iOS

Read this before upgrading your iPhone 4s to iOS 8

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 17, 2014

Think twice before updating your rusty old iPhone 4s to the just-released iOS 8 because Apple's feature-packed upgrade makes its handset run most tasks about two times (or more) slower.

iOS 8 will slow down common tasks on the handset, including approximately two times slower launching of stock apps, almost three seconds longer booting and more, ArsTechnica reported Wednesday.

In addition to the performance hit, the three-year-old handset is incompatible with certain hardware-dependent iOS 8 features such as Handoff, AirDrop, the OpenGL ES 3.0 and Metal graphics run-time and more.

Facebook updates Paper for iPhone with iOS 8 compatibility, adds HD video uploading

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2018

The social networking behemoth Facebook has just updated its popular Paper app for the iPhone with iOS 8 compatibility following the release of Apple's mobile operating system this morning.

Facebook Paper version 1.2.2, a maintenance update, also enables high-definition video uploading. Previously, you could only upload photos in high-definition so this is going to be a nice upgrade for users who tend to post lots of video clips to the social network on the go.

iLife and iWork apps to come pre-installed on 64/128GB iPhone 6/Plus

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 15, 2014

Customers who've purchased a 64 or 128-gigabyte edition of either the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus won't need to download Apple's iLife and iWork productivity suite when the handset hits store shelves this Friday as the apps will come pre-loaded on their device, according to an internal Apple Retail training document obtained by Dan DeSilva of 9to5Mac.

Apple since last September started providing Pages, Keynote, Numbers, iMovie, GarageBand and iTunes U apps as free downloads to every new iOS device owner.

T-Mobile to add iPhone 6 to ‘Test Drive’ program

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 15, 2014

T-Mobile, the nation's fourth-largest wireless carrier, this past weekend told technology website Re/code that devices upgraded to iOS 8, including the latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones, will be soon available through its 'Test Drive' program. Introduced at its 'Uncarrier 5.0' event back in June, 'Test Drive' allows customers to borrow an iPhone free for a week to test out T-Mobile’s network.

Apple: iOS 8’s SMS forwarding arriving in October

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 28, 2016

When iOS 8 launches for public consumption next Wednesday, text message relaying will not work immediately from day one because Apple plans to enable the feature in October, according to the just-refreshed iOS 8 webpage detailing the Continuity feature that was first spotted Friday morning by iLongue.

Now listed as ”coming in October”, the delayed launch coincides nicely with an upcoming October release of the free OS X Yosemite update. A discussion thread at MacRumors corroborates iLounge's findings, suggesting Apple has disabled SMS relaying on its servers in the past couple of days, likely until Yosemite is officially released.

This development isn't surprising to us given that iOS 8 and Yosemite are more dependent on each other by Continuity than previously.

Apple’s free U2 album is automatically appearing in your Music app

Jake Smith ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

U2's first studio album in five years, Songs of Innocence, is automatically appearing on users' iPhone and iPads on Wednesday evening, following Apple CEO Tim Cook announcing it will be available for free on iTunes, only from Apple until October 13th. You may have thought you'd get to choose if you'd want to place the album in your iOS device's Music app. But no, when we say automatically we mean automatically.

Apple facing delays launching iPhone 6 models in China, still hasn’t gained approval

Jake Smith ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Apple informed the top-three carriers in China on Wednesday it would not be offering the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus on September 19, leaving them caught off-guard, the New York Times reported. China is seen as the company's fastest growing market, so it's definitely an odd move, as China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and customers in the area are eagerly awaiting the launch alongside the US and other countries worldwide.

Nearly half of Flyover locations now have city tour enabled under iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 7, 2014

In the run-up to the forthcoming iOS 8 launch, Apple appears to have recently added dozens of cities and landmarks to the automated three-dimensional Flyover tours available in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, according to evidence MacRumors discovered Sunday. Specifically, as many as 40 locations are Flyover city tour-enabled out of the 90 cities where regular Flyovers are available.

Apple has also been expanding Flyover coverage with the latest additions of the Yosemite National Park in the United States and Wellington in New Zealand.

Apple-owned TestFlight surfaces in App Store as native app ahead of iOS 8 launch

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

TestFlight, a service allowing developers to beta test mobile apps on the fly, is now available as a native iPhone and iPad application in the App Store.

Apple snapped up Burstly, the company behind TestFlight, back in February to help its registered developers distribute their iPhone and iPad apps to beta testers before pushing them to the App Store for release.

TestFlight is available free of charge and requires iOS 8.0 or later.

BGR: iOS 8.0.1 with ‘further enhancements’ in the works

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 5, 2014

With four days until Apple's big reveal and the impending public launch of iOS 8, the Cupertino firm is already preparing the first iOS 8.0.1 update, BGR reported Friday. The software contains unspecified "further improvements" and Apple is going to seed it to its carrier and testing partners shortly. Note that BGR has a pretty solid track record in predicting carrier-related news.

Just recently, the site correctly claimed that the current iOS 8 Beta 5 would be the final beta released to developers ahead of a Gold Master. Indeed, the iPhone maker last month exclusively released iOS 8 Beta 6 to carrier partners for testing ahead of the iOS 8 launch.

Apple reportedly patches Find My iPhone vulnerability to hack Apple ID accounts

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 1, 2014

According to The Next Web this morning, Apple has allegedly patched a security hole in the Find My iPhone service which allowed nefarious users to brute-force Apple ID passwords, according to Twitter user @hackappcom who posted a proof of concept titled 'iBrute' to GitHub on Saturday.

This should be good news for celebrities who reported their iCloud accounts being hacked and saw their nude pictures posted online.

As Cody told you yesterday, Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence and several other celebrities found themselves in the middle of a major nude photo leak after attackers apparently exploited a vulnerability in Apple’s Find My iPhone service.

Stop typing so much: QuickBoard for iOS 8 will save text you’ve been typing over and over

Jake Smith ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

A new third-party keyboard called QuickBoard wants to stop you from drone-lessly typing out the same information over and over. These iPhones have tiny screens, after all!

Set to launch this fall with iOS 8's new third-party keyboard support, QuickBoard has three separate keyboard entities, TextBoard, MeBoard, and LocationBoard, that allows you to store snippets of text instead of typing it out over and over again.