Apple

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo to land iPad Air real soon

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

NTT DoCoMo, Japan's top wireless carrier with about sixty million subscribers, accounts for more than half of that country's market for cell phones. Apple products - the iPhone in particular - are tremendously popular with the Japanese so fans will be delighted to learn that NTT will soon open sales for Apple's new iPad Air.

The confirmation came via a senior DoCoMo executive who said in Tokyo that his company will start carrying the iPad Air "in the not-too-distant future". I guess you could say the development's been in the cards ever since Apple announced an iPhone distribution agreement with the carrier in September...

App Store search now corrects for small typos and misspelled queries

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 26, 2013

Apple is tweaking the App Store's search algorithm pretty much all the time so people have an easier time finding a needle in a haystack.

Three months ago, Apple deployed an improved algorithm for iTunes and App Store rankings, boosting the relevancy of search results up a notch.

And back in the summer, the iPhone maker gave the App Store storefront on iPads a new lefthand bar for easy alphabetical sorting of your Purchased items.

It's now come to light that Apple's team has once again made the App Store search better by automatically correcting for your mistakes and other misspellings. That's right, you no longer have to type in the exact app name when searching as the App Store will now list apps with fairly similar names...

iPhone 5s availability reaches 90 percent, now shipping in 3-5 days

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated December 6, 2013

Apple's flagship iPhone 5s used to be in short supply at both the company's own and carrier-owned retail outlets in the United States as suppliers struggled to meet high demand for the device. The prime reason affecting the handset's availability is Apple manufacturing partners' inability to ramp up production of the sensitive and sophisticated Touch ID fingerprint sensor that no one put inside the Home button before (this is also why the new iPads lack Touch ID).

Indicating improved yields, it would now seem that most of Apple's U.S. Apple Stores now have the device in stock, with one estimate finding that 90 percent of iPhone 5s models are now available in both Apple and carrier stores...

Digital scrapbook app Ember coming to iPhone and iPad in December

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 23, 2018

Ember, a digital scrapbook app from the Clear to-do app's creator Realmac Software, arrived back in July as a rather pricey $49.99 Mac App Store download. Despite its punishing price tag, I wrote that Ember struck me as an Evernote replacement I’ve long been yearning for. The team has since added a few new features such as Smart Drawing, Colours and iCloud sync, while squashing dozens of bugs.

And now, they've confirmed that the iOS version will be available in December. This is great news as I can now introduce Ember into my daily workflow, hopefully being able to jot down notes, create journals and manage my notebooks on whatever device I happen to be using, be it a Mac, iPad, iPhone or iPod touch...

Court denies Samsung’s motion to stay damages in Apple patent retrial

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 26, 2013

As you know, in a retrial last week a jury of six women and two men determined that Samsung owes Apple $290 million for lifting patented iPhone technologies, bringing the total amount of damages to $929 million versus the original $1.05 billion ruling. The South Korean Galaxy maker has immediately filed a motion to delay the payout on the grounds of reevaluation of the validity of the Apple patent No. 7,844,915, which covers the famous pinch-to-zoom gesture.

The presiding Judge Lucy Koh denied Samsung motion's last night as she appeared concerned about the potential implications of such ruling, including whether granting a stay would unethically favor Apple...

Apple wins smartphone patent case against California inventor

Cody Lee ∙ November 26, 2013

Earlier this month we told you that California inventor Richard L. Ditzik was suing Apple, claiming its iPhone infringed on one of his patents. Well this week, the Cupertino company won the case against the 70-year-old electrical engineer.

Bloomberg is reporting that Apple was found not guilty of infringing on Ditzik's so-called 'smartphone patent.' A jury in Los Angeles made the call yesterday, completely rejecting the claim by NetAirus Technologies—Ditzik's shell company...

China Mobile to launch its 4G LTE network next month

Cody Lee ∙ Updated June 21, 2017

Rumors have been circulating for the past few weeks that China Mobile is on the verge of launching its LTE network next month. And it looks like the reports were true, as the news has been confirmed this week by state-run news outlet Xinhua.

This is big news for a couple of reasons. For one, this will be the country's first major rollout of 4G. And two, it means Apple will finally be able to start offering its two latest iPhone models on China Mobile, as they support its TD-LTE standard...

Concept teaches Viber how to design for iOS 7

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 25, 2013

Remember the absolutely eye-candy re-imagining of Apple’s clunky Messages app in Mavericks, so awesomely done by Ramotion, a Palo Alto, California interface design shop? If not, stop what you’re doing (reading this) and give it a quick look, now. Some of the best UI/UX designers in the world, Ramotion's grown just as sick and tired of Viber's out-of-touch looks as us.

Yours truly used to be a heavy Viber user. Now I no longer care. Why? I'll tell you why: the app's proven itself a really frustrating experience. The soft keyboard fails to honor my system-wide international settings. It crashes a lot. It acts up far too often. As if that weren't enough, Viber's aesthetics fails miserably as a victim of a bunch of poor design choices - so much so that I can't stand using it anymore. Viber really, really needs some serious rebooting.

Ramotion's vision for Viber stunned me by being so much more than a fresh coat of paint, like WhatsApp’s upcoming iOS 7 update (screenies, hands-on video) is shaping up to be. Small wonder: these guys know good interface design so I'm not surprised they've actually gone about re-imagining the whole app experience.

Are you ready to see how Viber's iOS 7 overhaul should, but probably never will, look like? Just hit the jump and feast your eyes on gorgeous renders...

Apple collaborates with device makers on MFi hearing aids

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 25, 2013

Apple's given its 'Made for iPhone' (MFi) initiative a nice little kick in the pants by introducing all-new support in iOS 7 for physical gaming controllers (examples: Moga's Ace Power and Logitech's PowerShell), but now the company is looking to give another industry vertical a much-needed boost: the market for hearing aids and associated devices.

According to a new report Monday by Reuters, Apple has worked closely with Copenhagen, Denmark-based GN ReSound on the first batch of iPhone-connected devices for hearing-impaired customers.

The new gear is much more compact than before and taps the 2.4-gigahertz band using Bluetooth 4.0's low-energy mode. The hardware works in tandem with special iOS software not only to improve one's hearing, but to also stream music and double as a two-way headset for receiving phone calls...

Apple could enhance Touch ID with trackpad capabilities, embed sensor right into display

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 25, 2013

Last week, Patently Apple shed light on an Apple patent filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office which covers the various aspects of its Touch ID fingerprint scanner, a new feature exclusive to the iPhone 5s.

The invention is entitled Capacitive Sensor Packaging and details collapsing the full fingerprint maps into a hashed, encrypted data securely stored on the A7 chip's Secure Enclave. It's curious that the patent's main inventor, Wayne Westerman, developed Multi-Touch technology at Fingerworks, a startup Apple snapped up in 2005.

In another massive 612-page patent application Apple filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization in May 2013, the iPhone maker indicates it's been researching mobile screens with Touch ID embedded, along with trackpad capabilities allowing for panning of on-screen content by moving your finger over the Touch ID Home button...

Apple job post tips off next-gen payment platform

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 3, 2023

A punditry consensus has been forming for some time that Apple of California is planning on entering the mobile payment space with a service of its own. Conventional wisdom has it that such a product would tap into more than half a billion iTunes accounts with credit cards on file.

In between Apple's purchase of smart sensor maker AuthenTec and the company's iWallet shopping app patent, Apple has done little to indicate that a branded mobile payment solution is in the works, until today.

An Apple job listing now indicates in black and white that Apple's management is in the process of hiring experts who will "help build a next-generation payment platform" to help its retail "enter new markets"...

T-Mobile’s 4G LTE goes live in 22 new markets, faster 20+20 LTE network launching in 2014

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

The nation's fourth largest wireless carrier, T-Mobile, has flipped the switch on its fourth-generation Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network in twenty new markets across the country while confirming that even faster LTE roll-out is to be expected starting early next year. This new technology uses 20+20 towers on the 20MHz band and is capable of delivering a theoretical download speed of up to 150Mbps, or at least 50 percent higher than the download speeds offered by the current LTE implementation in use today...