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Apple adopts third-party API's for one of its own iOS apps. This is big news and a possible change in it's thinking.

Thu, Mar 21 2013 07:35 | IOS, Musical, Apple


third part ios api
Apple has updated GarageBand on iOS with support for Audiobus, a third-party interface that lets you use multiple music creation apps at the same time. Since Audiobus launched late last year, the developers behind several music apps have adopted it as a de facto communication standard for iOS, and it's easy to see why. The simple interface exponentially increases the iPad's value as a music creation tool by letting you do all the recording and sequencing on a single device without complex file imports, as well as enabling apps to talk to each other. For example, you could now record a synth track in Korg's iMS-20, filter it through the Amplitude amp modeler, and record the results as a track in GarageBand.

Apps can support Audiobus in up to three ways: as input, effect, or output. GarageBand only works as an output, meaning that you can't feed its own instruments into other apps; instead, the Audiobus support means you can use GarageBand to record and sequence sounds from Animoog, Figure, and a whole host of other apps that work as an input. When you launch one of those apps through Audiobus and select GarageBand as your output, you'll see a tab on the side of the screen that you can use to record your performance without actually switching apps. Once you're done recording you can use the tab to switch back to GarageBand, where your performance will appear just as if you'd played it within the app itself.
While GarageBand is just one of many apps that can be used in this way — Cubasis, Beatmaker 2, and Auria are popular choices — at $4.99 it's definitely one of the cheaper options for multitrack recording. It's also intriguing that Apple has seen fit to adopt a third-party API for one of its own iOS apps. This could signal a desire from the company to come up with a more robust way to share data between apps on iOS, or it might just show that Apple is content to let developers find their own solutions. Either way, Audiobus is likely to gain a lot more traction now that it has Cupertino's official blessing, and its creators have chopped its regular $9.99 price in half to celebrate.
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shane blyth
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IntelliscreenX - Another Reason To Jailbreak Your iPhone

Wed, Feb 6 2013 03:23 | IOS, iPhone, Jailbreak, Apple
One of the best reasons to Jailbreak your iPhone is IntelliscreenX.
This is one amazing add-on.

Features:
- View Calendar, Email, Text Messages, News, Facebook, Twitter, Weather, and more from your iPhone "Slide To Unlock" screen
- Taskbar Icons for Missed Email, SMS, Phone calls, and Silent status
- QuickView/Preview Entire Email
- View/Mark Read/Unread/Delete your Emails from the Lock Screen
- Reply to SMS/iMessages with Message+ (free)
- Completely integrated into iOS6 Notification Center
- Integrated Twitter and Facebook pages
- Post/Comment/Tweet from anywhere
- Access QuickSettings like brightness, airplane mode, Bluetooth +
- Advanced RSS Reader uses iOS 6 Reader to show "just" news
- Can "pull down" and display in any app!

As always you need a jailbroken IOS device and then go search in Cydia app to find this


Someones done a great video so watch it


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shane blyth
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Auxo – One Reason I Jailbroke My iPhone

Wed, Feb 6 2013 03:09 | IOS, iPhone, Jailbreak, Apple

Auxo-1024x7512

Auxo – the awesome replacement for the iOS app switcher, which we had previewed few days back is now available on Cydia.
Auxo is based on a concept by designer @Sentry_NC aims to replace the app switcher. The designer has joined hands with Jack Willis, and JamieD360 to make the concept a reality.
Auxo replaces the app icons in the app switcher with a card-like screenshot of the current state of the app. The card-like screenshot makes it easier to identify the app you want to launch from the app switcher.
You can remove apps from the app switcher by swiping down on the app rather than going through the tedious process of pressing and holding the Home button etc. You can also kill multiple apps by using multiple fingers (though it is debatable if killing apps is a good idea). We liked the feature where the jailbreak tweak prompts you if you really want to close the music app when the music is playing in the background.
The jailbreak tweak allows you to access some of the frequently used toggles such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth etc.
Auxo also redesigns the music controls that are available when you swipe from left to right, with album artwork etc and gives you quick access to the volume controls. Check out the video walkthrough.
Auxo is available on Cydia for $1.99. Auxo is currently compatible with iOS 6, but the developers are planning  to release an update to add support iOS 5.x.x sometime next week. They also plan to release Auxo for iPad shortly.

You require a Jailbroken IOS device and then simply open the cydia app to done load it
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Jailbreak now avaialable for all Devices Running IOS6 and 6.1

Tue, Feb 5 2013 04:13 | IOS, iPhone, Jailbreak, Apple
http://www.jailbreaknation.com/jailbreak-6.1-untethered-with-evasi0n-for-ios-6-iphone-5-4s-4-3gs-ipod-touch-5g-4g-ipad-mini-432

Here is a video tutorial, step-by-step:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYoOxZZN32o


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Untethered iOS 6.0.2 Jailbreak For iPhone 5, Yes!

Sun, Jan 6 2013 08:29 | IOS, Jailbreak
planetbeing from the iPhone Dev team has revealed on reddit that he has an untethered iOS 6.0.2 jailbreak running on iPhone 5.
planetbeing had this to say:
Yeah, I’m not really sure what all the doom and gloom is about. The fact is, I have an untethered iOS 6.0.2 JB running on my iPhone 5 right now. The reasons it’s not released are because 1. releasing it would burn an exploit we want to save for ourselves so we can always get in to look at new firmware and help JB in the future, 2. iOS 6.1 is coming very soon and will likely break a small part of it anyway, there’s no point in sacrificing the many bugs it won’t break.
Anyway, where there are 4+ bugs (that it took to get this to work), there’s gotta be one or two more so while jailbreaking is getting harder, reports of its death are highly exaggerated.
This is not stuff I want to say over Twitter with 140 characters because I’m afraid of starting some sort of riot, but I like the smaller /r/jailbreak community more.
planetbeing has also clarified that it is a fully working jailbreak, which allows you to run MobileSubstrate, which is required for jailbreak tweaks. The other good news is that pod2g seems to have returned to jailbreak development after submitting his app to Apple for approval.
He (pod2g) didn’t (say he has returned to jailbreak development), but hey, at least he told me last night he looked into a couple of bugs (without much success) recently, after basically not being around since WWJC, so that’s cool. I doubt he wants to promise he’ll be around working on this full time however. I haven’t worked on any jailbreak stuff for a couple of months as well, not until basically I was flying back from 29C3 in Germany and realized/remembered I actually know about enough bugs to put together an entire untethered jailbreak (still unreleasable due to reasons I stated in my other comment here).
Jay Freeman aka saurik who is the founder of Cydia also confirmed it:
I actually was working with pod2g (albeit with a worse headache than I’ve had in at least a year, so mostly as a “gdb test monkey”), and can thereby personally attest that he didn’t just say it, he actually did it ;P.
Apple has released four beta versions of iOS 6.1 and is expecting to release a final version in the first half of this month.
Jailbreakers should avoid upgrading to iOS 6.1 when it is released.
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Google Maps app for iPhone now available for iPhone

Thu, Dec 13 2012 05:45 | IOS, Apple

6

The rumors are true! Google Maps for iPhone is now available in the App Store. One of the biggest things it offers that Apple Maps doesn't is public transit directions by train, bus, or subway.
The main features of Google Maps includes built-in Google local search, voice guided turn-by-turn navigation, public transit directions, and Google Street View. You can also discover places to eat, drink, shop, and play including rating and reviews. If you sign in, you can save and quickly access all your past searches and direction from your computer, right on your iPhone.
Additionally, Google Maps lets you access live traffic information in cities across the world, see inside more that 100,000 businesses worldwide, and view high resolution satellite imagery of locations around the world.
Personally, I'm having issues installing Google Maps and keep getting a "this item is no longer available" error, but others are able to download it fine. We've heard installing through iTunes on your computer might be a good work around as well.
When you get it installed, let us know what you think!

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shane blyth
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Qantas Confirms: Passbook Support Incoming For Airline Boarding Passes

Wed, Nov 28 2012 11:00 | IOS
Featured18
The Australian airline Qantas has recently announced that Passbook support for boarding passes is now available.
First reported by Australian Business Traveller on Tuesday, the news means that Qantas customers can take advantage of an “Add to Passbook” button when they receive digital boarding passes. As such, passes can be stored within the Passbook application, and scanned upon arrival at the departure airport.
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Qantas Passbook passes
Passes change color depending on the user’s frequent flyer status, and multiple passes can easily be stored on a single iPhone.
However, this isn’t all Qantas has in store for for its iPhone-equipped customers. As Australian Business Traveller notes:
A Qantas spokesperson says the airline is “working on further developments to the app which will enable live updates to the boarding passes. We expect that this extension will be in place by late January 2013.”
Passbook is really taking off, don’t you think?
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Microsoft Office coming to Android and IOS Devices next year

Thu, Nov 8 2012 07:05 | IOS, Software, Andriod, Microsoft
Microsoft's Office for iPad, iPhone, and Android is a reality. Although Office Mobile has been rumored and reportedly spotted in the wild, Microsoft has remained persistently quiet about its plans for the product. The Verge has learned through several sources close to Microsoft's plans that the company will release Office versions for Android and iOS in early 2013.

Office Mobile will debut in the form of free apps that allow Android and iOS users to view Microsoft Office documents on the move. Like the existing SkyDrive and OneNote apps, Office Mobile will require a Microsoft account. On first launch, a Microsoft account will provide access to the basic viewing functionality in the apps. Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents will all be supported, and edit functionality can be enabled with an Office 365 subscription.
Microsoft will allow iOS users to purchase an Office 365 subscription within the app, or let organizations distribute codes to enable Office Mobile editing for users. The apps will allow for basic editing, but we're told this won't go very far in attempting to replace regular full use of a desktop Office version.

A recent Microsoft press release from the company's Czech Republic subsidiary revealed that Office Mobile apps for Android and iOS would be made available from March 2013. We understand that Office Mobile for iOS will arrive first in late February or early March, with an Android version due in May.
We reached out to Microsoft for comment on this story and a company spokesperson says "Office will work across Windows Phone, iOS and Android."
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Google Street View available in your mobile browser

Thu, Oct 4 2012 06:13 | IOS, Software, Google
www.tech-sanity.com

Google’s popular Street View feature is set to arrive for the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad by way of the Web version of Google Maps, according to Walt Mossberg of AllThingsD.
The feature, which will be available at http://maps.google.com using a mobile Web browser, displays 360-degree photographic street views of selected locations, and interior views of certain businesses.


Mossberg also confirms that Google is working on a new Google Maps app for iOS, one that would “be offered as an optional download.” This version, which will support the iPhone and iPad, should arrive in the App Store by the end of the year.
This news comes less than a week after Apple CEO Tim Cook apologized for the iOS 6 version of Maps app. The often criticized version replaced the Google Maps-based app that came standard on iOS through version 5.
According to the report, Street View will arrive tomorrow, Thursday, Oct. 4.

google-street-view

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Big update for iPhoto for iOS 6.

Thu, Sep 20 2012 01:51 | IOS, Software, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com

iphoto-for-iphone-and-ipad-hero
iPhoto for iPhone and iPad have been updated with support for iOS 6 and also includes a slew of new features including coaching tips, new ink effects, support for 36.5 megapixel photos, and more.
• Added support for iPod touch (4th generation and later)
• Coaching tips have been added to the Help system on the iPhone and iPod touch
• Effects now include six new Apple-designed ink effects such as Chalk and Palette Knife
• Images up to 36.5 megapixels are now supported*
• Full resolution photos can now be imported via iTunes File Sharing
• Tag albums can be created by adding custom tags to photos
• "Updating Library" alert appears less frequently
• Multiple photos can now be saved to the Camera Roll at one time
• Cropping presets now use detected faces to determine composition
• Tilt-shift and gradient effects can now be rotated
• Facebook sharing now supports single sign-on in Settings
• Comments can be added more easily when posting photos to Facebook
• Videos can be uploaded to Facebook
• Locations and friend tags can now be set when posting photos to Facebook
• Comments and locations can be set on individual photos when sharing a group of photos to Facebook
• Any photo previously posted to Facebook can be more easily replaced with a more current version
• A notification is now displayed when an upload to Facebook completes in the background
• Photos can now be shared directly to Cards, iMovie, and other supporting apps
• Journals now include new layout options
• Fonts and alignment of text in journal items can be modified
• New style and color options are available for Note and Memory items in journals
• Journal Note and Memory items can now be resized
• Dividers can be added to break journal pages into sections to control the reflow of layouts
• A new Swap mode makes it easier to change the placement of items in a journal layout
• You can now place a pin on a journal map when no location data is present
• Links to journals can now be shared directly to Facebook and Twitter, and via Messages
• Links to remote journals can now be shared even if the journal was created on another device
• A new Publish Changes button provides control over when to update your journal
• An overlay displaying month and year now appears when scrolling in Photos view
• Photos can now be sorted by date and can be filtered using new criteria
• Photos view now includes a Power Scroll strip for high-speed scrolling
• Grid of thumbnails can now be expanded to multiple rows in portrait orientation
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iPhone 5 Javascript Benchmarks Over Twice as Fast Leads the Pack.

Wed, Sep 19 2012 05:33 | IOS, iPhone
www.tech-sanity.com

AnandTech published the first SunSpider Javascript benchmarks for the iPhone 5. SunSpider measures Javascript performance which runs in web browsers.
Figures where impressive and it looks like it is leading the pack.
The chart below shows that better than a bunch of words.

sunspideriphone5

Smaller numbers are better, so the final score of 914.7ms is better than all of the other devices on the chart and is the fastest SunSpider test they've ever recorded for a smartphone. The iPhone 5 is two and a half times as fast as the iPhone 4S (2250ms) and notably faster than the Samsung Galaxy S III (1442.9-1824.9ms).

Javascript is used as a measure of web browser performance, but the final score can be impacted by both the processor as well as the particular Javascript implementation on the device. Javascript is a common area of optimization due to its common usage on websites and may have been improved in iOS 6 which ships with the iPhone 5. AnandTech notes that the superior performance is likely a reflection of the Apple A6's improved memory subsystem.
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iOS 6 Will be Released on September 19th

Thu, Sep 13 2012 04:09 | IOS, iPhone, Software, iPod, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com

We've seen and heard about many of the new features coming to iOS 6 already, but with the announcement of the iPhone 5, we now know exactly when it's coming: September 19.
Little has been added in the way of functionality aside from what we saw at WWDC, but it will be compatible with devices all the way back to the iPhone 3GS (along with the iPhone 4 and 4S, and the iPad 2 and New iPad). Below is a rundown of the new features, and if you're unfamiliar with what's already been announced in iOS 6 there's a quick rundown of the other notable features.
iMessage: With the latest iOS 6 beta, Apple quietly introduced the ability to send, receive and sync iMessages between multiple devices, even if its sent to your phone number. Messaging on iOS is now a near seamless experience that allows you to pick up any of your Apple devices (or even Messages on Mountain Lion), and continue a previous conversation in stride

.IOS 6

Wi-Fi + Cellular: A new secret little feature in iOS 6 is the ability to keep your cellular data alive if there's no internet available on a wi-fi network you might be connected to. Maybe you're on a network that's set up solely for AirPlay, or maybe you've setup an ad hoc connection with a wi-fi flash drive. Either way, it's nice not to lose mobile data entirely. Also expect this to play nice with AirPlay direct.
Siri: The search functionality of Siri has been greatly expanded to fetch sports scores, list movie times and book tables at restaurants. It's almost to the point where it serves some practical function in our lives.
Maps: Gone are Google Maps. In its place is Apple's own home-cooked Maps app, complete with data from TomTom. From what we've seen so far, it's not a finished product quite yet, but the addition of 3D maps and turn-by-turn navigation are welcome additions to be sure.
Passbook: Apple's answer to Google Wallet and Pay With Square is Passbook. It will store your credit card data, customer rewards cards, coupons and plane tickets. And either with the use of a QR code or bluetooth, merchants can collect your payment info and send you on your way.
Facebook: Like being able to Tweet from anywhere in iOS? You can do the same with Facebook now. And as an added bonus, you can update Facebook and Twitter straight from notification center. Just be careful with contact sync, as Facebook will overwrite your contacts primary info with its own.
Facetime over 3G: Like Facetiming on the go? If you do, you can now do it over 3G without needing a wi-fi connection. Just as long as you're not on AT&T.
iCloud Tabs: iCloud tabs is a nice little feature that will allow you to access open Safari tabs on other iCloud connected devices. Pages viewed on iPhones, iPads, MacBooks (running Mountain Lion) can all be accessed from any device. A bit overdue, perhaps, but a welcome feature nonetheless.
YouTube: Apple's baked-in YouTube app is no longer available in iOS. Be sure to download Google's standalone app if you don't want to view YouTube vids in Safari.
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Virgin Australia integrating Passbook boarding passes for iOS 6 already.

Sat, Sep 8 2012 05:22 | IOS, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com

An Australian Business Traveler reported that a reader was recently able to load a boarding pass into Passbook while checking in to a Virgin Australia flight by simply using his iPhone running iOS 6:
AusBT reader Shaun Lorrain checked in for a Virgin Australia flight using the airline’s mobile website on his iPhone, which is running a developer preview edition of iOS 6 – and this is what he saw…. Yes, iOS 6 detected the mobile checkin and offered to save the boarding pass into Shaun’s Passbook account…Passbook also offers live updates to these e-passes, such as flight delays and changes to the airport boarding gate…United Airlines has already committed to supporting Passbook with its own mobile boarding passes, and other airlines won’t be slow to jump onto that bandwagon.
Interestingly, this popup message is not actually coming from iOS itself, but rather from the airline’s website, which has detected iOS 6 as the phone’s operating system. This means, at any time over the next few days, other airlines and businesses could start adding Passbook support to their websites too. The web is not curated like the App Store, so these updates can roll out without approval from Apple.

passport

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Apple announces Sep. 12 special event 5

Wed, Sep 5 2012 05:59 | IOS, iPhone, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com

Apple has announced it will indeed hold a special media event on September 12 in San Francisco. The event will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, beginning at 10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern.

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Invitation are out from Apple and features the text “It’s almost here” along with a large number 12 casting the shadow of a numeral 5, which would seem to lend credence to suggestions that Apple will be announcing the iPhone 5. The company’s also likely to discuss iOS 6, which it first announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June and is due for release in the fall.
Plenty of whispers about the iPhone 5 have been circulating in the past months, and many of them have centered around a September 12 event. Among the most pervasive rumors have been a phone with a larger display, the addition of LTE networking, and a new dock-connector port. In about a week, we’ll see which of these rumors are true and which are dead.
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Apple unveils iOS 6

Tue, Jun 12 2012 04:47 | IOS, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
Apple on Monday took the wraps off iOS 6, the next version of the operating system that powers the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Senior vice president for iOS software Scott Forstall told the developers and press in attendance that iOS 6 includes 200 new features, including Siri enhancements and Facebook updates.
The updated mobile operating system is slated to arrive this fall.
By the numbers
First, Forstall recapped some amazing numbers: He said there are more than 365 million iOS devices, and that more than 80 percent of them are running iOS 5. He said that 7 billion push notifications are sent to iOS devices each day, and more than 1.5 trillion such notifications have been pushed to date. He added that there are 140 million iMessage users who send more than 1 billion messages per day.
Maps

ios6maps-283629


Maps in iOS 6 sports a new icon, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Apple built an entire new mapping solution “from the ground up,” Forstall said, doing all the cartography itself. And the assortment of features Apple will now include for free with the Maps app may well leave the folks over at Google feeling a little envious.
Part of Maps is local search. Apple ingested more than 100 million business listings, integrated with Yelp for reviews and ratings. Maps also integrates a traffic service, so you can see where slow traffic is. On top of that, actual incident details are overlaid, so that you can get a sense of when traffic should clear up. Apple says that one of the data-sources for traffic reports is anonymous crowd-sourced data from iOS users.
Also new is turn-by-turn navigation. The app gives you your estimated time of arrival, updated in real-time with traffic data. Maps will guide you around traffic jams when possible, too. And it all works from the lock screen, and integrates with Siri, too. Ask Siri where to go, and it will start the turn-by-turn guidance. And you can ask Siri to point you towards a gas station; it will find one on your route.
Forstall said Apple is very excited about Flyover, a 3D model Apple has built by flying over major metropolitan areas with planes and helicopters. The maps are vector-based, so zooming in and out is quick and painless. Tap on a specific building to get an information card with more details from Yelp.
You can switch to a 3D map mode to see wireframes of what individual buildings look like, adjust camera angles, toggle between 2D and 3D, and more. Perhaps no element of Forstall’s presentation included more “Oohs” and “Ahhs” than his Flyover demo.
And, of course, with Maps in iOS 6, Apple is eschewing Google Maps entirely. That leaves the rarely-updated YouTube app as the last remaining vestige of the once-tight Google integration with iOS’s core offerings.
Siri enhancements

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Siri in iOS 6 is expanded to include information on sports and know more about restaurants. It can also launch apps and let you post to Facebook or Twitter as well. With iOS 6, Siri support comes to the third-generation iPad; previously, only the iPhone 4S offered Siri as a feature. iOS's voice-driven personal assistant also gains support for numerous more languages, too. For more, read our complete coverage of Siri updates.
Facebook integration

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As with Twitter in iOS 5, Facebook will be integrated systemwide on iOS 6. You’ll be able to share photos, links, locations, iTunes and App Store items, and more via Facebook. And Facebook is integrated directly into Notification Center: You can drag down to post a new Facebook update (or tweet).
You can post to Facebook via Siri, too. Your Facebook friends’ contact information and calendar events can also sync to your iOS device.
The Phone app

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Slide up on an incoming call that you’re not ready to take in iOS 6, and you can reply with a message or remind yourself to call the person back later. As with the Camera lock screen shortcut, you'll swipe up on a button when an incoming call arrives to access several built-in automatic messages you can send to tell the caller you're unavailable, or schedule the call-back reminder.
Do Not Disturb
iOS 6 also includes a Do Not Disturb option: Your iOS device still receives push notifications, calls, and text messages, but they won’t light up your screen or make a sound.
For added control, you can allow certain numbers to sound your phone as they otherwise would even when Do Not Disturb is enabled. If someone calls you back within three minutes after a muted call arrives—implying it’s urgent—your phone will ring.
FaceTime
In iOS 6, Apple’s video chatting feature will work over a cellular connection, not just Wi-Fi. Forstall also said that Apple is unifying your Apple ID and phone number, so if someone sends a FaceTime message to your number (or an iMessage), it can arrive on your iPad or Mac, too.
Safari
About two-thirds of all mobile Web traffic comes from Safari on iOS, Forstall said. With Mountain Lion, your iOS devices will be able to sync your open tabs with iCloud, so the sites you visit from one device are accessible on your others. And as with Mountain Lion, Safari in iOS 6 now supports offline reading for webpages saved in Reading List.
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Another new feature in Safari is the ability to upload photos to websites that request them.
Forstall also explained a new feature for developers called Smart App banners. When customers visit the website for a developer’s app, Safari can pop up a banner with a link to that app in the App Store. If you already have the app installed, you can launch the app directly.
Additionally, landscape Safari will now support full-screen mode.
Photo Stream
New in iOS 6 are shared Photo Streams, which let you easily share photos with friends. Choose the photos you’d like to share, choose your friends, and you’re done. Friends receive a push notification, and photos appear in an album in the Photos app. Friends can also comment on your photos.
Mail
As it will in Mountain Lion, Mail on iOS 6 will add support for VIPs. Mark someone as a VIP, and you get a notification on the lock screen when their messages arrive, just like you do with a text message. And you get a special mailbox for those messages, along with a new Flagged mailbox.
Mail also makes it easier to insert photos and videos as you compose messages.
Also new is the ability to open password-protected Office files from within Mail. And Mail also adds the now-familiar pull-to-refresh option to update your inbox.
Passbook

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Forstall calls Apple’s new app Passbook “the simplest way to get all of your passes in one place.” It can grab your boarding passes, tickets, store card apps (like Starbucks), movie tickets, and the like, and organize them. And when you get to the location where you need a pass, iOS can tell, and pops up the appropriate pass on your lock screen.
And the cards are live: If your gate changes while you’re at the airport, the saved card in Passbook gets updated automatically. Forstall told developers that iOS 6 includes a new Passbook API (Pass Kit) for creating and updating passes for the app.
Guided Access
“We set out to make the most accessible devices of anyone for all of our customers,” Forstall said. “So we’re really proud of how the accessibility community has been adopting iOS devices.” He said that Apple is particularly proud of how kids with autism have been benefiting from iOS apps.
With Guided Access, you can circle the buttons you’d like to disable in an app, and iOS disables those. And you can put the iPhone in single-app mode, which prevents the Home button from exiting the app.
But this feature, of course, goes well beyond kids with autism. Single-app mode lets a teacher lock an iPad into a test so that students can’t go look up the answers in Safari. And this would work well for museums, too, Forstall said. (Or parents with any young, iOS device-using kids.)
Other details
Forstall mentioned a slew of other features coming in iOS 6, too: Improved privacy controls (including limiting access to contacts or calendars), redesigned App Store, Game Center challenges, made-for-iPhone hearing aids, per-account signatures in Mail, Lost Mode for Find My iPhone (which sends a phone number directly to that phone), a variety of updates for China, and more.
Forstall also told developers that there’s a new Reminders API, the ability to sell music from within iOS apps (without needing to send users to the App Store), and an integrated transit apps store within the new Maps app.
Developers received the iOS 6 beta Monday; it’s due to ship this fall. It supports iPhone 3GS and later, iPad 2 and later, and the fourth-generation iPod touch. That makes iOS 6 the first iOS update since the iPad’s introduction to discontinue support for the first version of Apple’s tablet.
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Lots of new features in aTV Flash 1.6

Sat, Jun 2 2012 01:05 | IOS, ATV, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
atv-flash-black

Hot on the heels of the new Seas0nPass release we're happy to present to you a brand new version of aTV Flash (black). Version 1.6 adds a bunch of great new features including integrated subtitle downloads, expanded codec support, refined video playback, improved networking, additional translations and a truckload of other improvements and bug fixes.
Integrated Subtitle Downloads
By popular request we've added one-click subtitle downloads, courtesy of OpenSubtitles.org. Now instead of spending hours searching for the right subtitles they can be easily downloaded right from your Apple TV in a matter of seconds. Check out the screenshots below to see this feature in action.
atv black

Need additional subtitles? Just click 'Get More...'.
atv black 2

Choose from thousands of available subtitles.
Full Changelog
• Added integrated subtitle downloads from OpenSubtitles.org
• Added support for purchased iTunes content (matching iTunes login required)
• Added video deinterlacing option
• Added Wake-on-Lan (WOL)
• Added Portuguese (Portugal) translation
• Added support for displaying subtitles in lower 'black bar'
• Added support for .WTV files
• Added support for multiple simultaneous AFP connections
• Improved bulk fetching & added automatic artwork caching
• Improved automatic downscaling for large thumbnails
• Improved metadata reloading for images
• Improved buffering over AFP
• Resolved various audio synchronization issues
• Resolved possible overflow in 5.1 AC3 audio
• Resolved issues with zoom for 4:3 movies
• Resolved missing audio for .dvr-ms files (ASF containers)
• Resolved rare SRT file crash
• Resolved issues with slideshow animation
• Resolved file specific metadata fetching issues
• Resolved rare ISO file crashes
• Resolved issue with displaying identical thumbnails for images with the same name
• Resolved metadata loading issues for files containing non-latin characters
• Resolved rare 5ch audio file crash
• Resolved issues with incorrect metadata for files with '/S01E0.avi' pattern
• Resolved auto-start issues in Couch Surfer
• Reduced memory footprint for large software-decoded videos and slideshows
• Other minor UI improvements & bug fixes
Great! Where can I get it?
If you're already running a version of aTV Flash (black) the new 1.6 version can be installed through the Maintenance --> Manage Extras menu.
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shane blyth
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Absinthe 2.0 Jailbreak Now Available for iOS 5.1.1 Devices

Sat, May 26 2012 04:40 | IOS, Jailbreak, Apple
www.techsanity.com
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The hackers have been teasing us for weeks, but today have finally made good on a new jailbreak for iOS 5.1.1, coinciding with Hack in the Box conference taking place today in Amsterdam.

The Chronic-Dev Team and iPhone Dev Team (collectively known as the “Jailbreak Dream Team”) have announced the availability of Absinthe 2.0, a sequel to their earlier jailbreak effort which now promises to support almost every iOS 5.1.1 device -- including the new iPad. One notable exception is the third-generation Apple TV, which has proven more difficult to crack. (The team also notes more recent $399 iPad 2 models will be supported at a later date.)

“After copious amounts of work and many sleepless nights Absinthe 2.0 is finally here to jailbreak your device,” the team announced on the Greenpois0n website Friday morning. “This jailbreak supports firmware 5.1.1 ONLY and is again one of the most easiest jailbreaks to use (so easy your grandma could do it ;D).”

Absinthe 2.0 is a completely untethered jailbreak available for Mac OS X (Leopard 10.5 and up, including OS X Lion), Windows XP/Vista/7 as well as Linux. The Greenpois0n website will likely be hammered by eager jailbreakers trying to download the software today, so downloaders should be patient.

The latest jailbreak recommends backing up your device and then erasing all content and settings, which supposedly makes the process much faster. Then, open Absinthe, connect to your computer via USB, click “Jailbreak” and wait as the process completes. After the jailbreak is successful, restore from your iTunes backup and enjoy.
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shane blyth
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Seas0nPass Untethered for 5.0.1

Sat, May 26 2012 12:41 | IOS, ATV, Jailbreak, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
Seas0nPass

Today we are happy to release a brand new version of Seas0nPass that provides an untethered jailbreak of the latest 5.0.1 (iOS 5.1.1) software for the 2nd gen Apple TV. Massive thanks goes to @pod2g and Co. for the countless hours that went into making this new release possible.
What about the new 3rd gen Apple TV?
Unfortunately Seas0nPass is not yet compatible with the new ATV3. Work is still ongoing and we'lll be sure to announce any and all news as soon as it becomes available. Be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ for up to the minute info.
Which plugins are currently supported on 5.0.1?
  • Couch Surfer (works)
  • Last.fm (works)
  • Maintenance (works)
  • Media Player (works)
  • NitoTV (works)
  • Plex (works)
  • RSS Feeds (works)
  • Rowmote (works)
  • Weather (works)
  • XBMC (works)
  • Overflow (not working)
  • Remote HD (not working)
Superb! Where can I get it?
As always, Seas0nPass is available as a free download from Seas0nPass.com.
Troubleshooting tips can be found here.
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shane blyth
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Apple releases iOS 5.1.1 with bug fixes

Tue, May 8 2012 01:46 | IOS, iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
ios5.1.1 update

iOS 5.1.1 has been released by Apple It's a small update for the the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.
Mine installed flawlessly using Wifi and an OTA (over the air) update which allows you to update without requiring you to plug into the USB port of computer.
The update includes a handful of fixes. Among them: Taking HDR photos from the Lock Screen shortcut should now work more reliably. Safari bookmark and Reading list syncing is also improved.
Bugs that prevented the the third-generation iPad from successfully switching between 2G and 3G networks are also addressed. Other bugs afflicting AirPlay video playback are corrected, too.
And if you’ve ever seen an “Unable to purchase” alert after successfully purchasing something on iOS, good news: The 5.1.1 update also resolves that issue.
You can install the update directly from your iOS device, if you’re running iOS 5 or later: Launch Settings, tap General, and then tap Software Update. As a delta update, the iOS 5.1.1 upgrade is a much smaller file than iOS updates before iOS 5 generally were; on my iPhone 4S, the update weighed in at less than 60MB.
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shane blyth
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Apple asking for ID security questions to increase security in IOS

Fri, Apr 13 2012 12:34 | IOS, Security, Software, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
ios-security
Apple is now prompting iOS users to create three security questions to improve account security in IOS. The additional measure is now a standard practice, and further protect your credit card information which is associated with your iTunes account We got asked for them yesterday when setting up a new account in iTunes desktop, and The Next Web has seen them pop-up on the iPhone as well.
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shane blyth
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Accidentally upgraded to 5.1? Downgrade Your A5 Devices To iOS 5.0.1

Mon, Mar 26 2012 09:46 | IOS, iPhone, iPad, iPod, Jailbreak
www.tech-sanity.com
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Hacker iH8Snow is known for making some incredible contributions to the jailbreak scene, and now he has come along with another huge one. He tweeted about an exploit he discovered in Apple’s appticket system that will allow users to revert their iOS devices with A5 chips back to iOS Found a loophole in Apple's apticket system. Restored my iPad 2 to 5.0.1 from 5.1. Works on all A5 devices. :)
Just as it always has been when reverting an iDevice back to a previous version of its firmware, you will need to have your SHSH blobs stored for the older version of the firmware. Devices featuring the A5 chipset are notoriously hard to revert back, even with SHSH blobs. This new exploit could change that completely. Before this loophole, users who accidentally upgraded would be stuck waiting for a jailbreak to launch for iOS 5.1, and if the struggle to jailbreak iOS 5 and 5.0.1 on A5 devices is any indication, that could be a very long wait.
This doesn’t mean you should go ahead and update your device just because you may be able to bring it back. If you are sitting on iOS 5.0.1, you should be happy and enjoy the pleasant experience of owning a jailbroken iOS device. Even though he had success reverting his device back, it does not necessarily mean it will work for everyone.
Sadly, this will not help users who purchase a new device with iOS 5.1 already installed, as their SHSH blobs will not be stored for iOS 5.0.1. If you are one of these poor souls, you will have to wait until they figure out an exploit to jailbreak the latest firmware.
At this point, we only have this tweet to work with, and he has not said when this will be made available to the general public. Still, for users who made this fatal upgrade mistake, it is fantastic to know that the end of being stuck with an unjailbroken device is in sight.
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shane blyth
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New iPad (3) Camera connection kits does alot more

Thu, Mar 22 2012 07:15 | IOS, iPad, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
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Using the Camera Connection Kit (CCK) to transfer and edit photos, videos
The CCK offers two ways to transfer photos from your camera to your iPad. If your camera uses an SD card, use the SD card adapter. But, if your camera uses another storage card (like Sony's proprietary card), connect it to the USB adapter with the included USB cable.
Once your respective adapter is in the iPad, the Photos app will launch immediately. Tap to select the photos you want to transfer, or tap Import at the bottom and select Import All. The imported photos will appear in the Albums tab in a new folder.
You'll then have the option to delete the photos from the SD card, which is useful if you're traveling and need to clear up some storage space on your SD card in a pinch.
Now that your photos are on the iPad, you can edit them in the iPhoto app, share them on Facebook, or even upload them to your Dropbox or other cloud storage service.
For the record, I've tested the Camera Connection Kit with the iPhone, and it is definitely not compatible. Bummer.

The USB adapter of the Camera Connection Kit can be used with more than just your camera.
(Credit: Sharon Vaknin/CNET)
Using the CCK for more than just photography
Unlike its name implies, the CCK will also allow you to use other USB-compatible devices with your iPad. But because these devices draw power from the iPad, only some will work.
Here are some that may work (possibly with some limitations) with your iPad:
  • MIDI gear: Digital keyboards, drum sets, and synthesizers can be recorded using an app like GarageBand. Not all models will work, so check this list to see if yours is compatible. If the instrument can be connected to external power, be sure to plug it in.
  • USB microphones: Record higher-quality audio with an external mic, like the Snowball, which is compatible with the iPad via the CCK. With this setup, you can record voice directly into GarageBand or your preferred audio recording app.
  • Desktop keyboards: Your USB desktop keyboard is much more comfortable than those cramped iPad keyboards. Sure, it's not a portable solution, but if you find it necessary, you can plug in a regular keyboard to the CCK. Just ignore the warning message.
  • Card readers: If your camera writes to a CF card, and you have a small CF card reader, simply plug it into the USB adapter and the iPad will read its contents.
  • Ripped movies: If you have any ripped movies or personal videos, you can use the CCK to add extra storage to the iPad. You'd only import a movie when you're ready to watch it. To do this, rename your movies to match the file name structure of your digital camera. For example, "DCIM_4132." Then, drag the file into a folder labeled "DCIM" on an SD card or a thumbdrive. When you plug your SD card or thumbdrive into the iPad via the CCK, you'll be able to import the movie onto your iPad and play it from the Photos app.
  • Your iPhone or Android phone: This works, but with some limitations. If you need to transfer photos from your iPhone to your iPad in a pinch, plugging it in via USB will prompt the photos app, allowing you to import photos. And, as long as your Android phone stores photos in a folder titled DCIM, it will react the same way.

After some testing, it's clear you cannot read or write nonphoto files to an external hard drive or thumbdrive. This would have been a great way to expand your iPad's storage. Alas, it's not (yet) possible.

If you discover any unique ways to use the Camera Connection Kit, let me know in the comments.
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shane blyth
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Update on iOS 5.1 Jailbreak For New iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 4S

Mon, Mar 19 2012 06:46 | IOS, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com

On the day of the new iPad launch, the jailbreak community was on fire, first Stefan Esser and then iPhone Dev Team and chpwn + phoneixdev revealed that they had figured out a way to jailbreak the new iPad within hours of it going on sale.
Stefan Esser aka i0n1c was the only one to clarify that his 3rd generation iPad jailbreak was untethered.
He has just confirmed that his method is the only untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.1, which means iPhone Dev team and chpwn + phoneixdev's methods are  tethered jailbreaks.
Why am I not surprised that iPhone blogs claim there are 3-4 untethered jailbreaks for iPad 3 around.
I guess the source of this misinformation is Redmod Pie - there is only one untethered jailbreak of iOS 5.1 so far.
There are actually more than 3 kernel exploits. iPhone Dev Team and @chpwn / @phoenixdev are sitting on their own kernel exploits for 5.1.
Untethering a JB however requires more trickery and additional userland bugs.
If someone is able to untether the latest device it is highly likely that he can untether all previous devices.
Here's the video again (courtesy i0n1c) that shows an untethered jailbroken iPad 3rd generation:


i0n1c hasn't still provided any ETA on when he plans to release an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.1, which based on his tweets should support all iOS 5.1 compatible devices (which means the new iPad, iPad 2, iPad 1, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPod touch 4G, iPod touch 3G).
Esser was credited for the untethered jailbreak for iOS 4.3.x and had given a presentation on iOS jailbreak techniques at Black Hat 2011 in Las Vegas last year.

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shane blyth
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New iPad iOS 5.1 Jailbreak Status Update: Dev Team Has Some Good News

Sat, Mar 17 2012 03:51 | IOS, iPhone, iPad, Jailbreak, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
redsnow-iphone3g-43.jpg

Hot on the heels of news that iPad 2 running iOS 5.1 has been successfully jailbroken by i0n1c, iPhone Dev team has come out with more encouraging news regarding the new iPad and iOS 5.1 jailbreak.They've provided the following details on their blog:
There are a few bits of good news already.

  • We can confirm that the method used to jailbreak the iPad2 4 months ago (before corona) still works even in 5.1.  That means we’ll at least be able to get our foot in the door to get the required kernel dumps on the iPad3.  That’s an important step, but by no means is it the end of the story.

  • Those of you following @i0n1c may have noticed he’s already tweeted pictures of his iPad2 jailbroken at 5.1.  As far as we know, he’s using a method completely unrelated to the one mentioned above.  That would be great news!

  • We’ve also seen bits and pieces of an entirely different jailbreak method being investigated by someone close to the Cydia repo scene.

That’s three different angles, and we’re not even including the continuous work @pod2g makes towards a new jailbreak!  As always, keep in mind this is very preliminary progress, and it’s impossible to predict how or when these things turn out. 
While it is still early to say how long it will take for the jailbreak to be released, it is good to see that the jailbreak community has three angles to work out.
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shane blyth
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Massive Indepth iPad 3rd Gen review

Thu, Mar 15 2012 04:12 | IOS, iPad, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
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The iPad has been a remarkable success story. Apple sold 15 million of the original model in the first nine months of the product’s existence, a number that blew away even the most optimistic prognostications. With last year’s introduction of the iPad 2, things kept accelerating. In a little less than two years, Apple has sold roughly 60 million iPads, dominating the market it created.
Maintaining Apple’s lead in tablet devices is the job of the third-generation iPad, a product that doesn’t mess with success. Like the iPad 2 before it, this new iPad is not a re-thinking of the original concept. Instead, Apple has chosen to focus on a few areas of improvement while keeping the overall package the same. Though it’s an approach that can frustrate people who are disappointed by anything that’s not a quantum leap, Apple executes it to perfection and reaps the rewards.
In my review of the iPad 2, I suggested a rule of Apple product evolution I called “Jobs’s Law”—that the latest version of any Apple product is likely to be thinner and lighter than its predecessor. The third-generation iPad breaks that law. It’s actually slightly thicker and slightly heavier than the iPad 2, and in many cases users won’t perceive it to be faster.
But the changes Apple has wrought with this iPad aren’t about making it thinner or lighter or faster, but about making it better. And on nearly every front, the third-generation iPad is markedly better than its predecessor.

It’s all about the Retina

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A photo comparing the new iPad's Retina display (top) to the iPad 2 display.

In mid-2010 with the release of the iPhone 4, Apple introduced us to a new concept—the “Retina display,” so called because the screen was packed tightly with so many pixels that the dots would be imperceptible to the human eye. At 326 pixels per inch, the iPhone 4 and its successor, the 4S, provide text that looks like it was printed on paper and display photos and videos in high definition.
Far and away the most important feature of the third-generation iPad is that it, too, has a Retina display. Its 9.7-inch screen has a resolution of 2048 by 1536 pixels (a total of four times the pixels in the same space), or 264 pixels per inch. Although that’s a lower pixel density than the iPhone’s Retina display, you tend to hold an iPad further away from your eyes than an iPhone, so the Retina definition still works out.

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A portion of a full-size screen shot from the third-generation iPad.

The result is similar to going from an early iPhone to an iPhone 4—it’s a big leap in quality. Text, video, and photos all benefit. Whether you’re reading a webpage in Safari, a long article in Instapaper, or an even longer work in iBooks, text is razor-sharp. Of course, the display on previous iPads was no slouch. But the moment you pick up a third-generation iPad, you can tell the difference. All the slight jagginess and oddly misshappen characters we take for granted on lower-resolution displays just vanish on the Retina display, and you’re left with the same sort of typographic excellence you’d expect in a printed book.
The effect is even more dramatic with photos and video. Pictures reveal small details that simply weren’t there before. A photo that looks just fine on an iPad 2 looks almost undefinably better on the new iPad. It’s the same image, but all of a sudden, there’s much more information there—small textures and tiny details that were previously omitted.
That’s also true with high-definition video. The third-generation iPad’s screen actually contains more pixels than an HDTV. As a result, the Videos app actually has to blow up 1080p videos slightly in order to display them across the full width of the its screen. (The screen of previous iPads didn’t have enough pixels to show a complete HD picture, so it had to either scale things down or cut off the sides of the frame.)
The videos look great. Watching an HD movie or TV show on the new iPad is like having a home theater in your lap. (Well, assuming you’ve got some good headphones, of course. The iPad’s mono speaker seems to be unchanged from the previous model.)
Buyers of this third-generation iPad will love the Retina display, but the fact is that the iPad 2's screen was also excellent. It may be that there just isn't quite as dramatic a contrast between the two screens as there was between the pre- and post-Retina iPhones two years ago. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by my iPhone’s Retina display, or maybe the iPad 2’s display is really that good.
I found the color temperature on the new iPad to be warmer and more yellow than that on the iPad 2. In isolation, both screens seemed perfectly normal. Only when I placed old and new iPads together did I notice that one is slightly warmer than the other.
As with the transition to Retina displays on the iPhone, app developers will need to step up to take advantage of the higher resolution offered by the new iPad’s display. Surely many (if not most) of them knew this day would come, but it’s quite a job for developers to create new, Retina-sized versions of every graphic in their apps, and it may be some time before all iPad apps are updated. (Non-Retina apps look more or less like they did on previous iPads—but on the new iPad’s Retina display those pixels really stand out.)
Still, it’s not all bad news. Text in most apps will take advantage of the Retina display without modification, even if the graphics don’t. There are odd exceptions, however. When I tested Amazon’s Kindle app with the new iPad, I found that its text was pixelated, not Retina-crisp. Presumably Amazon will fix this in an update. I saw some weird behaviors in a few existing apps, but most of them worked just fine even without being updated. And some work better than you’d think—I tried Comixology’s Comics app and discovered that there’s more resolution to those digital comics than I had realized.
If you’re running an iPhone app on the new iPad, it will display it in high-resolution Retina detail—but in a small compatibility window in the center of the iPad screen. (You can, as always, tap a 2x button to make iPhone apps bigger but more pixelated.)
More power? Sort of.
The iPad 2 was much faster than the original iPad, thanks to its dual-core A5 processor. But the A5X processor that powers the third-generation iPad doesn’t really offer more processing power than its predecessor. In all our processor-based tests, the new iPad ran about as fast as the iPad 2. (Which is not to say it’s slow—they’re the two fastest iOS devices ever.)
With this update, Apple wasn’t as concerned about boosting the iPad’s speed even further, because it had another, bigger problem to solve: Boosting the iPad’s graphics capabilities so that it could update the 3.1 million pixels on its Retina display. (Keep in mind, previous iPad screens only had about 786,000 pixels.) Updating that many pixels requires a whole lot more graphics power just to keep things running as smoothly as before.
That power comes from the X factor in the A5X processor—a new quad-core graphics engine. And sure enough, the third-generation iPad blows away every other iOS device in terms of graphics performance. In our tests using the GLBench 3D graphics testing app, the third-generation iPad could draw a complex 3D scene at the full frame rate of its display, 60 frames per second, without breaking a sweat. And in GLBench offscreen tests, which aren’t constrained by the display’s frame rate, the third-generation iPad had a frame rate 1.6 times that of the iPad 2 (and 13 times that of the original iPad).

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So the new iPad definitely has the horsepower to render high-quality graphics on its Retina display. However, app developers will need to update their apps to work well on the new iPad. All of Apple’s built-in apps worked well with the Retina display, scrolling smoothly at all times. But several third-party apps had glitches, including unresponsive interfaces and stuttering scrolling.
What this suggests is that developers who could get away with some inefficiencies when painting the relatively small canvas of previous iPad screens will find those inefficiencies laid bare when they first run their apps on this new hardware. Apple’s apps show that the new iPad has the power to keep it all smooth; but it looks like app developers will need to run their apps on this new hardware and then spend some time optimizing their code so that it shines on this new, bigger display.
Going beyond pure graphics performance, my tests found the new iPad to be roughly the same speed as the old one. The GeekBench testing app said the iPad 2 was slightly faster. The Sunspider JavaScript benchmark gave them both the same scores. And in my webpage-loading test, the new iPad was faster.

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Dead ringers
Usually when I review a new Apple product, I start with the physical changes. People always want to know how the new thing is different from the old thing. But the third-generation iPad is almost physically identical to the iPad 2. You can’t tell them apart unless you look very closely.
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The new iPad (left) and iPad 2 (right).
The differences I’ve noticed: The inside of the dock connector is silver and not black, and the rear camera is a little bit bigger. Yeah. That’s it.
Almost imperceptible is the fact that the new iPad is a bit thicker than its predecessor. The iPad 2 was 8.8 millimeters thick, and the third-generation model is 9.4 millimeters thick. So there’s an extra six tenths of a millimeter there now, I suppose, but it was imperceptible to me. (The original iPad was 13 millimeters thick—now that’s a difference you could feel.)
The new iPad is also heavier than the iPad 2. The new model weighs either 652 grams (1.44 pounds) for the Wi-Fi-only model or 662 grams (1.46 pounds) for the 4G model. In contrast, the Wi-Fi iPad 2 weighed 601 grams (1.33 pounds) while the AT&T model of the 3G-equipped iPad 2 was 613 grams (1.35 pounds). So your standard Wi-Fi iPad has put on about 50 grams or a tenth of a pound. It’s a small weight gain, but I can’t call it imperceptible. The first time I picked up the third-generation iPad, I could tell that it was heavier.
What does this increased weight mean in practice? Probably not very much. Even the iPad 2 is not a product that you can just hold indefinitely with one hand. It’s too heavy and too bulky for that. This is a device that’s best when held in two hands or propped against your lap. The iPad 2 was easier to hold than the original iPad, and the new iPad feels pretty much the same on that score. The extra tenth of a pound may be noticeable, but I don’t think it’s meaningful.
The 2011 and 2012 iPad vintages are so alike, in fact, that they can use the same Smart Covers. And all but the most exacting iPad 2 cases will probably work on the third-generation model. I tried the new iPad with a few assorted iPad 2 cases hanging around our offices and it fit in all of them just fine.
Now, the big question is: Why this deviation from Jobs’s Law? Isn’t every new Apple product supposed to be smaller, thinner, and lighter? I do believe that’s Apple’s ultimate goal. But in this case, it’s clear that the boosted graphics processor, the support for 4G networking, and the high-resolution display and its corresponding LED backlights, all add up to a device that requires a lot more power than the iPad 2 did. And so Apple did what it had to do in order to keep that famous 10-hour iPad battery life: It made room for a bigger battery at the cost of size and weight.
According to Apple’s tech specs page, the new iPad has a 42.5 watt-hour battery. Compare that with the iPad 2’s 25 watt-hour battery. That’s a whole lot more battery just to keep the iPad running for the usual amount of time. Apple wasn’t willing to trade away battery life for thinness and lightness, so here we are: with a new iPad that’s imperceptibly thicker and immaterially heavier. It’ll do.
I wasn’t able to do extensive battery testing, but in my use over the past week I’ve found that Apple’s claims of comparable life to the iPad 2 are accurate. I can get through an entire day using my iPad and I don’t run out of juice. I suspect that this new battery will take longer to charge than previous models, though—so prepare for an overnight recharge in order to completely juice up your battery.
Picture perfect
The original iPad didn’t have cameras. The iPad 2 added a low-resolution, front-facing camera for video chat and a rear camera with just enough resolution to shoot 720p video. That rear camera was, to put it bluntly, not very good. It was the weakest feature of the iPad 2, in fact.
The good news is, with the third-generation iPad, Apple has finally righted this wrong. Apple’s dusted off an old brand name (just as it did when the old iBook laptop became the new iBooks app) and applied it as a label to that camera: iSight. iSight, apparently, means “camera good enough to shoot photos and videos with.” And it is. It’s a five-megapixel camera, not quite on a par with the one in the iPhone 4S, but still quite good.
When I compared images from the new iPad’s iSight camera against test images taken by other mobile devices, I found that the new iPad’s camera fared quite well. It offered roughly the same image quality as the iPhone 4S and the Asus Transformer Prime, and clearly outdistanced both the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 and the iPad 2. It seems safe to say that the new iPad has the best camera of any tablet device, and among the best of any mobile device. Most notably, the quality of the 1080p video I shot with the new iPad was very good, even in low light.

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Portions of full-resolution images from three different Apple devices.

The iPad’s sheer size doesn’t make it an ideal camera, but if you do need to shoot something and your iPad is at hand, the third-generation iPad’s camera is of a high enough quality that you won’t regret your choice.
Takes dictation, but not orders

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The third-generation iPad offers dictation features, but not the the Siri intelligent-agent feature introduced in the iPhone 4S. My guess is that Apple sees Siri as a feature primarily used by people who don’t have their hands on the phone itself, and therefore the iPad wouldn’t be an ideal product for Siri’s particular brand of voice control navigation.

I actually find Siri useful in many cases where speaking a brief command is more efficient than swiping to unlock, swiping to find the right app, and then tapping through an interface in order to get what I want. I use Siri to set alarms and timers all the time. I don’t see why that wouldn’t be relevant on the iPad. (Of course, those features use the iPhone’s Clock app, which Apple also omits from the iPad! And one of Siri’s other marquee features, getting a weather forecast, uses the Weather app—another iPad no-show. Sigh.)
That said, dictation is still a great feature and I’m happy to have it on the iPad. Yes, there have been apps available that allow you to dictate, but now you can dictate from the standard software keyboard just by tapping the new microphone icon, and that’s a big deal. Once you get the hang of dictation, which requires you to speak all your punctuation comma you’ll discover that it can be a great way to input text without typing period
LTE and cellular options

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Ever since the original iPad debuted, Apple has offered two different models with different networking features. The base-priced models support only Wi-Fi, but for $130 more you can get a model with support for both Wi-Fi and cellular networking. The cellular features don’t require any sort of contract; instead, you can buy access right on the device, a month at a time, and activate and deactivate whenever you want.

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That’s all still true. The new wrinkle is that the third-generation model supports LTE (Long-Term Evolution), a new generation of cellular technologies that’s often also called “4G.” It’s fast, but it’s not as widely available as 3G. Verizon says it’s got 4G LTE coverage in 196 cities. AT&T is playing catch-up, with coverage in only 28 markets right now.

With the iPhone 4S, Apple was able to bring the two dominant cellular technologies in the U.S., GSM and CDMA, together in a single piece of hardware. The 4S hardware is the same whether you buy it from Verizon or Sprint or AT&T. Unfortunately, 4G LTE circuitry is still in its infancy, and Verizon and AT&T use different LTE systems. So the third-generation iPad takes us right back where we were with the previous iPad models: there are two different versions, one that works with AT&T’s flavor of LTE, and one that works with Verizon’s.
The good news is, both models fall back to 3G networks with ease. A Verizon model will work with Verizon’s CDMA network in the U.S., and will work with GSM networks overseas. The AT&T model will work with AT&T’s GSM network in the U.S. and other GSM networks abroad. Like all previous iPads, these devices are unlocked, so if you want to buy a local SIM card when you’re traveling internationally, it should just work.
The new iPad’s cellular radios also support connecting to faster GSM networks. In the U.S. the most common example of this is AT&T’s own HSPA+ network, which AT&T confusingly calls 4G. This has a very odd effect: I began my bus commute home one evening with the iPad displaying LTE, but as we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge the indicator shifted to 4G. That was the sign that we had left AT&T’s LTE network and were now on its HSPA+ network, which AT&T calls 4G even though it’s really just faster 3G. So confusing.
Overseas, LTE apparently isn’t widely used, but carriers have invested in speeding up 3G. In addition to HSPA+, some countries have networks that use the DC-HSDPA (dual-carrier HSDPA) format. The radios in the iPad support all of these speedy formats. (Apple told me that the cellular iPad model sold internationally will essentially be the AT&T model that's sold in the U.S.)
My experience with AT&T’s LTE network in San Francisco was impressive. While riding through the city, I was able to get speeds that were roughly as fast as my office Wi-Fi. When I turned off LTE (there's an "Enable LTE" option in the Cellular Data section of Settings), the iPad fell back to AT&T’s “4G” HSPA+ network, and speeds dropped precipitously. However, as with everything cellular, location is everything. When I used the iPad at my home in suburban Mill Valley, which doesn’t yet have AT&T LTE coverage, the HSPA+ download speed was more than twice what I had experienced in downtown San Francisco—but still half the speed I saw on the LTE network.

networkingspeedchart-275150
Tests by Jason Snell using the Ookla Speedtest iOS app.

At long last, the iPhone’s Personal Hotspot feature has come to the iPad. This is great news, because it means your iPad can act as a Wi-Fi router and provide an Internet connection to any device that uses Wi-Fi by relaying data from its cellular connection. Unfortunately, it appears that only Verizon is supporting this feature at first, with AT&T lagging behind. The third-generation iPad I used was of the AT&T variety, so I wasn’t able to test this feature. But it promises to be pretty cool, since if you’ve got one of these iPads you don’t need to invest in a separate piece of Wi-Fi routing hardware.
AT&T has a track record as an unenthusiastic supporter of tethering features. It took the company a full year to activate tethering on the iPhone. As a result, I’d recommend the Verizon model if Personal Hotspot is a must-have feature. And I’m impressed with Verizon’s approach to Personal Hotspot on the iPad: It doesn’t cost any more. You pay for the amount of data you want your iPad to consume, and if you want to share that data pool with other devices, Verizon’s fine with that.
Buying options
For a company that likes to keep things simple, Apple has provided us with a whole bunch of options when it comes to buying the iPad. Just as with the iPad 2, the third-generation model comes in 18 different varieties. You can choose from:
  • 16GB ($499), 32GB ($599), or 64GB ($699) of onboard storage
  • White or black bezel (no price difference)
  • Wi-Fi only, or Wi-Fi plus cellular on AT&T ($130 extra), or Wi-Fi plus cellular on Verizon ($130 extra)
In the past, I’ve told most people that 16GB is plenty of storage for most iPad users. But 16GB isn’t what it used to be. Apps updated to contain Retina-level graphics will balloon in size. HD video files are enormous. Those iBooks enhanced textbooks can be enormous. And shooting five-megapixel images and 1080p video will fill any remaining storage in a hurry.
I still think most buyers should start with the assumption that they’ll only need 16GB, but then they’ll need to ask themselves a few questions. Anyone who intends to load up with lots of HD movies, shoot videos, or install a whole lot of apps should seriously consider a larger capacity. But a lot of people just don’t use the iPad like that, and for them, 16GB will be fine.
Then there’s the question of whether to spend an extra $130 for cellular networking. With the addition of Personal Hotspot, the cellular iPad has become more appealing. Given that the iPad’s data plan features no contracts—so you can turn it off and on at will—it’s a more flexible option for Wi-Fi tethering than either adding tethering to a cell phone plan or buying a separate Wi-Fi hotspot device such as a MiFi.
If you can see using your iPad as a personal hotspot or envision using it often when you’re out of Wi-Fi range, the extra $130 is probably a good investment. However, lots of people almost never use their iPads out of range of Wi-Fi, so I expect the Wi-Fi version will remain the most popular option.
One last reason to consider buying a cellular-capable iPad: Only cellular models come with GPS capabilities. There’s a good reason for this—iOS devices use assisted GPS to dramatically decrease the amount of time it takes for the devices to determine their location. If you dream of using your iPad as a jumbo GPS navigation console, you’ll absolutely need to pay the extra $130.
The iPad experience

ipad3blur-275327

When it’s time to ponder a new Apple product, it’s easy to get caught up in the details of the specs, in what’s changed from previous versions. With a product like the iPad, that’s a dangerous game. Apple’s decision to avoid calling the new iPad an iPad 3 or iPad HD or iPad 2S speaks volumes. The iPad is bigger than any single model.
Clearly, Apple’s vision is that we’re in a period where many tasks we previously performed with computers will be transferred to new, different, less computery devices. The iPad, like its brother the iPhone, is ushering in a new world. Microsoft spent a decade trying to define the “tablet computer.” Apple dropped the computer, from both its company name and the tablet category, and has seen massive success. Even now, the “tablet market” is really the iPad market, and the onslaught of iPad competitors we all expected two years ago has largely failed to materialize.Yes, one of the reasons for the iPad’s success has been that Apple started with a huge lead on its competition. But the biggest reason the iPad is so strong was one quite rightly pointed out by Apple CEO Tim Cook when he unveiled the new iPad: Apple’s advantage in apps. More specifically, iOS developers have worked hard to create versions of their apps that are designed for the iPad’s larger screen. Google, meanwhile, seems to view the larger canvas of a tablet screen as indistinguishable from a smartphone’s screen.
After Apple’s launch event was over, I talked to several colleagues who cover Android every day, and they largely agreed with Cook’s point. There just aren’t very many good tablet apps on Android, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of urgency to create them.
When the iPad was introduced, a lot of pundits sniffed that it was just a big iPod touch. And if that had turned out to be the case, the iPad wouldn’t have been very successful. But from the first day the iPad shipped, it’s had a huge amount of software designed specifically for its 9.7-inch screen. In the meantime, the competition ships big phones and hopes they’ll take the world by storm. It’s not happening.
Instead, the iPad’s sales continues to accelerate. And that’s one reason why I’m uneasy about focusing too much on the details of the differences between the third-generation iPad and its predecessors. I’d wager, in fact, that more third-generation iPads will be sold to people who have never before owned an iPad than to existing iPad owners who are upgrading.
Those are the people for whom this new iPad is simply called “iPad.” And they’ll use it for all the things that an iPad is great for. They’ll surf the Web, check email and Twitter and Facebook, read books and magazines, play games, watch movies, listen to a baseball game, look up a recipe, check their schedule, edit a photo or a video, record a song, or even write an essay.
When I’m looking for the perspective of someone who uses technology but doesn’t get overly excited by it, I turn to my wife. Her role in our family—and I suspect, dear reader, that you may find this familiar—is to provide a counterbalance to my enthusiasm over every new gadget I want to buy.
When the first iPad came out, I bought one. My wife seemed interested in it, and I was curious what she’d make of it, so I handed it to her and told her to try it out. She never gave it back. Recently, as we discussed buying her a new iPad (we ordered the $499 16GB black Wi-Fi model), she told me that she only turns on the iMac we keep at home for managing photos, typing out long documents, and visiting the ever-decreasing number of websites that don’t play well with Safari.
That iMac, which was in heavy use two years ago, is now a device we turn on to perform specific tasks. The rest of the time we’re on our iPads or our iPhones, and it seems natural. This, I think, explains Apple’s confidence in where we’re headed in this post-PC universe.
In the old days, we used to talk about “computing,” as if it were an activity. Using a computer was computing. Computing didn’t go away. It just seeped into every aspect of our lives. Computing doesn’t happen on a desk anymore. It’s in our laps, in our pockets, perched on the kitchen counter or smack in the middle of the coffee table. The iPad didn’t make computing obsolete. It just brought it out of its shell.
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Nearly a 1/4 of businesses surveryed are buying tablets this year

Wed, Mar 14 2012 12:16 | IOS, iPad, Android, Apple


www.tech-sanity.com
Changewave-survey
ChangeWave recently surveyed 1,604 IT personnel with buying power in their company. 22% of the surveyed companies said that they were in the market to buy tablets for their employees in 2012 and of those planning on getting tablets in the next quarter, 84% are siding with the iPad. Thats up from 77% in November – clearly the new iPad is spiking interest in businesses as well as consumers. Even BlackBerry, the traditional leader in enterprise, only demanded 3% of corporate tablet demand. Samsung’s took second place, albeit far behind apple with 8% demand.
Is anyone really surprised by results like this? Although it continues to highlight Apple’s vice grip on the tablet market, there’s still plenty of room for the tablet market itself to grow. An IT folks out there on the verge of rolling out iPads to the workforce? Have any of y’all already pulled the trigger?

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Absinthe Jailbreak in iOS 5.1 patched by Apple

Tue, Mar 13 2012 12:36 | IOS, iPhone, iPad, Jailbreak, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
Greenpois0n-Absinthe

Bad news for Jailbreakers.
We have just got a confirmation that Apple has indeed fixed the vulnerability in iOS 5.1 that was used in the Absinthe jailbreak for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 on iOS 5.0.1 or iOS 5. Apple has given the "2012 iOS Jailbreak Dream Team" credit for discovering the vulnerability in the document that provides details about the security issues that have been fixed in iOS 5.1.
Kernel
Available for: iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation) and later, iPad, iPad 2
Impact: A malicious program could bypass sandbox restrictions
Description: A logic issue existed in the handling of debug system calls. This may allow a malicious program to gain code execution in other programs with the same user privileges.
CVE-ID
CVE-2012-0643 : 2012 iOS Jailbreak Dream Team
Apple has also credited pod2G for the HFS vulnerability, we're not sure if this was the one used in the Corona jailbreak for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 4g, iPod touch 3G and iPad 1.
HFS
Available for: iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation) and later, iPad, iPad 2
Impact: Mounting a maliciously crafted disk image may lead to a device shutdown or arbitrary code execution
Description: An integer underflow existed with the handling of HFS catalog files.
CVE-ID
CVE-2012-0642 : pod2g
pod2G had almost confirmed this earlier today when he tweeted that he was working hard to find a vulnerability in iOS 5.1 for an untethered jailbreak.
It remains to be seen how long it will take the brilliant jailbreak dream team to release an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.1.
If you're still on iOS 5.0.1 or ealier then it is recommended to avoid updating to iOS 5.1 until the jailbreak tools for iOS 5.1 are released.

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New Apple TV interface now available on 2nd-generation models

Thu, Mar 8 2012 01:54 | IOS, ATV, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
apple-tv-3_large_verge_medium_landscape


We all expected most of the new interface and features on Apple announced for the new generation of the Apple TV to find their way down the previous generation, and just as with iOS 5.1 for the iPad and the iPhone, Apple isn't wasting any time. We hear that the update should be available today, bringing the new interface, movie re-downloading, and direct Netflix signup to current models. Of course, that won't mean that current models will be able to display 1080p content, but beyond that small niggle it appears that the previous generation will still be functionally identical with the new model.

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iOS 5.1 available OTA and on iTunes now!

Thu, Mar 8 2012 01:49 | IOS, iPhone, iPad, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com

32

ios-5-1-hero-620x413
iOS 5.1 for iPhone and iPad is now available over-the-air (OTA) and in iTunes!
While we haven’t tested it yet, it looks like we will need to put 5.1 on our iPads before we can see the updates to the iWork and iLife apps mentioned today.
IMG_1674-620x465
To download OTA, launch settings, tap General, then Software Update, and the update should pop up with an option to Download and install. To download via iTunes, just plug your iPhone or iPad into your computer and open iTunes — a message informing you of the available update should pop right up.
IMG_1675-620x465
Now what are you waiting for? Go grab it!

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Apple TV third generation info

Thu, Mar 8 2012 01:43 | IOS, ATV, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com

While Apple executives have continued to call the Apple TV a hobby, over the past couple years, the company has dedicated a fair amount of resources to it. The Apple TV 2 was a major upgrade, and Apple has added a good number of features to that media player through software updates.
COMPLETE COVERAGE
apple_apple_tv_3rd_gen_early_2012_1189224_g4

The third-generation Apple TV unveiled Wednesday shows Apple is taking its hobby just a little bit more seriously, thanks to improved video support and an overhauled interface. But there are still plenty of questions about the latest edition. Here’s what we know so far.
What’s new about it? Does it finally do 1080p?
The new Apple TV looks exactly like its predecessor, and is housed in the same tiny, black enclosure. The big hardware change for the new the Apple TV is inside: Instead of the Apple A4 chip found in the previous Apple TV and the iPad 2, the new model hosts a single-core A5 chip. The improved horsepower finally allows the Apple TV to support 1080p video output.
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IOS Runs Html5 Games Much Faster Than On The Android OS.

Tue, Mar 6 2012 02:32 | IOS, Samsung, Smartphones, Android, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
Spaceport's (http://spaceport.io/) has just completed a new study on mobile game platforms that clearly shows that Apple's iOS runs HTML5 games three times faster than the Android operating system, reports "VentureBeat" (http://macte.ch/igwYf).
Spaceport.io created a benchmark dubbed PerfMarks to test performance at running HTML5 code. The benchmark tested a device’s ability to animate image movement. The report measured the number of moving images on a screen at 30 frames per second (FPS), a frame rate which provides a near-native user experience.
Repeated tests show that iOS performed far better at running animations than Android, notes "VentureBeat.
Here are a few of the results.
Pad 2 score 327
iPhone 4S scored 252
Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone scored 147
iPhone 3GS 53
Kindle Fire scored 25.
The new Android Galaxy Nexus was the only Android smartphone that could handle images at 30 frames per second, the article adds.
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Apple Announces March 7th iPad Event Something to see and touch

Wed, Feb 29 2012 11:57 | IOS, iPad, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
ipadinvite
Apple this morning issued invitations to a special event in San Francisco at which the next iteration of the iPad will debut.
And it will indeed be held on the March 7th. The showcase will be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location for big announcements like this. And judging from the art on the invitation, it is indeed the next iPad that will be the topic. We will, of course, be covering it here at Tech-Sanity.
In a cheeky bit of timing, the Apple invitation went out just as Google Chairman Eric Schmidt was delivering his keynote at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
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Confirmed: iPad 3 Has a 2048x1536 Retina Display

Sat, Feb 18 2012 05:21 | IOS, iPad, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
Over the past couple of months, several photos of displays claimed to be for the iPad 3have surfaced from various sources. Such parts leaks are typical with the device's expected debut early next month. While reports have claimed that these displays are high-resolution "Retina" displays, there has been no definite confirmation of these claims so far.

ipad_3_display_mr_ruler

MacRumors has now been able to obtain one of these iPad 3 displays and examine it under a microscope in an effort to determine whether it is indeed an ultra-high resolution Retina display. Physically, the purported iPad 3 display is the same size as the current iPad 1 and iPad 2 display at 9.7" in diagonal, and looks quite similar to the naked eye.

However, when comparing the iPad 3 display to one from an iPad 2 under a microscope, the difference in resolutions becomes readily apparent, with the iPad 3 display's pixels appearing to be one-quarter the size of those on the iPad 2.

ipad_2_ipad_3_pixels

Since we only had a raw iPad 3 display with no method to power it, taking high quality photos of the pixels was difficult. Still, even with the relatively poor lighting, you can easily make out the pixels on each display (made up of red, green and blue elements). We highlighted a cluster of 4 pixels (2x2) from the iPad 2 to compare it to the same area on the iPad 3. On the iPad 3, the same cluster was occupied by 16 pixels (4x4) -- exactly twice the resolution in each direction.

Extrapolating out, the iPad 3 screen should carry a full resolution of 2048x1536, exactly twice the linear resolution of the iPad 1 and iPad 2 which is 1024x768. Such a screen should be able to display much sharper images as compared to the previous generation iPads.

Apple is expected to introduce the iPad 3 with a media event on March 7, and the device is rumored to be carrying this high-resolution display, a new A6 system-on-a-chip, and LTE support for models with cellular data capabilities.
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One in four European doctors use iPads

Thu, Feb 16 2012 02:30 | IOS, iPad, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
Tablets used for more than 26% of online time
More than one in four European doctors reportedly use iPads, according to data collected by Manhattan Research. Respondents to the survey noted that the iPad was used for an average of 27 percent of their online work time, though traditional notebook and desktop computers still accounted for more than half of online time.
The 'Taking the Pulse Europe' study surveyed over 1,200 physicians in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK. Ownership was found to be highest in the UK, where 31 percent of surveyed physicians own an iPad, and lowest in Spain.

Doctors reported that they used Apple's tablet to look up information, watch videos, and browse articles. The research firm told PMLive that doctors also showed "significant interest" in using the device to educate their patients and manage patient records.

Many hospitals and other medical facilities began deploying iPads soon after the device arrived on the market. A number of pharmaceutical companies and other medical industries have released apps designed specifically for healthcare workers.
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Clear for iPhone

Wed, Feb 15 2012 10:11 | IOS, App, iPhone, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com

Clear for iPhone (Coming Soon!) from Realmac Software on Vimeo.


This is such a great app. Check out the video as a picture, or video is sure worth a thousand words
Clear, the heavily-anticipated touch-based to-do list app, is launching in the iTunes App Store tonight. And by heavily anticipated, I mean this app was getting tech blog coverage based on demos, previews and teaser videos.
Why the big draw for what’s typically been a rather ho-hum app category, the lowly to-do list? Clear is pure eye candy, for starters. But it’s also representative of a major leap forward in smartphone app design, as it’s been built from the ground up for the touch interface. The app is based solely on the use of now-common gestures: swipes, pulls and pinches. There are no buttons with Clear, and yet, it’s surprisingly simple to use. In fact, that’s the point.
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Tim Cook covering, Product Growth, Competeing Tablets, ATV, Siri, iCloud etc.

Wed, Feb 15 2012 10:45 | IOS, ATV, iPhone, iPad, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com

Apple CEO Tim Cook has just completed a Q&A session with analyst Bill Shope at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference. While we liveblogged the event with a rough transcript of Cook's comments, here are a few of the highlights:


- iPhone growth: Dryly noting that Apple's record-smashing sales of 37 million iPhones during the holiday quarter led to "a decent quarter", Cook noted that 90% of mobile phone purchasers and 75% of smartphone purchasers are still choosing something other than an iPhone. Consequently, Apple still has remarkable room to grow.


- iPad growth: Cook noted that no one could have predicted 55 million units at this point, by far the fastest growth ever for an Apple product. The iPad benefited significantly from an established base of users familiar with the iPhone and iPod and from the established infrastructure of the iTunes Store and App Store.

- Competing tablets: Addressing the Kindle Fire and other cheaper competitors, Cook noted that price is rarely the most important thing for consumers. Long-term, people aren't happy about getting a good deal on a terrible product. Cook noted that he loves competition (as long as other companies "invent their own stuff") and that he believes Apple's innovation will drive things forward.

- Apple TV: Cook reported that Apple still considers the Apple TV to be a "hobby", in the sense that it shouldn't be thought of as a major pillar of Apple's business. That said, Apple has always felt that if it kept "pulling the string", there would be something there. Consumer satisfaction is reportedly off the charts and sales are growing quickly.

- Siri and iCloud: Cook's belief is that iCloud is the strategy for the next decade, enabling users to access their content from anywhere. iCloud already has over 100 million users just months after launching. Siri, on the other hand, is a profound change in input methods in Cook's view, and he notes that never before had he considered a beta product to be indispensable.

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Google+ on iOS gets Instant Uploads

Wed, Feb 15 2012 10:27 | IOS, Google, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
Google's rolled out several updates to its social network today, both on the iOS platform and on the web. The big change in the iOS app is the inclusion of instant photo uploads, a feature that Android users have had for some time. Upon launching the updated app, Google+ will ask you if you want to turn on automatic uploads, and whether you want to upload over Wi-Fi and 3G or just Wi-Fi only. Once activated, any picture you snap in the native iOS camera app or in third party apps like Instagram is uploaded to a private folder on Google+; from there, you can choose to share photos through new posts, add to albums, or delete them entirely.
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Custom signatures, notifications, and highlights for iPhone Mail with Mail Enhancer for jailbreak

Sat, Feb 11 2012 10:20 | IOS, Jailbreak, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com


Mail-Enhancer-620x413

Mail Enhancer adds a great deal of extra functionality to your jailbroken iPhone, including the ability to set custom signatures for different accounts, tailored notifications, advanced mail sorting options, and account highlighting. If the stock version of iOS simply doesn’t meet your needs, and you’re looking for more and better functionality, give Mail Enhancer a try.

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Rovio celebrates Angry Birds 2nd birthday with 15 new birthday cake levels

Thu, Feb 9 2012 12:29 | IOS, Android
Microsoft currently testing its own smartphone, says WSJBy Sam Byford on November 2, 2012 12:51 am Email @345triangle98COMMENTS34LikeTweet140This page has been shared 140 times. View these Tweets.85inShareMicrosoft surprised the world earlier this year when it moved into producing its own computer hardware with the Surface, but the company's plans may not stop there. According to the Wall Street
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Siri Support for Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Russian Languages Coming Next Month?

Thu, Feb 9 2012 12:12 | IOS, Apple
Microsoft currently testing its own smartphone, says WSJBy Sam Byford on November 2, 2012 12:51 am Email @345triangle98COMMENTS34LikeTweet140This page has been shared 140 times. View these Tweets.85inShareMicrosoft surprised the world earlier this year when it moved into producing its own computer hardware with the Surface, but the company's plans may not stop there. According to the Wall Street
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Chrome for Android arrives, No Flash support, might arrive on IOS too.

Wed, Feb 8 2012 05:11 | IOS, Android
Microsoft currently testing its own smartphone, says WSJBy Sam Byford on November 2, 2012 12:51 am Email @345triangle98COMMENTS34LikeTweet140This page has been shared 140 times. View these Tweets.85inShareMicrosoft surprised the world earlier this year when it moved into producing its own computer hardware with the Surface, but the company's plans may not stop there. According to the Wall Street
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iStomp effects pedal for iOS musicians

Tue, Feb 7 2012 01:01 | IOS, Musical, iPad, iPod
Microsoft currently testing its own smartphone, says WSJBy Sam Byford on November 2, 2012 12:51 am Email @345triangle98COMMENTS34LikeTweet140This page has been shared 140 times. View these Tweets.85inShareMicrosoft surprised the world earlier this year when it moved into producing its own computer hardware with the Surface, but the company's plans may not stop there. According to the Wall Street
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iPad’s Split Keyboard Has Six Hidden Keys

Mon, Feb 6 2012 08:19 | IOS, iPad, Apple
Microsoft currently testing its own smartphone, says WSJBy Sam Byford on November 2, 2012 12:51 am Email @345triangle98COMMENTS34LikeTweet140This page has been shared 140 times. View these Tweets.85inShareMicrosoft surprised the world earlier this year when it moved into producing its own computer hardware with the Surface, but the company's plans may not stop there. According to the Wall Street
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iMovie vs Avid Studio: iPad video editing app shootout.

Sun, Feb 5 2012 10:03 | IOS, App, iPad, Apple
www.tech-sanity.com
By Leanna Lofte, Saturday, Feb 4, 2012


1

Apple and Avid have been battling it out on the big screen for years, but now they’ve brought the video editing battle to the iPad — and the winner may not be who you think.

Avid Studio for iPad launched this week in the App Store, instantly becoming the first real competitor to Apple’s iMovie video editing app. What makes this so interesting is that Avid was king of digital video editing in Hollywood for a long time, and then Apple came out with the far more affordable Final Cut Pro/ Final Cut Studio, and enticed a few big name directors to give their new software a try.
So is Avid getting a little payback here by bringing the video editing battle back to Apple’s home turf? Most definitely, and as good as iMovie is — some of the best mobile software we’ve seen to date — Avid be even better.

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iBooks Author updated, Apple clarifies Content You Create belongs to you not Apple

Sat, Feb 4 2012 05:20 | IOS, Apple
Microsoft currently testing its own smartphone, says WSJBy Sam Byford on November 2, 2012 12:51 am Email @345triangle98COMMENTS34LikeTweet140This page has been shared 140 times. View these Tweets.85inShareMicrosoft surprised the world earlier this year when it moved into producing its own computer hardware with the Surface, but the company's plans may not stop there. According to the Wall Street
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Why are there ZFS references in the latest iOS 5.1 beta?

Sat, Feb 4 2012 05:18 | IOS, Apple
Microsoft currently testing its own smartphone, says WSJBy Sam Byford on November 2, 2012 12:51 am Email @345triangle98COMMENTS34LikeTweet140This page has been shared 140 times. View these Tweets.85inShareMicrosoft surprised the world earlier this year when it moved into producing its own computer hardware with the Surface, but the company's plans may not stop there. According to the Wall Street
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Nike+ FuelBand

Sat, Feb 4 2012 05:09 | IOS, iPhone
Microsoft currently testing its own smartphone, says WSJBy Sam Byford on November 2, 2012 12:51 am Email @345triangle98COMMENTS34LikeTweet140This page has been shared 140 times. View these Tweets.85inShareMicrosoft surprised the world earlier this year when it moved into producing its own computer hardware with the Surface, but the company's plans may not stop there. According to the Wall Street
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US wants all students using digital textbooks in five years

Fri, Feb 3 2012 08:45 | IOS, Apple
Microsoft currently testing its own smartphone, says WSJBy Sam Byford on November 2, 2012 12:51 am Email @345triangle98COMMENTS34LikeTweet140This page has been shared 140 times. View these Tweets.85inShareMicrosoft surprised the world earlier this year when it moved into producing its own computer hardware with the Surface, but the company's plans may not stop there. According to the Wall Street
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Hey jailbreaking fans!

The iOS 6.1 untethered jailbreak is here! Here is our tutorial, with download links and all: