Ekko Player for iOS is a neat app that will read news headlines and stories to you. In addition to reading the headlines and articles to you, the app also allows you to use you voice to navigate between stories, making it an excellent way to digest news while on-the-go.
As we reported would happen earlier this week, Apple this evening has updated its Apple Store app with support for Watch. From the app, users can get real-time order status updates, initiate the process of picking up an order, make and search for Genius Bar appointments, and discover events and workshops taking place in nearby Apple Stores.
Ford was one of the first car manufacturers to announce its intentions to add support for Apple’s CarPlay to its in-dash systems. Questions concerning how Ford plans to integrate Apple’s solution, however, have remained since the initial announcement. In an interview with Re/code today, Ford CEO Mark Fields clarified some of the details regarding the company’s plans to offer CarPlay (and Android Auto) in its vehicles.
There’s no denying that connected smart home accessories are on the rise. Apple’s HomeKit is slowly making an entrance into this space, but for the moment there are a wide variety of accessories available that can make your house a lot cooler. Today we’re taking a look at some of the essential options that have been around for a little while, but are definitely must-haves if you’re into the smart home scene. These devices may not be necessary, but they make things around the house more convenient…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple has started offering registered developers the chance to sign-up and test its upcoming App Analytics feature first announced last year at WWDC. Developers have been awaiting the service since it was announced following Apple’s acquisition of TestFlight (and FlightPath), a service which offered its own analytics features.
Expand
Expanding
Close
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HlJSTVX7KA]
With the North American release of the new Avengers: Age of Ultron movie hitting theaters tomorrow, Korean developer Netmarble has perfectly timed the release of its anticipated “Marvel Future Fight” action RPG for iPhone and iPad.
Available on the App Store now for free, the game features 36 officially licensed Marvel characters, including The Avengers, Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Daredevil, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Loki, Doctor Octopus and Ultron.
The game includes a single player campaign, 3 vs. 3 battles, one-finger gesture control or a virtual gamepad, and a familiar RPG leveling system.
With a storyline penned by best-selling Marvel comics writer Peter David, players can experience the world of Marvel firsthand across four action-packed modes. In addition to the PVE Mission Mode, Marvel Future Fight also includes a PVP three-on-three Timeline Battle that will see teams of players fighting heroes from other dimensions. For players looking to take it to the next level, the Villain Siege mode taps on players’ knowledge of the Marvel Universe to uncover evil plots of the most infamous villains, while Dimension Rift Missions will offer a true test of skill for players seeking the ultimate challenge.
To celebrate the launch of the title, Netmarble and Marvel are offering players the ability to unlock Iron Man armor as an in-game item during the first week.
Marvel Future Fight is available for free on the App Store now.
“My Mac used to be fast, but now it’s running so slow.” I’ve heard many versions of this complaint, and they’re always factually true, not just opinions: Macs do become sluggish over time, even if all of their chips and hard drives are working like new.
I’ve devoted several columns to hardware solutions — replacing old hard drives with fast new SSDs, adding more RAM, and increasing storage capacity using an external drive — but there are software solutions, too. Even die-hard Apple fans will admit that Macs typically run new OS X versions better (faster, and with fewer bugs) if you start with a clean slate: completely wipe your hard drive, do a fresh install of the latest OS X release, and restore only the files you need. That’s not as hard as it sounds, but it’s a radical and fairly time-consuming solution.
This How-To article offers a simpler alternative. First, find and delete enough files to leave your Mac at least 50GB of free storage capacity — enough room for the Mac to work without pausing to manage its hard drive space. Next, cleanse the cruft OS X builds up in the background as you use your computer. Below, I’ll show you how two completely free Mac programs, GrandPerspective and OnyX, will do all the heavy lifting for you. GrandPerspective offers a highly visual display of what’s taking up space on your Mac; Onyx cleans up the Mac files you’d be afraid to touch yourself…
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
ZeroLemon MFi 6.4-ft rugged tangle-free nylon Lightning cable $10 w/ free shipping (Reg. $13) http://t.co/rkSxH2KoLA pic.twitter.com/LX0tx5qd9m
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) April 30, 2015
Ahead of Apple’s WWDC in June and an expected Apple TV refresh, shipping times for its current generation Apple TV have just slipped from in stock to 1-2 weeks. Apple’s estimates for shipping Apple TV from its online store often jump between being “in stock” and “1 day”, but a longer delay in shipping could signal Apple’s intent to introduce a refreshed Apple TV in the near future.
Expand
Expanding
Close
We’ve already seen the Apple Watch get torn apart by iFixit, giving us an inside look at the Taptic Engine, Digital Crown, and (mostly) battery, and now ABI Research has gone a level further and opened up the custom designed S1 chip that is the brains of the Apple Watch…
Expand
Expanding
Close
If you wanted to get your hands on something (partly) designed by Marc Newson, the Apple Watch is probably the cheapest option out there. Even the $17,000 top-of-the-range Edition model might look a little more reasonable after learning that a Newson-designed lounge chair just sold at a London auction for $3.7M.
Still, when you’re laying out a few million on a chair, you can at least be confident it’s the most comfortable chair in the world, right? Apparently not: Newson told the BBC that it was “not really meant to be comfortable.”
Newson, a close friend of Jony Ive, joined Apple last year to work on a number of projects, among them a special edition Red Mac Pro (which sold for a mere $977,000) and, of course, the Apple Watch. Newson and Ive spoke at the Condé Nast luxury conference last week, discussing the design and materials of the watch.
Via Business Insider
The Amazon Instant Video app for iOS is getting a nice update today that brings streaming of content in HD as well as the ability to stream over a cellular connection. Previously users were only able to stream over WiFi, but will now be able to stream movies and TV shows on their LTE connection while on the go.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple is adding 20 new Flyover locations to Apple Maps, including the Arches National Park in Utah. Flyover not only provides a great way to get a realistic view of a location, but also allows some virtual tourism of some of the bigger sights out there that you may never get the chance to visit in person.
As always with Flyover updates, it can take a little time for them to roll out to everyone. You’ll know it’s available when you search for a location and see the Flyover bar with its Start button …
Expand
Expanding
Close
A low-tech scheme where postal workers from Japan Post check-in on how elderly residents are doing is about to go hi-tech with the help of iPads, reports the WSJ. The pilot scheme – one of the fruits of the Apple/IBM partnership – will see Japan Post hand out free iPads to 1,000 older citizens to allow closer and more frequent checks.
“By handing iPads to the elderly, we can closely check in on them more often—not only confirming if they are doing fine but also making sure that they are not involved in any trouble like a scam targeting the elderly,” a Japan Post official said on Thursday.
Data from the iPads will be analyzed by IBM’s Watson computer, reports Nikkei …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Evernote, which previously offered only a free Basic membership or a $50/year Premium one, has now added a middle tier. The new Evernote Plus subscription offers many of the premium features for half-price, at $25/year. The catch? Limits to the amount of data you can add to Evernote.
Evernote Plus limits you to 1GB/month total, a maximum note size of 50MB and no more than 250 emails per month – and you’ll be missing out on a few features, like the ability to search inside PDFs and Office documents. The full comparison chart can be found here.
Evernote has also increased Premium prices in some regions, including the U.S. if you pay monthly, up to $5.99/month. However, the company says that it has locked in existing pricing for current subscribers.
If you’re currently paying and the price of Premium went up in your region, then we’ve locked you into your rate for a year, or more. As long as you continue in your current plan, your price will adjust at your first renewal after April 29, 2016.
Finally, some regions have seen a price fall, and the company’s FAQ explains how to switch to the lower price.
Evernote made major improvements to its OS X desktop app toward the end of last year.
I outlined in my first diary piece why I decided to put an Apple Watch to the test, despite being skeptical about the value of smartwatches. The short version is that there’s only one way to judge a new product category, and that’s by living with it for a while.
I set an arbitrary test period of one week because I think that’s long enough to determine if and how I use it, and what difference it makes to my everyday life. I do recognize that a week isn’t long enough for the ultimate test: will it have been consigned to a drawer two or three months down the line? But I figured you wouldn’t want to wait quite that long for my verdict.
Let’s start with what have now been very firmly identified as non-issues …
The WSJ has added a sentence to yesterday’s report that the rollout of the Apple Watch has been slowed by the discovery of faulty Taptic Engines supplied by AAC Technologies Holdings. The new sentence, likely in response to a comment by Apple, suggests that none of the faulty units made it as far as shipping.
Apple doesn’t plan a recall, because there’s no indication that Apple shipped any watches with the defective part to customers.
Re/code makes a similar statement, that Apple identified the flaw before any faulty watches were shipped.
John Gruber notes on Daring Fireball that his own review unit had what appears to be the same fault, but this would have been supplied to him by Apple before customer watches started shipping, and it may well be that faults in review watches were how Apple picked up on the issue.
While there are isolated reports of customers receiving watches with faulty taptic engines, there will of course be a certain percentage of faulty models in any shipment, and these may be unrelated to the more systemic issue identified by Apple.