Good news for folks trying to snag an iPad mini with Retina display in time for the holidays. Shipping times for the popular tablet have improved in Apple’s web store to 1-3 days for the US, Canada and several other countries.
This applies to all configurations of the new mini, including both Space Gray and Silver colorways and Wi-Fi + Cellular models. And it means that, if you order soon, you can still get one shipped out for free before Christmas…
Earlier this month, reports surfaced that China Mobile and Apple finally inked a deal for the carrier to begin offering iPhones to its some 700 million+ subscribers. Yesterday, China Mobile confirmed the news, taking pre-orders for the iPhone 5s and 5c.
And it looks like the world's largest carrier is enthusiastic about its new partnership with Apple, as it has gone all out on marketing materials for the launch. Many China Mobile retail stores have dedicated much of their ad and display space to iOS devices...
Apple's rumored smartwatch, affectionately dubbed by the media iWatch, is scheduled for launch late next year and will include a wireless charging feature, according to a new rumor by a reliable Chinese blog.
Apple has already tested two prototypes, the story goes, and is shooting to release the health/fitness iOS accessory in October of 2014.
That would put the iWatch debut close to the upcoming iPhone 6. More on that right after the break...
The American singer, songwriter and actress, Beyoncé, has made an unusual move of releasing her fifth self-titled studio album exclusively on Apple's iTunes. Available today from the iTunes Store, the release is dubbed a 'visual album' and arrives with a heavy marketing push from Apple - the iTunes Store is currently featuring Beyoncé's album on all rotating carousel at the top, with links to her previous albums.
You didn't even know she was working on a new alubm? You're not the only one! Visual album? That's because each song comes with an accompanying music video (plus a digital booklet), a great treat given music videos are normally sold separately of songs...
Chair Entertainment's Infinity Blade is an elegiac masterpiece, an iOS exclusive and a system seller that showcases what's possible on Apple's iOS platform better than any other game. Unbelievable console-quality graphics, great soundtrack and atmosphere, complex weapons and upgrade system with RPG elements to keep you coming back for more all contribute to it being one of the best iPhone and iPad games money can buy.
The original game recently went free, as did the second installment which normally costs $6.99 and was yesterday named IGN's Free Game of the Month. As for Infinity Blade III (a $6.99 download for the iPhone and iPad), the substantial Soul Hunter update from a month and a half ago brought us a bunch of new items and goals and an all-new quest that includes a new location and a new enemy, the Deathless Bloodmage.
But that was just warming up as Chair has announced that the upcoming Ausar Rising update will be even bigger. Due next week, the update will let you revisit the original Infinity Blade castle and explore the origins of the Infinity Blade protagonist.
More on that, plus a teaser video, right after the break...
Ebook and mobile app publisher Random House Digital has released an interesting iPad education app in the App Store. Stephen Hawking’s Snapshots of the Universe, suitable for children aged 9+, uses the work and writings of Stephen Hawking, the famous English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge, to teach students the basic theories of the movement of the stars and planets.
The astrophysicist apparently had a say in the app's design as he envisioned an app that would help explain the fundamentals of space to both adults and children through fun mini-games. The interactive experience is optimized for iOS 7 with clean and streamlined graphic elements.
Available sections cover the basics of our solar system and let you spin planets in orbit, drop objects with Galileo to learn about gravity, search for black holes in the constellation of Leo, discover Einstein’s warped worldview and G-force in outer space and lots more...
The Pebble Smartwatch has gotten smarter than ever as the company pushed a new version 1.4 firmware which enhances notifications while bringing a new Do Not Disturb mode along with other new features, improvements and fixes.
Like on your iPhone, Pebble's new Do Not Disturb mode lets you specify a time frame during which notifications won't be displayed. You can also specify what notifications are displayed, create a new Snooze Alarm, create multiple alarms, toggle alarms on and off, edit existing alarms and enjoy improved iOS performance...
Evernote for iPhone and iPad has been updated with a new Presentation mode and another feature allowing users to scan business cards using an iDevice camera and import contact data as Evernote notes, with the ability to connect contact data to LinkedIn, Facebook and your Address Book for richer results, among other enhancements. Both business card scanning and Presentation mode capabilities are however available only to paid Evernote Premium customers.
The Presentation mode supports AirPlay or HDMI video out to present your Evernote notes to an audience and comes with a 14-day complementary preview for Free users...
Developer ZeptoLab, based out in Russia, has seen wild success following the release of its charming puzzler, Cut the Rope, [$0.99 for iPhone, $3.99 for iPad] in the App Store three years ago.
Originally an iPhone exclusive, the game has been ported to virtually every computing platform under the Sun since its October 2010 debut.
Thus far, these games have managed to racket up nearly half a billion downloads, passing 60 million active monthly users in the first half of 2013.
After posting a teaser trailer a month ago - and having subsequently announced that a Cut the Rope sequel will be ready in time for the holidays - ZeptoLab has now made known the official release date for Cut the Rope 2: next Thursday, December 19.
And in a repeat of 2010, the game is slated to debut as an iOS exclusive, featuring 120 levels, new characters and tweaked gameplay.
Want to hear the best bit?
We have all the details, videos and screenshots to wet your appetite, just a click away...
The Everything is a Remix video series by New York-based filmmaker Kirby Ferguson plays on the remix culture and its key mantra that everything around us is a remix of previously made stuff and that all original material builds off of and remixes previously existing material.
The four-part video series and the companion website covers songs that remain the same, explores the remix techniques involved in producing films, details how innovations truly happen and criticizes the laws that fail to recognize the derivative nature of creativity.
The fifth one (not part of the series, it's a standalone video) is about the iPhone. Go ahead and hit the More link to watch it now, you know you want to...
After refreshing its free Remote app for the iPhone and iPad with some radical redesign to match the overall iOS 7 aesthetics, Apple has just put out a minor update adding a nicely done ability to control iTunes Radio from your iOS device.
But rather than stream iTunes Radio songs directly (and what would the point be in doing so knowing iTunes Radio is available within the stock iOS 7 Music app), the application simply controls the feature running in iTunes for Mac or Windows.
Previously, you could only control playback of music and other media kept locally in your iTunes library. If anything, this update will go down in history as a handy little enhancement that makes it ridiculously easy to control your iTunes Radio stations, skip songs and more, right across the room...
According to research by Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley, the iPhone 5s has been the top-selling smartphone at the four major US carriers for the past 3 months. That's not too surprising, considering new iPhones usually fair well right after launch.
But what did surprise me was the fact that the iPhone 5c has also been in the top 3 selling smartphones at AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile since September. You know, the same handset that Apple has reportedly been cutting production for due to poor sales...