iTravelGo, your no-nonsense iPhone guide to the world’s 36 most famous cities

I'm a Sagittarius so traveling, meeting fresh new people and exploring interesting new places I've never been to is my thing. As any world traveller could tell you, planning a journey normally involves doing extensive research about your favorite destination. But yours truly is a lousy planer: I'm the type of person who instead pulls an iPhone out of my pocket  to check out the top places to eat or stay, educate myself on a specific landmark, learn a little history and so forth.

But as much as I'm inclined to research places on the spot, roaming charges on my wireless bill are a painful reminder that pulling quick facts from the web, while abroad, is a big no-no. Having tried lots of similar apps that offer offline functionality, the iTravelGo app by developer Oleg Baranovskyi in my view is one of the more compelling city guides on the App Store.

Not only does it look nice, it sports a high-quality database of points of interests and is packed with useful information on the world's 36 most famous cities. And as a bonus, there's even a handy glossary in seventeen languages...

T-Mobile calls out AT&T for being ‘sneaky and underhanded’

It seems like it's 'pick on AT&T week,' because shortly after a report surfaced that Verizon was running an ad in The Wall Street Journal calling the carrier out for its 'most reliable network' claims, comes word that T-Mobile is going to run a similar print spot.

In a new print ad, set to run in today's issue of USA Today, T-Mobile bashes AT&T’s Next program, calling it 'sneaky and 'underhanded.' The copy also quotes a Verge article, saying “AT&T’s reaction to T-Mobile’s transparency is to be more deceptive than ever.”

Path updated with new Friend Progress Bar, store items and more

Path users will be happy to hear that the social network has seeded an update to its iOS client today. The update, which brings the app to version 3.1.1, includes a handful of new features, as well as various improvements and bug fixes.

One of the more noticeable changes in 3.1.1 is the updated Friend Progress Bar. Path introduced the feature, which helps users better track their friends' stories, in the last update. And now, those that found it annoying can easily remove it...

Best Buy to bring back its iPad trade-in program today

Best Buy is set to bring back its iPad trade-in program today, according to a new report. The retailer debuted the program earlier this month as part of a two-day promotion, which allowed iPad owners to trade-in their devices for late generation models.

The deal is very much the same this time around, with Best Buy offering iPad 2 and 3 owners gift cards for their tablets, starting at $200, to be used towards the purchase of a fourth gen. We've posted the leaked internal employee memo after the fold...

Verizon responds to AT&T’s ‘most reliable 4G LTE network’ claim in new ad

Last week, AT&T launched a new ad campaign claiming that it not only had the nation's fastest LTE network, but also the most reliable. Citing independent third-party data, it said it now has the "highest success rate for delivering mobile content across 4G LTE networks."

Obviously, this didn't sit too well with Verizon, who has long touted the reliability and reach of its cellular network as the best in the country. So the Big Red carrier decided to take out a print advertisement in The Wall Street Journal yesterday to set the record straight...

Security researcher used iAd Workbench exploit to hack Apple’s dev center

Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information from Apple's developer website. The company immediately took the dev center offline, and at the time of this writing it's still down, in order to rebuild its systems in a way that this won't happen again.

But just exactly how did it happen? Well according to Turkish security researcher Ibrahim Balic, who is claiming responsibility for the outage, he was able to infiltrate Apple's servers thanks to an exploit he discovered in the recently released iAd Workbench software...

Apple touts 1 billon podcast subscriptions

Apple on Monday quietly announced its users have subscribed to one billion podcasts through iTunes. The milestone is being celebrated via a special iTunes section that includes the What's Hot and New & Noteworthy sections.

Additionally, Apple highlights cherry-picked shows like This American Life, TEDTalks, 60 Minutes, Happy Tree Friends, etc.

There are now 250,000 different podcasts in more than a hundred languages available through iTunes...

Thor: The Dark World coming to iOS this fall

Gameloft and Marvel announced the official tie-in game for the upcoming Thor sequel this weekend. It's called 'Thor: The Dark World - The Official Game' (that's it's real name), and it will be arriving on iOS and Android platforms this November.

We don't know much about the game, outside of its title. But judging by this trailer Gameloft posted this afternoon, it looks like it's going to feature gorgeous graphics, and the usual hack-and-slash gameplay. We've posted the clip after the fold...

Analyst: iPad 5/iPhone 5S/budget model in September, no Retina iPad mini in 2013

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is fast becoming the de facto most reliable Apple watcher. Expanding on his April note which advised investors to brace themselves for a delayed iDevice roll-out over manufacturing "challenges," his just-updated shipments timetable now offers more in way of detail.

Long story short, the analyst is expecting the iPhone 5S in late-September, but in limited quantity, with the oft-rumored plastic iPhone (he's calling it an 'iPhone Lite') becoming available even sooner than the iPhone 5S in early-September because its chassis is easier to make than the two-tone iPhone 5S design.

Early September will also bring us an updated iPad 5, he said, but there will be no iPad mini successor this year due to engineering issues. As for the Mac family, Kuo sees a mid-September launch of a Haswell-enabled Retina MacBook Pro, with a Haswell-driven iMac up for a late-August introduction. The full breakdown is right after the break...

Apple refunds father $6000 for App Store purchases made by 8-year-old daughter

I don't have kids yet. But when I do, I'm going to make sure that I take all of the necessary steps to prevent them from making purchases in the App Store. There are various ways to do this, and for me it's just common sense—I wouldn't leave them with real money.

But apparently, it's not such a cut-and-dry matter for some folks. Take this story by UK's Mirror publication, which went viral this weekend, about an 8-year-old girl racking up a staggering $6000 App Store bill on her father's iPad by making several in-app purchases...

Rhapsody gains offline mode, exclusive playlists curated by human editors

I'm a simple guy when it comes to listening to digital music: the iTunes/iTunes Radio + Spotify combo pretty much has me covered these days. That's not saying I'm not on the lookout for music solutions outside the Apple-Spotify landscape.

Take the once relevant jukebox app and music subscription service Rhapsody (remember them?), which has been trying to become relevant for years now.

Just two months ago, the firm has renewed its efforts by overhauling its aging mobile app, adding tons of goodies.

In another update issued today, Rhapsody version 3.5 brings out standard social sharing features and the useful offline playback mode whilst putting exclusive curated content front and center...

Apple Seeds OS X Mavericks Developer Preview 4

Apple has seeded the 4th developer preview of OS X Mavericks, and it's available for download right now. The download, which comes in at about 1.27GB for users of OS X Mavericks DP 3, can be found via the Mac App Store app. For those of you not yet running OS X Mavericks, the download would normally be available through the Mac Dev Center, but it's been down as a part of a well publicized security breach.