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Apple launches 2012 Holiday Gift Guide

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 13, 2012

With winter holidays upon us, Apple has now launched its official Holiday Gift Guide for this year. A special page on the company's web site is now live, highlighting a range of first and third-party gadgets and accessories that Apple hopes might be a nice guideline for those on the lookout for perfect holiday gift.

The main four sections group products according to Apple's major product lineups: iPad gifts, Mac gifts, iPhone gifts and iPod gifts. Fender's iOS-friendly Stratocaster guitar Cody told you about yesterday (an Apple Store exclusive) is among the listed products, as is the Nike+ FuelBand wrist band accessory, Parrot's AR Drone and many other gadgets...

Never lose your wallet again with Wallet TrackR

Cody Lee ∙ November 13, 2012

Losing your wallet can be a pretty taxing event. In addition to the cash and other valuables you lose, you're forced to call and cancel your credit cards, and have to replace your drivers license, insurance cards and other items.

But what if there was a way you could be sure that you wouldn't ever lose your wallet again? That's the dream that the folks over at Phone Halo are selling with its new app-connected Bluetooth card known as Wallet TrackR...

Display shootout pits the iPad 3 against the Surface

Cody Lee ∙ November 13, 2012

The experts over at DisplayMate have put together another display shootout, this time pitting the Retina screen of the iPad 3 against that of Microsoft's new Surface tablet and Samsung's older Galaxy Tab 10.1. The Galaxy Tab was really just thrown in for good measure here, the real shootout is between the first two.

Last month, a Microsoft engineer claimed that although the Surface has a lower resolution than the iPad, 1366 x 768 vs 2048 x 1536, its display can still outperform it. DisplayMate's Raymond Soneira laughed off the claim, saying there was no way this was possible. And now he has the head-to-head tests to prove it...

Romo the robot is back and better than ever

Cody Lee ∙ November 12, 2012

Romo the robot first appeared last November as a Kickstarter project. It was essentially a fully motorized, acrylic robot that was both controlled and powered by an iOS device. And despite looking like a build-it-yourself hobby-bot, it collected well over $100,000 in pledges.

Well this year, Romo is back and better than ever. The robot has been redesigned from the circuit board up, and has been improved in almost every way imaginable. It looks better, goes faster, thinks smarter and is much easier to use...

Apple giving select employees two weeks off to work on special projects

Cody Lee ∙ November 12, 2012

Tim Cook has ushered in a number of changes to Apple in his first year as the CEO. He's instituted an employee donation program, and a few weeks ago he spearheaded one of the biggest management shakeups in the company's history.

And this afternoon, we can add another alteration to the list. According to a new report, Cook has signed off on a new program, code-named "Blue Sky," that gives select employees up to two weeks to work on special side projects...

Text messaging sees first decline ever due to iMessage and other services

Cody Lee ∙ Updated September 28, 2016

Carriers let out a harmonious groan when Apple unveiled its new iMessage service last year. Not only was it a texting alternative, but it would automatically switch users over from texting to iMessaging if both parties were on iOS 5 devices.

Unsurprisingly, this has had a significant impact on the wireless industry and its subsequent text messaging business. According to a new report, the amount of text messages sent during Q3 this year declined for the first time ever...

How to jailbreak iOS 6.1 beta 2 with RedSn0w 0.9.15b3

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

If you're a developer, then you might be interested in jailbreaking the latest beta version of iOS — iOS 6.1 beta 2. The beta was just released today, and like we always do, we've created a video tutorial that shows how to successfully jailbreak it if you happen to be a developer.

Take a look inside as we walk you through the iOS 6.1 beta 2 jailbreak process step-by-step.

WebOffline for Chrome brings offline web page reading to Google’s iOS browser

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 11, 2018

WebOffline for Chrome is a new jailbreak tweak that integrates offline reading capability directly into the Google Chrome browser for iOS. As someone who does a lot of offline reading, and as someone who's a huge Google Chrome proponent, this sounded like the perfect tweak for me. Sadly, the tweak falls short due to its bugs.

As you'll see in our hands-on video, WebOffline for Chrome has tons of potential, but unfortunately it needs a few more hours in the oven before it's really ready for primetime.

Accelerate significantly speeds up iOS animations

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Are your finding the iOS experience to be a bit on the slow side? Are you using an older iOS device, and finding it to be unbearably sluggish? If you're jailbroken, and this has been your experience, then you might want to give this new tweak a go.

Accelerate is a recently released jailbreak tweak that speeds up the animations within iOS. While it's technically not making the experience any faster, the perceived speed increase may go a long way towards curing your blues.

Take a gander at our video inside for a demonstration that shows how it works.

New in iOS 6.1: Reset Advertising Identifier

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

With the release of iOS 6, Apple replaced its controversial unique device identifier system (or UDID) with the Advertising Identifier. It's a non-permanent, non-personal, device identifier, that advertising networks use to track your behavior.

Since its introduction, users who don't like targeted advertisements have had the ability to limit ad tracking via a toggle in the Settings application. And in iOS 6.1, users will gain the ability to reset their Advertising Identifier as well...

iPhone 5 shipping estimates improve to 2-3 weeks

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 12, 2012

Availability of the iPhone 5 is finally improving as Apple, its suppliers and contract manufacturers bind forces to improve manufacturing yield rates. When Apple in September started accepting online pre-orders for the device, shipping times quoted on the online Apple Store fell to 3-4 weeks within 45 minutes.

Availability would not improve until today. Now, after admitting to falling behind the iPhone 5 demand, Apple's contract manufacturer Foxconn has been hard at work with suppliers like Sharp to remove bottlenecks. Analysts who last week surveyed over a hundred Apple Stores, found out the device could be consistently available within 2 to 3 weeks.

We're happy to report that today, estimated shipping times for new iPhone 5 orders on the online Apple store dropped to 2-3 weeks, another sign of the iPhone maker and its supply chain slowly beginning to catch up to strong demand for the popular device...