I'm a big believer in taking advantage of Apple-Certified Refurbished hardware sales. Not only do its refurbished models undergo extra scrutiny, but each product is backed up by a 1-year warranty, are Apple Care eligible, and come with free shipping.
The real draw to buying Apple-Certified Refurbished hardware is the amount of money that you can save on hardware. It's not uncommon to find hardware going anywhere from 15% to 24% off retail price.
Mockingbird ($1.99 on Cydia) is a new jailbreak tweak that brings a completely redesigned App Switcher experience to jailbroken iPhones running iOS 9. The tweak merges App Switcher cards and Notification Center notifications for a unique app switching experience that's truly original.
Unfortunately, originality will only score you so many points. Mockingbird, while presenting some good ideas, is the textbook example of a tweak that was released long before being ready for prime time.
As you use apps on your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, iOS dynamically manages system memory (don't confuse RAM with storage), allocating chunks of RAM to foreground and background tasks and suspending memory usage for apps that are not actively running in the background.
For the most part, iOS manages RAM efficiently to ensure that your frequently-used applications are ready for action as soon as you switch to them. But as so-called garbage collection is not available in iOS, a poorly written application might keep large portions of memory to itself and refuse to release it at iOS's request, resulting in slower performance.
You can get around this by rebooting your device, but there's a more elegant way to purge the memory taken up by apps without rebooting, as explained in this tutorial.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo shared some interesting predictions for 2016 iPhones and iPads in a note sent to clients this morning, a copy of which was obtained by MacRumors.
For starters, Kuo is adamant that the third-generation iPad Air will be arriving in the first half of next year. The tablet won't be outfitted with a pressure-sensing screen due to alleged production issues related to building a 9.7-inch 3D Touch sensor array.
As promised, Apple Music is available on Sonos wireless speakers from today, marking the first official third-party integration of Apple's subscription-based music service.
Available as a public beta, the feature lets you access select Apple Music features on wireless speakers by Sonos, including custom playlists through the For You and New features and Beats 1 radio. Of course, you can also play any song from your Apple Music catalogue through your Sonos speakers.
Procreate Pocket, an iPhone and iPod touch edition of the drawing and illustration app that started out as an iPad-exclusive, was updated this morning with a bunch of 3D Touch goodies and other enhancements.
Procreate Pocket 1.6 includes support for pressure-sensitive painting with 3D Touch on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. The refreshed app claims double the frame rate across all supported devices and includes an all-new native Apple Watch app on watchOS 2 that improves the battery life and responsiveness.
This holiday, Santa may place a few iPhone and iPad handsets under your Christmas tree. You might end up with too many devices that require a high-power charge and not enough plugs in the house for all of them.
Anker's PowerPort 6 produces 60 watts of power at one time so you can charge all of your iOS devices without slowing down the process. Now your wall plugs can be freed up for other electronic gifts that Santa has left for you.
A late evening report from Bloomberg's Tim Culpan has shed a bit of light on Apple's plans regarding the future of its display technology for iPhones, iPads, and other devices. Culpan's report shows that Apple has opened a secret lab within a Taiwanese science park, and has no less than 50 engineers working on advanced versions of LCD and OLED display technology.
Apple's goal, according to the report, is to create screens that are thinner, lighter, brighter, and more energy-efficient than the screen technology used in current production iPhones and iPads. The report emphasized Apple's keen interest in OLED technology in particular, since it requires no backlight, a fact that can help meet the improvements in energy efficiency and thinness that the Cupertino firm is seeking.
Microsoft Outlook is one of the finest email clients available for iOS, and this evening, it received an update for iOS 9 that brings 3D Touch support to the iPhone 6s. By using 3D Touch on the Outlook app icon, you can quickly view your calendar, or compose a new event or email directly.
With the demise of Mailbox, I'm aware that a lot of you will be looking for a new email client to call home. I know that lots of people have been raving about Spark, and rightfully so. But I think you should give Outlook a chance as well.
Seng, the popular App Switcher and Control Center replacement created by developer Charlie Hewitt, is now available as a beta download for iOS 9. The beta is only available for users who have purchased the previous version of Seng, so that will unfortunately leave a lot of you out during the beta period.
If you did purchase the previous version of Seng, however, it's just a matter of adding Charlie's beta repo to your list of Cydia sources to begin using the tweak on iOS 9.
Curated a fine collection of tunes and want to share it with others? Find out how to share an Apple Music playlist from your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Android phone with your friends and family or post it to your blog or social media account.
In this quick tutorial, you'll learn how to browse recently updated apps on your Apple TV and access official changelogs from developers, which typically provide a treasure trove of information detailing new features, refinements, fixes, and other information.