How to watch the New Year’s Eve Ball Drop in Times Square on your iOS device

It’s New Year’s Eve and the big ball drop in Times Square is just a few hours away. If you find yourself away from a TV when the clock strikes midnight, here are a few ways you can watch the Times Square event on your iOS device.There is an official Times Square app for your iPhone. Download it from the iOS App store and fire it up just before midnight. If you have an iPad, you can still download the app, it just won’t be as pretty. The video and other content will be smaller because it’s a native iPhone app running in 2X mode on the iPad’s larger screen. It’ll still get the job done and allow you to watch the ball drop as it happens, though. A live video feed of the ball drop is also being streamed through Livestream, which provides you with another viewing option. You can download the Livestream app from the iOS App Store and find the official stream using this URL: new.livestream.com/accounts/43923/events/1780083. The New Year’s Eve event is also front and center in the app when you tap on the search button to find a live event to watch. To access the content in Livestream, you will have to login or sign up for an account if you don’t already have one. The quality of the stream in the Livestream app is top-notch, but it is sometimes laggy. Hopefully, it holds up at midnight when a large number of people try to watch last-minute countdown. If you don’t have to time to download and setup an app, the official live stream of the ball drop can be found on the web at timessquareball.net. The site has a live video stream that can be watched through Mobile Safari on your iPhone or iPad. The quality is not HD when viewing on your iOS device, but you’ll be able to see the last-minute countdown and the ball drop just fine. How do you plan on watching the New Year’s Eve ball drop on this last day of 2013? Continue reading →

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Twelve Apple stories from 2013 that are unforgettable

It’s been a wild and wonderful year for Apple and its fans. There’s been several important acquisitions, lots of hearsay that turned out to be correct and a handful of new and exciting products. Whiel we say goodbye to 2013 and hello to 2014, browse through the top Apple stories that are unforgettable on many different levels. Apple acquires (Insert Company Name Here) It was a big year for Apple in the acquisitions department. The company acquired up to 12 different firms including indoor location company WiFiSlam, maps/location company Locationary, maps/location company HopStop, Passif Semiconductors, media discovery app Matcha, maps/location company Embark , data compression firm AlgoTrim, personal assistant Cue, semiconductor company PrimeSense, social media analytics firm Topsy, maps/location company Broadmap and software company Catch.com. Apple invests big time in sapphire Apple is partnering with materials company GT Advanced to manufacture sapphire in the US. Though the partnership was announced by GT Advanced, details on how the sapphire will be used are not known. It’s possible the material could become an integral part of a future touchscreen display. MacBook Air gets Haswell chip, becomes untethered from its power cord The MacBook Air was updated with Intel’s new Haswell chipset that bundles both power savings and processing punch into one machine. The new MacBooks deliver up to an incredible 12 hours of battery life. For those who work on the run, it almost untethers you from your power cord, so you can work and travel without frantically searching for a power outlet. Apple moves in a different directions with iOS 7 Apple unveiled iOS 7 at WWDC 2013 and took the mobile OS in a completely new direction. Gone is the skeuomorphic design with realistic-looking leather and stitching. Replacing it is a new flat design that simplifies the look and feel of the iOS. Apps followed suit as developers changed their apps to match the new design ethos set by Apple. Apple Awarded $30 Million iPad Deal From LA Unified School District Apple and LA Unified School District inked a deal that would bring iPads into the classroom in one of the nation’s largest school district. Though heralded before it began, the program suffered setbacks when students figured out how to hack the devices and an error underestimated the cost of the program. The iPad gets a new name and the mini adds Retina Instead of the iPad 5, Apple broke away from its tradition of naming its iPad models with a number and called its latest tablet, the iPad Air. The name is fitting — the Air is the smallest and lightest 9.7-inch iPad to date. Not be overlooked is Apple’s smaller tablet which got a sweet update — the much longed for retina iPad mini. Apple blows away every other high-end desktop with the new Mac Pro Jaw-dropping is the best way to describe the new Mac Pro. Once a huge desktop system, the new Mac Pro is less than a foot tall and fits easily even on a small desk. Despite its diminutive size, it still packs some power with dual-graphics and up to a 12-core processor. Apple adds a fingerprint sensor and motion to the iPhone 5s and embraces plastic in the 5c Rumors hinted at a plastic iPhone and a fingerprint sensor and those came to fruition when Apple announced both the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c. Apple surprised everyone with the M7 motion coprocessor, which offloads motion tracking away from GPS and onto to a dedicated chipset. The end result is reliable step counting with minimal impact on your battery life. Carl Icahn goes after Apple cash on behalf of its shareholders Carl Icahn holds $2.5 billion in Apple stock and believes the company should share some of its treasure trove of cash with its stockholders. Icahn proposes an aggressive stock buyback program that Apple is resistant to implement. That’s not stopping Icahn as he is very, very, very persistent. China Mobile gets the iPhone This is a biggie that’ll come to fruition in the coming year. China Mobile is the world’s largest carrier and now all 760 million of its subscribers can run out and buy an iPhone if they want. iOS 6.x gets the jailbreak treatment The evad3rs kicked off the year with a successful jailbreak for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch on iOS 6.1, iOS 6.0.2, iOS 6.0.1 and iOS 6. Fast forward to the end of the year and the highly anticipated untethered jailbreak for iOS 6.1.3-6.1.5 was released by iH8sn0w, SquiffyPwn and winocm. The p0sixspwn tool brings jailbreaking to iPhone 3GS, 4, and iPod Touch 4G users. 12 iOS 7 jailbreak finally debuts The evad3rs released the iOS 7 jailbreak without any notice to the jailbreak community when another competing group was allegedly close to a release as well. The launch was filled with drama when it was discovered that Cydia was broken and the Chinese version of the jailbreak tool included an alternative app store that included pirated apps. That was all smoothed out and the jailbreak team is updating evasi0n on a regular basis. Continue reading →

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Never Have a Shortage of Icons with the iOS 7 App Developer Icon Pack [Deals Hub]

There’s no such thing as too many icons to choose from for an app developer. You need to have as many options as possible so you can choose the best style for your creation. There will never be a shortage of app icons for those that get the iOS 7 App Developer Icon Pack, and you can get it right now on sale from the iPhone Hacks Deals Hub. How many icons are enough? There’s no such thing as too many, but the over 2,000 that you’ll get from the iOS 7 App Developer Icon Pack should suffice for at least some of your needs. Designed with iOS 7 in mind, available in three different colors, and editable and customizable in Photoshop, you’ll have tons of options that can be made to fit the app you’re making. You can get the iOS 7 App Developer Icon Pack on sale from the iPhone Hacks Deals Hub for just $39. That’s a 48% savings off the retail price. It’s a deal you can’t beat if your an app developer or just tinkering around with app creation, so grab this offer today. Continue reading →

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Apple denies knowledge of NSA’s iPhone backdoor

Yesterday, it was revelaed that the NSA has a backdoor into iOS that allows the agency to intercept text messages, address book entires and more. Apple has today issued a statement that denies knowledge of any such backdoor. Apple’s statement to AllThingsD reads: Apple has never worked with the NSA to create a backdoor in any of our products, including iPhone. Additionally, we have been unaware of this alleged NSA program targeting our products. We care deeply about our customers’ privacy and security. Our team is continuously working to make our products even more secure, and we make it easy for customers to keep their software up to date with the latest advancements. Whenever we hear about attempts to undermine Apple’s industry-leading security, we thoroughly investigate and take appropriate steps to protect our customers. We will continue to use our resources to stay ahead of malicious hackers and defend our customers from security attacks, regardless of who’s behind them. NSA’s backdoor requires physical device access to install a program called DROPOUTJEEP. The program, NSA claims, has a 100 percent success rate to push/pull files from a device, download SMS messages, get location data, turn on the mic/camera and more. What raised concerns was that this exploit being used by the NSA with “100 percent success rate” hasn’t been fixed till now. Apple’s statement hints that along with a number of evasi0n7 related exploits, Apple will also kill the vulnerabilities being used by the NSA. You can read more about NSA’s backdoor here. Continue reading →

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evasi0n7 1.0.2 beta released to fix iPad 2 Wi-Fi boot loop issue

evad3rs has just released evasi0n7 1.0.2 (beta) to fix the boot loop issues that was affecting iPad 2 users. When the evasi0n7 was released last week, a number of iPad 2 Wi-Fi only users had reported that their device was getting stuck in an endless reboot loop, forcing them to put their device in recovery mode to restore the device. evad3rs have released a beta version, which should fix the issue. If you’ve already jailbroken your iOS device using evasi0n7 then you can ignore the update. evasi0n7 is an untethered jailbreak which supports iOS 7, iOS 7.0.1, iOS 7.0.2, iOS 7.0.3, iOS 7.0.4. It is compatible with the following iOS devices: iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 iPad Air, iPad 4, iPad 3, iPad 2 Retina iPad mini, iPad mini iPod touch 5G You can download the latest update from our download page. If you need any help in jailbreaking your iOS device then check out step-by-step guides: iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS iPad Air, Retina iPad mini, iPad 4, iPad 3, iPad 2, iPad mini iPod touch 5G If you had problems jailbreaking your iPad 2, let us know how it goes in the comments. Continue reading →

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Fitbit adds MobileTrack to its iPhone app, allows you track steps using an iPhone 5s

Fitbit updated its iOS app today, adding a new feature that’ll open the app up to iPhone 5s owners who are curious about the Fitbit tracker, but haven’t made the jump and purchased the wearable fitness device.The new feature, called MobileTrack, allows you to use an iPhone 5s to track your basic activity, even if you don’t own a Fitbit device. The Fitbit app taps into the data from the iPhone’s M7 motion co-processor and uses that information to report your steps, distance traveled and calories burned. It’s just a taste of what is available when you use a physical Fitbit tracker, which tracks other metrics like sleep, active minutes and more. Besides the new M7 support, the updated Fitbit app now has several new and updated features such as: Redesigned Silent Alarms settings. Set, switch, edit, and remove alarms faster than ever. Set your own custom water goal. Redesigned profile editor. Redesigned tracker settings. Redesigned sign-up and sign-in. Tap on people in Friend Finder to see their profile. Swipe on friends on your leaderboard to Cheer, Taunt, or Message. Tap on tabs to auto-scroll to the top. Fitbit is one of many fitness apps to add support for the M7 motion co-processor in the past few months. Other notable apps include Moves, Runkeeper, and the Nike+ Move app. You can download the Fitbit app for free from the iOS App Store. Continue reading →

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Tweetbot for iPhone updated with ability to view images in direct messages

Earlier this year, Twitter updated its iOS app and added support for viewing photos that were sent via the social network’s direct messaging feature. Starting today, that same viewing feature is available to iOS owners who use Tweetbot as their Twitter client. The latest Tweetbot update brings the app to version 3.2.1. Though you still can’t send a photo via a direct message in Tweetbot, the app now allows you to view images that are sent to you via direct messages created on the web version of Twitter. Tweetbot is the one of the first major iOS Twitter clients to support this new photo viewing feature. The update also addresses a handful of unidentified bugs that are now fixed in this version. You can download Tweetbot 3 from the iOS App Store for $4.99. [Via 9to5 Mac] Continue reading →

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Leaked document details how the NSA can spy on iOS owners

The NSA allegedly has a back door into iOS that allows the agency to intercept text messages, address book entires and more, says a report on The Daily Dot. This snooping uses encryption to hide the data that is being sent back to the NSA and is done covertly to avoid detection. The NSA spyware was unveiled by security researcher Jacob Appelbaum, who was speaking at the Chaos Communication Conference in Hamburg, Germany. According to Applebaum, the NSA used a program called DROPOUTJEEP as implant on a user’s phone. The app is manually installed on a device via a shipment rerouting program that allows the NSA to grab select packages and pass them through their facilities before they land in the hands of the consumer. The DROPOUTJEEP app can push/pull files from a device, download SMS messages, get location data, turn on the mic/camera and more. The system allegedly has a “100 percent success rate when it comes to implanting iOS devices with spyware.” Whether Apple has provided the NSA with a backdoor into iOS is not known. Applebaum hints that either Apple sabotaged iOS or that the NSA knows about exploits that work against Apple products. “Either [the NSA] have a huge collection of exploits that work against Apple products, meaning they are hoarding information about critical systems that American companies produce, and sabotaging them, or Apple sabotaged it themselves.” “Do you think Apple helped them with that?” Appelbaum asked. “I hope Apple will clarify that.” In the past, Apple has vehemently denied working with the NSA to spy on its customers. The company, along with seven other technology customers, has sent an open letter to the President and Congress asking Washington to change its government surveillance practices worldwide. You can watch Applebaum’s presentation below and sound off in the comments about this latest NSA program. Continue reading →

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Google’s Eric Schmidt gives his 2014 technology predictions

After penning a guide for iOS users switching to Android, Google’s Eric Schmidt is back in the headlines again. This time he is on Bloomberg TV talking about his technology predictions for the upcoming year. It’s an interesting discussion that applies to Android and iOS owners alike. Schmidt is relatively conservative in his forecast for 2014. He claims that mobile has won, noting that next year will be the year that “everyone is going to have a smartphone.” Schmidt also predicts that the “arrival of big data and machine intelligence everywhere” will change how we work and play. He also sees great opportunity in the field of genetics, with technology like personal genetics records possibly yielding “discoveries in cancer treatment and diagnostics over the next year.” One surprise prediction is Schmidt’s admission that he was responsible for Google dropping the ball on social networking and promises the company won’t make that mistake again. “The biggest mistake that I made was not anticipating the rise of the social networking phenomenon. Not a mistake we’re going to make again. I guess in our defense we were busy working on many other things, but we should have been in that area and I take responsibility for that.” Schmidt talked to Bloomberg for only a few minutes, but he packs a lot into his interview. You can check it out in the video embedded below. Continue reading →

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Fix issues with Jailbreak Tweaks on iOS 7 by reinstalling Mobile Substrate

If you’re having trouble with your iOS 7 jailbreak, where none of your tweaks are working, try this simple tip for a solution. The tweaks won’t show up in the Settings app, nor would they even work, and your device would seem as if it wasn’t jailbroken, except for the Cydia icon. The solution described works only with devices that don’t have a 64-bit A7 chip. That is, it won’t work for the iPhone 5s, the iPad Air nor the Retina iPad mini. Open Cydia > Go to the Search tab Type in “Substrate” in the search field at the top The first two results should be “Mobile Substrate” and “Substrate Safe Mode.” Go to Mobile Substrate, tap on Modify > Reinstall > Continue Queuing. Now go back to the search results and tap on Substrate Safe Mode. Tap on Modify > Reinstall > Confirm. This will reinstall both Mobile Substrate and Substrate Safe Mode. After the installation is done, tap on Restart SpringBoard. Once this is done, all your tweaks should be working again. Keep in mind that if you restart your phone, you’ll have to repeat this process again. Here’s a video demoing the process: Mobile Substrate still needs to be updated with a fix for a number of issues, including this one, but for now this seems like a good enough solution. Let us know if you’ve been facing a similar issue, and if this tip helped you. Continue reading →

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NCAllOnly: New iOS 7 Jailbreak tweak removes “Today” and “Missed” tabs from Notification Center

In iOS 7, Notification Center was revamped with an all-new look and two new tabs for Today and Missed. If you’re not a big fan of the new tabs, and were looking for a way to remove them then we’ve some good news. By default, you can only disable the Today view from Notification Center when you access it from the Lock screen, but there is no way to disable the tab or the “Missed” tab. A new iOS 7 jailbreak tweak called NCAllOnly lets you remove the “Today” and “Missed” tabs from Notification Center. It doesn’t come with any configurations options. The default Notification Center (left), Notification Center with NCAllOnly installed (right) You can check out the video walkthrough of the jailbreak tweak below: NCAllOnly is available for free on Cydia. Were you looking for something like this? Let me know in the comments below. Continue reading →

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Hacker group publishes Snapchat API and exploits that allow users to be identified

Snapchat is likely not having a happy holiday after its API was published by a hacker group, according to report by ZDNet. The group also detailed exploits that compromises your anonymity on the messaging service. An Australian hacking group, known by the name Gibson Security, published the details on the hack earlier this week. The group released the previously undocumented API and the code for two exploits (“Bulk Registration” and “Find Friends”) that allow for the bulk creation of bogus accounts and the mass matching of phone numbers, display names, user names, and account privacy level. Gibson Security told ZDNet that these exploits could be used to “automatically build profiles about users, which could be sold for a lot of money.” It could also be used to create a Snapchat clone that could stalk the service’s 8 million users. Gibson Security claims it contacted Snapchat with evidence of these exploits in August of this year and was ignored by the company. Tired and frustrated with waiting, the hacker group released its discovery. “After getting no response from Snapchat during that time, we decided to release on Christmas day. We also saw Evan Spiegel’s company send unlawful take down notices to open source Snapchat clients, as well as disregard a major flaw of his app, how easily snaps are decrypted.” Gibson Security claims the exploits could be closed with ten lines of code. Continue reading →

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OWC tears down the Mac Pro, confirms removable CPU

The Mac Pro started shipping this week and landed on customer doorsteps as early as Christmas Eve. One company, the popular parts company Other World Computing, got its hands on a new Mac Pro and tore the device down to its screws and rails.OWC documented the tear down in high-resolution photos that detail the innards of the uniquely designed device. Though the analysis was not as detailed as n iFixit teardown that identifies the motherboard chipsets and their manufacturers, the OWC analysis turned up one gem. The company discovered that the Intel Xeon E5 processor in the Mac Pro is removable. According to MacRumors, the four CPUs in the Mac Pro all use the same LGA 2011 socket, making it possible to upgrade them. This allows professional customers to update their machine as their needs changes or as technology advances. This hardware architecture is much different from Apple’s MacBook Pro and Air models, both of which ship with non-upgradeable processors that are soldered to the motherboard. If you are on the fence about the Mac Pro, does this discovery pushed over the edge and make you want to grab a Mac Pro, knowing it is extensible in the future. Continue reading →

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Nokia pulls Here Maps for iOS from App Store over iOS 7 changes that “harm user experience”

Last year, Nokia released an iOS app for its mapping service called “HERE,” possibly to try to fill the void caused by the removal of the stock Google Maps app from iOS. The company has now pulled Here Maps from the App Store, citing changes in iOS 7 that “harm user experience.” Nokia’s statement about pulling Here Maps reads: “We have made the decision to remove our HERE Maps app from the Apple App Store because recent changes to iOS 7 harm the user experience. iPhone users can continue to use the mobile web version of HERE Maps under m.here.com., offering them core location needs, such as search, routing, orientation, transit information and more, all completely free of charge.” The company bizarrely doesn’t actually say what specifically causes the user experience to deteriorate, but Nokia’s app itself was quite slow and buggy, largely because it was using HTML5, and not native code. Microsoft recently purchased Nokia’s hardware division, and Here Maps is one of the three main businesses remaining with Nokia, so it seems quite strange that Nokia would want to pull its app from a platform with hundreds of millions of users. [via Indian Express] Continue reading →

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How to change iPhone Carrier Logo in iOS 7 with Zeppelin

Zeppelin, one of my favorite jailbreak tweaks has just been updated to add support for iOS 7. In case you’re not aware, Zeppelin allows you to change your iPhone’s carrier logo. Alex Zielenski has released Zeppelin 2.0 that adds support for iOS 7, and now also gives you the option to hide logos from the list. Here’s how to change your iPhone’s carrier logo using Zeppelin: Launch Cydia Tap on the Search tab and search for Zeppelin Select Zeppelin from the search results Tap on the Install Button and then the Confirm button Tap on the Restart SpringBoard button when prompted After Zeppelin is successfully installed, launch the Settings app Navigate to Zeppelin -> Theme and select the carrier logo of your choice from the list. That’s it, you will see your iPhone’s carrier logo has been replaced with the custom logo you have selected in Zeppelin. In addition to custom carrier logos that come bundled with Zeppellin, you can also install tons of other custom carrier logos from Cydia that are available as Zeppelin addons. Check out the video walkthrough of how to change iPhone carrier logo in iOS 7 with Zeppelin below: Let me know how it goes in the comments below. Continue reading →

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iOS beat Android in online sales and mobile traffic on Christmas

IBM Digital released its online shopping trends report for December 25th, Christmas Day, and it was a banner day for mobile and iOS. Mobile sales grew 40 percent year over year, with mobile devices accounting for 29 percent of all online sales. The driver behind this big jump was iOS, which lead in both mobile sales and mobile traffic on the holiday.According to IBM, mobile traffic was up 28.3 percent and accounted for 48 percent of all online traffic. Most of this traffic comes from smartphones, which drove 28.5 percent of all online traffic. Tablets were strong in the traffic department (18.1 percent), but the category couldn’t compete with smartphones. Though tablets fell behind in overall traffic, the device category excelled in online sales. Tablets drove 19.4 percent of all online sales, with users spending about $95.61 per order. Smartphone owners grabbed 9.3 percent of sales and averaged $85.11 per order. On a platform basis, iOS beat out Android in both sales and mobile traffic. iOS accounted for 23 percent of all online sales, as compared to 4.6 percent for Android. When shopping, iOS users spent significantly more than their Android counterparts, averaging $93.94 per order as compared to $48.10 for Android owners. iOS also led in overall traffic, accounting for 32.6 percent or traffic as compared to 1.8 percent for Android. Continue reading →

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Apple fined $670k in Taiwan over iPhone pricing

Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission has fined Apple $670k after finding out that the company interferes with iPhone pricing even after selling distribution rights to carriers. From The Wall Street Journal: [Apple] has no right to meddle in companies’ iPhone pricing plans after selling them distribution rights, the commission said. The three carriers can distribute or resell iPhones at their complete discretion after paying Apple for those rights, the commission added. “Through the email correspondence between Apple and these three telecom companies we discovered the companies submit their pricing plans to Apple to be approved or confirmed before the products hit the market,” it said in a statement. Apple faces a fine of 20 million New Taiwan dollars, and has to stop meddling with the iPhone prices set by carriers in the region. The commission says it doesn’t plan to investigate Apple’s price interference with iPads, though. Continue reading →

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evasi0n7 1.0.1 Released to remove controversial TaiG Chinese App Store

evad3rs have released an update for evasi0n7, the untethered jailbreak for iOS 7 – iOS 7.0.1 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. evasi0n7 1.0.1 does not include the controversial TaiG Chinese App Store, which came bundled with the untethered jailbreak when it was released over the weekend. evasi0n7 1.0.0 installed TaiG Chinese App Store instead of Cydia if the language on the computer was set as Chinese. There was a major backlash from the jailbreak community as the Chinese App Store was hosting pirated apps. evad3rs had disabled the default installation of the TaiG Chinese App Store due to the backlash on Sunday to investigate the privacy issues reported about the Chinese App Store. It looks like they have not been able to resolve the issues as they have now removed Taig from the package: We have heard the community. Evasi0n 1.0.1 is available on http://t.co/lWu8tbs1oP. TaiG has been removed from the package. Merry Christmas! — pod2g (@pod2g) December 25, 2013 pod2g does state that the update does not includes fixes for the compatibility issues reported by iPad 2 users, and hope to release an update to fix the issues soon. We still have to work on the compatibility issue with the iPad 2, but we have been busy celebrating with our family… Tomorrow probably! — pod2g (@pod2g) December 25, 2013 If you’ve already jailbroken your iOS device using evasi0n7 then you can ignore the update. evasi0n7 is an untethered jailbreak which supports iOS 7, iOS 7.0.1, iOS 7.0.2, iOS 7.0.3, iOS 7.0.4. It is compatible with the following iOS devices: iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 iPad Air, iPad 4, iPad 3, iPad 2 Retina iPad mini, iPad mini iPod touch 5G You can download the latest update from our download page. If you need any help in jailbreaking your iOS device then check out step-by-step guides: iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS iPad Air, Retina iPad mini, iPad 4, iPad 3, iPad 2, iPad mini iPod touch 5G As always, let us know how it goes in the comments. Continue reading →

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Rumor: Tim Cook to discuss $4 billion educational iPad deal with Turkish president

Apple CEO Tim Cook has some travel plans next year that’ll bring him to Turkey to negotiate a lucrative deal with the Turkish government. While in Turkey, Cook will both meet with President Abdullah Gül as well as visit Apple’s first retail store in the country. The report surfaced in Turkish publication emlakkulisi.com and was translated by AppleInsider.Cook will meet with Gül to discuss the country’s FATIH Project, which will revolutionize education in the country by replacing textbooks with iPads. The program calls for the purchase of up to 10 to 13 million tablets and is expected to roll out over a four-year period. The total cost of the project could top $4 billion. Earlier this year, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Apple headquarters in Cupertino (as shown above) to view the company’s iPad and educational advancements. Cook also will visit Turkey’s first Apple Store in Istanbul’s Zorlu Center. The store is slated to open early next year and will resemble Apple’s well-known Fifth Avenue store in New York City. Continue reading →

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OpenEmu, an open source video game emulator, launches on the Mac

OpenEmu, an open source project that brings video game emulation to the Mac, has officially launched version 1.0 of their software. Unlike other emulators which are ported to the Mac, OpenEmu was designed from the ground up for the Mac. Besides a wide variety of ROM retro gaming starter packs that you can download, the OpenEmu software also allows you to import your own game backups and organizes your titles on your behalf. Conveniently, the software places your game into the right library and adds the original box art. Contollers often make or break a game, which is why OpenEmu supports any generic HID compliant USB or Bluetooth game controller. The app recognizes the controller and maps the controls so you don’t have to. You can download OpenEmu for free from the OpenEmu.org website for free. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments. Continue reading →

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First Mac Pro units start arriving before Christmas

Yesterday, some early buyers of the Mac Pro started receiving shipping notices that their units were leaving the hands of Apple and heading to their doorsteps. A few lucky buyers were fortunate enough to have their Mac Pro land on their doorsteps today. As reported by MacRumors, at least one forum member received their Mac Pro today. This particular customer reportedly lived on the West Coast and selected Next Day shipping. The unit was scheduled to arrive on December 26th, but Fedex was fast and dropped the unit on their doorstep today. Thus far, all Mac Pro units en route to customers are stock configurations. People who ordered custom versions that upped the processor, RAM or storage are expected to receive their Mac Pros sometime in January. Customers who order today must wait until February to receive their Mac Pro units . The new Mac Pro starts at $2999 for a desktop with a 3.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor, 12GB of RAM, Dual AMD FirePro D300 with 2GB GDDR5 VRAM each and 256GB PCIe flash storage. Continue reading →

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Geohot reverse engineers evasi0n7 jailbreak, says there’s no Chinese backdoor

Geohot has made a re-entry in the jailbreaking scene after a long absence, having tried to race the evad3rs team to an iOS 7 jailbreak, and also trying to sell it for $350k. Following these unsuccessful attempts, he has posted a breakdown of how exactly the userland portion of evasi0n works. In his writeup, geohot admits that the jailbreak he was working on was based on “leaked” exploits: I was working on a public, free of charge, china not involved, old school jailbreak with a few others. evad3rs released first. That jailbreak overlapped this one 80%, partly due to leaks, but mainly due to the exploits and methodology being the obvious choice(great minds, well you know), meaning the exploits won’t be usable next time. No more jailbreaks ever? Based on what information he obtained by reverse engineering the evasi0n binary, geohot says that the jailbreak doesn’t contain any Chinese backdoors, putting to rest privacy concerns and suspicions of evasi0n being malware. geohot has also explained how the userland portion of the jailbreak works with a first-person narration from the perspective of the evasi0n7 binary. The userland portion is the part used to achieve root access, after which there’s the difficult task of patching the kernel permanently to achieve the untethered jailbreak. The explanation is fairly complex, and involves the exploitation of a number of bugs one after the other to overcome sandboxing, gain write privileges over the filesystem and of course achieve root access. You can read the whole explanation on geohot’s website. For an alternative explanation, you can also refer to this link. Read also: How the evasi0n jailbreak for iOS 6 works Continue reading →

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Thieves drive car into Berlin Apple store, make off with display merchandise

Some Berlin thieves ditched the finesse forms of robbery and used a crude, but effective smash-and-grab method to life some merchandise from an Apple Store in Berlin.According to Bloomberg, thieves stole an Opel Corsa and drove it through the front window of the Apple Store at Berlin’s Alexa shopping mall. The thieves pillaged the store, grabbing about 100,000 euros ($137,000) of electronics. All of the stolen property were display units as the store’s inventory was locked in a back room. Berlin police department spokesman Thomas Neuendorf confirmed that this was the seventh break-in of its kind this year. “These are not amateurs,” said Neuendorf. “We suspect that we’re dealing with a gang.” Continue reading →

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Apple-backed Rockstar consortium may sell off some of its patent portfolio

People familiar with the matter claim that members of the Rockstar Consortium are looking to sell some of the patents it acquired from bankrupt communications company Nortel. The group paid $4.5 billion in 2011 for this intellectual property.According to Bloomberg, the consortium, which includes Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Ericsson and Sony, is holding discussions to sell a portion of the Nortel patent portfolio. The group is supposedly offloading some the patents after not finding big-ticket licensees for portions of the intellectual property. The consortium obtained about 4,000 patents from Nortel Networks, which was selling the patents as part of its bankruptcy. The group went head to head with Google and outbid the search company in a highly publicized patent purchase. Rockstar members won’t comment on any impending patent sales. Earlier this year, intellectual company Spherix allegedly purchased some of the patents from Rockstar in a deal that included cash, stock and a percentage of future profits. which include Continue reading →

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Apple starts shipping the Mac Pro to early adopters

Mac Pro customers who were the first to order are getting an early Christmas present. According to a report in AppleInsider, Apple is sending out shipping notices for those who ordered the base configurations.Customers who are receiving shipping notices were among the first to order the $2,999 quad-core version and the $3,999 6-core model when they became available. These models went on sale with a December ship date, which quickly slipped to February. According to reports, the Mac Pro units will be arriving after Christmas, close to the December 30th target. Apple pushed out the Mac Pro last week, just barely making good on its promise to deliver the machine by the end of the year. Continue reading →

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Rumor: iOS 7.1 not slated to arrive until March 2014

The release of iOS 7.1 may be farther away than we expect, says a report in BGR. This latest rumor places the debut of the next major version of iOS as far away as March 2014. This would give Apple almost four months of testing to go from the first developer seed of iOS 7.1, which was made available to developers in November, to its public release. Apple is allegedly adding some new features and several critical bug fixes in iOS 7.1, but these are not yet included in the beta 2 version of iOS 7.1 that is in the hands of developers. Even if Apple did add a few new features, it still doesn’t explain the exceptionally long development cycle that would span more than four months. Apple has begun seeding a new build of iOS 7.1 to testing partners, we have learned from a trusted source. iOS 7.1 beta 3 is said to bring several important bug fixes in addition to some new features, though our source was uncomfortable detailing these for us at this time. If we assume this rumor from BGR is true, then we can expect to see intermediary versions of iOS, like version 7.05, to hit devices in the coming months. Though possible, it is not very likely as that version was not handed to developers for testing and has not been spotted in server logs. For those keeping track, the most recent public version is iOS 7.0.4, which was released on November 14. Developers are a step ahead with iOS iOS 7.1 beta 2. Continue reading →

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Weekend news roundup: All the best Apple news from last week

It’s been a busy week filled with lots of jailbreak news, the debut of the new Mac Pro, and some new patents. Check out our round up below of all the best news you may have missed this past week. It’s Official: China Mobile to start selling the iPhone 5s and 5c on January 17 China Mobile and Apple announced today that the Chinese carrier will start selling the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c on January 17, 2014. The carrier will start accepting pre-orders for the iPhone 5s via the carrier’s official website (www.10086.cn) and its customer service hotline “10086″ beginning on Wednesday, December 25, 2013. This is a multi-year agreement that will likely include future versions of the iPhone. Tim Cook: Apple has big plans for 2014 that customers will love Tim Cook today sent a mail to all Apple employees reflecting upon what the company achieved in 2013, and getting people excited about Apple’s plans for 2014. evasi0n7: iOS 7 – iOS 7.0.4 Jailbreak for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch released To everyone’s surprise, the evad3rs team today released evasi0n jailbreak for iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad. evasi0n is an untethered jailbreak for devices running iOS 7.0 through iOS 7.0.4. Snapchat for iOS gets Replay, Visual Filters, Front Camera Flash and more Ephemeral messaging service Snapchat has released a major update for its iOS app that brings some interesting new features such as Replay, photo filters, smart filters and more. Google had to “start over” on Android after Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone Google acquired Andy Ruby’s startup Android in 2005, and the company was scheduled to release the first Android phone by the end of 2007. But according to a Google engineer, the company had to start over on Android after seeing the iPhone for the first time. Roundup of first Mac Pro early impressions and hands-on reviews Apple started selling its new Mac Pro today in Apple stores and third-party retailers across the globe. The company also handed out review units to select journalists, who have started the lengthy process of reviewing the machine. Before they poke, prod and push the machine to its limits, these reviewers have taken the time to share their first impressions of the device — how it looks, how it feels and how it performs right out of the box. These early reviews are so fresh, you can almost smell the new plastic in the air. Read on if you want to learn more about the first Mac Pros to hit the wild. Researchers able to activate MacBook camera without triggering the warning light One reassuring feature of the Mac was its camera indicator light that glows when an app is accessing the front camera. This feature protects you from spying eyes that want to activate the camera to film you as go about your business. Mac owners believed they were safe as long as the indicator light was off, but that assumption is unfortunately wrong says a new research paper. Apple wins patent detailing “desk-free” wireless computer with built-in projector Apple has today been awarded a patent that describes a wireless “desk-free” computer with an integrated projector aimed to be extremely portable, with its only component being a computer housing. Apple releases the Best of 2013 for the App Store and iTunes Apple has announced its annual iTunes Store awards for 2013. It has announced the best apps, music, movies, TV shows, books and podcasts of the year. Apple’s new holiday commercial will leave you teary eyed Apple is known for its once-a-year holiday commercials that showcase its flagship products in a holiday setting. Two years ago, Apple focused on the iPhone 4s and Siri, while last year the iPad and FaceTime took center stage. This year’s clip features the iPhone, its movie making capabilities and the convenience of AirPlay streaming to an Apple TV. http://www.iphonehacks.com/2013/12/pegatron-face-recognition-underage-workers.html Apple supplier Pegatron is using face recognition to combat the problem of underage workers in its factories in China, The Wall Street Journal reports. Apple may have fixed exploits used for iOS 7 Jailbreak in iOS 7.1 Over the weekend, pod2g, a key member of the evad3rs dismissed rumors that the iOS 7 jailbreak was stolen. Continue reading →

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It’s Official: China Mobile to start selling the iPhone 5s and 5c on January 17

China Mobile and Apple announced today that the Chinese carrier will start selling the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c on January 17, 2014. The carrier will start accepting pre-orders for the iPhone 5s via the carrier’s official website (www.10086.cn) and its customer service hotline “10086″ beginning on Wednesday, December 25, 2013. This is a multi-year agreement that will likely include future versions of the iPhone.Both China Mobile and Apple seem pleased with the deal, which will bring the iPhone to the world’s largest cellular carrier. As of this quarter, China Mobile has over 700 million subscribers, which eclipses the largest carriers in the US — Verizon Wireless and AT&T, both of which have between 100 and 120 million each. China Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua and Apple CEO Tim Cook say in the press release: “Apple’s iPhone is very much loved by millions of customers around the world. We know there are many China Mobile customers and potential new customers who are anxiously awaiting the incredible combination of iPhone on China Mobile’s leading network. We are delighted that iPhone on China Mobile will support our 4G/TD-LTE and 3G/TD-SCDMA networks, providing customers with high-speed mobile service,” said Xi Guohua, China Mobile Chairman. “Apple has enormous respect for China Mobile and we are excited to begin working together. China is an extremely important market for Apple and our partnership with China Mobile presents us the opportunity to bring iPhone to the customers of the world’s largest network,” said Tim Cook, Apple CEO. “iPhone customers in China are an enthusiastic and rapidly growing group, and we can’t think of a better way to welcome in the Chinese New Year than getting an iPhone into the hands of every China Mobile customer who wants one.” China Mobile customers looking to buy an iPhone on launch will be able to shop at China Mobile’s network of retail stores as well as Apple retail stores. Pricing will be available at a later date. Continue reading →

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evad3rs apologises for piracy on Taig Chinese Cydia, says another group of hackers was planning to release iOS 7 jailbreak

The evad3rs has posted the story behind the rushed release of the evasi0n7 jailbreak for iOS 7 that took everyone by surprise. The controversy surrounding the release has been twofold, one is the inclusion of a Chinese App Store hosting pirated content and the other is the “rushed” release timeline. The evad3rs team says that the Chinese App Store Taig has indeed paid them money to bundle the software with evasi0n for Chinese users. They, however, contractually forbid Taig to include pirated content (paid iOS apps) in their App Store, which obviously the company didn’t follow. The team is now taking action, and has already instructed Taig to remove sources that host pirated content. If the piracy isn’t removed, evad3rs team says they’ll pull Taig from the evasi0n jailbreak. As for the rushed timeline of the release and the incompatibility with MobileSubstrate, and why saurik wasn’t given a prerelease build of evasi0n, the team says that another team was trying to release a jailbreak ahead of evad3rs. This team had in fact partnered with SaurikIT, saurik’s company to release the jailbreak, which is what prompted the unexpected public release of evasi0n. The team says that there’s nothing wrong in benefiting financially in ethical ways, but its “ethical” ways come into question due to the fact that they didn’t make their users aware of Taig, the Chinese App Store, and more importantly, about the pirated content hosted on it. Here’s the full letter: Dear Jailbreak Community, We are deeply troubled by the rumors and speculation surrounding our iOS 7 jailbreak. We would like to present the whole story to you. Most of the concern surrounds the inclusion of the Chinese App Store Taig. In the course of developing the iOS 7 jailbreak, we were approached by the company with an offer of partnership in offering Taig bundled with the jailbreak in China. Taig is a Chinese App Store written in Chinese. tailored and, we believe, well suited to meet the needs of users for the Chinese market. Users are not locked into Taig. Cydia can also be installed and Taig removed afterwards. It would be deeply hypocritical to remove choice from the user in the course of jailbreaking. Taig has never asked us to disclose our exploits to them, let alone sell them. We were simply asked to bundle their third-party app store in China in a similar way we bundle and distribute Cydia around the world as an additional App Store, and in a similar way to how previous jailbreaks like blackra1n have bundled non-Cydia stores. Of course, the safety and security of our users is a paramount concern, and due to the amount of close scrutiny by security professionals around the world, we offer one of the lower risk programs available for download on the Internet. We are saddened by the accusations that we would ever do such a thing, or sell weaponized exploits. If anyone ever attempted to include malware in a jailbreak, we are confident that the many security experts combing through jailbreak software would find it. The binaries are obfuscated for a similar reason to why we have in the past compiled in Cydia rather than including it as a separate file. We wish to secure the integrity of the jailbreak and discourage its use by third parties who may in fact wish to weaponize it. The obfuscation is of course not intended to deflect serious analysis by security professionals (who have quickly already fully analyzed and discussed the contents of the jailbreak), it is simply intended to prevent easy repackaging by other parties. Preventing piracy is also extremely important to us. We are deeply sorry and embarrassed about the piracy that was seen today. All of us have spoken out vehemently against piracy in the past. We don’t believe it’s right for developers to not get paid for their work. In our agreement with Taig, we contractually bind them to not have piracy in their store. This was an extremely important precondition of working with them. In entering the agreement with them, we had hoped and continue to hope that our cooperation with Taig will improve the piracy situation in China. Many App Stores within China, including those run by large corporations, have many issues with pirated software. Promoting an app store that is required not to have piracy with our jailbreak, we believe, will help developers. We are very upset that despite our agreement and review by their team, piracy was found in the store. It was not acceptable and they have been strenuously working to resolve the problem in good faith, and have removed all instances of it that we have brought to their attention. We are happy that it was not overlooked by the community. We’ve been so heads down working on the code that we didn’t see this. We are sorry. We will continue to monitor this issue and work to resolve it completely. Taig will be pulled from the jailbreak if it cannot be resolved. Many of you have also wondered why this jailbreak was released without Cydia and MobileSubstrate being updated for iOS 7. After we received the offer from Taig, we informed Saurik, our friend, of our decision to accept the offer. SaurikIT had been in talks with Chinese companies regarding potential partnerships, made a counteroffer. We believe they share our views on how a relationship with companies in China currently utilizing jailbreaking might benefit everyone in the community. Unfortunately, the negotiations did not work out. A few days later, we received information that SaurikIT was working with another group to release a jailbreak ahead of us. We decided to release, knowing that Cydia, MobileSubstrate, and jailbreak tweaks would be updated after a few days, just as it always has in the course of jailbreaking. Yes, we have benefitted financially from our work, just as many others in the jailbreak community have, including tweak developers, repo owners, etc. Any jailbreak from us will always be free to the users but we believe we have a right to be compensated in an ethical way, just as any other developer. However, the interests of the community will always be the most important thing to us. When releasing the jailbreak, we pledged all our donations to foundations supporting the interests of the community. We are deeply upset at how we have inadvertently distressed the community and we are focused on fixing it. We love the jailbreak community and you motivate us to do this work. Having a choice and freeing your device is important. We hope you understand and we thank you for all of your support. evad3rs Let us know what you think about the letter in the comments below. [via evad3rs] Continue reading →

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PSA: Jailbreak apps and tweaks relying on MobileSubstrate may have issues with evasi0n7 on iOS 7

The evad3rs team took everyone by surprise with the release of evasi0n7 jailbreak for iOS 7, including the creator of Cydia, Jay Freeman aka saurik. This means tweaks relying on mobilesubstrate could have issues with the new jailbreak. Freeman complained that he was not given early builds of evasi0n, so he couldn’t ensure MobileSubstrate was working fine. He also said that he wasn’t asked for an official Cydia build for iOS 7, and the Cydia build included in evasi0n is “unofficial.” pod2g, member of the evad3rs team said that they’re working on a fix for the MobileSubstrate related issues, which could be delivered as a 1.x update to evasi0n7. Tweaks relying on mobilesubstrate have issues with early release of evasi0n. Keep away from that for the moment, we're working on a fix. — pod2g (@pod2g) December 22, 2013 So, I got no lead time on evasi0n7, nor was I asked for an official iOS 7 Cydia; I was not given builds, nor was I asked for things to test. — Jay Freeman (saurik) (@saurik) December 22, 2013 In fact, @evad3rs didn't even try my testing build of Substrate I gave core developers, so they didn't notice a fundamental incompatibility. — Jay Freeman (saurik) (@saurik) December 22, 2013 I thereby have no clue what will or will not work, or even what evasi0n7 includes; I hope that people bear with me as I figure this all out. — Jay Freeman (saurik) (@saurik) December 22, 2013 Most jailbreak apps rely on MobileSubstrate to tweak system functions, so this could make the first version of evasi0n disappointing for many people who would want to change the way iOS 7 looks or functions. Hopefully, a fix is released soon. Continue reading →

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Stay Charged on the Go with this Backup Battery Bundle [Deals Hub]

You’re probably spending the holiday season on the go, be it traveling to visit family and friends or just out and about all day picking up gifts and other seasonal necessities. Your mobile devices can keep you company, but sometimes the battery just can’t keep up with you. That’s why it’s best to have a backup power, and you’ll have plenty with the Travel Battery Bundle from Just Mobile. It’s on sale now in the iPhone Hacks Deals Hub. You’ll get some extra power exactly when you need it with the Travel Battery Bundle. The Gum is a small, stylish solution for a dying battery. It’s a 2200mAh boost that can power up your device via USB. If you’re in the car, plug in the Highway and give yourself a full charge in no time. You can get both the Gum and the Highway in the Travel Battery Bundle for just $59.99 in the iPhone Hacks Deals Hub. That’s a savings of 33% off the retail price. It’s a great price to provide you with access to your mobile devices when you need them, so grab this offer while you can. Continue reading →

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IMDb’s app updated with iOS 7 design, new Oscars section and more

IMDb, the world’s largest movie and TV database, has updated its iOS app to version 4, that comes with an all-new design in line with the iOS 7 design language, and a bunch of other features including a new Oscars section. Here are the full release notes: - New iOS7 look and feel! - New navigation and homepages for iphone, including a sleek dropdown menu, accessible from every page. - Road to the Oscars® section – get all your nominations and award season photos leading up to The Academy Awards®, including live results during both the Golden Globes and The Academy Awards® broadcasts. - Name lists! Finally, you can keep track of your favorite people! - New list sorts and filters (including the much requested Release Date sort for Watchlists). - Vote on interesting name trivia, title trivia, quotes, and goofs. If the app hasn’t been automatically updated, you can download the update via the Updates tab in the App Store app or use the iTunes link below. Download link: ➤ IMDb – free Continue reading →

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iOS App of the Week: Prismatic adds a social twist to your news feed

Prismatic launched as a news aggregator that recommended news items based on your interests. An update that landed today radically changes the app, adding a social layer on top of the news. Along with the new social features is a brand new look and feel for iOS 7. Rather than an Instapaper-like approach to consuming news, the latest version of Prismatic focuses on social sharing. You can create a free account, follow other users and have them follow you back. There’s also the ability to comment, but unlike most blog commenting system, Prismatic appends your comment to the original and posts it your stream. There’s even a like or dislike an article in a manner that’s similar to what you see in Facebook. An activity feed keeps the news and your comments flowing in a steady stream. Prismatic is a very social experience like Twitter or Facebook, but it lacks the noise you find on those other networks. It is all about the news and what people are saying about it, not pretty pictures of someone’s dinner. I get a lot of my news from Twitter and must admit that the pure news feed in Prismatic is a welcome relief. Prismatic is known for its news recommendation engine and that feature isn’t lost in this update. If anything, these social features add a welcome, new dimension to the underlying news curation of the app. Previous users who prefer to read the news alone may find the update a bit jarring, but those who are used to communicating on a social network will feel right at home. Prismatic is available for free from the iOS App Store. It is a universal app, so its available for the iPhone and iPad. Check it our and let us know what you think in the comments. Continue reading →

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Apple adds FaceTime audio calling to OS X Mavericks 10.9.2

Apple rolled out a new developer version of OS X Mavericks 10.9.2 today and introduced a few new exciting features, says a report by 9to5mac. Besides a few minor tweaks in Mail, Apple allegedly added support for FaceTime audio in its Messages and FaceTime apps. So what does this mean for users? 9to5Mac didn’t elaborate on the changes, but they did say that FaceTime audio has been “integrated deeply” into both the Messages and FaceTime apps. This likely means OS X owners will be able to send and receive FaceTime audio calls with other OS X and iOS owners. It would be very similar to how Skype works — allowing users to make video calls, audio calls and send text-based messages between users. The biggest difference between cross-platform FaceTime audio and Skype is that it would (presumably) work seamlessly across devices and would not require users to install a new app and login with new credentials. Continue reading →

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Roundup of first Mac Pro early impressions and hands-on reviews

Apple started selling its new Mac Pro today in Apple stores and third-party retailers across the globe. The company also handed out review units to select journalists, who have started the lengthy process of reviewing the machine. Before they poke, prod and push the machine to its limits, these reviewers have taken the time to share their first impressions of the device — how it looks, how it feels and how it performs right out of the box. These early reviews are so fresh, you can almost smell the new plastic in the air. Read on if you want to learn more about the first Mac Pros to hit the wild. Overall, the early impressions of the machine are favorable with most reviewers commenting on the machine’s radical cylindrical design. Though sold as black, the machine is more like a black-tinged aluminum, which appears to be closer to the space grey side of the color spectrum. Performance is solid, but nobody has had the time to really put the machine through its paces, yet. The full reviews should be coming at the end of the month, right before the early adopters receive their machines in the mail. Dana Wollman for Engadget “Well, we’d hardly be doing the machine justice if we did a deep dive now, but rest assured we’ll be putting the Pro through its paces over the coming days, with a full review to follow soon. Suffice to say, we’ve already seen it play back 16 simultaneous 4K streams in the new version of Final Cut Pro, with zero waiting time as effects were applied to the original footage.” David Pierce for The Verge “It cuts a striking figure, despite its relatively small stature. It’s also incredibly dense, far heavier than I expected … But we’ve been using it for a few minutes and it’s quiet and cool, with little indication that it’s even on in the first place. It’s so unassuming and unadorned that you almost overlook it — that’s a huge improvement from the big, boxy previous models. “There’s a lot to explore, but one thing’s for sure: there’s never been a computer quite like this before.” Dan Ackerman for CNET “The new Mac Pro is a professional workhorse dressed up in a very appealing high-design package … In our preliminary benchmark testing, the system turned in excellent scores, ripping through video encoding and other tasks.” Jason Snell for Macworld “The Mac Pro is closer in color to the “Space Gray” of the current iPad and iPhone models than to black. Though the gray finish looks even lighter with bright light reflecting off of it, as you can see here … It’s shiny, attractive, and a magnet for fingerprints. We suspect scratches will be easily noticeable, as well.” Continue reading →

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Apple seeds OS X Mavericks 10.9.2 beta version 1 to developers

Now that OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 has been released to the masses, Apple is looking ahead to the next version of OS X Mavericks 10.9. Today, the company made some progress in that direction by releasing the first beta version of OS X 10.9.2 to developers. The release notes for 10.9.2 contains the standard warning to not install the software on a production machine with information that is important. It is a gentle reminder to new developers that this is a pre-release build and could contain critical bugs that effect the performance of your machine. Apple also warns users that they can not revert back to the previous system after updating. As part of this build, Apple is asking users to focus on five major areas. Not surprisingly, Mail is at the top of the focus list followed by Messages,VPN, Graphics Drivers and VoiceOver. The download is available from OS X Developer Center on Apple’s website. Continue reading →

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BBM Voice, BBM Channels and more coming to BBM for iPhone in 2014

BlackBerry has detailed its 2014 roadmap for BBM for iPhone on its blog. Here are the new features that will be added to BBM over the next year, some of which are already present in BlackBerry phones. BBM Voice BBM Voice will let you make free long distance calls to anyone in the world with BBM over the internet. Much like FaceTime Audio or Skype. BBM Channels BBM Channels are conversation rooms that include BBM users beyond your contact list. Kind of like IRCs or forums centred around certain interests. Faster and Easier sharing of photos, voice recordings, location BBM will let you share your photos, voice notes in a single touch with your friends. You’ll also be able to share your live, constantly updating location with your friends, for a limited time. Once the timer runs out, your location would be private again. New emoticons BlackBerry says it’ll be adding 100 new emoticons, including ROTFL, Epic Fail, Face palm, a serious hug and smiley-poo. BlackBerry says it is beta testing these features on Android and iPhone, and they should be released publicly in the next few months. [via BlackBerry] Continue reading →

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