GigaOM » iOS 6.1

Sorry Androids: Jawbone’s Big Jambox speaker gains battery life with iOS 6.1 devices

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:43:51 +0000

One of the best purchases I made recently was a refurbished Jawbone Big Jambox wireless speaker. The sound quality, volume levels and use as a hands-free voice speaker for calls are all fantastic. My speaker is about to get even better though, depending on what device I pair it with: The biggest benefits will come when I stream music from my iOS devices and not those running Android.

A new software update for the Big Jambox will soon be available on the MyTalk Jambox site that not only provides more stable streaming from an iOS device but also adds another two hours of playback.

Here’s a rundown of what to expect after the update, per an email I received from the Jawbone folks:

Better Audio Experience: New AAC support for iOS 6.1 delivers improved audio streaming with fewer dropouts and interruptions at greater distances.
Longer Battery Life: Gain two additional hours of battery life (that’s 17 total hours of playback!) when streaming from your iOS 6.1 device. It’s also less taxing on your connected device, meaning you’ll have more battery life on your paired iOS device too.
Synced Volume Control: Now you can control the volume from your BIG JAMBOX or from your mobile device, without having to adjust the volume on both (requires AVRCP 1.4).
New Silent Mode: Stream music on BIG JAMBOX without the interruption of voice prompts and tones. Just hold down the ‘Talk’ & ‘Minus’ buttons while powering BIG JAMBOX on to disable all sounds aside from your tunes and calls – BIG JAMBOX will stay in Silent Mode until disabled by holding down the ‘Talk’ & ‘Plus’ buttons while powering on.
Performance Improvements: This update also improves the LED response on BIG JAMBOX and brings connectivity for PS Vita for killer mobile gaming audio.

I’m looking forward to the extra battery life, though all of the new features are welcome. Currently, the Big Jambox is advertised to provide 15 hours of run-time on one charge, which is plenty, but more is always better as I don’t typically charge the wireless speaker on a regular basis.

Even though I have access to all of the same music — thanks to cloud storage — on my Android devices as well as my iPhone 5 and iPad mini, I’ll probably start streaming more from the iOS devices after updating my speaker.

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Something else to fix in iOS 6.1: a trick lets users bypass iPhone lock screen

Erica Ogg — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:49:18 +0000

This story was updated at 12:28 p.m. PT with comment from Apple.

iOS 6.1 was released just a few weeks ago, and Apple has had to squash a couple high-profile bugs already. Now add to the list another potentially scary-sounding glitch: with a few well-timed button taps, it appears anyone can bypass the iPhone’s lock screen, assuming it’s been updated to the latest version of iOS 6.1, according to several reports.

A YouTube video showing how it can be done, posted by user videosdebarraquito, was spotted by The Verge on Thursday. Basically, he found that by attempting and canceling an emergency call on the iPhone, holding the lock buttong and then taking a screenshot took him past the stage where he should have had to enter a password to access the phone. In the video he shows he’s able to place a call to one of the phone’s listed contacts.

He also claims that he was able to see and edit the “contacts list, list of recent calls, favorite contacts, and even make a call to any phone number on the hacked device and erase the log.”

An Apple spokeswoman said in a statement the company is working on a fix: ”Apple takes user security very seriously. We are aware of this issue, and will deliver a fix in a future software update.”

This is yet another thing for Apple to address as part of the iOS 6.1 release. Earlier this week it released iOS 6.1.1 that targeted a bug causing some users of the iPhone 4S to experience degraded 3G connectivity. And some corporate iPhone users are still waiting for Apple to release a fix for an acknowledged bug causing syncing with Microsoft Exchange to go haywire.

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Apple makes it easier to find Passbook apps in iOS 6.1 update

Erica Ogg — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 19:35:30 +0000

While the promise of Passbook was intriguing, the first release of Apple’s mobile ticket, gift card, coupon and loyalty card repository in September was an underwhelming user experience. It wasn’t listed as a new addition in the release notes, but I was pleased to see in the iOS 6.1 update on Monday that Apple has addressed one of my biggest concerns: helping people understand what Passbook does, why they would want to use it, and where they can find apps that work with Passbook.

Apple has thankfully restored the Welcome screen to Passbook that explains what it does as well as the vital link “Apps for Passbook” that takes users to a special page in the App Store listing apps that are Passbook compatible. There you’ll find apps from companies like Sephora, Fandango and United, that were available upon launch. But Apple has many more available for download now.

The change is that Apple has kept this page and accompanying link around permanently: in the initial version of iOS 6, after you downloaded your first Passbook app, the link to the section of the App Store with Passbook-enabled apps disappeared. Simply searching the App Store from the iPhone itself for “Passbook apps” yielded nothing, however. The release lacked Apple’s typical attention to detail, which is why it stuck out as a particularly bad experience. (For users who already understand the utility of Passbook and want to delete this Welcome pass, there’s also now a button to do that.)

It’s a small thing, but if Apple truly wants to get its users used to paying for coffee or boarding planes or scanning a baseball game ticket with their iPhone, it’s important to guide them through it.

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Apple updates iOS 6 with new Siri, iTunes Match features and more LTE coverage

Erica Ogg — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:25:31 +0000

Apple kicked off this week with its first big update to iOS 6 since it was released in September. iOS 6.1 includes several feature updates related to LTE coverage, Siri, iTunes in the cloud, and advertising.

The updates:

More LTE carrier coverage. CEO Tim Cook announced this was coming on Apple’s earnings call last week.
Purchase movie tickets via Siri. You could previously search for movie times via Apple’s voice interface, and get showtime results via Fandango — now you can buy tickets in the same interaction.
iTunes Match subscribers can download individual songs from iCloud.
A new button that allows users to reset the Identifier for Advertisers. In iOS 6, Apple tried to wean advertisers off of UDIDs with the new IFA. It also gave users more control over whether their in-app behavior was transmitted to app developers or advertisers.

The update is available via iTunes or over the air update. iOS 6.1 is available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users.

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