Apple

Premium Star Wars games discounted deeply on Mac App Store and App Store

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 30, 2015

With only five days left until the annual Star Wars Day celebration (May the Fourth Be With You, says the marketing tagline), Aspyr Media is celebrating the occasion in advance by temporarily slashing five premium Star Wars titles for the Mac by fifty percent.

The Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars: Empire At War, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed games have gone half price each, in some cases even lower, on the Mac App Store. Put together, these downloads normally sell for a combined $70, so you're looking at a cool $40 saved if you download the five Mac games while this promotion lasts.

Amazon’s Instant Video for iOS can now stream content in HD and over cellular

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 30, 2015

Amazon's Instant Video client for the iPhone and iPad has received an update Thursday, bumping version number to 3.0 and bringing out several improvements to streaming video quality.

Users can now stream Instant Video content on their iOS device through their carrier's cellular network while controlling their mobile data usage settings. In addition, the ability to watch video streams in high-definition has been added, too.

Apple-IBM partnership provides iPads to elderly via Japan Post Group tie-up

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 30, 2015

Apple on Thursday announced in a press release a move that will see the firm partner up with Japan Post Group to deliver iPads to the country's growing population of elderly citizens over age 65.

Billed as a first-of-its-kind initiative, it'll provide iPads to millions of senior citizens after Japan Post Group piloted iPads and apps custom developed for the elderly earlier this year.

These iPads come preloaded with IBM-developed apps and analytics to connect people with services, healthcare, community and their families. The staggered release will see between four and five million Japanese customers get their iPads by 2020.

EU probe of Irish tax policy could have ‘material’ impact on Apple

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

The European Commission's investigation into Ireland's tax deals for multinational corporations could have a "material" impact on Apple, the company said in a 10Q filing to the S&E Commissions this week. If it's determined that Dublin's tax policies represented unfair state aid, the Cupertino firm could suffer significant losses.

WSJ: slow Apple Watch rollout due to faulty Taptic Engine

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Faulty Taptic Engines may be behind the extremely limited availability of the Apple Watch, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Citing sources familiar with the matter, the publication says that after mass production of the Engines began in February, quality testing found some of them to be unreliable.

The component, which Apple uses in its Watch to produce the sensation of being tapped on the wrist, is made by two suppliers: AAC Technologies Holdings Inc. and Nidec Corp. Apparently some of AAC's Taptic Engines were found to break down overtime, so Apple has moved a majority of its production over to Nidec.

Time Warner CEO ‘pretty confident’ Apple is launching a TV service

Cody Lee ∙ April 29, 2015

Time Warner's Jeff Bewkes is "pretty confident" Apple is working on a subscription TV service. ABC's Jon Erlichman reports on Medium today that during Time Warner's quarterly earnings call, the CEO said that the Cupertino firm is "very forward thinking" on the future of television.

Bewkes' comments are interesting because Apple and Time Warner recently partnered up to launch 'HBO Now' on Apple TV, and rumors have been bouncing around for years that the two were looking to do TV together. In July 2013, Bloomberg reported they were "close" to reaching a deal.

Tattoos reportedly confusing Apple Watch heart rate sensor, Wrist Raise feature and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 29, 2015

Your Apple Watch can wake to the watch face, or your last activity, when you raise your wrist. Called Wrist Raise, this handy feature uses the heart rate sensor, which requires skin contact.

But according to users on social media channels like Twitter and Reddit, tattooed wrists fool the Apple Watch into thinking it's not on a wrist in the first place, causing all sorts of issues.

For starters, the Activate on Raise Wrist function may stop working or may perform erratically. More problematic than that, people with tattooed wrists may stop receiving notifications. In addition, inaccurate heart rate readings have been reported, too, as dark tattoos can throw off Apple Watch's heart rate sensor and cause the Workout app to pause every now and then.

And because the sensor interferes with dark-inked tattoos, the device will request your passcode after mistakenly thinking it's lost skin contact. Another side-effect: Apple Pay, another feature that requires skin contact, gets disabled, causing you to re-enter the security PIN.

Griffin’s WatchStand now available for order, ships in two weeks

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

Griffin Technology's curious WatchStand, which holds both an Apple Watch and your iPhone, is now available to order from the company's webstore for $29.99 a pop, or with a 10 percent discount via iDownloadBlog Deals. The Nashville, Tennessee headquartered accessory maker will start shipping first WatchStand units to customers in two weeks.

The sleek accessory docks your Apple Watch and iPhone while charging them at the same time, with the Watch cradle conveniently keeping your device at a viewable angle.

Twitter content and accounts coming soon to Spotlight search

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 29, 2015

According to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, Twitter content such as tweets and accounts are coming to Apple's Spotlight search engine on Macs and iOS devices, allowing for an even tighter integration between the iPhone maker and the popular micro-blogging service, MacWorld reported Wednesday. Apple added Twitter to the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad as the inaugural third-party service integration in iOS 5 three years ago.

Pixelmator for Mac gains Photos app support, Force Touch drawing, enhanced Repair tool, more

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 29, 2015

Pixelmator for Mac received a sweet update last evening, adding a trio of noteworthy features and a plethora of bug fixes. A free update to existing users of the app, Pixelmator 3.3.2 brought out an even more remarkable — and way faster — Repair tool.

It also added support for pressure-sensitive drawing on Macs with the new Force Touch trackpad and importing photos from the Photos app on OS X Yosemite 10.10.3. In addition to these perks, the app contains other tweaks and bug fixes.

Apple Watch pushes iOS 8 adoption rate to 81%

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 27, 2018

After experiencing a slowdown following a record-smashing Christmas quarter, the rate of iOS 8 adoption is notably picking up speed again.

According to the official App Store Distribution dashboard, publicly available on Apple’s portal for developers, about 81 percent of iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices in the wild are now running iOS 8.0 and later. Jut two weeks ago, the pace of iOS 8 adoption stood at 79 percent of active devices.

A notable uptick could be explained by the Apple Watch, which requires the iPhone 5 and later running iOS 8.2 and later. For those wondering, Apple measures active devices by monitoring iPhones, iPads and iPods that access the App Store.

Unsurprisingly, Apple says ‘no’ to custom faces, fart apps and time-telling Watch apps

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 28, 2015

Apple on Tuesday updated the official App Store Review Guidelines, officially taking a stance against third-party applications for the Apple Watch whose sole purpose is to tell the time, as first discovered by developer David Smith.

A newly added clause of the agreement guiding third-party development now explicitly states that Watch applications which simply tell the time will be flatly rejected.

“Watch Apps whose primary function is telling time will be rejected,” reads the document. Moreover, the same principles appear to apply to custom watch faces and flatulence apps.

It's worth mentioning that these rules have been enforced since the onset as there has never been a single time-telling Apple Watch app, or a fart app, (or a custom face for that matter) available on the App Store.