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.

Best Buy offering $50 gift card with iPad purchase

Folks in the market for a new tablet will want to check out their local Best Buy this weekend. The retail giant has a limited-time promotion going on right now that gives customers a free gift card with the purchase of an iPad.

Those purchasing a late-model iPad with Retina display, or an iPad 2, will get a $50 gift card, while those purchasing an iPad mini will get a $25 card. Offer is valid on all iPad models, 16GB through 128GB, Wi-Fi and Cellular...

Apple comments on two day-long developer center outage

If you've tried logging in to Apple's dev center over the past few days, but were unsuccessful, you weren't alone. The portal, which is where the company stores downloads, documentation and other resources for developers, has been down for 48 hours.

This isn't your typical 'maintenance' downtime, as those only usually last a couple of minutes—or at worst, a few hours. And as you can imagine, developers are starting to get frustrated with the service, which Apple charges a $99 subscription fee for...

US government gets approval to continue tracking phone records

In June, an order granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to the FBI leaked, revealing that Verizon was handing over millions of private telephone records to the US government. Of course, we later found out that it wasn't just Verizon giving up user data.

As you may have known, that court order was set to expire today, meaning that the government would no longer be authorized to collect such records. But according to the office of the Director of National Intelligence, FISA has just renewed its authorization...

Samsung and Apple renew settlement talks, but no deal yet

Apple and Samsung have reportedly renewed settlement talks, in an effort to put an end to their ongoing, global litigation. Since 2011, the two tech giants have been involved in countless patent lawsuits, in over 10 countries.

Word of their resumed resolution efforts comes by way of The Wall Street Journal. Citing people familiar with the matter, the outlet says the two even came close to an agreement in February, but things have since cooled off...

Verizon CFO says the carrier won’t change plan pricing after Edge launch

iPhone 4s

Verizon joined AT&T and T-Mobile yesterday by introducing a new upgrade program called Verizon Edge. Similar to the other two carriers' offerings, the plan involves customers paying a monthly fee in exchange for the ability to upgrade their device earlier.

After crunching some numbers, we found T-Mobile's program to be the best deal, due to the fact that it separates equipment and service charges. And some folks were hoping Verizon would follow suit here, but CFO Fran Shammo says don't count on it...

Rovio’s game-syncing ‘Account’ now available worldwide on iOS

Back in May, Rovio began rolling out ‘Account,’ a cloud-based service that allows users to save their progress in games across various devices. And today, the Finnish game-maker announced that it's now available to all iOS and Android users worldwide.

As before, Accounts is currently only available for gamers of the Croods and the original Angry Birds title, but the company says that it is intent on expanding it to other Angry Birds and non Angry Birds titles soon. More on the announcement after the fold...

Apple acquires location-based data startup Locationary

According to a new report, Apple has acquired Toronto-based Locationary, a Canadian startup that provides crowdsourced location data, for an unknown amount. The deal, which has already closed, includes both the company's tech and team.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling has even confirmed the new acquisition, offering up the usual boiler plate response 'Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

Apple’s plans for TV growing less ambitious with Time Warner deal

As we’ve heard a few times over the past month, Apple and Time Warner Cable appear to be very close to inking a deal that would bring a TWC app to the Apple TV’s Home screen. It would mark the first time that the set-top box would be capable of streaming live TV.

Initial details regarding the service have been scarce, but a new report this morning helps add a bit of color. Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg warns users not to get too excited, as the TWC app will save them little more than a click of the remote...

Fruit Ninja creators tease new game ‘Colossatron: Massive World Threat’

Gamers will be happy to hear that Halfbrick, the creators of popular iOS titles like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, have a new game coming out. The studio made quite a bit of commotion when it made the announcement yesterday at PAX Australia.

The game is called Colossatron: Massive World Threat, and it's a tower defense-esque title that has you managing a massive robotic snake known as the—you guessed it—Colossatron. And you essentially have one goal: destroy as much stuff as you can...

Unauthorized charger likely the blame for Chinese woman electrocution

Earlier this week, reports surfaced that a 23-year-old China Airlines flight attendant died after being electrocuted by her iPhone 5 charger. She reportedly suffered a fatal electric shock when she answered a call using her iPhone 5 that was recharging.

At the time, details surrounding the event were a bit foggy, with officials saying that they could not identify the source of the current that killed her. But a new report is out this morning claiming that a 'knockoff' charger could have been the culprit...

DigiTimes: iPad mini with Retina display coming in October

The inexact DigiTimes is reporting this morning that the next-generation iPad mini will feature a Retina display, and is expected to be introduced in October. The report is in direct contradiction to the publication's own scoop from earlier this week.

On Monday, the Taiwanese outlet added to speculation that Apple was delaying the launch of its Retina iPad mini until 2014 due to panel shortages. But apparently, LG has made significant progress with its production, and it's back on track for the fall...

Evernote updated with shortcuts, Skitch integration and more

Popular note-taking and all around productivity app Evernote has posted a solid update for its iOS client today. The update brings the app to version 5.4 and brings about a number of new features including shortcuts, Skitch Integration, and more.

For folks unfamiliar with Skitch, it's a screenshot editing and sharing utility for both iOS and Mac that allows users to add shapes and text to an image, and then share it online. And with today's update, users can access the app from within Evernote...