iPhone News

Apple announces London iTunes Festival featuring Pharrell, Beck and others

Apple this morning announced its eighth annual iTunes Festival in London. The 30-day event will feature over 60 acts, and once again take place at the legendary Roundhouse throughout the month of September.

Headlining this year's Festival will be Maroon 5, Pharrell Williams, Beck and David Guetta, and Apple says that it will once again be streaming all of their performances to iOS devices, iTunes and the Apple TV for free...

Security firm warns of new iMessage spam campaign

iPhones users—particularly those in larger US cities—may want to start keeping an eye out for odd iMessages. According to security firm Cloudmark, there has been a dramatic uptick in recent months of spam directed at Apple's iOS messaging system.

Cloudmark says that the new spam campaign, which appears to be peddling counterfeit goods, accounted for 34% of US-based SMS spam during the past two months. Activity seemed to be particularly high in New York City, L.A., San Diego and Miami...

New in iOS 8: App Store trending searches

At WWDC back in June, Apple announced several nice-to-haves aimed at improving the oft-criticized app discovery with new App Store features. Among them: trending searches.

It should be noted that first mentions of this feature being active date as far back as a week ago. It's however unclear whether everyone on the latest iOS 8 beta is seeing hot searches or just a subset of Apple's registered iOS developers.

Be that as it may, trending searches are tremendously useful and bound to help developers get their apps found in the App Store. As the name suggests, the feature surfaces hot search queries at any given time...

Alternative transportation wallpapers

Each week, we bring you some of the best wallpaper images the web can offer. Sometimes, these wallpapers are user submitted, others found, some sought by theme or category. It is an open experiment we hold every Sunday, that keeps readers coming back to see what washed up for their devices.

This week is a themed week and the images inside have been scoured from the internet. It seemed that cars were just too easy. Consequently, we offer you a set of alternative transportation wallpapers, from Blackhawks to the Batmobile...

The best icon packs for OS X

As a follow-up to our recent article on how to change app icons in OS X, we've scoured the internet for the best icon packs for Mac apps in existence. The result is a beautiful assemblage of icons that is certain to give your Mac a fresh, new look.

In addition to large, themed icon sets, we've added several individual icons of third-party applications that have received an early update from independent graphic designers, who took inspiration from iOS 7, OS X Yosemite, and Apple's pre-Yosemite designs for iBooks, iLife, and iWork...

Gameloft posts new Modern Combat 5 trailer ahead of launch

After more than a year of waiting, Gameloft is finally ready to release Modern Combat 5: Blackout. The studio announced earlier this month that the game will launch for iOS and Android on July 24th, which is next Thursday.

To hold you over until then, Gameloft has posted an official Launch trailer for MC5. While we've seen videos before, this new clip is over a minute long and offers an entertaining look at the game's graphics and gameplay...

Infographic offers overview of iPhone 6 rumors

With so many leaked parts, mockups and insider reports raining down each week, it can be hard to keep up with the iPhone 6 rumor mill. Luckily, our friends at Nowhereelse.fr have compiled an infographic that offers an overview of the latest chatter.

The following image lists some of the more popular iPhone 6 rumors we've heard thus far, and the likelihood that they'll materialize. The data used to create the graphic comes from various tech outlets including AppleInsider, BGR, and of course, iDB...

New scratch test video suggests iPhone 6 front panel may not be sapphire

The consensus thus far has been that the iPhone 6 will feature a sapphire-covered display. Apple recently opened a plant to produce large amounts of the material, and we've seen videos depicting purported iPhone 6 panels as virtually indestructible.

But a new scratch test video suggests that the leaked iPhone 6 front panels floating around may not actually be made of [pure] sapphire. In the clip, YouTube veteran Marques Brownlee puts the panel to the test using Mohs scale of mineral hardness...

Launch of 12-inch Retina MacBook may be pushed back to 2015

Taiwan's Economic Daily News is reporting tonight that the launch of the 12-inch MacBook with Retina display may be pushed back due to Intel processor delays. The long-rumored hybrid laptop was expected to finally launch later this year.

The problem is, the new MacBook, said to strike a better balance of performance and portability, is believed to be tied to Intel's 14-nanometer Broadwell chips. These chips have been delayed several times, and now may not land until 2015...

Ultratext is a fun app that will spice up your iMessages

I'm not big on messaging. I don't do Snapchat. I don't do Whatsapp. I barely use Twitter DMs. However, I'm a pretty big iMessage user, the messaging platform introduced by Apple along iOS 5 in 2011.

iMessage is great because it allows you to communicate with any iOS user in a very simple way. There is no app to download, no account to create, and no password to remember. Oh, and yes, it works on iPhone, iPad, and Mac too.

While trawling the App Store earlier today, I found Ultratext, a fun app that lets you send GIF messages to your contacts, giving iMessage a little more spice and colors...

BigBoss repo allegedly hacked [updated]

BigBoss, one of the default repositories for jailbreak tweaks in Cydia, has allegedly been hacked by an individual or a group of individuals whose identity is still unknown.

The attackers were apparently able to gain access to all packages (paid and free) that are available in the BigBoss repo, and made the deb index and database available for download. The assailants went as far as creating a new repo which can be added to Cydia to download all BigBoss-hosted tweaks.

As is always the case when this type of security breach happens, jailbreak users should be cautious and stay away from this.

Square Enix announces ‘Final Fantasy Record Keeper’

Square Enix and developer partner DeNA have announced a new game for the mobile Final Fantasy franchise. It's called Final Fantasy Record Keeper, and you play as Deci, a bright student to Dr. Mog in the history department.

Dr. Mog serves as the record keeper for all previous Final Fantasy games, and his department is filled with paintings of famous battles and other scenes. And if you happen to see one you like, Dr. Mog can use magic to send you in...