Molar: an immersive Bluetooth keyboard shortcut tweak for jailbroken devices

Anthony Bouchard ∙ April 12, 2016

Using a Bluetooth keyboard with your iOS device is not unheard of, especially with the much more powerful iPad Pro that Apple is dubbing a true mobile competitor for notebook computers. Unfortunately, what Apple lets you do with them is quite limited.

A new jailbreak tweak called Molar is now available in Cydia for $1.99 that gives your iOS device a plethora of Bluetooth keyboard controls that stock iOS device users could only dream of having.

In this review, we'll talk about what Molar allows you to do on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard.

Read More

A bunch of new ads for the Apple Watch have surfaced on Apple’s YouTube channel

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 11, 2016

More than half a dozen new commercials for the Apple Watch surfaced Monday on the company's official channel on YouTube. Titled “Rain”, “Surprise”, “Golf”, “SWAP”, “Find”, “Chase” and “Row”, these ads are fifteen seconds each and showcase specific facets of the wearable device, such as changing bands and switching faces to suit any occasion, fitness and activity tracking and more.

They also highlight specific first-party apps, including the Messages and Workout apps, as well as third-party ones like the Dark Sky weather app while detailing other capabilities of the device such as pinging a connected iPhone right from a glance.

Read More

Google optimizes the layout of Now cards in native search app for iPad

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 11, 2016

Google on Monday pushed a small refresh to its native Search app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad in the App Store. Bumped to version 14.0, the software features an optimized layout of the Now cards to make better use of the iPad's screen real estate.

“Updated structure for Now cards on iPad, designed to keep your content organized and better surface the info you need most,” reads a line from Google's release notes accompanying the 65.4-megabyte download.

Read More

Doodling over live video coming soon to Periscope

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 13, 2016

Periscope is currently testing a brand new feature that allows you to draw with your finger on top of a live video feed, The Next Web reported today. You can pick any color to draw with by tapping on a live video feed or use the new selection interface to draw in three primary colors.

Facebook too is working on ability to draw on video as part of the Facebok Live features so we're not surprised that rival Periscope, which is owned by Twitter, would work on this.

Read More

Tip: use this secret Siri Remote shortcut to manually send tvOS diagnostic logs to Apple

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 11, 2016

Much like other Apple devices, your Apple TV lets you elect to have tvOS periodically send usage data to Apple and share crash logs with developers. When Share with App Developers is enabled underneath the Diagnostics Data heading in Settings → General → Privacy, your Apple TV will send diagnostic and usage information to Apple.

This data is used for the sole purpose of improving Apple's products and services. None of the collected information identifies users personally but those who are concerned about their privacy will likely have this feature disabled, just in case.

There are cases when Apple might ask you to send them these log files manually—for instance, when using the Apple TV's hidden remote diagnostic feature to help an advisor troubleshoot any problems you may be plagued with.

Thankfully, tvOS has a secret Siri Remote shortcut to override your Privacy settings and manually send those crash logs and diagnostic data straight to Apple.

Read More

Many iPhone SE users complain about audio issues with Bluetooth phone calls

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

As evidenced by a growing thread on the Apple Support Communities, many owners of the new iPhone SE smartphone are plagued with various Bluetooth issues.

Folks are reporting distorted or inaudible calls when the handset is paired with a car or headset.

These issues appear to only affect Bluetooth phone calls, not music playback. Apple had not commented on this problem at post time.

Read More

Review: Leaf, a minimalist RSS reader for the Mac

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 11, 2016

Leaf for Mac by Rocky Sand Studio is one of the most elegant and easy to use RSS readers available in the Mac App Store. Selected by Apple as one of its Best New Apps of 2015, this powerful app has gone free for the firs time since its inception, but for the next 24 hours only.

Leaf offers a carefully crafted set of essential features regularly used by average users, but don't let that fool you—this is a very capable app.

Leaf offers light/dark theme, supports popular syncing and sharing services, has a clutter-free mode, customizable keyboard shortcuts, supports trackpad gestures and notifications and much more.

If I were you, I'd grab Leaf right now before the price goes back up.

Read More

Apple Maps Transit data now available in Montreal and Portland, Oregon

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 11, 2016

Over the past few days, Apple's expanded availability of Transit data on its mapping service to include Portland, Oregon and Montreal, the second-largest city in Canada. Just a month ago, Transit data was added for Austin, Texas, in time for the annual South by Southwest festival.

It also brought 3D Flyover views to five new locales in Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom and expanded the Nearby feature to select new places in Austria, Denmark, Japan and Switzerland.

Read More

DigiTimes: Apple turns to established Chinese server vendor to bolster iCloud infrastructure

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 16, 2016

Apple has reportedly started buying servers from a government-backed Chinese firm, called Inspur, to use in its data centers, Taiwanese publication DigiTimes reported this morning. Apple's never confirmed nor denied industry speculation that much of its iCloud data centers run on Amazon's Web Services and Microsoft's Azure platforms.

That being said, Apple's reportedly embarked on a project to migrate iCloud services to its own data centers in order to satisfy increasing demand for iOS devices, reduce expenses and further reduce any possibility of attacks on the iCloud platform.

Read More

KGI analyst predicts 25 percent lower Apple Watch shipments this year

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 11, 2016

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who is one of the most reliable Apple analyst out there, estimated in a note sent to clients Monday that shipments of the Apple Watch will decline 25 percent in the calendar 2016, despite the expected introduction of a second-generation model some time later this year.

According to the note, a copy of which was obtained by MacRumors, Apple will sell a total of 7.5 million Apple Watch units this year versus an estimated 10.6 million Apple Watch sales in 2015.

Read More