iPhone News

Hackulous shuts down: piracy app Installous is gone

In what seems like a small victory against app piracy, the Hackulous team announced today on its site that it is shutting down, bringing down its most popular apps in the process: Installous and AppSync.

Although it's still unclear what the reasons behind the shut down are, Hackulous claims on its website that it's mostly due to stagnant forums and the difficulty to moderate them. Although I never hang out in the forums, I find it hard to believe that there was little activity in there, especially given the notoriety of Hackulous in the piracy world...

The iDownloadBlog top news stories of the week – Dec 30, 2012 edition

Like every Sunday, we bring you the stories that were the most popular on iDB during this past week. Whether it is a news piece, an editorial, a tutorial, a new jailbreak tweak, or an accessory review, we sum it all up in one convenient place.

If you like what you're reading, please make sure to spread the love by sharing our posts on your favorite social network. We're usually hanging out a lot on Twitter and Facebook, more rarely on Google+...

Apple’s Christmas ad, as it should have been…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8twx1WZcns

Remember Apple's Christmas commercial with a girl singing "I'll Be Home" to her grandfather via FaceTime on an iPad mini? Yeah, it was that memorable - and for all the wrong reasons, cynics might add. Well, bright folks at Amidio certainly did seize the opportunity to take Apple's idea and one-up it a notch.

Have a look at their version and dare telling me it doesn't beat Apple at its own game. Here we have a grown up (and cutesy) girl singing the same song, but using Amidio's Futulele app to also play the tune on her iPad mini. Not sure about you, but I can instantly tell which one I like better...

How to copy Instagram photos to Flickr

Instagram's exploding popularity is having long-time iPhoneography buffs pay notice and watch in horror as mainstream users cannot get enough of its filters and max 1080 pixel wide resolution. And with Facebook and Android now in the picture, no wonder some early adopters go to the extremes of closing their account while others, like Apple's marketing honcho, stopped using Instagram for it "jumped the shark".

To the most ardent fans, the last straw was Instagram's confusing handling of the recent terms of service changes - even if it was much ado about nothing.

If you've been seriously contemplating importing your Instagram photos over to Flickr but were put off by the tedious manual uploads - worry not, turns out there are a few ways to get that job done without too much fuss. iDB has you covered with this quick guide to bringing in all your Instagram photos to Flickr with just a few clicks.

The Daily Recap – Dec 28, 2012 edition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LTZawIaXho

Welcome to The Daily Recap for December 28th, 2012. Watch our video for a quick look at some of the top stories from the day in less than two minutes. If you missed out on any of today's big news, this is a great way for you to get caught up fast.

For your convenience, you'll also find links to all of the stories listed in today's recap inside...

The top jailbreak tweaks of 2012

A few weeks ago I published a somewhat controversial post about jailbreaking, and how its popularity is waning. This wasn't intended to be controversial, but it ended up that way, and after some thought I began to backtrack (a bit) on my stance.

The problem stemmed from the fact that I didn't do a very good job of explaining my stance. I didn't intend to say that jailbreaking was dead, my main point was just to show how innovation in the jailbreak community was being stifled by sometimes lazy developers, but mostly by Apple's efforts to stamp out jailbreaking.

While I still stand by my post, I felt that I needlessly ruffled a few feathers, and probably should have kept those thoughts to myself for the time being. When I began to work on this post — the top jailbreak tweaks of the year — it became more apparent that we actually have seen lot of innovation this year. Most of that innovation was earlier in the year, but nevertheless, there have been lots of great jailbreak tweaks to come out in the last 12 months.

Take a look inside as we cover some of this year's best jailbreak efforts from the development community. I'll also crown 2012's top jailbreak tweak of the year.

MacPhone and more early Apple designs detailed in new book, ‘Design Forward’

The Apple v. Samsung trial in August was a real treasure trove of information that gave us a peek behind the curtain and into Apple's design process. But what about some of Apple's early product designs that never came to fruition? Industrial designer Hartmut Esslinger and his upcoming new book titled 'Design Forward' offers an interesting glimpse into Apple products that never were.

In it, you'll find ten original photographs depicting designs for various computers Apple was researching at the time, including one for a tablet and another for a phone hybrid called the Macphone. We've got images right after the break...

Apple withdraws patent claim against Galaxy S III Mini in the U.S.

Faced with a potential $15 billion fine by The European Commission over its misuse of standards-essential patents in litigation with Apple, Samsung earlier this month dropped its bid to ban Apple devices in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands. Seemingly mirroring Samsung's move, Apple has now agreed to withdraw its patent infringement claims against a new Samsung phone it added to its U.S. suit on Black Friday, Reuters reports...

Google invites iOS devs to ‘do cool things that matter’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG2Wn2dm5-4

Google is determined to become the top iOS developer in terms of quality and presence. Already the company's Gmail, YouTube, Google+, Maps, Search and other products are found on many people's home screens. In fact, YouTube and Maps topped the list of most downloaded apps on Christmas Day. And now, the Mountain View, California-headquartered Internet giant has launched a web ad campaign to promote its presence on the Apple platform and invite developers to 'do cool things that matter' on iOS. It's a nice vote of confidence and a sign that Google in no way intends to leave iOS users behind and lose a a treasure trove of data it collects on use through its iOS apps...

Check out iSkelter’s gorgeously minimalistic bamboo-handcrafted iPhone 5 dock

You love your iPhone 5 and pride yourself with being an environmentally conscious person? How about putting your money where your mouth is by considering this awesome-looking iPhone 5 dock from iSkelter? Handmade entirely from bamboo, one of the fastest-growing plants on Earth, it "perfectly compliments your iPhone's minimalistic design features" with a touch of eco-friendliness. As the images attest, the dock will keep your iPhone 5 firmly in place either in portrait or landscape.

As a nice touch, there's even a carving elegantly leading the Lightning cable out, thus reducing incidences of tangled cords. I'm a big fan of Feng Shui and the minimalistic interior design so I'm already thinking how this could enrich my home office setup. I've got more shots and a video for you right past the break...

Samsung facing $15B fine for asserting standard-essential patents against Apple

Reuters reported last week that the European Union would “very soon” formally charge Samsung for asserting standard essential patents against Apple.

Smelling danger, just days prior to the development the Galaxy maker had withdrawn all its injunction requests in European courts.

Friday morning, UK's The Guardian newspaper reported that the European Commission could now slap the South Korean conglomerate - the world's top cell phone maker by volume - with a substantial fine of up to ten percent of its global revenue, amounting to as much as fifteen billion dollars based on Samsung's 2011 revenue of $148.9 billion... 

Student converts Raspberry Pi into a wireless AirPlay speaker

If you're not familiar with the Raspberry Pi, it's a mini computer which packs in a 700 MHz ARM 11 processor with 128MB of RAM that runs Debian Linux. In addition, a proof-of-concept hack turns the gizmo into an HDMI-enabled AirPlay video receiving machine. It's so small you’ll almost forget it’s there and costs only $25.

That's $75 cheaper than an Apple TV set-top box, the only official solution that provides wireless media streaming functionality from Mountain Lion Macs and iOS devices to a TV set.

Oliver told you in January that one of the Raspberry Pi developers had successfully created a hack that let him stream video from his iPad to a TV via the credit card-sized computer. And now, Cambridge engineering student Jordan Burgess has successfully converted the device into a wireless AirPlay-enabled audio receiver...