Pebble, the smart watch that set the world on fire with its Kickstarter project, is already encountering a few growing pains as its device begins to trickle out to the earliest backers. Chief among those issues is a problem that sees iOS notifications for email turn off whenever an iPhone or iPod touch has its Bluetooth connection interrupted. Problems are also cropping up around different Android… → Read More
Apple is set to lose its iPhone trademark in Brazil, according to a report from Reuters which cites a source familiar with a forthcoming decision from that country’s copyright regulator. The trademark was challenged by Brazilian electronics firm IGB Electronics SA, which launched a new line of Android phones bearing the name late last year. → Read More
Apple appears to be inching closer to opening an online store in Russia to manage direct sales to customers, adding one more store to its growing portfolio of localized operations: the company has posted a job ad for a Russian Chat Team Manager, specifically for an Apple Online Store in Russia. → Read More
Jailbreaking has returned, and already servers are overloaded. Today, a group of iOS hackers styling themselves as the Evad3rs team has released a usable jailbreak for the iPhone 5, as well as any other iOS device capable of running iOS 6.0 or 6.1, with the exception of the Apple TV (3rd generation). The process of jailbreaking devices has grown more difficult through the years. This is thanks to… → Read More
Apple took the title of largest mobile maker by volume in the U.S. in Q4 2012, according to Strategy Analytics, which said Cupertino rose to the top of the U.S. phone maker charts for the first time ever — taking a record 34 per cent marketshare, and shipping 17.7 million iPhones in the quarter. Samsung came second, with a 32.3 per cent share, shipping an estimated 16.8 million smartphones. → Read More
TwelveSouth announced a new iPhone accessory today, one that probably looks familiar if you’re aware of Apple’s Smart Cover and Smart Case products. The SurfacePad for iPhone is a sheath of Napa leather that wraps around your phone and provides basic level protection while adding a minimum amount of weight and thickness. → Read More
Chegg has long been known as a textbook company, becoming one of the first companies to bring textbook rental online and reach widespread adoption. But with Amazon, Apple and others moving aggressively into the textbook market — and the market and textbooks themselves increasingly going digital — Chegg has been re-positioning. Today, the textbook company is eying EdTech’s Holy Grail of becoming… → Read More
The latest rumors, ridiculous or not, point to two new iPhone models this year — one would be the expected iPhone 5S and the other would be a lower-cost plastic model aimed at developing markets.
None of this is confirmed, but iLounge claims to have information on what the alleged lower-cost plastic model might look like. According to the report, the new model will be a combination… → Read More
At first glance, the Cycloramic app in action may make you think that He Who Shall Not Be Named is somewhere nearby, manipulating your iPhone through dark magic.
In reality, it’s simply an app that controls the vibrators in your phone to the exact frequency needed to make it balance on a table and spin at the same time. Meanwhile, you (or the Woz) can film a 360 degree video.
But the folks… → Read More
Pebble, the Kickstarter darling and connected smart watch, announced just yesterday that its product was now beginning to ship out to backers in limited quantities, but its iPhone app had yet to be approved. Today, the company announced to its Kickstarter backers that both the iPhone and Android apps are available now, which means they’ll be fully functional for users of both types of devices when… → Read More
Apple just released its earnings report for Q1 2013, ending in December of last year, with a solid hardware quarter overall. The iPhone dominated with 47.8 million units sold in the quarter, up quarterly and yearly, with Apple also breaking records with 22.9 million iPads sold. The iPhone 5 saw its first full quarter of availability this period, as well as a nice holiday sales boost. Analysts had… → Read More
The latest rumors out of the DigiTimes (a hit-or-miss Chinese blog focused on Apple supply-chain news) claims that Apple is not working on a larger, cheaper version of the iPhone for this year, but rather that it will debut two new 4-inch models of the smartphone.
One is expected to be the iPhone 5S, an upgraded version of the iPhone 5, and the other is expected to be a lower-cost version of… → Read More
The iPhone was Verizon’s top-performing smartphone during its most recent quarter, the company revealed during its quarterly earnings call today. All told, Apple’s smartphone made up 63 percent of Verizon’s smartphone device sales for the quarter, with 6.2 million sales out of a total of 9.9 million for smartphone hardware. Of the 6.2 million iPhones sold, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said that half… → Read More
A new year-end report from mobile analytics firm and ad network adeven reveals that the iOS App Store will be growing along the lines of its current steady rate, to add over 435,000 new apps to its massive catalog in 2013. That’s an increase from around 380,000 apps released in 2012, adeven says. That will likely exacerbate the discovery situation, which is made clear by a separate study by mobile… → Read More
Samsung is known for going after Apple in its smartphone ads, with commercials that are admittedly pretty funny, depicting the Apple faithful waiting in line, for instance. Now they’ve got a new video out, but this one, rather than taking some playful punches at the big guy on the block, takes the boot the already downtrodden BlackBerry in an attempt to win over more business customers. → Read More
iPhone-maker Apple’s share of the smartphone market will peak this year — at just over a fifth (22 per cent) of the global market, says analyst ABI Research. Apple’s share will then remain flat through to 2018 as mobile maker Samsung continues to dominate. ABI notes that Samsung has grown its share of the global smartphone market from eight per cent to more than 30 per cent in 2012. → Read More
Facebook originally started testing a new free (minus andy data usage fees you incur from your carrier) calling feature for users of its Facebook Messenger app for iPhone in Canada early this year, and now the service is available to U.S. users as well. The free call button app now shows up in the app for U.S. users, in any conversation where both parties are using the Facebook Messenger app. → Read More
The iPhone 5 wasn’t released all that long ago, but increasingly reports are saying a follow-up could come sooner rather than later. Today, Jeffries analyst Peter Misek said in a report that his supply chain checks anticipate a launch in June/July with a March production start date. The report backs up an earlier claim from Topeka analyst Brian White, who said at the start of January that an… → Read More
In a piece of classic Apple timing, Cupertino has just issued a press release to draw some eyeballs away from CES. Apple has announced that more than 40 billion apps have now been downloaded from its iOS App Store — with almost half of those downloads taking place last year, underlining the momentum powering its mobile ecosystem. The 40 billion figure excludes re-downloads and app updates. → Read More
The Sensus Case is at CES 2013, and it brings touch controls to the iPhone that go way beyond the screen. Touch-sensitive panels on the back (which can detect 10 points of input at once) and sides of the case give it additional capabilities for gaming and apps, akin to what Sony has down with the back panel of the PlayStation Vita mobile console. → Read More
Regardless of what you think about digital dating sites, they encourage us to close our computers and get out there and meet new people. In short, they bring people together. The problem is, of course, that there are infinite variations on social and mobile dating, from compatibility engines and social, Facebook-based platforms to game-ified bracelets and live video dating. Then there are the… → Read More
Mobile ad network Chitika measured traffic from tablets and smartphones via impressions on both the period leading up to Christmas and the period immediately following, and found a few devices grew their share significantly, while others didn’t fare so well. The iPhone 5 was the top gainer in smartphones, growing 1.11 percent overall following Christmas day; the Samsung Galaxy S III also grew 1… → Read More
In 2010, Qwiki captured the TechCrunch Disrupt cup, thanks to an ambitious product that sought to transform the way people consume information online. Like an interactive, multimedia version of Wikipedia, Qwiki essentially combined images, audio and video for pretty much anything you could search for on the Web into a multidimensional, narrated movies. → Read More
Impending and Realmac software, the team behind super simple to-do list Clear, has a new project in the works called Hatch. This is a marked departure from a GTD app, one that has more in common with the Tamagotchis that were once everywhere, long before the advent of the smartphone. But that’s also a fairly tired refrain at this point: many have tried their hands at virtual pets for the… → Read More
Two new patent applications published by the USPTO today describe a couple of pieces of tech that both help make mobile devices smarter, albeit in very different ways. The first is a facial recognition system that can identify people and things using vector-based “faceprints” picked up from photos, and the second is a call waiting system that can provide inbound callers with a lot more than just a… → Read More
A new report from mobile ad network Chartboost suggests that while the iPad is the best platform in terms of getting return on advertising spend for mobile game developers, the iPhone is still seen as the marquee iOS platform for mobile games, since it commands an impressive 61 percent of all gaming time spent on iOS devices. So despite lower acquisition costs on iPad, advertisers are still… → Read More
An Apple patent filing published by the USPTO on Thursday describes a task manager that goes well beyond the standard Reminders app that is now built in to iOS and Mac devices. The patent describes a smart to-do list that combines natural language processing for easy text entry, with contextual information sourced from your device to fill in all the little details that you might omit in making a… → Read More
Casio announced this week that its G-Shock watch with low-power Bluetooth 4.0 is shipping out to U.S. retailers now, after a delay of a year or more owing to a number of issues, including flooding in Thailand. As far as smart watches go, the Casio is a little barebones: it syncs with iPhone to provide alerts for inbound emails and phone calls, and also helps you find misplaced devices by… → Read More
Ever used your iOS device to imagine yourself as Lt. Nyota Uhura receiving an urgent communique from Starfleet? Then you are in luck — the second version of the official Star Trek PADD app is now available with native iPhone 5 and iPad mini support. → Read More
BlackBerrys are still wildly popular with a certain cash-strapped sub-set of mobile users in parts of Europe: namely teenagers. A wide-ranging research report looking at mobile users’ habits in France, Spain and the U.K found that BlackBerry penetration amongst teenagers in the UK and Spain was two and three times higher respectively than the overall “mobile media user” population. → Read More
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