Games for the weekend: Skylanders Cloud Patrol
A carnival-style shooting game that resembles Fruit Ninja — except the targets are trolls, not fruit. Read more »
Surprise: Yahoo’s mobile push is working better than you think
… according to new statistics from Onavo, which tracks actual use of mobile apps and games by “millions” of iOS users. Read more »
Apple may not have answer for Google’s music service at WWDC
Reports indicate Apple is still working out the licensing details with music publishers for its “iRadio” service. Read more »
{"varname":"wijax_609574a329c234b04bfc70e4bbb23700"}
Apple CEO will detail his corporate tax policy ideas to Congress next week
photo: Credit: Asa Mathat | All Things Digital
It’s an unfamiliar role for an Apple executive to be in. But Tim Cook will say that while he believes 35 percent is too high of a corporate tax, he also doesn’t think “zero” taxes on that money is reasonable. Read more »
iOS quick tip: Turn on spoken notifications
While not exactly part of Siri, it is her voice that speaks to you. Spoken notifications come in handy for hands-free situations where you can’t pick up your phone, like driving, riding a bicycle or working out at the gym. Read more »
Android is just the beginning: How Bluetooth is preparing for the internet of things
Google’s support for the Bluetooth Smart Ready platform in Android is one step forward for the radio technology’s dominance in the internet of things. But the Bluetooth SIG has a lot more up its sleeve. Read more »
Google CEO Larry Page: Do as I say, not as I do
Google CEO Larry Page, who has been suffering from vocal cord issues, showed up at the end of the Google I/O keynote and spent some time talking about his vision of technology and took questions from the audience. And that’s when the fun started. Read more »
{"varname":"wijax_9ea1c743185d704dc9e0b74f9c27006c"}
Sponsored post: Apple devices become business communications tools with ShoreTel Dock
Apple iPads and iPhones can become unified communications end points for workers using ShoreTel Dock to transform the devices into business desk phones and enterprise collaboration tools, utilizing voice, IM presence and conferencing on a favored, personal device as they follow the BYOD trend. Read more »
Producer of The Ring and Mulholland Drive releases new horror movie as an iOS app
Neal Edelstein, producer of hit movies like The Ring and Mulholland Drive, has a new film project: A film delivered in chunks directly through an iOS app. Read more at paidContent »
Apple’s app store hits 50 billion downloads
Apple announced a big milestone in app downloads on Wednesday, the same day that Google’s I/O developer conference kicked off in San Francisco. The app store has now seen 50 million downloads so far. Read more »
{"varname":"wijax_6a23decdc46f69c76b2111e1be018fc3"}
Prepaid gives Google a huge Android boost (and Apple has noticed)
A third of all smartphones activated in Q1 were on prepaid plans, a trend that historically has favored Android, according to The NPD Group. Apple, though, is starting to make in-roads into the prepaid market. Read more »
Apple sued over faulty power button on iPhone 4
A new lawsuit claims the iPhone4 has a defective on-off button. The national class action claims Apple knew about the defect but didn’t disclose it even as it worked with AT&T to sell 2 year contracts. Read more »
BlackBerry expands its World: New Q5 phone and promises of BBM on iOS, Android
photo: BlackBerry
BlackBerry continues to gain product momentum with a new handset for emerging markets, 120,000 total apps for BlackBerry 10 and BBM for other phones. Can it push Windows Phone aside as the third mobile platform? Read more »
iOS app team behind Clear takes a shot at photos app, Analog Camera
Yes, it includes filters like every other photo app, but it also allows for a quick succession of shots to be taken. Then there’s a grid for helping to more easily select the best shot taken and best filter. Read more »
Sponsored post: Apple devices become business communications tools with ShoreTel Dock
Apple iPads and iPhones can become unified communications end points for workers using ShoreTel Dock to transform the devices into business desk phones and enterprise collaboration tools, utilizing voice, IM presence and conferencing on a favored, personal device as they follow the BYOD trend. Read more »
{"varname":"wijax_b7f1254bca4e8edef7106be9c072b283"}
The Hue lightbulb makes some connected friends and gets new skills
photo: Philips
Philips is giving its connected Hue light bulb an update that connects it to IFTTT so people can tie their light bulbs into existing web services. It’s also adding a location-aware feature and scheduling. Read more »
Sandvine report confirms: video makes bandwidth hogs of us all
Video has long been the driving force behind our growth in broadband traffic. The latest Sandvine report shows us that’s still the case and offers clues on how ISPs may cope. Read more »
Just one month in, T-Mobile raises its $99 iPhone 5 down payment
The initial iPhone 5 pricing was part of what made T-Mobile’s big new “no-contract” phones push so attractive. Now the carrier is changing the rules: it requires a $149 down payment. Read more »
Review: Betaworks connects the Dots to score an iOS hit
Is the free game worth your time, or is it just a bare-bones experiment aimed to help Betaworks better its other products? Well, as it turns out, it can be both. Read more »
iTunes’ recent growth shows content could be a big business for Apple
iTunes’ increasingly good quarterly sales demonstrates how the long-rumored Apple video and “iRadio” subscription services the company has over the years tried to bring to fruition could become significant revenue sources. Read more »
{"varname":"wijax_0f7ad61f0839dc6d307ae73ae16e91c9"}
ICYMI Podcasts: Chromebooks on sale, connected cornfields and Google’s iOS strategy
Catch up on our recent podcasts: Chrome users can get some new tips and extension recommendations while farmers — yes farmers! — can benefit from the Internet of Things. Plus, YouTube subscription news and thoughts on Google cracking the iOS walled garden. Read more »
Powering Times Square via Shanghai: How a global smart grid can fuel our insatiable data appetite
At our current pace of consumption, the world’s demands for compute power will quickly outpace the energy provided by our data centers. The solution is a global smart grid, and Europe provides a model for what that might look like. Read more »
How Apple could pull ahead in the Mac vs PC speed race again
While things are not quite what they used to be, Apple does still have a shot at impressing its seemingly forgotten Mac Pro customers by putting the power back into its Macs. Read more »
Games for the weekend: Gravity Hook HD
An arcade-style game that is more challenging than it may first appear. If there were such a genre for side-scrolling puzzle games, this game would define it, except for one minor detail: it’s vertical. Read more »
With Cloud Drive Photos, Amazon makes a play to be the cloud app for iOS photos
Something Amazon is really good at and something Apple is not: the cloud. Amazon hones in on its competitors’ cloud-based photo territory on Apple’s own platform with a new app. Read more »
{"varname":"wijax_3112a75a824d4597ce73be11eb0fb35f"}
Financial Times joins Flipboard, says it’s a better deal than Apple
The Financial Times is the latest publisher to strike a partnership with Flipboard. The deal is interesting because the FT recently left another third-party platform, iTunes. Read more at paidContent »
What Apple really means when it says it has “sold” a product
photo: Getty Images / Daniel Barry
When Apple says it sold 37.5 million iPhones and 19.5 million iPads this is often interpreted as Apple declaring that 37.5 million iPhones and 19.5 million iPads have been purchased by customers. That’s not quite the whole story. Read more »
Apple wins trademark case over ‘iBooks’
Apple has won one of its many lawsuits involving “i” products — a federal judge threw out a case in which a New York publisher claimed that it, not Apple, has the rights to use “iBooks.” Read more »
AT&T-owned AIO Wireless launches pre-paid and BYOD service, but no LTE
AIO Wireless, a new pre-paid services company that is an AT&T subsidiary, launches today. The plans are simple and you can even get an iPhone, but you won’t get LTE data. Read more »
Prepaid boosted T-Mobile customers last quarter, but 500K iPhones sold speaks to the future
A gain in prepaid customers offset a loss in T-Mobile’s postpaid subscriber base, bringing a branded net add of customers for the first time since early 2009. But the iPhone and LTE network is more likely to help in the future. Read more »
{"varname":"wijax_491786ea4d515915ee79b70f750b50ec"}
Why Adobe’s big cloud bet really isn’t a huge gamble at all
Falling average selling prices, and millions of non-upgrading users made Adobe’s transition from Creative Suite to Creative Cloud inevitable. Read more »
Hipstamatic attempts to revive mobile photographers with the launch of social app Oggl
What does the future look like for Hipstamatic, the original darling of mobile photo shutterbugs eclipsed by Instagram? It’s embracing the social nature of the photo wars with Oggl, a new app. Read more »
Google lets iOS apps direct users to Chrome instead of Safari
Google is helping third-party iOS app makers send their users to Chrome instead of the default Safari browser. It’s yet another step in the company finding ways to reach its users on Apple’s own platform. Read more »
Need instant Wi-Fi? Boingo makes it an iTunes in-app purchase
Boingo is the latest company to take advantage of in-app payments on iOS devices. An update to the Boingo Wi-Finder app lets you sign up for a $7.99 monthly Wi-Fi plan simply by typing your iTunes password. Read more »
If Apple decides to make a television, Foxconn will be ready to build it
Foxconn isn’t looking for ways to reduce its dependence on Apple; it’s really looking for ways to rely less on the iPhone. Read more »
Lace up your sneakers, Pebble watch owners, you’ve got RunKeeper!
Owners of the Pebble ePaper watch have a new app available for their wrist today. The promised integration with RunKeeper is here, showing pace, distance and more on the wrist. Read more »
5 photo apps that will make a creative Mother’s Day gift in a snap
From photo collages to photo mosaics, there are several apps that can help you whip up a quick customized gift. Read more »
Viber morphs into full-blown Skype rival by releasing desktop app
Until now, Viber has been a mobile-only play that sits somewhere in between Skype and WhatsApp. Now it’s on the desktop too, and the different platform versions are very tightly integrated indeed. Read more »
Google keeps fighting for the heart of the iPhone with new Gmail update
Even as Apple has decoupled its iPhone partnership with Google for everything except search, the web company has still found a way to reach its users who have iPhones and iPads. Read more »
Recruiting new iPhone carriers may be harder than adding individual users
The key to Apple’s growth is finding international carriers that will sell the iPhone to new smartphone users. But, as Bloomberg points out, that’s getting harder to do because of Apple’s requirements. Read more »
