It seems like criticism for Apple's Maps app has died down in recent months. What was once the favorite topic of critics and naysayers has been replaced with talk of iPhone 5 part order cuts and the company's floundering stock.
But that doesn't mean that the Maps app is up to snuff yet, and Apple knows it. That's why it's been working hard to improve the software and, according to new job listings, is making a major hiring push for its Maps team...
Good news for iPhone photography buffs who love to show off their snaps on Instagram. The Facebook-owned photo sharing service announced Tuesday that people can now view their entire feed of photos in any web browser, including Instagrams shared by the folks they follow on the service.
Commenting and liking is supported and the web app is optimized for both desktop and mobile browsers.
With these new capabilities, users can bypass the mobile app and instead interact with their followers using any device that runs a standards-compliant web browser. That's a new territory for Instagram as it was dependent on the free iOS/Android app. There's one thing missing from the new web app, however...
Apple has launched a new U.S. iTunes Store section dedicated to highlighting exclusive, self-published works from emerging talents. Sometimes, one has to expose oneself to books that cannot be found on The New York Times bestseller list. This section is aimed at surfacing cherry-picked content you'd otherwise have a hard time discovering. The move mirrors Amazon's self-published Kindle books and Apple says new titles will be added “as they begin taking off”...
With half the respondents voting for an Apple phablet in our non-scientific poll and the growing number of pundits making the case for a 5+ inch form-factor iOS device, little wonder that analyst are joining the fray and calling for a jumbo-sized iPhone. A good example is Sterne Agee's Shaw Wu, who opines that Apple is losing out by not pursuing a phablet of its own.
We're not sure what to make of this. Apple under Steve Jobs stubbornly stuck with the '3.5 inch fits all' philosophy. With the iPhone 5, four inch became the new 3.5 inch. But with the growing number of users yearning for an even larger iPhone and with ten million Galaxy Notes shipped in 2012 and another ten million expected in 2013, maybe analysts are right...
Asked to comment on the hole the then nearly bankrupt Apple had gotten itself into, Michael Dell famously said back in 1997 that he’d “shut the company down and give the money back to the shareholders.”
Fast forward fifteen years and Dell’s founder and CEO is giving the money back to his own shareholders as the company he built goes private amid widening losses as the global PC market experiences a severe slump.
What goes around comes around.
Michael Dell should have known better by paying attention to Steve Jobs's advice: it indeed is best not to mess with karma...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsqsORSx23U#at=31
Accessory maker Logitech just announced its $79 Ultrathin Keyboard for the iPad mini. Billed as "the other half of your iPad mini", it's really thin and light and connects to your tablet wirelessly, over Bluetooth. Just like the Archos ultra-slim iPad keyboard, Logitech's baby incorporates the QWERTY key layout which comes in handy for prolonged text entry. We also love its aluminum cover which protects the iPad mini's display...
At the end of last year, there was a lot of talk about Apple building an internet radio service similar to Pandora. But the last we heard, it was having trouble getting the big record labels on board with the project. And the chatter has since quieted down.
But the speculation has been rekindled today, with a new discovery in iOS 6.1 thanks to the recently-released jailbreak. It appears that the iPad's Music app contains some hidden 'Radio Buttons,' suggesting that there may be something to the rumors...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtJBQHLdcM4
Amazon's advertising strategy took on an interesting twist indeed. Even though this commercial surprisingly praises both tablets, it paints the iPad as an overpriced choice versus the Kindle Fire HD, which starts at $199 for the seven-inch version.
Both tablets offer "stunning HD", the commercial proclaims. What Amazon "forgot" to tell viewers is that its 1080p screen is no match for the iPad's Retina display: the latter has a million more pixels (2,048-by-1,536) than the Kindle Fire HD (1,920-by-1,080). Nothing like the good ol' fine print, eh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ8f1Ld1cgI
If you're in the market for a new smartphone, consumer electronics retailer Best Buy has just sweetened the deal by throwing in a $50 gift card. The company advertised the promotion on Super Bowl so it's kinda a big deal. First, you must sign up by Saturday, February 9 in order to reserve your $50 gift card. OF course, you won't get it unless you purchase a smartphone with a new two-year Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile or Sprint contract between February 10 and December 31, 2013...
Apple's 10-Q filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission shows purchase commitments for the March quarter dropping from $4.5 billion two quarters ago to just $904 million. Of course, two quarters ago Apple was ramping up iPhone 5 production and investing heavily in then new in-cell touch displays. Still, that's a huge drop.
One clever interprets this data point as a sign of the iPhone 5S not needing new manufacturing processes, in turn proving it's gonna look just the same as the current-generation iPhone 5. Notable changes will be from the inside, like the speedier CPU/GPU, better cameras and what not. Man, I should have been an analyst...
Here's another nice Tweetbot update for your iPhone or iPad. A new version, Tweetbot 2.7, is now live on the App Store with some interesting new features. For starters, Tweetbot can now open links from tweets in Google's Chrome browser, provided it's installed on your iDevice. The app will also render Flickr images in-line, as well as 6-second clips tweeted out using Twitter's new Vine app. Lastly, links from tweets can also be sent to the 1Password app's built-in browser in order to access password-protected web sites without having to remember your credentials...
Apple yet again became the beneficiary of Nokia's seemingly never-ending swan song, becoming the most-used mobile brand on the Internet in January. This despite Apple actually losing nearly three percent of mobile online usage. That the Finnish-based Nokia collapsed by more than fifteen points, dropping it out of first place to the third spot, also helped.
According to the independent website analytics company StatCounter, Apple had a nice 25.86 percent of mobile Internet usage in January 2013. Although that was a decline of 2.81 percent compared to the same month in 2012, Nokia's share in the same period fell from 37.67 percent to 22.15 percent, a significant decline...