Looking for a deal on an iPhone 5c or iPad Air for the holidays? Well it looks like your local Apple Store may be able to help out. According to a new report, a number of locations have started to price-match on these new products.
This means that if you see a sale going on at your nearby carrier store or electronics reseller, you might be able to get Apple to match their prices. It sounds like discounting will stop at 10% and of course other restrictions apply...
The online payment giant PayPal today announced an interesting new service which allows U.S. PayPal account holders to buy Apple's iTunes Gift Cards or gift them to loved ones.
This is especially useful if you live outside the United States yet have a U.S. iTunes Store account for instant access to all of the best apps, movies, TV shows and other content that's often unavailable in local iTunes Stores due to regional restrictions.
Previously, you had to wire cash to someone in the United States who's willing enough to buy an iTunes Gift Cards from the Online Apple Store or directly from the iTunes Store, on your behalf...
In keeping with its promise to bring Ember to iOS in December, Realmac today released the iPhone and iPad version as a free download in the App Store. Basically a companion for Realmac's Ember for Mac, the iOS app features iCloud sync, photo collections with advanced natural language search, the handy ability to automatically sort screenshots imported from your iOS Camera Roll into Phone and Tablet collections, sharing via Mail, AirDrop, Messages, Twitter and Facebook, and lots more.
Jump past the fold for the full breakdown...
Following a website leak yesterday, Apple subsidiary FileMaker, formerly Claris, today announced a brand new version of its namesake cross-platform relational database application for Mac and Windows PCs. FileMaker Pro 13 comes with more than fifty new features and a new pricing scheme.
The new features include stronger AES 256-bit data encryption, additional tools inside companion iOS apps that support one-step creation of iPhone and iPad database layouts, a brand new HTML5-based support for easy data entry using any standards-compliant web browser such as Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome and much, much more...
Following a round of a successful Kickstarter campaign I wrote about a year ago, the wonderful Slope iPad stand finally went on sale in early-November. Without sounding melodramatic, this is hands down one of the very finest tablet stands I have ever seen or tried.
A brainchild of Chicago-based designer Erik Kittlaus, the aluminum-clad Slope is wonderfully minimalistic. It resembles the base of an iMac stand and suspends your tablet mid-air using innovative technology which requires no moving parts.
Erik was kind enough to ship a review sample over. Having played with my Slope for the past week or so, I fell in love tremendously with it, so much so that it's quickly replaced Ozaki's iCarry Excavator as my primary iPad stand. Read my full review right below...
FiftyThree, the fine people who brought you the excellent iPad drawing program aptly named Paper, have been taking pre-orders for their companion high-quality stylus, the Pencil, for more than a month now. As we explained in the announcement post, the Pencil uses power-efficient Bluetooth 4.0 technology to communication with the application running on your iPad.
But it's the marriage of high-quality Pencil hardware and premium Paper software which enables seamless features such as the ability to carve away parts of your drawing using a built-in eraser, without having to switch in-app tools first.
With first Pencil shipments arriving later this week, FiftyThree has refreshed Paper for iPad with hardware-specific support for the advanced blend/erase capabilities and the palm rejection feature which disregards spray input when drawing on the iPad's touch-sensitive screen...
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has now acquired another company, the social-media analytics startup Topsy Labs Inc. for more than $200 million, according to people familiar with the matter.
Billed as the world’s only index of the public social web, Topsy builds software that ties into Twitter to enable social search and crazy detailed analytics.
Apple has confirmed the deal, but its spokesperson refused to detail what the company's plans with Topsy might be. Since we doubt Apple is building its own search engine, Topsy intelligence could be plugged into Siri as yet another data provider for greater social context and improved search.
As you know, Apple with iOS 7 added the ability to check out a contact's Twitter feed via Siri. Another possibilities: Apple's iTunes Radio service and the struggling iAd platform...
Over time, I've managed to purchase a lot (too many?) of apps for my iOS devices and Macs. But if you asked me to name one instant purchase I have never, ever regretted, I'd easily pick TextExpander by Smile Software in a heartbeat.
This handy utility doesn't come cheap: the Mac edition will run you $34.99, and then an additional $4.99 for the touch-optimized version for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.
Despite dropping forty bucks on this particular app, I've recouped my investment many times over in just a few short months, by cutting down on the time spent typing common terms and phrases. TextExpander lets me create handy shortcuts which automatically expand during text entry.
For example, I have the 'iDB' shortcut set up to auto-expand to 'iDownloadBlog'. Same with common URLs, brand names and other oft-used snippets of text. The problem is, the curious little trick the app employs to manage and sync those snippets across third-party iPhone and iPad apps that integrate with TextExpander hasn't sat well with Apple.
The App Store review team has refused to approve a recent update on the grounds that Smile's use of the stock iOS Reminders app for shared snippet storage is no longer acceptable. In response, Smile has introduced a new snippet-sharing method and updated an accompanying SDK for third-party app makers...
If you're going to buy an Apple product this holiday season, you'll be wise to plan your purchase in advance unless you can cope with broken hearts on post-Christmas deliveries. But holiday shoppers needn't worry too much as Apple is feeling your pain.
This morning, the company has refreshed its U.S. Online Store with a handy guide specifying the important ordering deadlines for Macs, iPads, iPhones, iPods and accessories for delivery by December 24, 2013.
Deadlines vary from one product to another. For example, Apple's Next Day Shipping is available for many, but not all iPads. Specifically, if you're buying an iPad mini with Retina display, your best bet is to place an order with Apple by midnight on December 5 for delivery by December 24.
The full breakdown follows right below...
Shazam's music fingerprinting app for the iPhone and iPad is continuously getting better and more useful after each new update. Right following the September 18 release of iOS 7, Shazam mobile apps were immediately updated with iOS 7-friendly design and technologies.
And just a month ago, the app was refreshed with the handy artist updates, the ability to see what your friends have tagged and a new newsfeed-like interface for real-time updates and interactions with the Shazam community.
On Monday, Shazam got bumped to version 7.2 which brings a very interesting feature: if you're a Rdio user, you can now listen to your Shazam tracks as an Rdio playlist. A few other goodies are included in this Shazam update, listed after the break...
Three and a half years ago, Apple released the iPhone 4 which introduced the world to the then-new Retina display.
In Apple's parlance, Retina is basically a cleverly-coined marketing moniker which stands for a screen with pixels so densely packed that the average eyesight (20/20 vision) is unable to discern the individual ones at normal distance.
Apple has since Retina-fied its iOS device lineup, including some Mac notebooks. With the exception of the MacBook Air which stayed at 1,366-by-768 and 1,440-by-900 pixels for 11 and 13-inch models, respectively, we've been kinda keeping our fingers crossed for a Retina iMac this Fall.
Apple instead gave us a radically different Mac Pro as its first desktop so powerful it's capable of driving three 4K displays simultaneously.
One would also expect Apple would by now have released a Retina Thunderbolt Display because the product's been unchanged for almost two years. Instead, the firm opted for the waiting tactics until Retina-grade desktop screens become available at consumer prices.
That day is now looming as Dell on Monday released two 4K desktop monitors starting at just 50 percent more than the $899 Apple Thunderbolt Display. Just a year ago, you couldn't find a decent 4K monitor under $5,000. But Dell's only warming up: by early-2014, the computer maker plans to release a 28-inch 4K monitor priced at under $1000...
FileMaker, formerly Claris and now an Apple subsidiary, has been enjoying great success with its namesake cross-platform relational database application for decades now. FileMaker 12 was released nearly two years ago for the Mac and Windows PCs. There has been a lot of talk lately about the next major upgrade, FileMaker 13, but little in terms of leaks.
Well, the online Apple Store saw to that: in several countries, placeholder URLs along with website entries went prematurely live, presumably by accident. Furthermore, some versions of FileMaker Pro 12 have been seemingly discontinued in those stores, indicating that FileMaker 13 could be easily around the corner...