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Tim Cook issues email to troops commenting on Apple’s new SVP of Retail

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 15, 2013

In a surprising late-night press release, Apple said it's finally found its new retail chief. In case you missed it, soon-to-be-former CEO of clothing retailer Burberry will be joining the iPhone maker as its new SVP of Retail, responsible for both Apple's online and offline stores and retail operations across the world.

Today, CEO Tim Cook issued a memo to Apple employees explaining why Angela - after John Browett's much maligned and short stint as Ron Johnson's replacement - is "the best person in the world for this role"...

Apple sends out invites for October 22 iPad event: ‘we still have a lot to cover’

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 16, 2018

The Wall Street Journal-owned technology blog, AllThingsD, reported last week that Apple's next media event will take place on October 22, that's next Tuesday. Sure enough, the company just sent out invites for the October 22 event to select members of the press. The invitation-only press conference will be held at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco and will begin at 10am PDT / 1pm EDT, John Paczkowski of AllThingsD first reported and The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple subsequently confirmed.

The invite graphics features a close up of the Apple logo set against the white background and a bunch of colorful apple leaves. "We still have a lot to cover," reads the tagline...

How to gain enhanced Spotify control with a jailbroken iPhone

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

How does adding Spotify support to Activator sound? If that sounds like the proverbial music to your ears, then you need to take a look at Controls for Spotify. This is a new tweak that brings enhanced control to Spotify by means of simple Activator gestures.

It's a bit limited in its scope right now, but Controls for Spotify is a tweak that shows potential. Have a look inside for more details as to how it all works.

Sparrow gets iOS 7 style icon, but no UI refresh

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 13, 2018

Sparrow, the Google-owned email client for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, has seen very little changes in the features department since the Internet giant acquired the startup in the summer of 2012.

Matter of fact, the search monster has passed on the opportunity to update Sparrow following the September 18 iOS 7 launch with the new visual appearance.

That said, today's minor refresh leaves a lot to be desired. Aside from the redesigned flat app icon, Sparrow version 1.3.5 contains no new features and it still has the same old user interface that doesn't take advantage of the new iOS 7 visual appearance...

New tweak promises per-app screen brightness control

Jeff Benjamin ∙ October 15, 2013

Dandelion is a new jailbreak tweak available on the BigBoss repo, which promises to bring automatically adjusting brightness to your device on a per-app basis. This means that in theory, you should be able to configure your brightness to a specific level while in app, and have the brightness always adjust to that set level when the app is launched.

Unfortunately, in my experience with the tweak, the results weren't quite that simple.

Angry Birds Go! arriving December 11, here’s new gameplay video

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Angry Birds maker back in June teased its upcoming Angry Birds-themed kart racing game. Named Angry Birds Go, the game will be set on a 3D Piggy Island and include tons of characters with unique special powers and a fully rendered 3D world.

Then in August, the Finnish developer released more information, revealing the title will be a tie in with energy drinks maker Red Bull.

On Tuesday, Rovio gave us a release date and published a gameplay video which shows off game mechanics while revealing a bunch of bird and pig characters from the Angry Birds series. I've included the video and a few additional tidbits right after the break...

Speculation mounts over availability dates for new iPads, MacBook Pros and Mac Pro

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 16, 2018

Apple has kicked off its blockbuster Fall with September's double iPhone launch and followed-up by updating the iMac family with Intel's fourth-generation Haswell chips, 8GB of RAM standard across all models, faster graphics and ultra-fast PCIe flash storage and other goodies.

Now, our attention has already turned to other products in Apple's 2013 pipeline. AllThingsD last week claimed Apple will hold an iPad media event on October 22 and today a pretty reliable French blog has published availability dates for the upcoming new iPads, as well as updated MacBook Pro notebooks and the next-generation Mac Pro...

SnapHack for iPhone lets anyone save your incriminating Snapchats permanently

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 23, 2018

Your online privacy is an elastic concept. No, I'm not referring to the NSA eavesdropping on your online communications or breaking into your iPhone or harvesting your online address books. Let's talk about Snapchat for a minute.

A quick backgrounder for the uninitiated: developed by Stanford University students, Snapchat is a handy photo messaging application that exploded in popularity soon after people realized they can send their photos to a controlled list of recipients and set a time limit for how long they can view them.

After the cut-off time, the snaps are automatically deleted from both the recipient's device and Snapchat's servers. As a bonus, Snapchat features a built-in mechanism that informs the other side when you screenshot their snaps. Now, you can imagine why Snapchat blew up in no time as some folks predominantly use the application to expose their body parts and share their candid shots.

A new iPhone app called SnapHack changes all that by bypassing Snapchat's screenshot notifications and pulling unopened content from Snapchat's servers. Plus, the company behind Snapchat yesterday detailed law enforcement requests. Jump past the fold for the full breakdown...

KAMI, a beautifully relaxing puzzle game for iOS

Lory Gil ∙ Updated December 4, 2013

We’ve recently spotlighted quite a few puzzle games that look great and feature interesting and challenging puzzles. With iOS 7, many developers have focused on offering apps that are flat and minimalistic in nature.

KAMI is a puzzle game that is the exact opposite of flat. It is not skeumorphic. It actually uses real paper as part of the game’s design. You’ll feel like you are really touching paper as your puzzle unfolds in stop motion…

Apple serves blog with takedown notice over posting iTunes Radio contract

Ed Sutherland ∙ October 15, 2013

Most of Apple's legal actions happen with other multi-billion tech firms. But sometime, the Cupertino, California company likes to scare to scare the pants off small fry. Take for example Digital Music News (DMN), which Sunday yielded to demands by Apple, removing a copy of an iTunes Radio contract.

The contract, first published by DMN in June, showed how Apple "forced sub-standard terms" on independent music publishers. Apple claimed publication of the contract violated copyright laws, a claim one law professor described as "a jerk move."

Was Apple protecting copyrights or again using legal muscle to manage its corporate image?

How to quickly post to Twitter or Facebook in iOS 7

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2018

One feature I really miss from iOS 6 is the Share Widget that would let you to add "Tap to Tweet" and "Tap to Post" buttons to Notification Center, allowing you to quickly send a tweet or post to Facebook.

When the first iOS 7 beta versions were released, we all thought the widgets would make their way to the final release, but they didn't. Today, we're going to show you a workaround that allows you to quickly send a tweet or post to Facebook in iOS 7...

Twitter rolling out new option to receive direct messages from any follower

Cody Lee ∙ October 15, 2013

Twitter is rolling out a new option to ease the use of direct messages. Traditionally, the social network has only allowed users who follow each other to send direct messages back and forth to one another.

But with this new setting, which apparently began rolling out last week, Twitter users can elect to receive direct messages from any follower, regardless of whether or not they're following the person back...