Apple continues its international expansion of iTunes services this afternoon, with the launch of iTunes Match in Japan. iOS users in the country can now access the service, which first launched in the United States back in 2011.
For those unfamiliar with the service, iTunes Match allows users to 'mirror' their music libraries to the cloud. This enables them to access their songs from any compatible device, without having to spend hours uploading them...
Amazon is expected to unveil its first smartphone in the not-so-distant future, and according to a new report from BGR, this is what it's going to look like. The site says the image on the above slide was created for internal use by graphic designers at Amazon.
Note that the handset looks quite different than the prototype we saw last month—BGR explains this is because that device was housed in a protective casing. The actual phone's design resembles that of the iPhone and other smartphones currently on the market...
According to a source who spoke to MacRumors, Eric Winokur who does research at MIT's Medical Electronic Devices Realization Center will be joining Apple's wearables team in the coming weeks.
He's the latest in a string of high-profile hirings of experts with diverse interests in medical devices, sleep monitoring, wearable tech and fashion design.
This isn't talent Apple typically needs so these hirings serve as the strongest indication to date that the firm is assembling a star team to take on wearables.
And why precisely should you care about this particular hire? Read on as I lay out everything for you after the break...
It must have been quite a while since you last gave Vine's web interface a visit, I take it? If so, I'm in the same boat as you. And rightfully so, as the spartan web interface only lets us see short Vine videos and get our embed codes.
Starting today, vine.co has become a lot more useful as the team rolls out what files as likely the most substantial facelift to Vine's web interface since the service's inception.
Not only does the new web UI allows users to browse popular and trending clips grouped in curated sections, they can also search Vine's database of content by person, tag or even location to find what they're looking for...
We've all been there: someone - maybe your ex or your biggest fan - is stalking you on Twitter and populating your timeline with stuff you don't want to see.
Or worse, if you've made a few enemies along the way you can bet they'll take to Twitter to post crazy stuff about you on an everyday basis. If you only use Twitter's official app, right now you have two options at your disposal to deal with the situation.
You can either A) unfollow your ex and risk turning him or her into an enemy, or B) block an account that's been harassing you online. According to a new report, there will soon be a new way to stop receiving updates from accounts: the mute feature.
I know muting is currently available in third-party apps like Tweetbot so the newsworthy part here is that Twitter is finally testing this long overdue feature in its own iPhone and iPad app...
Good news for iOS users in Germany today, as Apple has expanded iTunes in the Cloud in the country. The cloud-based sync-and-storage service now supports the streaming of movies and television shows.
What this means is that German users will now be able to access previously-purchased movie and television content on any Apple device, including the Apple TV, by accessing the 'Purchased' tab in iTunes...
Sunrise Calendar, which made our list of best calendar apps for iOS back in March, was updated today. The new release brings the app to version 2.3, and includes a handful of improvements as well as a new feature called 'Interesting Calendars.'
As the name suggests, Interesting Calendars allows you to add various types of pre-made calendars with a few simple taps. Sunrise now offers over 25,000 calendars to help you keep track of holidays, sport team schedules and more within the app...
Slices is a brand new tweak that was just released on Cydia's BigBoss repo, and as we stated in this week's episode of Let's Talk Jailbreak, it's a very big deal. A tweak that has sort of flown under the radar, Slices brings dual login ability and quick profile switching to many of the apps running on your iOS device today.
Slices is especially useful for apps like Instagram and Snapchat, which don't allow for multiple users on the same device. But it goes beyond mere login enhancements. Slices allows for multiple settings bundles, which means that you can have what is essentially multiple instances of the same game or app.
Think of Slices as a tweak that allows you to run multiple versions of all of your favorite applications. Indeed, it's a very big deal, as I highlight in our video walkthrough after the break.
As teased yesterday, the new streaming music startup from music mogul Jimmy Lovine and musician and producer Dr. Dre, called Beats Music, has been updated with support for the iPad. The 17.1MB download is now live in the App Store and universal so a single binary now supports all your form-factor iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices. As a bonus, regardless of the device you can now easily add Beats Music users from your Twitter friends...
Notability by Ginger Labs launched in the App Store in January of 2011 with a $4.99 price tag. Despite numerous price changes, this nicely done productivity app for the iPhone and iPad has never gone free, up until today.
Named Apple Editors' Choice, Notability is now free for a limited time so do yourself a favor and download the app now in the US App Store before it goes back up to its regular price of $2.99...
One of the best iOS media players around, Infuse by jailbreak developer FireCore of the aTV Flash Black fame, has received a major updated today that enables support for UPnP and DLNA media streaming protocols which allows the software to stream, download and sync media residing on compatible UPnP/DLNA device such as XBMC, Plex, WMC, PS3 Media Server and more.
The release includes a plethora of other new features and improvements such as half a dozen new gesture controls, the continuous playback feature, improved streaming for certain NAS devices and a bunch of user interface tweaks.
The new Infuse 2.3 is available free in the App Store, with an optional in-app purchase to unlock advanced features like AirPlay subtitle streaming, support for additional video formats and more...
According to an exclusive TechCrunch report Thursday, Philip Stanger, the CEO and co-founder of indoor positioning startup Wifarer, has joined Apple's Maps team ahead of the anticipated push to improve the company's in-house mapping software in time for the assumed launch of iOS 8 this Fall.
He's now with the Apple Maps team in a “leadership role,” the publication has learned though the report cautions that Apple did not acquire the startup as some sources have speculated.
Wifarer, which is available as an iOS and Android app, features dynamic real-time indoor positioning to help people navigate malls, museums and other venues. Apple of course has its own micro-location indoor positioning system in the form of iBeacons.
Watchers have speculated that these micro-transmitters installed in shopping malls, retail stores, airports and elsewhere could also be used to collect data to improve Apple Maps and Stanger's hiring certainly seems to point in that direction...