Alongside the sweeping changes in iOS 7, Apple gave its Notification Center a complete overhaul. It's been divided into three sections, it no longer sports a linen background, and it's lost a few features, such as the handy Weather widget.
But it's also gained some nice features, such as the new 'Today' view. The column offers up all kinds of useful information including stock prices, Calendar events, and apparently, traffic information for your frequently visited locations...
Since the moment Apple unveiled its completely redesigned mobile OS on Monday, the comments regarding its UI, and particularly the new icons, have been flowing nonstop. Some folks like the changes, and others refuse to believe it's the product of Apple designers.
And as it turns out, the latter group may be right. Sort of. A new report is out this afternoon claiming that there are explainable reasons behind the strange-looking app icons and inconsistant UX in iOS 7. And according to insiders, it's still a major work in progress...
The controversy over National Security Agency data mining isn't going away anytime soon. As you know, the scandal blew up when it was discovered that the government issued a secret order to Verizon Business Network Services to provide the NSA with logs for millions of calls on an ongoing daily basis.
Numerous lawsuits are being announced with each passing day and some have already been filed. For example, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said he will sue the Obama administration over the "unconstitutional" PRISM surveillance programs.
And now, an activist group is suing Apple and Tim Cook, as well as Facebook, Google, YouTube, Skype, AT&T, Sprint, Yahoo, Microsoft, PalTalk, AOL, the NSA and its Director Keith Alexander, President Obama himself and Attorney General Eric Holder over participating in the government's secret Big Brother initiative...
While Apple CEO Tim Cook continues teasing the public with respect to a rumored standalone television set with the shiny Apple logo on it, market incumbents are beginning to take notice of the buzz.
Not content with sitting on the sidelines and watch Apple potentially make deeper inroads into the living room, the cable giant Comcast, the nation's top pay TV provider, today took the wraps off its next generation, cloud-enabled X1 Platform from Xfinity.
They are calling it the X2, it's coming this Fall, has a sleek new user interface, is social, can talk to you and run apps and integrates with Facebook, Instagram, Pandora, Rotten Tomatoes and more. I've included more details and a promo video after the jump...
Raise your hand if you've been thinking to yourself "you know, I think there really needs to be another Angry Birds game." No one? Ok. Well apparently that's what the folks at Rovio have been thinking, because one is coming.
The developers of the popular Angry Birds platform just announced on their blog that they have an all new game in the works called 'Angry Birds Go.' It didn't offer up many details for the game, but it did post this teaser image...
Apple has posted a new, lengthy video to the iOS section of its website today. The 10-minute clip is called 'Making a difference. One app at a time.' and it highlights how folks around the globe are using apps on Apple's mobile products.
As usual, the videography in the short film is beautiful and the message is concise. Apple is showing how iOS apps help make the world a little bit better, and things a little bit easier, for people from all different walks of life. Watch it...
Apple at Monday’s WWDC 2013 keynote briefly mentioned its refreshed AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule wireless appliances which now support Gigabit Wi-Fi, also known as 802.11ac, for three times throughput of 802.11an. In unveiling the sixth-generation AirPort Extreme, Apple's marketing honcho Phil Schiller somewhat cryptically alluded that the redesigned base station might accept internal storage.
“There’s also room in there for a hard drive,” he quipped. Sure enough, teardown wizards over at iFixit bought a brand spanking new unit and tore it apart, finding 3.5 inches of empty space inside...
Under questioning by U.S. government lawyers, an Apple executive testified that the company owns about 20 percent of the U.S. e-book market - double the figure many observers had assumed.
The surprising percentage was revealed as the head of the company's iBookstore service refuted government charges of conspiracy to set e-book prices.
During the sixth day of testimony in the Department of Justice's lawsuit against Apple, company director Keith Moerer said iBookstore grabbed twenty percent of e-book sales soon after opening, a figure it continues to hold. Additionally, he said iBookstore sales increased 100 percent in 2012 with more than a hundred million customers...
The latest in Apple warranty shenanigans in Europe: caving in to pressure from a number of the European Union member states, the company has now updated its warranty policy in Belgium, giving all buyers two-year warranty as standard.
Remember, Apple's insistence on upselling European customers to its paid AppleCare extended coverage has failed to impress authorities in Europe, where two-year warranty is required by law.
In Italy, for example, Apple was fined $264,000 in Italy over offering only a single year of warranty as standard...
We've always contended that while Android has a numerical advantage over Apple's iOS, the iPhone and iPad see much greater usage.
More evidence of that belief: more than half of all 3G cellular traffic comes from Apple devices.
When combined, the iPhone 4, 4S and 5 account for about 53 percent of all 3G cellular traffic. Adding the iPad boosts the number to nearly 60 percent, according to a firm that analyzes cell network traffic. Where is Android? Samsung's Galaxy S, S2 and S3 combined make up a bit over eighteen percent of 3G traffic...
Apple appears to have quietly made a subtle yet significant change to iTunes backend in an effort to make it easier to comb through your Purchased App Store items.
As observed by an iDB reader, the iPad storefront now includes a brand new lefthand bar which makes it easy to sort your Purchased apps alphabetically.
The tweak certainly helps find a needle in the haystack, especially when compared to having to scroll through a long list of Purchased items that used to be sorted chronologically. Coupled with the handy search field, this enhancement lets you zero in on a previously purchased item in no time...
It is no secret that iAd, Apple's mobile advertising network based on its Quatro Wireless acquisition, is struggling. Originally conceived to help app makers improve their bottom line by injecting highly engaging interactive iAds into their warez, the platform has been marred with high ad rates, big brand exodus, executive reshuffling and Apple's relative inexperience in running a mobile ad network.
But Apple isn't standing still. Today, the company launched a new iAd Workbench tool that helps its registered developers better target their users, manually, automatically or both. This allows for a much finely-graded targeting criteria, down to the specific device, gender, age, location and preferences...