Tim Cook talks new product categories, downplays chances of larger iPhone

Apple's Q2 earnings conference call just ended, and by most counts it went rather well. The company beat Wall Street estimates for iPhone and iPad sales, and revenue, and announced a huge initiative to return $100 billion back to investors by 2015.

So why has Apple's stock fallen from its huge after-hours spike back down to where it started? Well, it might have something to do with Tim Cook's comments on Apple's product pipeline. The CEO indicated that we won't see any new stuff until the fall...

Upcoming tweak lets you unlock iPhone by playing the piano

I know, sounds crazy right? But we have the video evidence that shows an in-progress tweak that allows you to do just that. The tweak is called Piano passcode, and just as its name suggests, it allows you to play a tune on a set of piano keys that reside on your lock screen. Playing the right tune unlocks the device.

15 interesting points from today’s earnings call

Apple just announced its earnings for its first quarter of 2013, second fiscal quarter, and despite all of the lead-in 'doom' talk, the numbers are actually very impressive. The company beat Wall Street projections in nearly every metric.

We’re just finishing up the conference call, where Tim Cook and company have made several announcements and dropped a number of impressive statistics. And as usual, we've rounded up the 15 most interesting points for you…

Apple Q2 2013 earnings: 37.4M iPhones, 19.5M iPads, $43.6B revenue

The news headlines for Apple have been getting progressively worse over the past few months, as rumors continue to swell of falling iPhone and iPad demand, and the company's stock dipping below $400 for the first time since 2011.

But it looks like they might be able to change the conversation. Q2 numbers are out, and Apple beat Wall Street projections in nearly every category, selling 37.4 million iPhones, 19.5 million iPads and producing $43.6 billion in revenue...

How to bypass Facebook’s Chat Heads limit on iOS

Yesterday we showed you a couple of free, handy jailbreak tweaks that allow you to activate the new Chat Heads and sticker features in Facebook's 6.0 app. And that's great for the folks that didn't have access to them, but what about everyone else?

Don't worry, we have you covered too. For those of you who already have Chat Heads enabled in the Facebook app, there's a new jailbreak tweak out called FB Unlimited Chat Heads that removes Facebook's pesky 4-Chat Heads-or-less limitation...

CameraTweak HD supercharges the iPad’s stock Camera app

Hopefully you're not one of those people, but if you are, then listen up. I am, of course, talking about people who take pictures and record video with their iPads. Not only is it awkward, but it's also incredibly goofy looking.

With that in mind, I was taken aback a bit when an email from the developer of CameraTweak — a tweak that I had already reviewed for the iPhone — arrived in my box. The email stated that there was a new app, CameraTweak HD, and they wanted my opinion on it.

I immediately thought to myself, "cool, an upgrade to the awesome CameraTweak for the iPhone," but soon after I realized that this was for the iPad. Admittedly, it did take me a while to get used to the idea of using my iPad to take pictures, but I somehow got through it.

My conclusion goes a little like this: If you're going to look silly and take photo and videos with your 10" tablet, then you might as well do it with the best available software out there. Ladies and gentlemen, like its precursor, CameraTweak for iPhone, CameraTweak HD is hands-down the best camera oriented jailbreak tweak for the iPad. If you want to take awesome photos and videos while having a plethora of options at your disposal, then look no further.

AT&T activates 4.8M iPhones in Q1

Just as we're counting down the remaining time until Apple's earnings release, the company's trusted iPhone distributor AT&T reported corporate earnings related to the first three months of this year. The company added 1.2 million new subscribers and sold six million smartphones, of which 4.8 million were iPhones, accounting for a whopping 80 percent of new smartphone additions.

By contrast, rival Verizon last week said it added 677,000 net new subscribers during the first quarter. Additionally, out of the 7.2 million new smartphone owners in the quarter, Verizon reported that four million were iPhones.

Even with the slowing growth slowed, key metrics matched Wall Street expectations. That wasn't enough to prevent shares from going down by nearly 1.25 percent in after hours trading. We'll be listening to AT&T's conference call later this afternoon for additional data points...

Apple bans smileys and other special characters from app descriptions

From time to time, Apple updates its iTunes marketing requirements. The goal is to provide the most accurate and reliable descriptions for the mobile applications, movies, television shows, songs and other media content types customers download from iTunes.

In the most recent example, the iPhone maker has reportedly taken issue with app blurbs. Long story short, Apple is no longer willing to turn a blind eye on luring would-be buyers with "enhanced" app descriptions that contain exclamation marks, stars, smileys and other special characters.

The change was communicated via the iTunes Connect web portal, a venue registered iOS developers use exclusively to upload their submissions and iTunes marketing materials...

TinyUmbrella updated with support for iOS 6.1.3

Good news jailbreakers. Notcom has finally updated his popular SHSH blob-saver to support iOS 6.1.3. Apple seeded the update to users more than a month ago with a fix for the latest Lock screen security bug and Maps improvements.

Unfortunately, 6.1.3 also killed several of the exploits that the evad3rs were using in evasi0n, effectively killing the iOS 6 jailbreak. But for those of you who upgraded to it, whether by accident or choice, here's TinyUmbrella version 6.13.00...

Google releases Fiber TV iPad app

Google's Fiber, a broadband network infrastructure using fiber-optic communication, has gone live in Kansas City which became the first U.S. community where the Internet giant deployed this promising technology.

Just a quick recap: the most obvious benefit of Google Fiber is the hundred times faster data rates, in both downlink and uplink, compared to the traditional broadband services.

Following last month's release of the Fiber TV app for Android devices, the search monster today issued a build for Apple's iPad tablet. Should you happen to live in select areas of Kansas City, go download the  Fiber TV iPad app and start browsing, buying and watching television shows and movies that are airing live, right on your iPad...

Atom now available for download on Cydia

Atom — the gorgeously animated Lock screen launcher for iOS has finally landed on Cydia's BigBoss repo. We brought you an initial in-depth preview of Atom last week, but the tweak has since been updated and features a few new visual cues for the final build.

This time around you'll find new animations. In the initial version of Atom that I previewed, there were no animations present when you placed the Lock screen numb over an app you wished to launch. Now, along with the animations that happen when you first touch the nub, you get a better sense of when you slide your finger over one of the apps located on the Lock screen.

Check out our brand new video of the final version of Atom...

We’re giving away 200 App.net invites

App.net recently started offering free, invite-only accounts to those who were not completely sold on the idea and wanted to try the service before financially committing. In order to get one of those freemium accounts, you must be invited by a paid user. Once you are, you get access to all the goodies ADN has to offer, but in a limited version (ie. you only have 5o0 MB of file storage vs 10 GB for paid users).

The fine folks at App.net recently reached out to us to see if we'd be interested in giving away 200 invites to their freemium service. We thought it'd be a good idea to introduce some iDB readers to ADN, so here we are, offering 200 invitations to those of you who haven't had a chance to try this service yet...