Apple and its Asian supplier Pegatron, which manufactures the iPhone 5c, have come under heavy fire this week following the unexplained deaths of at least five factory workers. Even worse is that one of them, a boy, was just 15 years old.
It's since been determined that the teenager used forged identity documents saying he was 20 years old to get the job. And today, Apple gave an official statement on the incident, saying it has sent independent medical experts to investigate...
Earlier this morning, I told you about Fleksy, a free iPhone application that one-ups Apple's stock iOS keyboard with eyes-free typing experience.
The San Francisco-based startup behind the app has decided to open up its alternate keyboard methods to select-third party developers by way of an official software development kit (SDK). This is great news as Fleksy's keyboard sports a patent pending text prediction engine and a powerful autocorrect engine.
Contrast iPhone and iPad automation app, Launch Center Pro ($4.99 on the App Store), is one of Fleksy launch partners and today's update enables support for Fleksy's innovative input method for keyboard prompts.
More on that right after the break...
And just like clockwork, Instagram's newly-updated mobile app is now live in the App Store with support for Instagram Direct, a new feature announced just an hour ago at the company's Share a Moment media event in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. This capability that some mistakenly refer to as a private messaging feature introduces much-needed granularity to sharing by allowing users to send a photo or video not only to a group of their Instagram followers, but also to those not following them on the service...
iPhone photography fans, rejoice! Facebook-owned Instagram is holding its Share a Moment media event in Midtown Manhattan, New York City and co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom has just taken the wraps off Instagram Direct, a new feature designed to make it easy to limit specific photos and videos to select groups of friends.
The capability is available now through Instagram's just-updated free iPhone app. As for Instagram metrics, Systrom said Instagram grew from 80 million users at the beginning of 2013 to 150 million users worldwide, with half of Instagram’s users accessing the service on a daily basis...
Although the stock iOS keyboard has come a long way since the original iPhone, Apple in past six years has largely made incremental improvements to one of the most important features of touch devices. For example, a new keyboard in iOS 7 features a number of smart functions such as the improved auto-correct function, while introducing new light and dark themes.
Enter Fleksy, a San Francisco-based startup which has offered up its own keyboard app for iOS devices for the past year and a half. They have now created a software development kit (SDK) allowing Apple's registered iOS developers to implement additional keyboard layouts and looks in their apps to augment Apple's rather restricted stock choices...
Back in 2011, the legal spat between Apple and its frenemy and key supplier Samsung started to really escalate as the parties began filing a bunch of lawsuits around the world against each other. The Galaxy maker was hoping to gain the upper hand by filing a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple in its home turf over claimed short message display methods and messaging grouping features.
However, a Korean judge has now tossed Samsung's claim out of the window, with the Seoul Central District Court ruling that Apple's iPhone 4s and iPad 2 do not infringe on Samsung Electronics’ commercial patents...
It's been some time since we've seen a meaningful update to Google Maps for iPhone and iPad, especially given Google Maps is probably the Internet giant's most popular product, after Search.
As if reading our mind, just an hour ago the firm has quietly pushed a minor update into the App Store. The new Google Maps version 2.5 comes with a few bug fixes and brings with it a cool new feature which lets you see your reservations from Gmail on the map.
Say you made a flight, hotel or restaurant reservation. Upon receiving the confirmation email in Gmail, Google can now take this information (they are already doing this for Google Now cards, by the way), extract the address and show you precise locations for these items within the Google Maps iOS app.
It's a minor, albeit welcome, enhancement that will up competition a notch for Apple’s own iOS Maps app. I love how little things like this make Google Maps more integrated with other Google apps. We've seen Google do this frequently and my guess is they'll continue to leverage their premium iOS apps to build a platform on top of iOS, so to speak...
Chrome Apps may have debuted as simple website shortcuts, but Google has quickly expanded on the initial capabilities so these things now feel and behave much like rich, native apps, as opposed to your typical clunky and somewhat slow web app. Today's Chrome Apps are packaged as native code, can work offline, access your computer's local storage and more.
There are some really fine Chrome Apps out there that will make you question your preconceived notions of what a web app can do and now Google has created a home for them, right in your Mac's Dock.
Introducing Chrome App Launcher which puts Chrome Apps for your desktop right in your Dock. Just click its icon and up pops a grid of all Chrome Apps that you've installed on your system. Read on for full details...
I frequently use Nike's fitness app, Move for iPhone, which made its App Store debut in early-November. Apple highlighted Nike+ Move during the September double-iPhone event as a use case scenario on how health and fitness apps can benefit by taking advantage of the new M7 motion coprocessor found inside the iPhone 5s. Not only does Nike+ Move tracks your movement even when it's inactive - with little to no impact on your battery life - it really gets you moving on a daily basis.
Beautiful and light iOS design, nicely animated interface, easy to grasp features and inviting concept together made me fall in love with the software from day one. A fresh update which just surfaced on the App Store is now introducing a more comprehensive Leaderboards and a more accurate Where You Moved screen...
Last month, Apple began testing the app trailer waters by hosting a video clip on the App Store for the new game Clumsy Ninja. The embedded clip had no voiceover or custom App Store branding, and it's the only one we've seen like this in the Store to date.
Now, it looks like Apple is running another experiment involving app and media discovery. We noticed this afternoon that it has given the new game Angry Birds Go! a custom landing page in the App Store with links to its related soundtrack and other apps...
Having just wrapped up its news conference in Manhattan, the popular Swedish startup Spotify announced that its namesake five-year-old music-streaming service is now providing a limited amount of music free on tablets and smartphones (with a few caveats), just as The Wall Street Journal predicted.
Previously, only desktop and web streaming was free as mobile devices required a paid Spotify Premium tier.
Also, Spotify is now available in an additional twenty new markets and has landed an exclusive content distribution agreement with Led Zeppelin, an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The band has stubbornly refused to license its music for streaming and was holding out until 2007 to join iTunes so this is kinda big deal.
The Led Zeppelin deal arrives hot on the heels of an exclusive deal with Metallica, which Spotify signed a year ago. The full reveal is right after the jump...
After adding Yahoo Screen and PBS channels last month, Major League Soccer and Disney Junior channels in September as well as Vevo, Weather Channel, Disney, Smithsonian and a bunch of other content sources earlier this year, Apple's again expanded on the device's content sources.
The $99 media-streaming box is now even more useful with four additional channels from ABC, financial organization Bloomberg, Sony's streaming movie and TV show service Crackle and Korea-based on-demand video service KOR TV, all now accessible from the Apple TV's Home menu...