Apple

Microsoft treats all Office 365 subscribers to unlimited OneDrive storage, no strings attached

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated December 30, 2017

If you were sitting on the fence of subscribing to Office 365 just to gain editing functionality in Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for the iPad, Microsoft has an offer that will knock your socks off.

All Office 365 subscribers now get unlimited OneDrive storage with their service, the team announced Monday.

Yup, storage limits just became a thing of the past.

And with the recently reduced monthly subscriptions now available as In-App Purchases in Office for iPad, you'll have unlimited OneDrive space for your photos, videos and other documents for as low as seven bucks per month. Again, that's unlimited OneDrive storage and Office from $7 per month.

Alpine launches its first aftermarket CarPlay in-dash receiver

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 27, 2014

Alpine, which specializes in car audio and navigation systems, is an Apple-endorsed aftermarket solutions provider for CarPlay. On Monday, the company announced its first aftermarket in-dash receiver designed to work with Apple's CarPlay, the iLX-007.

The $800 accessory features a seven-inch capacitive touch screen and supports the full range of CarPlay functionality like making and receiving phone calls and messages, listening to music, navigating with Apple Maps, conversing with Siri and more.

Apple wants to enable iPhone 6’s NFC for building security, public transit tickets and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 27, 2014

Most of the talk about NFC inside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus has centered around Apple Pay, the iPhone maker's mobile payments service, but NFC has other uses, too. Android handsets typically use NFC for proximity-based wireless sharing and now The Information is reporting that Apple is considering adding more NFC-based features to the new iPhones, stuff like enabling secure access to buildings and transit fare systems.

iPad Air 2’s anti-reflective screen reduces ambient light reflections dramatically

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 27, 2014

DisplayMate Technologies has put the screens of the new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 through a barrage of tests concluding that the former's anti-reflective screen reduces ambient light reflections dramatically compared to any other tablet display out there.

The technology, DisplayMate discovered, reduces ambient light reflections by about 3:1 over most other tablets, including the previous iPads, and about 2:1 over all of the very best competing tablets and smartphones, including the iPhone 6.

Amazon launches Fire TV Stick, a $39 HDMI dongle

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 27, 2014

Having released its $99 set top box in April 2014, the Fire TV, that also doubles as an Android-driven games console, the online retail giant Amazon on Monday took on Google's Chromecast with a $35 HDMI dongle dubbed the Fire TV Stick.

Amazon is calling the Fire TV Stick “the most powerful streaming media stick.” And at just $39, it's within reach of average consumers who need a pocket-sized device to wirelessly beam their media and apps from an Android phone or tablet (iOS coming soon) to a big screen TV.

FitBit unveils next-generation activity trackers and a $250 fitness superwatch

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

After recalling its rash-inducing Force wristband back in February, FitBit on Monday launched a new family of activity trackers, the FitBit Charge and Charge HR, while making its first foray into the smart watch space with the FitBit Surge fitness accessory.

The water-resistant Fitbit Charge, billed as “the Force reinvented”, is an improved version of the activity tracker with an OLED screen and a seven-day battery. The Fitbit Charge HR is an improved version of the Charge wristband with FitBit's PurePulse heart rate sensors and a five-day battery.

As for the Fitbit Surge, this $250 fitness watch packs in a total of eight sensors for more detailed logging of activities such as running and working out. Jump past the fold for more details.

iPhone 6 pre-orders on Samsung’s home turf top 100,000 units, outpacing Galaxy Note 4

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 27, 2014

Ahead of the scheduled October 31 launch, carriers in South Korea have managed to collect 100,000 pre-orders for Apple's new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones, three times the amount of pre-orders for Samsung's Galaxy Note 4 in the country, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Carriers KT Corp., LG Uplus Corp. and SK Telecom Co., South Korea’s largest mobile carrier, started accepting pre-orders for the new devices this past Friday, October 24.

Activating Apple SIM on AT&T locks it to their network

Cody Lee ∙ Updated June 11, 2018

Just a heads up for folks looking to get a Wi-Fi + Cellular version of one of the new iPads. It was discovered on Friday that the awesome new Apple SIM feature, which is supposed to allow you to switch seamlessly between compatible carriers, doesn't play well with all providers.

More specifically, MacRumors points to an Apple support page that says when you activate your new iPad with AT&T, the carrier dedicates its Apple SIM to their network only. So if you wanted to move the tablet to another provider, you'd have to purchase and install a new SIM.

How Complete My Bundle works

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 24, 2014

The much-improved App Store in iOS 8 features a number of enhancements. Case in point: app bundles. App bundles make it possible for developers to bundle up to ten of their existing iPhone and iPad applications in a single purchase at a reduced price.

Borrowing cues from the “Complete My Album” feature for music that debuted on iTunes in March 2007, app bundles are great promotional vehicles to drive sales and can serve as a nice reward for loyal customers.

But for the vast majority of ordinary users, app bundles are one of the least understood new features of the App Store in iOS 8. That it's still very unclear how the App Store's Complete My Bundle works is Apple's fault.

And it certainly doesn't make its users' lives any easier with cryptic feature descriptions and the App Store's non-intuitive bundle pricing mechanism. But don't sweat, here's everything you need to know in order to understand how Complete My Bundle works.

Camera+ offered for free for the very first time

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

Camera+ by Taptaptap, the award-winning iPhone photography app and one of the longest-standing camera and image editing apps in the App Store, is available free of charge for a limited time, but only through Apple's sleek Apple Store shopping application for the iPhone and iPad. That's a cool $2.99 saving right off the bat over the app's regular asking price.

No matter if you're only mildly into mobile photography or a seasoned photographer, you really shouldn't miss out on this promotion because Camera+ has never gone free since its inception in August of 2011. Again, you can't just follow the app's iTunes URL to grab Camera+ for zero bucks because the offer is exclusive to users who have the Apple Store application installed on their devices.

Jump past the fold for the full instructions.

iTunes music sales dipped sharply since start of 2014 as iPod turned 13 yesterday

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2018

If you need another proof that Apple made the right move dropping more than three billion bucks on Beats's audio accessories and music-streaming service, here's one.

According to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Wall Street Journal on Friday, the decline of digital music sales on iTunes is accelerating with latest data showing between a thirteen and fourteen percent dip globally since the start of this year.

By comparison, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimated that global revenue from music downloads fell just 2.1 percent in 2013. Clearly this development doesn't bode well for iTunes, but can Apple do anything about it? Read on for the full reveal.

HuddleLamp combines all your Apple mobile devices into a massive multitouch canvas

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

What if you could combine screens of iOS devices sitting on your table into one massive multitouch enabled canvas that you could interact with?

That's what researchers with the Human-Computer Interaction Group at the University of Konstanz in Germany set out to create with their noteworthy HuddleLamp project.

Basically a tabletop with a built-in 3D camera that sits above, the HuddleLamp uses smart software which analyzes RGB and depth data to not only detect your mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets, but also track hand movement and determine their relative position to one another.

The results are impressive: the HuddleLamp can detect interactions above and between displays so you can swipe and toss information from one device to another, render a huge map across the devices with each screen showing only a portion of the map and what not.