iPod Touch

Plex can now record free over-the-air and cable broadcasts using HDHomeRun devices

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 1, 2016

Available today as a beta release for Plex Pass subscribers, a new DVR feature allows Plex users to record both free over-the-air shows and cable broadcasts using their own digital antenna and HDHomeRun devices from Silicon Dust. As a bonus, it also supports non-DRM CableCARD channels on the HDHomeRun PRIME network attached digital tuner. This is a great feature addition that will put more television into your Plex-powered media center.

Plex is available for the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple TV, as well as for the Mac, Windows, Linux and a host of other media-streamers and other devices and platforms.

Google brings full RAW support and new face-editing tools to Snapseed for iOS

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 1, 2016

Google has brought full RAW support to Snapseed, allowing people who are serious about their iPhone photography to edit images saved in the professional RAW file format on their iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. As its name suggests, RAW stores original image data as captured by the camera's sensor, without any post-processing. Snapseed 2.9 for iOS also includes user interface improvements, bug fixes, a new face-editing tools and other improvements.

Want to get rid of ads on CBS All Access? That’ll be an extra $4 per month

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 31, 2016

CBS's over-the-top streaming services, All Access, is available on wide variety of platforms including the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and more. Subscriptions are priced at $5.99 per month, but now you can pay an extra $4 per month for a commercial-free experience, the broadcaster announced Wednesday.

Instagram gains pinch-zoom on photos and videos, a new button to improve low-light shots

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 31, 2016

Instagram today announced that users of its free of charge iPhone app can now use the familiar pinch-zoom gesture to zoom in on photos—and videos—found in their feed and elsewhere in the app. I've long craved for this feature: in fact, I've been using iOS's system-wide Zoom feature to get a closer look at photos in the Instagram app that interest me. Just yesterday, Instagram pushed another update which brings out a new low-light button for its built-in camera.

First hands-on demo of Siri’s app integration doesn’t disappoint

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 14, 2017

Capabilities of SiriKit, a new iOS 10 framework that lets third-party apps work with Siri, were on full display in the first hands-on demonstration given to Nathan Olivarez-Giles of the Wall Street Journal. In addition to extending Siri’s support for messaging, photo search and phone calls to more apps, SiriKit also adds support for new services, including ride booking and personal payments.

Nathan was pretty impressed with the usefulness of Siri's app integration on iOS 10, calling it a “long-overdue” enhancement that will make Apple's personal digital assistant “more useful in everyday life” than it's ever been.

How to create your own Geofilters for Snapchat

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 30, 2016

Snapchat's Geofilters, special overlays that communicate the “where and when” of a Snap, can be quite useful—you can apply one to a Snap before sending it to a friend, or add it to your Story.

Today, Snapchat released a brand new web tool that lets you make custom On-Demand Geofilters using your own graphics or pre-made templates costing as little as $5 for a party in a small geographic area, no image editing software required.

You can customize your own Geofilters with the color palate and the text of your choosing. Once published, guests see your Geofilter when they post Snaps during your event. In this brief step-by-step tutorial, we're going to guide you through the process of creating your own Geofilter using Snapchat's new browser-based web tool.

Snapchat’s sweet new update makes a handful of things a tad easier

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 30, 2016

A brand new version of Snapchat is now available in the App Store on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. It's a point update but don't let that fool you as it makes a handful of things a bit easier. For starters, you can now finally preview a person's public Stories without adding them as a friend. Before today, you had to add a contact as your friend to view their Stories so just this nice improvement alone could go a long way toward helping us discover new accounts and content on Snapchat a bit more easily than before.

Where Cards Fall from Alto’s Adventure creators gets its first trailer

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 30, 2016

Back in March, we told you about a promising upcoming game, titled Where Cards Fall—a collaboration between Alto's Adventure developer Snowman and LA-based studio The Game Band. Today, they shared with us their first-ever trailer for the game and it's definitely worth a quick watch.

Even though the video doesn’t reveal much about game mechanics, we can tell from it that Where Cards Fall is going to have atmospheric look to it. The game will task you with building and re-building various structures in different ways using cards and today's trailer shows off some of its eye-candy visuals.

Instagram’s popular Explore tab now recommends Stories from people you could follow

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 30, 2016

Today, Instagram's Explore tab will start showing some users a bar of Stories from accounts they could follow, TechCrunch reported yesterday, saying these algorithmically personalized suggestions will roll out to everyone soon. Stories recommendations are based on who you follow and the topics you care about, making it easy to add someone new to your Home feed’s Stories section.

Steven Levy confirms that some of the data in Apple iBrain can be restored to a new phone

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 29, 2016

Journalist Steven Levy's excellent in-depth look at Apple's machine learning and artificial intelligence systems used throughout iOS and its other products have left some people wondering about transferring the so-called iBrain database to a new device. Apple told Levy that iBrain is local to a device and doesn't get sent to the cloud.

The explanation promoted some people to wonder if that means that iBrain has to start all over again after getting a new phone, and lose all memory of what it learned in the process. As it turns out, some of the information in that “brain” can indeed be restored and moved to a new device in a safe manner.

Apple issues iOS 10 beta 8 to developers & beta 7 to public beta testers

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 26, 2016

Apple today released an eighth beta of iOS 10 (build number “14A5346a”) to members of the Apple Developer Program and the seventh beta of iOS 10 to public beta testers who are signed on the Apple Beta Software Program. It's worth repeating that iOS 10 beta 8 for developers and iOS 10 beta 7 for public beta testers contain the same features.

The devices on a prior beta can be updated in Settings → General → Software Update, but some users are reporting issues trying to update to beta 8.

Intel could begin fabricating iPhone and iPad chips as early as 2018

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Both in-house designed 'A10' and 'A11' chips for this year's iPhone 7 and 2017 iPhones/iPads, respectively, are believed to be manufactured solely by Taiwan's semiconductor foundry TSMC (sorry, Samsung).

According to Nikkei Asian Review, Intel is now perfectly poised to give TSMC a good run for its money in as little as two years because any Apple chips after the A10/A11 should be fabricated by Intel.

The recently signed licensing deal between Intel and UK-based ARM Holdings lets the former fabricate chips for smartphones based on the latter's CPU technology.