Dropbox has released version 2.0 of its Mac client. The new update includes a new drop down interface, faster file sharing, and the ability to accept or decline shared files right from the app without needing to open the website. You can get the update now from the Dropbox website.
An update to the mobile client for iOS is expected soon as well. The mobile update will feature improved notifications for shared folders.
Update: the app has been pulled from the App Store…but venture this way for the same non-jailbroken functionality.
Update 2: We’re shocked, shocked!:
https://twitter.com/idoodler/status/311848346287497216
A new free app discovered in the App Store over the weekend can be used to manipulate some of the built-in features of iOS without the need to jailbreak your device. Don’t be fooled by the App Store screenshot. The aptly-named HiddenApps allows you to hide any of the built-in iOS apps that you may not have any desire to keep around, such as Stocks, Weather, Passbook and Newsstand.
The app also allows you to do a few other things, such as access the hidden Field Test app, which can be used in conjunction with a force-quit bug to display your cellular strength numerically, rather than as a set of bars. A button to disable iAds entirely can also be found on the app’s main menu. This button does exactly what it says: all iAds in every app will be removed completely.
Late Sunday night, whoever runs the official Apple iBookstore account on Twitter retweeted a very explicit tweet. The Apple-owned account also favorited the tweet according to some users who spotted it. Ironically, the contents of this tweet would almost certainly be disallowed in the all too wholesome App Store.
[tweet https://twitter.com/MichaelSteeber/status/310977708576346113]
Followers were a bit shocked by the post, which was **almost** immediately removed from the page.
[tweet https://twitter.com/InstTechQueen/status/310976462360571905]
Here’s a look at some of the most fun or useful jailbreak tweaks that came out this week. If you like these tweaks, but don’t have a jailbroken iOS device, you can check out jailbrea.kr to learn more about how to jailbreak your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.
PassIt – Free
We love 1Password here at 9to5Mac. Unfortunately, due to the lack of plugin support in Safari for iOS, if you run across a page that requires a login, you have to switch from Safari to 1Password, copy the password you need, switch back to Safari, and then paste the password into the field.
PassIt solves this slightly annoying problem by adding a button the Share Sheet which opens the current page in 1Password’s in-app browser. You can then use 1Password’s built-in auto-login feature to quickly login and continue what you were doing.
PassIt is available for free on the BigBoss repo.
Here’s a look at some of the most fun or useful jailbreak tweaks that came out this week. If you like these tweaks, but don’t have a jailbroken iOS device, you can check out jailbrea.kr to learn more about how to jailbreak your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.
ActiveDock – $1.99
ActiveDock (screenshot above) brings most of the features of the OS X dock to iOS: the Mountain Lion design, the “running” indicators on apps currently open in the background, and even bouncing animations for alerts and while apps are opening. The tweak allows you to customize the frequency of the notification alert bounces, so instead of the icon constantly bouncing, you can set it to only jump up and down every few seconds. Each feature of the tweak has its own toggle so you can choose which parts you do and don’t want to keep enabled all the time. The effects only apply to the dock, so you won’t have apps jumping up and down all over your homescreens. You can find ActiveDock on the BigBoss repo.
For years, iOS users have wanted a proper way to save, open, and store files on their devices. While Apple has given us a partial solution with “Open In…” sheets, the folks at SonicoMobile have taken it upon themselves to go a step further. Today, they have launched a new app called Files that aims to be the missing “Finder for iOS.”
Of course, we’ve seen similar apps before. What is it that makes Files different from the rest? Keep reading to find out.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bjzBDSqLts]
Sixteen-year-old app developers Michael Hansen and Ryan Orbuch, creators of the increasingly-popular to-do app Finish, were interviewed on Fox News’ morning show Fox and Friends today.
During the interview, the Colorado-based duo described the process that went into creating their hit app, what it was like to be featured by Apple, and more.
After the interview was over, Orbuch, the team’s designer, noted on Twitter that their app has risen to the 35th spot on the overall App Store charts and seems to show no signs of slowing. Be sure to check out our review of Finish for more about the app.
[tweet https://twitter.com/orbuch/status/305723394144477185]
There are a lot of places you can store your files these days. There’s the Documents folder on your Mac, of course, but there’s also Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft’s Skydrive and more. And, of course, everyone has their favorite storage service. Some people prefer one over the other, and it’s up to you to make sure you can keep them all straight.
Well, now you don’t have to. Doo is a brand new Mac app that aims to bring all of these services under one roof, and it does not disappoint. Keep reading to see how Doo can help you finally make sense of your cloud storage, and get a 9to5Mac-exclusive first look at the upcoming iPhone companion app.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/59750120 w=700&h=394]
Twitterrific 5, the popular new version of The Iconfactory’s Twitter client, has updated to version 5.1. The update introduces several new features and fixes. One of the new features, which you see in the video above, is the ability to mute, or “muffle,” hashtags, users, and even URL domain names. The full change log is lengthy and hints at push notifications coming in the next update:
Apple has released iTunes 11.0.2 this afternoon with a number of enhancements and fixes. Notably, the new update adds a Composer view for Music, improved responsiveness when handling large playlists, and a bug fix for purchases that do not show up in iTunes. Various other performance enhancements are also included. You can grab it from the Updates tab in the Mac App Store now.
Jailbreak tweak developer Filippo Bigarella released his newest piece of iPhone-modding software, called “LivelyIcons”, today. The tweak itself is simple: it adds fun animations to your iPhone’s homescreen icons when you open an application. You can find a video of it in action right here. The animations aren’t the only reason to buy it, though.
Biga has also announced via a blog post that he will donate the proceeds from this tweak to two foundations that focus on funding research to fight pediatric cancer. On his blog, Biga wrote:
Calendars. Contacts. Maps. Emails. Text messages. Facebook. LinkedIn.
There are a lot of things you can do with the iPhone. Each of those things is scattered across the phone in it’s own separate app, however. Sure, there’s some integration of those services, but most of the time you’re going to have to switch apps to get from one function to the other. It’s easy to get annoyed or overwhelmed trying to manage your time while everyone up-to-date on the things that matter.
Tempo is a new app from SRI (the company that originally developed Siri) that aims to bring all of those functions together—at least as far as the concern your schedule—into a cohesive system for managing your life. But how well do all of these different services coexist in the same application?
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/58173643 w=700&h=394]
Note: Not all the animations in this video made it into the final product.
Cloudier is a great new CloudApp management client. While we’ve seen some of the design concepts in this app before, Cloudier adds new design features like a grid view for photos and a zip viewer for peeking inside file archives.
Cloudier boasts a much lighter interface than I’m used to in Cloud clients, and I actually like it a lot. Rather than focusing on fitting a ton of features into the app, the developers focused on fitting in only the features you’ll actually need and making them work beautifully. It’s fast, looks great, and does exactly what you need.
Cloudier is available now on the App Store for $2.99. If you’re looking for an app to manage your CloudApp files, I highly recommend it.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vGJYz7JmvQc]
Smarterflo, the company that successfully launched the Smarter Stand for iPad on Kickstarter last year, has announced a new project focused on the iPhone. The new project, the Smarter Stand for iPhone, is a kickstand that uses the headphone jack on the iPhone as a mounting point, making it possible to use it with or without a case.
The Smarter Stand also set out to solve a secondary issue: tangled earbud cords. The stand has an earbud cord wrap that keeps them from being tangled, and it fits in your pocket so you can take it with you on the go.
The Smarter Stand will work with the iPhone 4, 4S and 5, as well as the iPod touch. The project can be found on Kickstarter, and it is trying to reach a funding goal of $15,000. There are a limited number of early bird rewards that were gone within 24 hours of the iPad version’s début on Kickstarter, so act fast if you want to get any.
Welcome to 9to5Mac’s Smackdown series, where we compare the top hardware and software accessories for your Apple products.
When it comes to email on the iPhone, some users find the built-in Mail app lacking. Luckily, there are quite a few third-party clients available for your emailing needs. We’ll be running down all the major ones today, including those from the mail providers themselves and today’s big news Mailbox.app.
What you won’t find here are “apps” that simply give you the mobile web version of a mail service. If that’s what you want, you already have an app for that. If you want a native third-party email app for your iPhone, keep reading.
Mailbox, the highly anticipated third-party Gmail client for the iPhone from Orchestra, is now available in the App Store. Here’s the essence of why Mailbox is meant to be a better mobile email client:
The app is free, but you’ll need a reservation code to use it today. These codes were given out on a first-come, first-served basis a few weeks ago to anyone who signed up for the app in advance. This system was put in place to prevent the company’s servers from being overwhelmed, as there is substantial demand for the free app.
Screenshots and video overview:
Image from the Twitter blog
Twitter announced a few updates to its mobile apps in a blog post today. Among the improvements is an updated search feature that is available from anywhere in the app and presents search results for people and terms all at once. The Discover tab is also reorganized, and the setting for switching between interactions and mentions in the Connect tab has been moved into the app.
One other very welcome change is the ability to tap links directly in the timeline now. Tapping a link would previously open the tweet’s detail view, where you would have to tap the link again to view it. Now you can just tap the link and go straight to the content.
iOS 6.1 was released just last week, but there’s already a public jailbreak available, thanks to the work of a new team of hackers known as Evad3rs. The jailbreak, called “evasi0n,” works on all versions of iOS from 6.0 and up, and it supports all current iOS 6.1 devices except the third generation Apple TV. According to the Evad3rs team, the following devices are supported on iOS versions 6.0 through 6.1:
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A pretty crazy bug report was filed with Apple on Thursday afternoon. According to a copy of the bug on Open Radar, all you have to do is type the text below into almost any window in any app on OS X to immediately crash the app. We managed to crash Tweetbot, Safari, Chrome, TextEdit, and more with this bug, but a few rare apps seem to be immune. This bug is so pervasive that typing it into this post crashed Safari and Chrome, so we embedded an image of the text below (apparently GIMP is one of those apps that can handle it safely).
Hey, did everyone know the Super Bowl is this Sunday? What will you be doing? /cc @evad3rs http://t.co/9fEgKI3b
— Ⓜ MuscleNerd (@MuscleNerd) January 28, 2013
@MikeBeas @evad3rs yep 6.1 is safe
— Ⓜ MuscleNerd (@MuscleNerd) January 28, 2013
In keeping with the tradition of “Sunday is Funday,” MuscleNerd, front-man for the new Evad3rs jailbreak development team, confirmed on Twitter today that iOS 6.1 has been jailbroken, and he teased that the untethered jailbreak will release on Super Bowl Sunday. The “untethered” status means you can safely reboot your device without having to worry about losing your jailbreak or any of the built-in features, as opposed to a “tethered” jailbreak that requires you to plug your device into a computer and re-run the jailbreaking app anytime you reboot it.
The Evad3rs team is made up of jailbreaking veterans, including MuscleNerd and planetbeing of the original iPhone Dev Team, pimskeks of the Chronic Dev Team, and pod2g, who was responsible for part of the second-generation iPod touch jailbreak and other more recent jailbreaks. The team has worked on the iOS 6.1 beta for months and recently announced that it created a working untethered jailbreak, but were waiting for the impending release of iOS 6.1 to ensure that Apple didn’t have time to fix the security holes they used to hack the devices.
Electronic Arts announced users would be able to download and test an early alpha build of its popular Origin gaming software for Mac starting today. According to a post on the Origin blog, only a few thousand players in North America and the United Kingdom will be able to download the app at this stage.
Mac gamers rejoice: Origin for Mac will be launching soon, and starting today we’re offering you the opportunity to take it for a spin before the official release.This open alpha will only be available to a few thousand users in North America and the United Kingdom, so don’t wait—download your copy of our new Mac client (alpha build) today.
Apple today posted its earnings for the final quarter of 2012, which was ‘disappointingly’ one of the largest corporate earnings year in human history. The letdown caused many investors to panic as Apple clearly circles the drain in what will be the first step in a short road to the demise of the most valuable company in the world (if Exxon hasn’t indeed surpassed it tomorrow morning).
Apple’s $13.1 billion in earnings this quarter was the fourth largest of all time according to the same metric.
Apple is still topped by ExxonMobil, which holds the top three spots, and was previously ousted by Apple as the world’s most valuable company.
Apple’s stock dropped nearly 11 percent in after-hours trading during the 1.5-hour earnings call, costing the company $50 billion in market value.
(Updated, as the methods by which inflation was calculated changed rankings at the source)
Welcome to 9to5Mac’s new Smackdown series, where we compare the top hardware and software accessories for your Apple products.
If you’re anything like me, you’re constantly on some form of social media or another. You’re not a self-proclaimed “social media guru” or some kind of “expert” on getting people to follow you, just someone who enjoys talking to interesting people online.
For most of us, our network of choice is Twitter. But, when it comes to using Twitter while on-the-go, there is a ton of different apps to choose from. To help make this decision easier (and save you a few bucks in the process), we compared five of the most popular Twitter clients available for the iPhone.
Everyone uses Twitter for something different. The features you want may not be the same features I want. Whether you’re a long time iPhone user or just stepped into the world of iOS for the first time over the holidays, we have an app for you. If you’re a Twitter power-user, we got you covered. If you just want to read your timeline and keep up with your friends, there’s something here for you, too.
Facebook began rolling out free voice calls through the Facebook Messenger app today for iPhone users in the United States. According to The Verge, the feature was tested in Canada earlier this year an has now been released in the United States. To place a free call over Wi-Fi or a cellular connection, users just need to tap the “i” button in the upper right corner of an active chat and press the “free call” button seen above.
It seems the feature isn’t available for everyone just yet, but is expected to be soon. Video calling is also notably absent from this version of the app. The voice calling feature was rolled out through a silent update, meaning you won’t need to go to the App Store to get it. Just open up Facebook Messenger and check for the “i” button in a chat.
