Apple

iOS 8 adoption jumps to 72 percent of devices

According to the official App Store Distribution data as of yesterday, iOS 8 is now running on 72 percent of iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices in the wild.

That's up notably over the 69 percent figure recorded just two weeks ago, when iOS 8 adoption rates were slowing in the post-holiday season.

By comparison, Google’s own Developer Dashboards webpage was refreshed yesterday and now shows Android 5.0 Lollipop as finally making a blip on the radar, with the operating system recording a tiny 1.6 percent share of the current Android install base.

How to reclaim ‘Other’ storage on your iOS device

If your iPhone or iPad is running out of space, manually removing unwanted photos, videos, songs, apps and stuff like Safari's Reading List is a good way of freeing up some store space. But more often than not, this isn't enough.

The devil, as they say, is in the detail — in this case, the mysterious ‘Other’ category that iTunes displays after connecting your iOS device to a computer.

‘Other’ storage is a section iOS uses to store temporary data, cache files inside apps and items retrieved through the iOS Background Refresh feature to make apps load faster. ‘Other’ storage balloons over time and can quickly add up to anywhere between a few hundred megabytes to a couple gigabytes of wasted on-device storage.

Aside from performing a clean install of iOS or restoring your device as new, there's no easy way of manually reclaiming your ‘Other’ storage. But thanks to a brilliant new Mac app in town, created by Nice Mohawk, anyone — even novice users — can free up storage space on their iPhone and iPad in minutes. Not only does the app let you reclaim your ‘Other’ storage, but also delete caches, back up your photos and videos, as well as remove large apps and music.

HTC rap anthem takes ad wars to the next level, disses Apple and Samsung

Somebody thought a rap music video about HTC would be a nice excuse to blast Samsung and Apple. In what could quite possibly mark the worst Apple ad attack ever, the cringeworthy hip hop anthem titled “Hold the Crown” sings praise to the HTC M8 handset while dissing competition.

“Your phone was all glass, why you changed your tune now?,” hip hop artists Greg Carr aka “Doc G” of the musical group P.M. Dawn raps in the video.

“Your chip is slower, but you'll never touch our BoomSound,” the lyrics continue. Accusing “more than a few clowns” who stole “what we originated”, the music video goes on to proclaim HTC as the master of the universe and paint “your Galaxy” as “overrated”.

Suppliers projecting 50M iPhone shipments in Q1

After shipping a record-smashing 74.5 million handsets during the holiday quarter, representing more than half of Apple’s total revenue for the quarter, the Cupertino firm could be poised to move about 50 million iPhone units in the first quarter of this year.

Tuesday, trade publication DigiTimes cited estimates by Taiwanese handset suppliers who expect shipments of iPhone devices to grow from the 43.7 million units in the year-ago quarter to as many as 50 million shipments in Q1 2015, a 14.4 percent annual increase.

Slow Shutter! available for free within the Apple Store app

Those of you who enjoy app deals may be interested to know that Slow Shutter! has gone free for a limited time. Apple is currently offering promo codes for the popular camera app, which typically costs $1.99, within its Apple Store app.

Slow Shutter's flagship feature is its ability to capture long-exposure photographs. This means that you can create the kind of beautiful photos of moving objects (think moving cars at night) typically reserved for more expensive cameras.

Review: PlugBug World by Twelve South, the versatile little charger Apple should have made

Aren't you sick and tired of those unsightly, clunky wall chargers lying underneath your desk? I'm all for simplification so solutions that cut down the number of power adapters needed to juice up my devices are bound to win my attention.

Twelve South's PlugBug World is a cute hybrid charger which connects to any MacBook brick or Apple USB wall charger.

By integrating an additional 2.1-Amp USB port, this compact accessory can quickly recharge any iOS device, or a lower-powered USB device, while feeding power to a MacBook at the same time.

Continue reading as I let you in on the PlugBug's little secrets, such as its cunning adaptability, versatility and smart design choices that make it stand out from other products and turn it into an indispensable companion in your mobile arsenal.

Failed sapphire plant to become global command center for Apple cloud

Apple's dream of engineering an unbreakable iPhone has shattered spectacularly to pieces after its ambitiously conceived manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona has failed to produce sapphire-hardened sheets of glass on an industrial scale, prompting its partner GT Advanced Technology to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. But that doesn't mean there's no just as grand plan B for the mega-facility.

Bloomberg is reporting, and Apple has confirmed, that the Arizona plant will become a “command center” for Apple's worldwide network of data center.

Apple seeds iOS 8.2 beta 5 to developers

Apple has seeded a new beta build of iOS 8.2 to developers on Tuesday, marking the fifth build of the software.

The new software, build number 12D5480a, is available to download over-the-air and should be available through the Developer Center soon. Apple claims the new beta "contains bug fixes and improvements."

Todoist shows off its Apple Watch productivity app

When I think of it, the more it seems to me that the Apple Watch will be a boon to my productivity. For instance, the Watch will send me meeting reminders and calendar invitations, which beats having to pull an iPhone out of my pocket.

Todoist, a cloud-based task and project-management service, promises to do the same for to-do lists. Their Watch app is nearly finished and now developers have shared screenshots (via TechCrunch) and a video which demonstrates how Todoist will bring to-do lists and task management to the wrist.

Google Earth Pro goes free, a $399 per year saving

The Internet giant Google announced over the weekend that the Google Earth Pro desktop application is now available at no cost. A business-oriented upgrade to Google Earth, Google Earth Pro used to command an annual subscription fee of $399 so this is a significant development.

It has more features than the standard edition of Google Pro, including map-making tools and add-on software such as movie making, GIS data importer, advanced printing modules, radius and area measurements and more.

Samsung schedules ‘Galaxy Unpacked 2015’ event for March 1

The South Korean consumer electronics giant, Samsung, today announced that it will be holding its annual ‘Galaxy Unpacked’ event next month, as reported by the SamMobile blog.

Titled ‘Galaxy Unpacked 2015,’ the event is scheduled for March 1, coinciding with Mobile World Congress which runs March 2-5 in Barcelona, Spain.

Of course, we fully expect the Galaxy S6, or whatever it's called, to go head-to-head against Apple's latest iPhones. The invites have gone out to select members of the press and feature black background, what appears to be a profile of a curved device and the “What's Next” tagline tease.

Brand new Apple Store is opening in Tianjin, China this coming Saturday

Apple's retail expansion in China, coinciding with the Chinese New Year festivities, continues unabated with a brand new store now scheduled to open in Tianjin on Saturday, February 7, at 10am local time, as noted on the company's Chinese retail website.

The brick-and-mortar store is located near the Nankai District in the city of Tainjin, a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China.