Media

Apple Unveils iBooks 2 — A Brand New Textbook Experience for the iPad

Jeff Benjamin ∙ January 19, 2012

Apple's ongoing Education media event located at NYC's Guggenheim Museum is all about learning, and facing the challenges in the field of education today.

Apple unveiled some slides that paint a pretty startling picture about the state of the United States’ educational system when compared to other places in the world, citing overflowing class sizes and lack of enough textbooks, among other dire problems.

With all of this in mind, Apple is trying to help — and it's no surprise that the iPad is at the center of two initiatives — one of them is to reinvent textbooks. iBooks 2 is at the center of the reinvention process...

Apple Planning Media Event in New York This Month

Sébastien Page ∙ January 2, 2012

AllThingsD reports that Apple is planning a media event sometimes this month in New York. Apparently, this event will not be related to the upcoming iPad 3 or even the rumored Apple television.

That leaves some kind of advertising or even publishing announcement, which might be the case, since Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue is reportedly involved.

Cue is in charge of a large swath of Apple’s media units, including the iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore, as well as iAd and its iCloud services.

What do you think it's going to be about?

App Picks of the Week: Codify, Plex, Batch

Alex Heath ∙ Updated February 19, 2018

It's time for our app picks of the week! We frequently comb the far reaches of the App Store to bring you awesome apps to check out.

This week, we’ve got a cool app that lets you code on your iPad, an updated media server app, and a social network that specializes in batch photo uploading. We hope you enjoy this week’s picks!

Apple Did Buy iCloud.com

Guest Author ∙ May 1, 2011

According to anonymous sources cited by All Things Digital, Apple has indeed purchased the iCloud.com domain.

Earlier this week, GigaOM reported that Apple had allegedly purchased iCloud.com from Xcerion for the sum of $4.5 million. Apple is rumored to be announcing a major revamp to its current MobileMe cloud service at this summer's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

Although All Things D confirms that the purchase was made, its sources declined to confirm the rumored $4.5 million purchase price.

Apple’s New Cloud Service to be Called iCloud?

Alex Heath ∙ Updated July 6, 2017

Apple has allegedly bought iCloud.com for the sum of $4.5 million. The domain was previously owned by Xcerion's cloud service that has now been rebranded to be called CloudMe.

A major revamp of Apple's current cloud service, MobileMe, is expected to launch at WWDC this summer. Apple has also been talking with major record labels for the purpose of introducing a cloud-based media locker for customers.

MobileMe Only Available for 60-Day Free Trial, Will Most Likely Become Free Service Next Week

Alex Heath ∙ Updated November 26, 2016

Apple has removed the paid version of MobileMe from its retail stores and website. You can now only sign up for a free 60-day trial on the web.

Apple is holding an event next week, and MobileMe will most likely be revamped alongside the introduction of a new iPad model. Up until now, MobileMe has cost $99/year. There's a good chance that Apple will make their cloud-based service free for customers, or introduce some type of tiered, "pro" pricing alongside the standard MobileMe package.

XBMC Now Available For the iPhone And Other iOS Devices

Jeff Benjamin ∙ January 22, 2011

I can honestly say that I never expected to see XBMC running on my iPhone in a million years. It's still kind of surreal adding the Cydia repo, downloading the packages, and installing the whole shebang.

The good news is that it's definitely XBMC, in fact it looks like the devs applied a shrinking ray to my 50" TV, because the port is dead on from a looks perspective.

Unfortunately, though, that's where the inherent problems start to arise, at least on the iPhone's teeny touch screen...

Tutorial: How To Save Your iOS Game Progress Before A Restore [Jailbreak Only]

Alex Heath ∙ January 17, 2011

There are a ton of great games to play on the iPhone. Most of them have multiple levels and achievements to unlock. You wouldn't want to lose your game progress and achievements in the event that you have to restore your iPhone.

For jailbreakers, backing up data is essential. To upgrade to a new version of iOS, a jailbroken iPhone is completely wiped and updated to the default setup of the next iOS release. A new jailbreak has to then be applied, and all personal data (media, contacts, jailbreak apps, etc) has to be synced back onto the iPhone.

Through the magic of SSH, you can save your iOS game data on your computer in the event that you have to restore. Here's how to do it...

Hacked iTunes Accounts Are Being Sold in China

Alex Heath ∙ Updated January 24, 2016

The Global Times recently discovered that over 50,000 illegal iTunes accounts are being offered for purchase in China. Potential buyers are promised access to purchase iTunes content for free; amounting to seven times the amount paid.

Toaboa.com, China's largest consumer auction site, is offering hacked iTunes accounts with stolen credit card and contact information to potential customers. These accounts are registered by real people with real personal information, but this blatant form of organized crime has (so far) gone unpunished.

At prices of 1-200 yuan (about $30 a pop), these hacked accounts are distributed through the iTunes login credentials associated with the account's payment information...

Installing VLC Player From Cydia: A Video Walkthrough

Jeff Benjamin ∙ January 9, 2011

Yesterday, Alex posted an in-depth article explaining the reasons why VLC Media Player was removed from the App Store. As you know, VLC Media Player is the popular video application that allows you to play a variety of video formats on your iPhone.

VLC Media Player is extremely popular on PCs and Macs, so it's wasn't surprising that it was an app that many looked forward to on the iPhone.

Sadly, as you know, the app has been removed, but don't weep too many tears; VLC can still be installed on your iPhone, and this video walkthrough will show you how, step-by-step...

VLC for iPhone Pulled From App Store, Now Available On Cydia

Alex Heath ∙ January 8, 2011

Awhile back, we reported that the popular, open source media player "VLC for iPhone" was released in the App Store. It was a pretty big deal, because the VLC client duplicated a lot of functionality that was already in the native iPod app. (Apple doesn't usually like apps that duplicate the iPhone's native features.)

The biggest pro to VLC for iPhone was its ability to playback file formats that iTunes doesn't support. iTunes has a somewhat limited amount of video formats it can playback. VLC was a simple, free app that allowed more types of videos to be playable on the iPhone.

While it was nice for an app like VLC to be in the App Store, the media player was very buggy. Lots of users reported problems with playback and file format support. However, the bugs were not the reason that the app was pulled. In fact, Apple had nothing to do with the takedown...