Google has just pushed out an incremental update to its native Gmail client for iOS. The new version brings three little nice-to-haves to your email arsenal, including the ability to send email messages from your alternate email addresses and stay logged in longer.
The biggest enhancements is the full support for iOS notifications, meaning you can now finally set up banners, alerts and lock screen options in Notification Center...
Several reports this morning sourced from Taiwanese supply chain indicate some pretty interesting reshuffling going on in the mobile space outside Apple. Samsung is shooting to cumulatively sell ten million Galaxy S III units by early July while Motorola Mobility is mulling exiting the feature phones business in order to focus all their energies on "innovative products".
In the non-iPad space, a contract manufacturer has apparently landed orders for both Amazon's seven-inch Kindle Fire tablet and Google's Nexus-branded expected to make an appearance at Google I/O on Wednesday...
Apple has started pushing out iOS 6 beta 2 to developers this morning. It doesn't appear to be available on the company's dev site yet, but we are seeing it hit our devices via OTA.
We're installing the update now and will let you know if we spot any changes in the new software. One minor difference we've noticed already, is that the gears in the icon (shown above) now spin during installation.
Update: added full change log and a video of the spinning gears animation
Update 2: iOS 6 beta 2 is now available for download in the dev center...
T-Mobile's AT&T deal might not have gone through, but that doesn't mean the carrier is ready to just roll over and die. It's actually been very busy this year, building up its network.
The company has already started showing off its new iPhone-friendly HSPA+ technology. And today it's announced plans to purchase a large amount of AWS spectrum from Verizon...
LockSpring is a free jailbreak tweak that adds a respring button and toggle to your Lock screen. It's an incredibly simple tweak, and chances are you already have the same functionality in another tweak installed on your iDevice. For that reason, most won't see the value in adding a standalone tweak like LockSpring to their repertoire.
On the other hand, if you're looking for a singular tweak that performs a respring function only with no extra fluff, then LockSpring may be worth taking a look at.
You're no doubt aware of The New York Times' coverage of Apple's retailing woes and Cupertino's response: it raised wages and is mulling a career path for employees. The story is making the headlines and becoming a meme, so it goes without saying that Joy of Tech has a take on it.
Joy of Tech is a webcomic created by Canada-born Liza Schmalcel and Bruce Evans and iDB loves their funny takes on the various topics that have been occupying the greatest minds in tech (yeah, I meant that as an irony).
My favorite from their Apple Store comic: before putting on an Apple Genius shirt, please apply "New Apple Smell" scented deodorant, as instructed by your Hygiene Manager. What, didn't you know? that there's a fragrance which recreates the Apple unboxing scent?
This past Saturday, The New York Times ran an eyebrow-raising profile of Apple's retail business. A part of the paper's ongoing iEconomy series, the controversial story deals with the 30,000 of the 43,000 Apple employees in the United States who work in Apple Stores, as members of the service economy, many of them making just $25,000 a year.
And while Apple Stores almost double per-square-foot revenue compared to second-ranked Tiffany, Apple’s retail army remains long on loyalty but short on pay, the piece concludes. Those youthful faces that greet and service you at Apple's 327 global stores aren't in it for the money: a retail employee makes an average of $25,000 a year, but nets Apple approximately $473,000 annually.
That's why the company can get away with paying a modest hourly wage and no commission, offering no career path whatsoever. In fact, many former and current employees describe working for the man as a dead end. According to a new report, Apple is about to change this and has outlined a new career path initiative to employees in yesterday's Apple Retail quarterly meetings across the United States...
The New York Times published a fascinating piece yesterday evening about Microsoft's Surface tablet which contains a few interesting tidbits about Apple's iPad and just how far Cupertino had gone to gain an edge on its products...
When a high-ranked Apple executive says Apple won't do something, expect quite the opposite. So when Apple's worldwide marketing chief Phil Schiller told the Wall Street Journal that Passbook, a new app in iOS 6, won't be a direct payment product, there was more to his words than met the eye.
We've also heard countless rumors involving an Near Field Communication NFC chip coming to the next iPhone to provide a hardware basis for secure contactless payments on the go. Apparently, recent code dumps that broke the taller iPhone news also indicate that NFC controllers are directly connected to the power management unit of the next iPhone...
Sharing files is nothing new. In fact, it has been around since the birth of the internet and has even managed to change the course of an entire industry in the case of the music business. Sharing files across multiple devices and people is an important part of our lives, and the iPad is now part of that.
While Dropbox is undoubtedly extremely useful for most of us, Mighty Mack decided that keeping sharing important files and documents amongst professionals needed to offer something a little different, and that's when Agora Briefcase was born.
Made specifically with professional use cases in mind, Agora Briefcase helps people who just don't quite fit into the Dropbox way of doing things...
Bloomberg reports that iOS 6 will have Yelp check-ins integrated with Apple's in-house mapping solution, allowing people to use built-in Maps app to let friends know about their location.
This capability has apparently been discovered in materials Apple distributed to software developers...
[tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwWTDyg_saY[/tube]
Deck HD - the iPad version of the popular Deck tweak for the iPhone - has finally made its way to Cydia for download.
A while back we posted a full walkthrough showcasing Deck HD in action. What we found was a tweak that worked just as well as the iPhone version, and in fact felt even better to use due to the extra screen real estate, and exclusive iPad customizations.
Deck HD can be downloaded from Cydia's ModMyi repo for $1.99. If you decide to try it, be sure to share your experience in the comments section.