Main menu

Bluelounge Releases MiniDock for iPhone 5

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 8:22 am

MiniDock iPhone5

Bluelounge, an award-winning curator of lifestyle accessories for consumer electronics, has updated its popular MiniDock with iPhone 5 support by swapping the traditional 30-pin dock with a Lightning connector. MiniDock is an accessory that plugs into the traditional Apple wall charger, allowing iPhone users to dock their handset upright directly at the power outlet without the need for sync cables. Retails for $39.95.

Mysterious New Icon is Gone: Facebook 6.1.1 Released

Posted by Stephen Hall at 6:42 pm

Facebook 6.0 on the left, Facebook 6.1 on the right, Facebook 6.1.1 on the left.

Today, Facebook unleashed version 6.1 of its iOS application. The update is packed with a few handy new features such as an improved Photo Viewer which adds options to “Save Photo,” “Share Photo,” or “Make Profile Picture.” Other improvements include faster loading events pages, information editing when checking in to locations, and some have even reported that the update brings the new Timeline to their iOS device. (more…)

Bill Gates Recounts His Last Conversation With Steve Jobs

Posted by Jonathan Kizer at 6:38 pm

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates

The competitive nature of the relationship between Bill Gates, founder and (until fairly recently) CEO of Microsoft, and Steve Jobs is well-publicized. What isn’t as well-known is that the two became friends later in life, close enough so that Jobs invited Gates over for what would become the last conversation between the two.

60 Minutes has interviewed Bill Gates, and the program includes some thoughts of Steve Jobs, as well as some details of that final conversation. The conversation was emotional:

Gates grew emotional as he recalled visiting Jobs just before his death. The billionaire welled up as he described their last conversation, which he described as “forward-looking.”

“He showed me the boat he was working on,” said Gates, “and talked about how he’s looking forward to being on it, even though we both knew there was a good chance that wouldn’t happen.”

The full interview can be seen after the break.

(more…)

New Tweak Googiri Lets You Use Google’s Voice-to-Text Results with Siri

Posted by Stephen Hall at 5:47 pm

Google Now

Google finally introduced Google Now for iOS a couple of week ago, and I’m personally still waiting on a native tweak adoption of the feature. In the meantime, however, a developer by the name of MattCMultimedia has released a tweak called Googiri. As its cheesily clever name suggests, the tweak attempts to integrate the two services with one simple activator action. (more…)

255

From the Forums: Nds4iOS Emulator Discussion Thread

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 3:29 pm

iFans member Karen Tsai, known by her alias angelXwind, has posted an official discussion thread for her Nintendo DS emulator (nds4ios) within the forums. Within, you can find known issues, user-contributed bug reports, performance rates by device, upcoming features and more regarding the popular emulator.

Emulators seem to be the latest craze within the jailbreaking community, as fellow iOS emulator developer ZodTTD publicly released the highly-anticipated gpSPhone 8 for emulating Gameboy Advance late last month. Let us know what classic games you are playing within the comments.

In-Store Device Repairs to Come with AppleCare Revamp This Fall

Posted by Stephen Hall at 2:27 pm

original

Apple’s Vice President Tara Bunch led a town hall session on Thursday, at which the Cupertino corporation told tech staff that big changes are coming to AppleCare and AppleCare+ services this fall. This “broadening” of the company’s current policies is intended to cut costs and make them more appealing to consumers. Of the biggest changes announced was the ability for customers to have their iOS devices repaired on the spot at Apple retail stores in the near future. (more…)

The Future of Android

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 9:38 am

In March, Google announced that Sundar Pichai would be taking over its Android division, effective immediately. Pichai replaced Andy Rubin, who is now working on other projects within Google. And up until a few days ago, Pichai had remained rather quiet in his new role.

But the 40-year-old graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology and Stanford has finally revealed his plans about the future of Android in an exclusive interview with Wired. Find out what’s in store for the world’s most popular mobile operating system ahead. (more…)

The Facebook Phone is Dead

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 8:57 am

That didn’t last long.

Just five weeks after the HTC First was released, the first handset to feature Facebook Home, the device is reportedly on the chopping block.

BGR, citing a source within AT&T, reports that the carrier will discontinue the so-called “Facebook Phone” as soon as HTC’s contract for reserved display space within its retail stores expires.

AT&T is making this move due to “shockingly bad” sales of the HTC First, which has been far outsold by the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S4. The carrier’s decision to drop the price of the HTC First to 99 cents on a new two-year contract was made to clear as much inventory of the handset as possible. (more…)

Tricky Shot – Freestyle Soccer At Your Fingertips

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 10:40 pm

Tricky Shot

With more than 250 million players across 200 countries, soccer — also known as football or futbol — is by far the world’s most popular sport. That inspired Dream Apps Lab to create Tricky Shot, a free pick-up-and-play freestyle soccer game on the App Store. The game, designed for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, involves flicking a soccer ball at various targets throughout more than 50 challenging levels: lockers, tires, pylons, shopping carts, trucks, balloons and so on.

Before I go any further, Tricky Shots is seriously addictive. I’m already immersed in hours of gameplay, trying to juggle and flick the three-dimensional soccer ball towards targets throughout levels that get progressively harder. If you lose patience while attempting to complete a particular challenge, a Golden Ball is available as an in-app purchase for 99 cents, which removes in-game ads and allows you to skip levels at any time. (more…)