iPhone News

Bad Piggies get 15 new levels in a ‘Flight in the Night’ episodic update

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeGUE__O3w4

Following up on yesterday's Angry Birds Seasons update which has brought out 30 new Halloween-themed levels, Finnish developer Rovio today pushed its first content update to Bad Piggies, its Angry Birds-style game from the piggs' perspective, launched a month ago. The new 'Flight in the Night' episode contains fifteen new levels, a brand new moonlit theme, a new sandbox mode to test your creativity, a new item and more...

LG Display beats Samsung handily for Apple display orders

According to a new supply chain report, LG Display beat its arch-rival Samsung for display panel orders and has now become the primary supplier of screens that Apple uses to build virtually all of its recently refreshed products.

Specifically, LG Display is said to provide panels for the new iPad mini, fourth-generation iPad with Retina display, 13-inch MacBook Pro and both 21.5 and 27-inch revamped iMac models. This is of particular interest to would-be shoppers eyeing the iPad mini because "frustrated suppliers", per one analyst, previously had issues meeting Apple's exacting standards...

Conan O’Brien on iPad mini

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJtS8201qNc

Always quick to exploit everything Apple as an inspiration for his late-night talk show, Conan O'Brien took Apple's charming piano commercial for the new iPad mini and made a sort of sarcastic musical out of it, just watch...

Sprint activates 1.5M iPhones in Q3, same as in June quarter

Carrier Sprint, the nation's third-largest, today posted results for the fiscal 2012 third quarter ended September 30. The company reported activating 1.5 million iPhones throughout the quarter, mirroring the iPhone activation numbers from the June quarter.

Sprint continues to be under pressure, reporting a net loss of $767 million, nearly half of the $1.38 billion net loss from the June quarter. Some 40 percent of iPhone activations were new customers, or 900,000 people. Sprint also surpassed one million LTE smartphones sold prior to the launch of iPhone 5...

Hey Siri, where’s the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot?

Have you ever found yourself looking for a public Wi-Fi hotspot? Maybe you were nearing your monthly wireless data cap, or were on a laptop or some other non-cellular device.

How'd you go about finding it? Sure there are websites you can look at, and apps that you can download. But if you're looking for an easier way to do this, you can just ask Siri...

Data suggests the iPad lost momentum in Q3

CEO Tim Cook shared an interesting milestone during yesterday's iPad mini unveiling: Apple two weeks ago sold its hundred millionth iPad. Now, hundred million of anything is enough to give you a pause, but a quick look at Apple's SEC filings reveals that iPad sales in the September quarter were in fact slowing down. Apple sold a total of 84.12 million iPads when it closed books on the last day of the June quarter.

This means the company since June 30 and through October 9 added about 15.88 million iPads. Don't forget this includes ten additional days of sales outside the September quarter. The figure certainly doesn't compare favorably to June quarter's sales of 17.57 million units. Did Apple release the iPad mini because the iPad was losing its momentum as a portion of would-be shoppers perhaps opted for cheaper tablets from Amazon and Google?

The iPad mini includes a juiced up adapter for faster charge times, Apple confirms

Today, a pair of Apple-branded Lightning-enabled accessories has cropped up on the online Apple store (unofficial ones for half the price are already here). With them came a new iPad charger that now provides twelve watts of power instead of ten watts of power for the previous-generation adapter.

The 12W USB adapter (a $19 value) also replaces the older unit, now removed from the store. It essentially allows users to charge their iPads, iPods and iPhones a bit faster than with the previous adapter...

Apple wins significant ITC ruling against Samsung

Apple's legal team has suffered some major blows over the past few weeks, in their ongoing battle with Samsung. First, they lost an appeal on a UK ruling that will force the company to publicly state that Samsung did not copy the iPad. And just a few days ago, the USPTO invalidated one of Apple's more significant patents.

But things may be looking up for the Cupertino litigators. According to a new report, an ITC (International Trade Commission) judge has just ruled in Apple's favor in a complaint case against Samsung, a ruling that could see some of its devices blocked from entering US...

Amazon updates Kindle iOS app with X-Ray for Textbooks

Amazon refreshed its Kindle lineup last month ahead of Apple's September 12 iPhone 5 announcement. One of the easily overlooked software features the online retailer also brought out: X-Ray for Books, Textbooks and Movies. In a nutshell, the X-Ray feature intelligently retrieves additional information when you tap an on-screen object, like a movie character, book passages, glossary and what not, also pulling related data from Wikipedia and YouTube to enhance your e-reading experience.

Likewise, X-Ray for Movies lets you learn more about the movie's cast and characters by just tapping the screen, which produces relevant content by cinema site IMDb. In today's update to its free Kindle app, Amazon is bringing X-Ray for Textbooks to iPhones, iPads and iPods...

Poll: do you plan on getting an iPad mini?

Pundits were flabbergasted when Apple didn't price the iPad mini at $199 to go for the kill. At $329, the iPad mini is a $130 more than seven-inch tablets from Google and Amazon, both starting at just $199. Furthermore, Amazon's 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD with a higher-resolution display than the iPad mini is still thirty bucks cheaper than Apple's gizmo.

On the other hand, Apple is good at these things and it's outrages to assume the company somehow got the price wrong. Analysts are convinced the $329 iPad mini is an absolute homerun. Certainly the device does appear to protect Apple's price umbrella by making the iPad more enticing to budget shoppers while forcing rivals to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Taking it all in, would you buy an iPad mini at Apple's current price points?

Dutch court rules Samsung did not violate Apple’s prized multitouch gesture patents

A court in The Netherlands let Samsung off the hook, ruling that some of the South Korean conglomerate's many Galaxy smartphones and tablets did not infringe upon Apple's prized patents related to multitouch gestures on iPhones and iPads. As you know, Apple took Samsung and other handset makers to court, arguing they copied the zoom to pinch feature and other multi-finger gestures on iOS devices.

This ruling alone won't help Samsung evade the $1+ billion payout from a massive loss in the Apple vs. Samsung mega-suit in the United States. The U.S International Trade Commission is set to determine on Thursday whether Samsung really infringed on Apple's patents...