iPhone News

Samsung teases ‘something new’ for CES 2013

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

Samsung, the world's largest maker of both cellphones and smartphones by volume, is gearing up for CES 2013, which runs January 8-11 in Las Vegas. A successor to the Galaxy S III is expected to debut at the show and the South Korean firm has put together a nice teaser suggesting "something new is coming". There are some indications that Apple may be looking to unveil a seventh-generation iPhone during the first quarter of next year, but no credible evidence of a manufacturing ramp up has surfaced yet...

Garage sale: ailing Panasonic, Sharp, Sony sell off $3B worth of property

You can put Panasonic, Sony and Sharp on your list of once mighty Japanese consumer electronics giant that are now forced to sell off billion dollars' worth of property in an embarrassing move deemed absolutely unavoidable if these dinosaurs want to survive winter. Panasonic, the maker of the Viera brand of TVs, was previously reported as wanting to exit the television business to focus on churning out displays for portable electronics, especially Apple’s iPad.

These days, the company is working to raise $1.34 billion from offloading property and shares in other Japanese companies by end of March 2013, Reuters reported Monday. We're talking land holdings, plants and even a 24-storey staff dorm in central Tokyo which has more than 47,300 square meters and houses about two thousand workers. Sony and Sharp, once the biggest names in electronics, are planning to follow suit...

Australian police issue warning regarding Apple Maps

Apple's Maps application has had nothing but problems since it was released to the public back in September. Users have complained that the company's in-house replacement for Google Maps has inaccurate location data and other bugs.

But if you thought Maps was bad before, wait until you hear this. Police in Victoria, Australia issued a warning this weekend regarding the mapping software after several travelers became lost and stranded due to receiving poor directions...

Apple’s ‘Made in USA’ Mac could be the next-gen Mac Pro

The industry was taken aback a little when Tim Cook on Friday told NBC’s Brian Williams in his first TV interview since becoming the CEO that Apple plans to bring some of the manufacturing jobs back home from China. He even went on to confirm that the company pledged to spend a hundred million bucks to make it happen, but stopped short of specifying which Macs would be assembled in the United States.

By all accounts, Apple's flagship desktop machine aimed at pros - the Mac Pro - is at the center of the company's renewed interest to bring some Mac production back to the country. First and foremost, the Mac Pro is way overdue for a hardware upgrade, having been last refreshed 427 days ago, or nearly a year and half ago...

Bose SoundDock with Lightning support coming later this month

Not everyone is a fan of Bose audio products. They are typically more expensive and have fewer features than their counterparts, but still, they manage to sell a ton of them. And the SoundDock is the perfect example of that.

Introduced in 2004, the $200+ Bose SoundDock is one of the most recognizable lines of iPhone/iPod speakers on the market. And this month, Bose is going to release a new version of the Dock with Lightning support...

T-Mobile bets the iPhone will curb subscriber churn

As you know, T-Mobile USA, the nation's fourth-largest carrier, will finally land Apple's iPhone next year. The Deutsche Telekom-owned telco is making no excuse for its failure to land the sough-after device earlier and, unsurprisingly, is looking to tap the popularity of the Apple smartphone to win back some of its subscribers lost to rivals AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint.

T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere told reporters on Friday that his company, which has 33 million customers in the United States, is hoping to steal would-be subscribers who are eyeing an iPhone on a rival network. Even more so, the German company acknowledges that having the iPhone is key to returning to growth in subscriptions by the end of 2013...

Square’s Wallet app gains gift cards with Passbook integration

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's another startup, Square, has made a name for itself with a compelling and competitive mobile payment service which, in my mind, is more straightforward and powerful than Google's Wallet. The company is selling its iPhone payment dongle via the online Apple Store, having released an accompanying Wallet app on iOS and Android on November 8. It supports, among other things, receiving electronic receipts and paying with your own name.

Now, the Wallet app has been recently updated with micro-payments at Starbucks locations and now Square has added a timely new functionality, the ability to send personalized gifts that can be used at about 250,000 businesses supporting Square Wallet as a payment option.

This new feature also taps Apple's Passbook service in iOS 6 so any gift card created with the Wallet app gets automatically imported into Passbook and synced across devices via iCloud. This let you redeem a Square gift card at any of the supported points of purchase via Passbook. How's that for a hands-free checkout?

The iDownloadBlog top news stories of the week – Dec 9, 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+...

Here’s how the Apple TV’s new Bluetooth keyboard support works

Earlier today we told you about how the latest beta version of the Apple TV firmware adds Bluetooth keyboard support. Why Apple is just now getting around to adding support for keyboards is anyone's guess, but it's better late than never.

No longer will you have to tediously type in hidden WiFi SSIDs and passwords in order to setup a WiFi connection. No longer will you tear your hair out in frustration as you search YouTube for your favorite videos from iDB.

We've downloaded the beta version of the latest Apple TV firmware, and tested out the Bluetooth keyboard support for ourselves. Now we'd like to share with you the entire setup process just to show you how incredibly easy it all is. Take a look inside...

T-Mobile to eliminate handset subsidies ahead of iPhone launch

On Thursday, Deutsche Telekom announced that T-Mobile USA had entered into an agreement with Apple to bring products to market next year. CEO John Legere confirmed the news while speaking at a conference this week, saying that T-Mobile will indeed be carrying the iPhone in 2013, and it will be offering it in a "different" way...

Twitter looking to roll out photo filters by year’s end

Back in November, The New York Times reported that Twitter was looking to add Instagram-like photo filters to its official web and mobile clients. The move would allow, if not encourage, users to bypass the popular photo-sharing service.

Today comes a follow-up report from Mike Isaac over at AllThingsD, who says that Twitter is indeed working on adding photo filters to its service, a it's hoping to release them via an application update in time for the holiday season...

iPhoneography: back to the basics with KitCam and its powerful controls

I hope everyone had fun making abstract landscapes using the intentional camera movement (ICM) techniques from our last lesson. This week I decided to take a quick step back and return to the basics for a bit. I know many iPhone Photographers who are just starting to discover the creativity inside themselves might have never owned a camera before their iPhone. And just because your camera happens to be a phone doesn't mean that it operates any differently than this camera. My old Shur-Shot Jr!

I don't want to bore you details, but these ideas are important to understand as we begin to explore new concepts in future lessons. So bear with me and let's take a quick look at the way cameras work...