earnings report for the June quarter, let's take a look at how AT&T did. The nation's second largest carrier has had an interesting 3-months, having to deal with increased competition from the scrappy T-Mobile.

The company just released its Q2 financials, and most of the numbers look good thus far. The carrier says it added 551,000 postpaid subscribers from March to June, helping it fuel earnings of 67 cents per share and post a solid revenue of $32 billion...

Popular voice and messaging service ‘Viber’ hacked by Syrian Electronic Army

Cody Lee ∙ Updated December 4, 2013

Popular voice and messaging service Viber has been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army, reports The Hacker News. The group has a history of hacking the Twitter accounts of the Associated Press, The Guardian, and other news sources.

Proof of today's attack came in the form of a warning message on Viber's support website (which has since been). The SEA claims that the messaging platform is spying and tracking its users, and it posted a screenshot of alleged evidence...

Motorola introduces the Droid Maxx with 48-hour battery life

Cody Lee ∙ July 23, 2013

Despite the fact that it's gearing up to launch the Moto X next week, Motorola joined Verizon on stage this morning at a very low key event in New York City to introduce a trio of new Droid smartphones: the Droid Mini, the Droid Ultra, and the Droid Maxx.

All 3 handsets seem like decent offerings, but the Mini and the Ultra were most decidedly overshadowed by the Droid Maxx. In addition to its 5-inch, HiDef OLED display and 8-core processor, the Maxx promises up to 48 hours of 'typical use' battery life...

T-Mobile calls out AT&T for being ‘sneaky and underhanded’

Cody Lee ∙ July 23, 2013

It seems like it's 'pick on AT&T week,' because shortly after a report surfaced that Verizon was running an ad in The Wall Street Journal calling the carrier out for its 'most reliable network' claims, comes word that T-Mobile is going to run a similar print spot.

In a new print ad, set to run in today's issue of USA Today, T-Mobile bashes AT&T’s Next program, calling it 'sneaky and 'underhanded.' The copy also quotes a Verge article, saying “AT&T’s reaction to T-Mobile’s transparency is to be more deceptive than ever.”

Path updated with new Friend Progress Bar, store items and more

Cody Lee ∙ Updated November 12, 2018

Path users will be happy to hear that the social network has seeded an update to its iOS client today. The update, which brings the app to version 3.1.1, includes a handful of new features, as well as various improvements and bug fixes.

One of the more noticeable changes in 3.1.1 is the updated Friend Progress Bar. Path introduced the feature, which helps users better track their friends' stories, in the last update. And now, those that found it annoying can easily remove it...

Best Buy to bring back its iPad trade-in program today

Cody Lee ∙ July 23, 2013

Best Buy is set to bring back its iPad trade-in program today, according to a new report. The retailer debuted the program earlier this month as part of a two-day promotion, which allowed iPad owners to trade-in their devices for late generation models.

The deal is very much the same this time around, with Best Buy offering iPad 2 and 3 owners gift cards for their tablets, starting at $200, to be used towards the purchase of a fourth gen. We've posted the leaked internal employee memo after the fold...

Verizon responds to AT&T’s ‘most reliable 4G LTE network’ claim in new ad

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

Last week, AT&T launched a new ad campaign claiming that it not only had the nation's fastest LTE network, but also the most reliable. Citing independent third-party data, it said it now has the "highest success rate for delivering mobile content across 4G LTE networks."

Obviously, this didn't sit too well with Verizon, who has long touted the reliability and reach of its cellular network as the best in the country. So the Big Red carrier decided to take out a print advertisement in The Wall Street Journal yesterday to set the record straight...

Security researcher used iAd Workbench exploit to hack Apple’s dev center

Cody Lee ∙ July 23, 2013

Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information from Apple's developer website. The company immediately took the dev center offline, and at the time of this writing it's still down, in order to rebuild its systems in a way that this won't happen again.

But just exactly how did it happen? Well according to Turkish security researcher Ibrahim Balic, who is claiming responsibility for the outage, he was able to infiltrate Apple's servers thanks to an exploit he discovered in the recently released iAd Workbench software...