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‘Automatic Dictation’ Brings a Siri-Like Experience to Your iPhone

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated February 18, 2018

It's not Siri. In fact, it's not even close. Yet, you still may find it interesting enough to give it a shot, especially if you're already a user of Voice Activator.

Automatic Dictation is essentially a meshing together of Voice Activator and Dragon Dictation. It basically allows you to (almost) use Dragon Dictation completely handsfree. It even allows you to send tweets directly from your dictation screen.

In the end, it's a very clunky semi-hand-free solution that works, but it's definitely no Siri...

How to See Facebook Timelines on Your iPhone

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 24, 2016

Back in September of this year Facebook held its F8 developer conference. Like Apple's WWDC event, Facebook uses F8 to announce new features and services. The big hit of this year's conference was the company's new Timeline feature.

Facebook Timelines allows you to see all of a user's content on the social networking site in one convenient stream. We've already shown you how to access the feature on the iPad, and now we're going to tell you how to see it on the iPhone.

Facebook is Ready to Bring FaceTime-Like Video Calls to Messenger App on the iPhone

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 3, 2018

Earlier this year Facebook added Skype video calling to its social networking service. The new feature allows users to make free video calls to other Facebook friends from their computers.

We've been expecting Facebook to bring the service to the mobile space since it was introduced this summer, but we haven't heard anything about it... until now. We've just gotten word that Facebook is testing a new Messenger app with the ability to make video calls.

Samsung Continues Anti-Apple Campaign with “Old School” Facebook Ad

Cody Lee ∙ December 1, 2011

Last week, Samsung started airing its latest TV ad which not-so-subtly poked fun at iPhone users. The commercial showed a group of young adults, waiting in what appeared to be a line for the new iPhone, drooling over a Galaxy S II handset.

A lot of folks dismissed the advert as bad marketing, as you typically don't want to criticize the audience you are trying to attract. But judging by its Facebook page, it seems the commercial was only the beginning of Samsung's anti-Apple campaign...

How to Use Facebook’s Timeline Feature on the iPad

Cody Lee ∙ November 23, 2011

In September, Facebook unveiled one of the biggest changes to its user profiles since the social networking site launched in 2004: Timelines. The new addition takes boring news feed-based profiles and gives them a storyboard-like feel.

The feature not only makes profiles appear more personal, but also seems perfectly suited for a tablet display. Given Facebook's track record with iPad releases, however, don't expect it to incorporate Timelines into its iPad app anytime soon...

Buffy, the Facebook Phone

Sébastien Page ∙ November 21, 2011

This is not the first time we've heard rumors of Facebook working on a Facebook phone, but it seems that things are now starting to take shape.

After years of considering how to best get into the phone business, Facebook has tapped Taiwanese cellphone maker HTC to build a smartphone that has the social network integrated at the core of its being.

Code-named “Buffy,” after the television vampire slayer, the phone is planned to run on a modified version of Android that Facebook has tweaked heavily to deeply integrate its services, as well as to support HTML5 as a platform for applications, according to sources familiar with the project.

Read the full article at AllThingsD.

Mark Zuckerberg Says He Received Advice from Steve Jobs

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 16, 2016

In an interview with Charlie Rose that's airing tonight, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says that Steve Jobs advised him on company focus and other matters.

Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs advised him on how to sharpen his company’s focus and build the right management team for the world’s largest social network.

“I had a lot of questions for him,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with Charlie Rose that’s due to air today. The topics included, “how to build a team around you that’s focused on building as high quality and good things as you are.”

Jobs and Zuckerberg also talked about “the aesthetics and kind of mission orientation of companies,” Zuckerberg said in the interview with Charlie Rose.

Steve Jobs said in his biography that he admired Zuckerberg for not "selling out," and even though both men didn't always see eye to eye, it is evident that they had great respect for each other.

Facebook and Apple: Two Frenemies Against Google

Sébastien Page ∙ November 4, 2011

Fortune has a good article about the battle between Facebook and Google for control of the web. Deep inside the article, there is an interesting snippet that suggests Facebook and Apple are still talking to join forces against their common enemy:

That last point is not lost on Zuckerberg. It has prompted him to seek closer ties with Google's biggest rival in mobile: Apple. The two companies have held multiple rounds of discussions, according to people with knowledge of the talks. But they have yet to find a compelling way to collaborate, perhaps because their courtship got off to a rocky start. [...] That Apple chose to bake Twitter, not Facebook, into the most recent version of its mobile operating system has not helped. Still, the two companies continue to talk, knowing full well that an alliance could help them fend off a common enemy.

Of course both companies have been talking for a while, and they'll eventually reach to an agreement where Facebook will most likely be integrated in iOS, just like Twitter.

I invite you to read the full the article as it's a very interesting piece that sheds more light on the war between Facebook and Google.

Public Beta of IntelliScreenX Released

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated December 17, 2017

Want some hands-on time with IntelliScreenX before it is officially released tomorrow?

If you watched our video walkthrough of IntelliScreenX, then no doubt, the answer to that question is an emphatic yes.

If you have a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 5, then check inside for the details you need to try out IntelliScreenX right now...

Apple Giving Away Free Copies of JetPack Joyride

Cody Lee ∙ October 27, 2011

Apart from the weekly app sales we see from developers, there are other ways to get good deals on games. One way, for instance, is to go to Starbucks. If you don't mind their coffee, the retailer gives away free apps to their customers.

But what if you don't like coffee? Well then you could check Apple's App Store Facebook site. According to TouchArcade, the company has started giving away free app promo codes to Facebook users that "Like" the App Store's page...

IntelliScreenX: The Way Notification Center Should Be

Jeff Benjamin ∙ October 26, 2011

Today we finally got to go hands-on with a near final beta version of IntelliScreenX — the highly anticipated jailbreak app for iOS 5's Notification Center — and let's just cut to the chase, it lives up to the hype, and then some.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is how Notification Center is done. IntelliScreenX makes iOS 5's new pull down menu, a literal center of notifications.

There's Twitter, Facebook, RSS, and email, and it's done in such a way that you can communicate without ever leaving Notification Center; you can even do so from the Lock screen.

Check inside for a full video preview of IntelliScreenX, and you'll see why this upcoming app is reason enough alone to jailbreak your iPhone...