Apple to replace AT&T on the Dow on March 18

Apple of California will replace AT&T in the Dow Jones Industrial Average after the close of trading on March 18, Reuters reported this morning. The famed Dow Jones Industrial Average is indicative of the overall market health so Apple joining and replacing the nation's second-largest carrier on the index is certainly an encouraging sign for the economy.

Because the Dow is a weighted average of absolute stock price (unlike other indices), Apple was unable to join the Dow until its seven-to-one stock split, which took place in June of last year.

Jony Ive discusses Apple Watch in another fascinating interview ahead of April launch

The Apple Watch is just around the corner and Apple's PR department is in full swing. In addition to a series of fashion magazine covers featuring the device and a wide-ranging interview with Jony Ive in The New Yorker, London's Financial Times newspaper has now been given access to Apple's design czar.

Billed as “the man behind the Apple Watch”, Ive shares a few interesting details with FT's Nick Foulkes regarding crafting Apple's first wearable device.

He also touched upon other related topics such as the team’s meticulous attention to detail, the myopic approach to designing the Watch, how the device differs from the iPhone in terms of usage patterns and much more.

Words U makes you smarter while you text

You might call me a word nerd. One of my favorite things to do while writing is looking up synonyms. I absolutely hate seeing a sentence with the same noun in it more than once. When it comes to reviewing apps, you’d be surprised how hard it is to come up with a new word for “game.”

Words U is a messaging app that translates your conversation into sentences with alternate words. Instead of “Hi,” you’ll be saying “Salutations” to your friends. You don’t have to worry about your friends thinking you are being pretentious either. The conversations all take place within the app, so everyone is being a smarty-pants.

How to use TextExpander to quickly insert keyboard symbols on Mac

You may have noticed how I like to use keyboard symbols in my posts. You know, things like ⇧, or ⌃, or ⌘, or even ⌥. I use → a lot too, which is helpful when laying out a certain order of steps in my tutorials.

Some of you may think that I've memorized the code for these symbols (I haven't), or that I copy and paste them from a document or keep them on my clipboard somehow (I don't). Instead, I use the venerable TextExpander utility to make inserting these symbols a totally effortless affair.

Rochade: invert Twitter handles with full names in the stock Twitter app

Rochade is a new jailbreak tweak that aims to invert the appearance of full names and Twitter handles within the stock Twitter app. Its aim is to provide more weight to the Twitter handle, and less such weight to the names of users associated with said handles.

Although other notable Twitter apps, like Tweetbot, have support for managing the display of names and handles within the UI, the official Twitter app is more strict in its approach.

Apple giving Facebook and others early access to Apple Watch

Apple is giving select companies early access to the Apple Watch, reports Bloomberg. The outlet says that Facebook, airliner United Continental Holdings Inc. and others have "spent weeks" at Apple's Cupertino campus working hands-on with the smartwatch to test and fine-tune their apps ahead of next month's launch.

Citing people familiar with the process, Bloomberg says software engineers for the companies are being allowed to work with the Apple Watch in a top secret lab at Apple's headquarters. All who enter must sign non-disclosure agreements, and must follow a set of extreme guidelines to keep unknown Watch details from leaking.

Apple Watch: a mysterious 6-pin port opens up many possibilities

There is a mysterious port on the Apple Watch that could be used to connect accessories such as a smart band or battery, reports TechCrunch. The outlet says that multiple sources have confirmed the wearable features a secret 6-dot brass contact used for diagnostics and direct access to the operating system.

Apparently the port is very similar to the Lightning port found on larger iOS devices, and is located inside the groove of the "bottom" strap connector slot. It's believed that this portal is "absolutely necessary" to install the Watch OS during manufacturing, and thus it will be present on shipping versions of the wearable.

Barclays: Apple could sell 54 million iPhones this quarter

Barclays is out with a research note on Thursday indicating Apple's most profitable business is nowhere close to slowing down. Analyst Ben Reitzes, citing supply chain sources, says the Cupertino-based company is on pace to sell 54 million units in the March quarter, a year-over-year increase of 24 percent.

Apple names Temple Run: Oz its new Free App of the Week

The exhilarating sequel to the classic endless runner with a Disney movie tie-in throw in for good measure, Temple Run: Oz is now available at no cost until next Thursday as part of Apple's ongoing Free App of the Week promotion.

Released precisely on this day a year ago, this marks the first time Temple Run: Oz has been marked down to zero bucks on the App Store (regularly $1.99).

The game is based on the 2013 film 'Oz the Great and Powerful' and features the same great gameplay as the original infinite runner, with an Oz twist to it.

5 new indie iPhone and iPad games worth playing

Like any Thursday, last evening the App Store was refreshed with a myriad of new game releases. Rather than highlight juicy games like Real Steel Champions, Warhammer: Snotling Fling and other new arrivals from big name publishers, this time around I've decided to do something entirely different.

Therefore: introducing a list of new game releases by independent publishers that I think deserve additional exposure and your attention.

Without further ado, here are five indie games that I think you should definitely check out and hopefully put on your Home screen.

Google updates Sheets, Slides and Docs for iOS with doc copying, accessibility improvements

Thursday, Google issued updates to its trio of cloud-powered productivity apps in the App Store: Sheets, Slides and Docs. These apps let you create, edit and collaborate with others on spreadsheets, documents and presentations and now include the ability to make a copy of a document, a feature previously reserved for the web UI.

Moreover, a new accessibility settings menu appears within Slides and Sheets when VoiceOver is enabled in Settings.