General

I’ve tested lots of iPhone battery cases since 2007, and quite a few great iPhone 6 battery cases over the past year. It’s extremely rare to find a battery case with integrated wall plugs that recharge both the battery and iPhone, but a company named Prong is now on its second-generation version of exactly that product. Prong’s first iPhone cases had no batteries, but included wall plugs so you could recharge wherever you found a standard wall outlet. Then it took the next logical step and added a spare battery for iPhone 5/5s users.

After a very lengthy pre-order process, Prong is about to release PWR Case for iPhone 6 ($100), a bigger and more powerful version of its earlier iPhone 5/5s case. PWR is atypical in several ways, starting with the aforementioned fold-out wall prongs, but also that it includes a detachable case, and is offered in a fully transparent version that may appeal to techies…

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Is Apple considering another round of major changes to iOS’s Home screen? If watchOS and tvOS are any indication, the answer could be “yes.” Earlier this year, Apple launched the Apple Watch with a purely text-free Home screen, requiring users to identify 20-some initial apps (and manually-added third-party apps) by icon designs alone. This month, it will release the fourth-generation Apple TV with a refreshed UI, again almost entirely eliminating below-app text in favor of redesigned icons with 3D depth.

While it would be easy to write off Apple’s changes to text labels as one-off decisions for “really small screen” and “really big screen” devices, they collectively raise an interesting question: if developers properly redesigned their iOS icons, would text labels — a staple of graphical user interfaces for decades — really be necessary any more? I’ll take a look at some of the pros and cons below…

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Nest Weave, the communications protocol that Nest uses to make its connected home devices talk to each other, definitely isn’t new. But as of today, Nest is making it part of its Works with Nest program so that third-party hardware makers and developers can use the protocol in their own products…
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Aaron Sorkin, screenwriter of Steve Jobs, told Wired that he had no idea how he was going to turn the huge biography into a movie, and when he finally did come up with an idea for it, he didn’t think the studio would agree.

I didn’t know that much about Steve Jobs, and the idea of doing a biopic was daunting. I work very slowly, and the first couple of months are spent just pacing around, climbing the walls […]

[Finally,] I got this idea, and I wrote an email to Scott saying, “If I had no one to answer to, I would write this entire movie in three real-time scenes, and each one would take place backstage before a particular product launch” […]

Really, I was emailing Scott to get help: Take this thing that I really want to do and tell me what I’m allowed to do, because no studio is going to let me do this. Two or three minutes later, I got an email from Amy Pascal—Scott had forwarded my email to her—and she said, “I think this is a great idea.” I couldn’t believe it. They were going to let me do this thing. 

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During the announcement of Google’s Chromecast Audio yesterday, the company made sure to mention that music subscription leader Spotify will soon be one of the many music streaming services supported by the platform. With many Apple Music subscriptions renewing (or not renewing) and Google unveiling a $35 dongle that retrofits our existing home speakers with Wi-Fi, some are rightfully wondering: What about Apple Music?

According to statements from one Googler (via TrustedReviews), Google has no bar on any platform joining in on supporting Chromecast, and the Mountain View company has already directly asked Apple to play along…
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I honestly did not want to order both an iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus this year. After many years of comprehensively reviewing iPhones — an exhausting process — I was looking forward to spending this year’s iPhone release kicking back and enjoying one of the two new models like a regular customer.

The only problem: I couldn’t decide which model I wanted.

I’ve used an iPhone 6 Plus for the past year, loving the typing experience (for the first time on any iPhone) but hating its size in my pockets (also for the first time on any iPhone). My hope was to switch to an iPhone 6s, and I expected to do so if the 6s proved to be nearly as good as the 6s Plus. But after a weekend playing with both new iPhones, alternating full days of usage between them, I think I’ve come to a different conclusion…

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Pebble Time and Pebble Time Steel both launched earlier this year to mixed reviews, and now the company behind two of the most-funded Kickstarter projects ever is at it again. Today, Pebble is launching the Pebble Time Round, its first circular smartwatch…
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Today we’re taking the first really deep look at Apple’s fourth-generation Apple TV, which will hit stores next month. In our exclusive video, we explore the upgraded hardware, the Siri Remote, and dig down into tvOS, the new UI that brings the entire experience to life.

Are there surprises? Oh yes. The new Apple TV actually supports Bluetooth headphones and Bluetooth speakers, a special Night Mode, and radically improved accessibility options inspired by iOS. You can learn about all of the great new features below…

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Update below.

With the number of refugees now fleeing war-torn Syria reaching into the hundreds of thousands, Apple is inviting customers to donate to the Red Cross through a splash page on the iTunes Store. There are donate buttons for amounts ranging from $5 to $200 in the U.S. store, and for similar sums in other countries.

Many Syrian nationals have seen their homes and, in some cases, entire towns destroyed by bombings. Others were forced to run as ISIS continues its brutal expansion, with murder and rape commonplace. The Red Cross has launched a crisis appeal to raise money to provide food, water, shelter and medical care for those fleeing the country … 
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Apple has now activated the new iCloud Storage tiers, as announced last week at Apple’s September event. The new tiers do not bump the free tier — it remains at 5 GB. However, for $0.99 per month you now get 50 GB of storage, up from 20 GB. The 200 GB plan is now cheaper at $2.99 and the 1 TB plan is now half the price at $9.99 per month.

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Alongside Apple’s announcement of the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, it also released a new official Lightning Dock to sit the phones in. Unlike Apple’s previous version of this dock which was made entirely of plastic, these new docks are aluminum and color-matched to the Space Grey, Silver, Gold and Rose Gold finishes of the new iPhone 6s. YouTuber DetroitBORG has a full walkthrough video of all the new docks in action …

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The official Steve Jobs biopic, written by Aaron Sorkin, was shown at the Telluride Film Festival for a preliminary screening ahead of its cinema debut on October 9th. The reviews are in and seem to be very good indeed. Variety called it “a terrific actors’ showcase and an incorrigibly entertaining ride that looks set to be one of the fall’s early must-see attractions.”

The film is just over two hours long, with Michael Fassbender who plays Jobs, being a standout success. The Guardian described Fassbender playing the lead role as a transformative experience with others already lobbying Fassbender for an Oscar for the part. We’ve compiled some quotes from various reviews below. Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak seems to like the film as well …

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Samsung’s latest Gear S2 smartwatch is about to go up against one of the top tier smartwatches in the game. Today we’re doing a brief comparison between the Gear S2 and Apple Watch to find out which one you should buy…

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With the official announcement of Apple’s iPhone 6S just around the corner, Gazelle today announced limited-time promotional trade-in pricing for the iPhone 5s, 6, and 6 Plus, guaranteeing that Gazelle’s cash offer will “beat the trade-in credit offered by a customer’s wireless carrier or Apple.” The promotion applies to U.S. carriers AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint, as well as Apple’s trade-in program.
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A planning permission meeting for a new Apple Store in Memphis has seemingly revealed more information about Apple’s plans for its retail stores. According to the Apple representative, the Memphis project represents one of the first ‘next generation’ Apple Store designs that Apple is rolling out around the world, starting in the fall. The Memphis store will be part of the first rollout of the new look stores in the US.

So what does the ‘next generation’ Apple Store look like?

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Congrats, iPhone owners: Popular online food ordering service Eat24 has determined that you are healthier than users of Google’s Android. That’s based on data it collected from its mobile app over a three month period, tracking information regarding how ordering habits differed across the rival platforms.

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I’m a daily Apple TV user, and that fact apparently puts me in the minority: even when the Apple TV’s price dropped to nearly iPod shuffle levels, it didn’t take off like Apple’s iPads or iPhones. From what I’ve gathered, many people think the little black box can’t do much. And it’s amazing to me that most people can’t describe what the Apple TV can do, even though it’s been available for years.

Adding an App Store to the Apple TV — a place to download games, new channels, and apps — has seemed for years like a no-brainer for everyone… except Apple. Blame the hardware, the software, or protracted negotiations with potential partners, but after years of waiting, it just hasn’t happened. Calling this a missed opportunity would be an understatement: video games alone generate tens of billions of dollars of revenue annually, and well over half of them are now sold digitally. Thankfully, 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman reports, Apple will finally bring both iOS 9 and an App Store to the Apple TV this year.

The big question on my mind is how Apple plans to monetize the new Apple TV, particularly given its potential as a gaming console. Prior-generation Apple TVs failed to thrive at $99 (or even $69) price points, which is the same range where Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Ouya and others have struggled to match the market share of PlayStations, Wiis, and Xboxes. Moreover, Apple’s customers have shown little interest in paying ridiculous prices for iOS game controllers, so the hardware upside appears to be somewhat limited for Apple. There is, of course, a logical solution: Apple should accept the lessons it has learned about Apple TV and game accessory pricing, compensating for relatively low hardware profits by selling massive quantities of affordable software…

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iHome has spent years building a reputation for thoughtfully designed, value-packed Apple audio accessories. Beyond its annual releases of ever-improving speaker systems, it was the very first company to release an iPod alarm clock, and a day-one supporter of Apple’s AirPlay speaker standard. No audio company has focused as much on the practical needs of iPod, iPhone, and iPad users as iHome. And when it innovates, it always comes up with something cool.

Kineta K1 ($150) and Kineta K2 ($100) are iHome’s latest innovations: Bluetooth speakers with beautiful built-in battery charging docks and detachable USB battery packs. K2 is a nightstand- or desktop-friendly alarm clock radio with a large screen, stereo speakers, and speakerphone support for the iPhone. K1 is a completely portable stereo speaker with 13 hours of play time and speakerphone support. Each comes with iHome’s new K-CELL, a tube-shaped 2,600mAh battery that locks in place until you’re ready to go, then easily hides in your pocket or bag to refuel your iPhone, iPad, iPod, or Apple Watch anywhere.

Both Kinetas efficiently address two simple facts: Apple’s devices sound better through speakers and need extra power on-the-go. Read on for details on how they each combine two useful accessories into a single great package; you’ll also find a special discount inside!…

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