News - page 1341

With summer coming up, it’s the perfect time to start planning your vacation. As a result it’s also the perfect time to download Kayak Pro, the smart hotel, flight, and car search and booking app.

This iOS app makes everything from booking flights to accommodation a straightforward, hassle-free task, with hundreds of available options and a ton of smart in-app features. These include a fight tracker to check that your flight is on time, price alerts regarding cheap destination tickets, and even maps to help you find your way around airport terminals.

Bullish billionaire activist-investor Carl Icahn recently ramped up his stake in Apple to the tune of 2.8 million shares — bringing his total stake in the company to a little over $4.4 billion.

Icahn’s position was revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Thursday, showing how Icahn now owns more than 7.5 million AAPL shares. The buy took place during the March period, which preceded Apple’s announcement of the 7-to-1 stock split and share repurchase program.

iOS devices have made tools like video editing more accessible for the general public, but they’re increasingly being used by the pros too.

Car maker Bentley’s latest ad, called “Intelligent Details,” was shot and edited using only an iPhone 5s (for filming), iPad Air (for stitching it all together) and handheld of accessories — including iPhones lenses and mounts.

The use of the iMovie iOS software meant that filmmakers were able to carry out the majority of the editing work from the back seat of their car.

If you’re anything like me, you’re constantly shuffling around town (or around the country) with bits. No, not those bits; you know the ones I’m talking about: pens, cables, more pens, headphones, USB sticks, pocket knives and pens. They get shoved into a small pocket in a bag, where they sit, unharmonious and disorganized, until I fumble around for them.

David and Calvin Laituri of design outfit Onehundred have a better way. The father-son team have come up with Ledr, a leather strip that organizes all that stuff and rolls it up into a compact toolkit.

You’ve probably noticed Booq’s odd penchant for naming their strange, sophisticated baggage after snakes. And if you’ve really been paying attention, you’ll have noticed variations on one species crop up over and over again: The Booq Boa.

The Boa’s DNA has mutated into a variety of different forms, all with the purpose of carrying a MacBook and associated equipment. But the newest iteration, the Boa Flow Graphite, may be the most perfect yet — especially for those of us who lug a MacBook and DSLR on adventures.

Barry Allen, also known as The Flash, gets his own TV show this fall on the CW, the network that brought you Smallville for ten years.

In this extended trailer (below), we get to see the fastest man alive’s origin, which in this version seems to be a combination of getting hit by lightning and being doused in some weird green chemicals.

While the exciting superhero scenes in the trailer below are probably culled from the best bits of the show, which will may more likely consist of mostly long, lingering looks and beautiful people in soft lighting, we have to say we’re pretty excited to see the return of the DC speedster to the small screen, even if his costume looks a bit silly.

There are few companies you can trust with your private data ever since the revelations leaked by Edward Snowden shook the tech world last year, but according to the latest report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, our iPhone-making friends in Cupertino have gone from being a privacy chump to the people’s champ in just a year.

Dong Nguygen struck App Store gold when Flappy Bird became the viral video game hit of the year in early 2014, but after seeing the addicting affects of flapping it first hand, Nguyen says he’s working on a new game that doesn’t involve feathery friends, green pipes or repetitive deaths.

Nguygen took to Twitter this afternoon to give fans a preview of his next his next addicting game by posting a screenshot showing a small helmeted man jumping between two buildings; simple, clean, and probably just as addictive as his original hit.

The FIFA World Cup 2014 is set to get underway in Brazil in less than a month which will bring four years worth of soccer football promotions packed into a month of kicking, grass stains and sweat to your TV.

Giraffas, a one of the largest restaurant chains in Brazil, may have already scored the coolest cross promotion with their clever iOS app that turns your greasy tray of fastfood into a tiny soccer shootout game.

Check out how it works in the video below:

Along with the OS X Mavericks update it released this morning, Apple also published a new version of iTunes that will make sure you never miss an episode of your favorite podcast again.

iTunes 11.2 adds a couple of improvements to the Podcast section of iTunes that make browsing between subscribed podcasts easier by showing you which episodes you haven’t listened to, thanks to a new Unplayed tab.

After months of beta testing Apple has finally made OS X 10.9.3 available for public release.

The update is light on new features but does pave the way for 4K to come to the iMac in the future thanks to new support for a full range of Retina scaling modes for 4K monitors, allowing users to juice their extra pixels to make things crisper instead of just smaller.

Foursquare is reinventing itself, and a new app called Swarm is the first piece of the puzzle.

Launched today in the App Store, Swarm is a tool for finding friends based on their general location and check-ins. While Apple’s Find My Friends pinpoints you exactly on a map, Swarm takes a different, more friendly approach.

Hey bike thieves – if you see a Skylock on my bike, then go ahead and cut through my frame and leave the lock behind. Why? Because my shitty beater cost like €50 and the Skylock is $250, that’s why.

$250? Yup, although you get a lot of tech for that money.

Sometimes, not very often, old technology beats the heck out of new technology.

Okay, so it’s not an entirely fair test to base technological superiority on who comes out intact in a confrontation between a present generation iMac and a WWII anti-tank rifle, but it sure makes for a fun video.

Just yesterday I had the experience of sending a text message to the wrong person. Okay, luckily it wasn’t a compromising message in any sense, but it goes to show what happens when you’re carrying out too many text conversations at the same time.

Clearly someone at Apple has had a similar experience, because a patent published Thursday reveals how future iOS devices might incorporate background images of the people you’re messaging, to ensure you don’t send out misdirected messages.

A lot of people I know used to use Birdbrain as their iOS Twitter client back in the day, but in recent times it’s fallen by the wayside due to a lack of updates.

Well, it’s back — and it’s just received a major revamp, adding support and optimization for iOS 7, brand new graphs showing Twitter statistics, and more.

They’re big, they’re unwieldy, and they represent one-third of all handsets presently available worldwide.

According to new research undertaken by Canalys, around 34% of smartphones shipped worldwide have screens measuring upwards of five inches diagnoally. The rise in popularity of the so-called “phablet” (describing a smartphone with a screen between 5.0 and 6.9 inches) bodes very well for Apple, ahead of its eagerly anticipated 5.5-inch iPhone 6, which we fully expect to see arrive this September.

Apple’s much-discussed acquisition of Beats Electronics might not be finalised until next week, according to “people familiar with the transaction.”

Facebook is fine-tuning not only how you share stuff, but what content you see after you share.

That’s the goal of an update to its iOS app that is designed to cut down on accidental oversharing by giving users a preview of their posts before they go live. It could be something you don’t want the whole Facebook world seeing, like the embarrassing TV show you’re currently watching.

In a related experiment, some users of the main Facebook app are also seeing additional content suggestions from Facebook after posting.

The most addicting game to ever hit the App Store will make its triumphant return in August. Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen tells CNBC that he has a new version in the works, but this time it won’t be as addictive.

iPhone 6 case leaks have been sprouting up like spring flowers this May, and while we still have a long wait until Apple reveals the date of its iPhone 6 event, its retail stores might already be prepping for a Fall launch.

Apple retail stores have started blacking out vacation dates for employees in September, pointing to a probable September launch for Apple’s bigger screened iPhone.

Answer: because the new standalone ToonsTV iOS app, for iPhone and iPad, is only available in Finland.

If you happen to have a Finnish iTunes account, though, you can now download your very own standalone iOS app to watch Rovio’s surprisingly broad offerings of animated entertainment, ToonsTV.

As the nation grows more obese yet car culture still rules, here’s the nudge of the hour: your car and your fitness app talking to each other, reminding you that you’re not moving enough.

Automatic’s smart driving assistant can turn your old hunk of junk into a smart car, but the company announced today that it’s teamed up with Jawbone to whip your belly rolls into shape by giving drivers more insight into how your physical activity and driving patterns are connected.

Nintendo won’t bring its popular game franchises to iOS, and Apple won’t allow emulators in the App Store. In order to play titles like Super Mario and Zelda on your iPhone, then, you have to look at unofficial alternatives. GBA4iOS was one of the most popular — but after its creators received a DMCA notice from Nintendo this week, it is no more.

Your iPhone’s speakers suck. No amount of magical design from Jony Ive can change the laws of physics to give those itsy-bitsy tweeters earth-shattering bass, but plenty of acoustic iPhone docks are willing to try.

We’ve seen a menagerie of speaker docks over the years, and while most stick to being practical, we love the weird creations that make you do a double-take. We’ve gathered 14 of the most incredible iPhone docks you’ll ever see in the gallery above.

Got your own favorite bizarre dock for your iDevice? Let us know in the comments below.