DisplayMate Technologies has put the screens of the new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 through a barrage of tests concluding that the former's anti-reflective screen reduces ambient light reflections dramatically compared to any other tablet display out there.
The technology, DisplayMate discovered, reduces ambient light reflections by about 3:1 over most other tablets, including the previous iPads, and about 2:1 over all of the very best competing tablets and smartphones, including the iPhone 6.
Having released its $99 set top box in April 2014, the Fire TV, that also doubles as an Android-driven games console, the online retail giant Amazon on Monday took on Google's Chromecast with a $35 HDMI dongle dubbed the Fire TV Stick.
Amazon is calling the Fire TV Stick “the most powerful streaming media stick.” And at just $39, it's within reach of average consumers who need a pocket-sized device to wirelessly beam their media and apps from an Android phone or tablet (iOS coming soon) to a big screen TV.
After recalling its rash-inducing Force wristband back in February, FitBit on Monday launched a new family of activity trackers, the FitBit Charge and Charge HR, while making its first foray into the smart watch space with the FitBit Surge fitness accessory.
The water-resistant Fitbit Charge, billed as “the Force reinvented”, is an improved version of the activity tracker with an OLED screen and a seven-day battery. The Fitbit Charge HR is an improved version of the Charge wristband with FitBit's PurePulse heart rate sensors and a five-day battery.
As for the Fitbit Surge, this $250 fitness watch packs in a total of eight sensors for more detailed logging of activities such as running and working out. Jump past the fold for more details.
Ahead of the scheduled October 31 launch, carriers in South Korea have managed to collect 100,000 pre-orders for Apple's new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones, three times the amount of pre-orders for Samsung's Galaxy Note 4 in the country, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Carriers KT Corp., LG Uplus Corp. and SK Telecom Co., South Korea’s largest mobile carrier, started accepting pre-orders for the new devices this past Friday, October 24.
Just a heads up for folks looking to get a Wi-Fi + Cellular version of one of the new iPads. It was discovered on Friday that the awesome new Apple SIM feature, which is supposed to allow you to switch seamlessly between compatible carriers, doesn't play well with all providers.
More specifically, MacRumors points to an Apple support page that says when you activate your new iPad with AT&T, the carrier dedicates its Apple SIM to their network only. So if you wanted to move the tablet to another provider, you'd have to purchase and install a new SIM.
The much-improved App Store in iOS 8 features a number of enhancements. Case in point: app bundles. App bundles make it possible for developers to bundle up to ten of their existing iPhone and iPad applications in a single purchase at a reduced price.
Borrowing cues from the “Complete My Album” feature for music that debuted on iTunes in March 2007, app bundles are great promotional vehicles to drive sales and can serve as a nice reward for loyal customers.
But for the vast majority of ordinary users, app bundles are one of the least understood new features of the App Store in iOS 8. That it's still very unclear how the App Store's Complete My Bundle works is Apple's fault.
And it certainly doesn't make its users' lives any easier with cryptic feature descriptions and the App Store's non-intuitive bundle pricing mechanism. But don't sweat, here's everything you need to know in order to understand how Complete My Bundle works.
Camera+ by Taptaptap, the award-winning iPhone photography app and one of the longest-standing camera and image editing apps in the App Store, is available free of charge for a limited time, but only through Apple's sleek Apple Store shopping application for the iPhone and iPad. That's a cool $2.99 saving right off the bat over the app's regular asking price.
No matter if you're only mildly into mobile photography or a seasoned photographer, you really shouldn't miss out on this promotion because Camera+ has never gone free since its inception in August of 2011. Again, you can't just follow the app's iTunes URL to grab Camera+ for zero bucks because the offer is exclusive to users who have the Apple Store application installed on their devices.
Jump past the fold for the full instructions.
If you need another proof that Apple made the right move dropping more than three billion bucks on Beats's audio accessories and music-streaming service, here's one.
According to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Wall Street Journal on Friday, the decline of digital music sales on iTunes is accelerating with latest data showing between a thirteen and fourteen percent dip globally since the start of this year.
By comparison, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimated that global revenue from music downloads fell just 2.1 percent in 2013. Clearly this development doesn't bode well for iTunes, but can Apple do anything about it? Read on for the full reveal.
What if you could combine screens of iOS devices sitting on your table into one massive multitouch enabled canvas that you could interact with?
That's what researchers with the Human-Computer Interaction Group at the University of Konstanz in Germany set out to create with their noteworthy HuddleLamp project.
Basically a tabletop with a built-in 3D camera that sits above, the HuddleLamp uses smart software which analyzes RGB and depth data to not only detect your mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets, but also track hand movement and determine their relative position to one another.
The results are impressive: the HuddleLamp can detect interactions above and between displays so you can swipe and toss information from one device to another, render a huge map across the devices with each screen showing only a portion of the map and what not.
Every time a new Apple mobile product comes along, you can bet that prolific YouTubers will be first out of the gate with those silly, non-scientific drop test videos. As you may have guessed, the iPad Air 2 is no exception.
Courtesy of YouTuber TechRax, we now know that the latest 9.7-inch Apple tablet's screen won't survive being dropped on the front glass panel from approximately five feet high. Watch the video embedded right after the break.
Repeating his favorite line that China, home to 1.33 billion people, is a key market to Apple, CEO Tim Cook said bringing Apple's revolutionary mobile payments system to the country “is on the top of the list”.
“China is a really key market for us,” Cook told state-run Xinhua news agency Friday. ”Everything we do, we are going to work it here. Apple Pay is on the top of the list.”
Cook and his teams at Apple were still “seeking to understand” the steps needed to make Apple Pay a reality for Chinese customers, the report added.
Following their analysis of the iPad Air 2's innards, repair experts over at iFixIt have now perfumed their ritual teardown dance with Apple's iPad mini 3. As you know, the iPad mini 3 is basically the iPad mini 2 with the addition of Touch ID and a gold color option so there isn't much to be analyzed here.
That being said, iFixIt was able to make a few noteworthy observations regarding the new tablet's repairability. Specifically, they found that Apple engineers glued the Home button bracket to the front panel assembly, making Touch ID and Home button repairs difficult.