Last week, T-Mobile announced that it was finally joining the other top US wireless carriers as an official iPhone partner. It will be offering all current models of the popular smartphone, including the iPhone 4, 4S and 5.
The phones won't officially become available until next Friday, April 12. But, as expected, T-Mobile started accepting iPhone 5 pre-orders through its website this morning. And you can grab a 16GB model for just $99 down...
A German court ruled invalid Apple's patent for a sliding touchscreen unlocking image, marking another win for allies of Google's Android mobile operating. In its ruling in favor of the Google-owned Motorola, the country's Federal Patent Court slammed the iPhone maker's slide-to-unlock patent as devoid of "technological innovation." Still, a long-running patent dispute which began in 2011 may still live on as Apple's legal team prepares for a round of appeals, according to Friday reports...
VirnetX, a patent holding firm with an impressive intellectual property portfolio, in November 2011 sued Apple over a breach of a collection of its network patents, originally seeking north of $900 million in damages. A year later, in November 2012, a federal jury in a Texas court ordered the iPhone maker to pay $368.2 million in damages.
The two parties later worked out a royalty agreement that should be decided upon on April 12, but as a result of the damages awarded to VirnetX, Apple today has acknowledged via a support document that it "will be changing the behavior of VPN On Demand for iOS devices using iOS 6.1 and later"...
It seems like there's been a lot of tweaks updated lately to support iOS 6 and the new 4-inch display on the iPhone 5. There's Mail Enhancer Pro, ToDoNotes 2, and iBye. And today, we are adding another one to the list.
LockLauncher, a jailbreak tweak that lets you launch multiple apps at once from your lockscreen, has been updated to version 2.0. The update includes several improvements, including iOS 6, iPhone 5 support and more...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lep_DSmSRwE
Facebook has found a new home on Android, so to speak, as the social networking giant at a news conference earlier today unveiled a Home launcher, a new feature for select Android devices which marries cherry-picked Facebook applications to a beautiful user interface described as putting "people first in an app first world."
Alongside the new software shell, Mark Zuckerberg and HTC's Peter Chou announced the HTC First, an Android smartphone born out of the collaboration between Facebook and HTC which runs the Home interface. Zuckerberg confirmed his company will be rolling out the new launcher to select Android devices beginning April 12, as a free app download from Google's Play Store.
But what about iOS? iPhone users are unfortunately shut out. Initially hiding behind 'Apple's walled-garden' argument, Zuckerberg in wide-ranging interviews with Forbes and Wired.com shed more light on the matter...
TouchPal is a very under the radar jailbreak tweak that allows users to replace their stock iOS keyboards to a new Swype inspired keyboard that's downloadable from the App Store. I know that probably sounds a bit odd, so let me explain a bit.
TouchPal is actually two different things. First, it's a legitimate App Store app that can be downloaded by anyone, whether or not they are on a jailbroken device or not. The standalone app was created as a multi-language keyboard that allows you to have accurate predictive text by means of standard taps on keys, or swipe gestures, which are inspired by Swype.
Unfortunately, by itself, you can only use TouchPal as a standalone app, and then copy that text to other applications, or take advantage of an app's built in URL scheme for inter-app communication. The good news is, that there's a second part to this puzzle piece, and it comes in the form of a jailbreak tweak that's adorned by the same name — TouchPal. This jailbreak tweak allows you to incorporate the keyboards featured in the standalone app, right into stock iOS. This means that you can use the TouchPal keyboard within normal apps like Notes, Mail, Safari, and any other app that you use on your iPhone.
Needless to say, TouchPal is really neat. Take a look inside as I demonstrate how it works in our full video walkthrough.
Facebook's media event just ended and as expected, most of what was talked about had to do with a new Facebook experience on Android. The social network unveiled a new 'people first' launcher, or shell if you will, for Android devices called Facebook Home.
But software wasn't the only topic of discussion today. Right before ending the press conference, Mark Zuckerberg pulled a Steve Jobs'-like 'one more thing,' and called HTC's CEO Peter Chou on stage to introduce the long-rumored HTC First smartphone...
OMG, Apple is screwed! In another data point proving Apple doomsayers need to re-run their spreadsheets, research firm comScore reported Thursday its latest survey of the United States market for smartphones has found Apple's iPhone widening its lead over second-ranked Samsung, which has gone up one percentage point to grab a 21.3 percent share of US-owned smartphones during the three month average period ending February 2013.
During the same timeframe, Apple's slice of the pie has gone up from 35.9 percent in November 2012 to 38.9 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers in February 2013, an increase of 3.9 percentage points. The good news doesn't stop here: Apple's iOS has increased 3.9 percentage points to 38.9 percent, matching Apple's aforementioned smartphone share.
Google's Android platform, available on numerous devices from dozens of manufacturers, still ranked as the top smartphone platform with a healthy 51.7 percent market share in February 2013, but it has dropped two percentage points from the November 20121 53.7 percent share...
Apple's iMessage platform has gone through its share of teething problems, ranging from issues related to iOS devices continuing to send and receive messages, even after being remotely wiped and having their SIM cards deactivated, to iOS saving deleted iMessage attachments to a recent exploit which involved denial of service attacks leading to a series of spam messages crashing the stock iOS Messages app. Although unpleasant and worrying, these problems are mostly localized.
When it comes to government surveillance, however, iMessage is bullet proof and the agile government, of course, has only recently become aware of this. According to an internal document from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), instant messages exchanged between iOS users through the iMessage platform are "impossible to intercept" due to strong iCloud encryption...
Facebook just finished up its media event, and to our surprise, most of the discussion was not about a new smartphone. Instead, it was about Facebook's new 'Home' launcher for Android devices that promises to put "people first in an app first world."
Home's not a forked version of Android, but rather a deep software integration with Google's OS that features a family of Facebook apps and a gorgeous UI. It changes the look of everything, from the Lock and Home screen to Messaging and more...
Who thought Apple's Smart Cover, first designed to simply protect the iPad screen without adding too much bulk to the device's form factor, would grow to become another platform for the firm's design guru, Jony Ive? A new patent application which identifies Ive as one of the inventors suggests the Smart Cover could become a mini screen, displaying new email and controlling music playback, among other possibilities.
In a patent filing published earlier this week by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Apple includes a redesigned Smart Cover which includes buttons to control your iTunes playback, along with a window where you can quickly check new e-mails or incoming texts...
Last month, Filippo Bigarella released a handy little tweak called LastPic. For those who missed it, LastPic lets you quickly add the last photo you took to an iMessage conversation, similar to the Tweetbot function.
Unfortunately, the tweak is only compatible with the iMessage app. But luckily we've discovered a simple hack that allows you to use it with the popular jailbreak app biteSMS. And yes, we've got a tutorial for you...