Tag: IOS

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Android Wear Smartwatches Now Work With iPhones

AndroidWearforiOSIt’s a good day for iOS users who like choices.

Sure Apple has their own watch, but if you’ve been eyeing the diversity of hardware in the Google ecosystem with envy, now you can use Android Wear without giving up your precious iPhone.

Starting today, any iPhone running iOS 8.2 or higher can install the Wear companion app through iTunes. Compatible with all current Wear watches, and you’ll have access to features like your notifications, fitness tracking, and “OK Google” voice search.

I know you’ve been checking out those round watch faces like the LG G Watch R… Don’t lie… You can catch the full press release below.
Continue reading “Android Wear Smartwatches Now Work With iPhones”

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Sennheiser ClipMic Digital Lav Microphone for iPhone and iPad Review

Pretty video isn’t much fun to watch if your audio is terrible. Sennheiser has partnered with Apogee to bring their popular professional ME2 Lav Microphone to iOS devices. How does it sound? Let’s take a listen!

Shop the ClipMic on Amazon.
More info on Sennheiser products.

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Will Apple Ever Kill the 16GB iPhone?

It’s that time folks. We’re getting close enough to the launch of a new iPhone for the rumor mill to kick into high gear. Around this time last year, many were praising the merits of sapphire for phone screens, only to have Apple omit that particular lifestyle feature.

Now with the 6S and 6S+ on the horizon, iOS fans are wondering if we’ll see improvements to storage.

This generation, Apple took a great step up for their mid-tier iPhone. Instead of spending $100 to bump up your phone to 32GB, you would receive a whopping 64GB. Unfortunately the base model iPhone remained at 16GB, which is a bit lean for a modern smartphone. Even 32GB can feel a bit cramped these days.

We’re expecting improvements to the camera, likely resulting in larger photos and video files. Phones are often a primary device for storing music, our apps are getting more demanding, and OS updates require a certain percentage of your storage to be unused and available. We ask a lot of our smartphones, and lacking the ability to upgrade the storage on an iPhone means users have to monitor their geebees very closely on that first tier iPhone. Continue reading “Will Apple Ever Kill the 16GB iPhone?”

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Google Photos App: New Features and Filters – The Full Scoop!

Borrowing inspiration from Apple Photos and Lumia Storyteller, Google has given their Photos app a fresh coat of paint. Combined with Unlimited storage for compressed photos and videos, it’s a nice step in the right direction for cleaning up the disparity between Manufacturer photo gallery apps and Google Plus. Let’s take a full tour through all the new features and tools!

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Microsoft’s Cortana Coming to Android and iOS

cortanaAs part of their roll out for Windows 10, Microsoft will be making their services as accessible as possible to people on all operating systems. They’ll be delivering music apps, for example, which will tie into OneDrive for people to stream their entire music collection anywhere they have data.

Most interesting however is the recent reveal that their digital assistant Cortana will also be going cross platform. Syncing any phone with a Windows 10 PC will setup their companion app which provides deep integration with services on the phone.

Similar to Google Now and Siri, Cortana can look for relevant information in emails and calendar entries, and can respond to voice commands. She’s become popular for having a bit more personality than offerings from Google or Apple.

It’s an interesting move from Microsoft as they shift away from making popular services exclusive to their ecosystem, and opens the door to broad adoption from people on every platform. You can catch more info in their announcement video below.

(via Microsoft)

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Does the iPhone Need a Back Button? Halo Back Kickstarter Project Raises $100,000.

halo back kickstarter project iphone back buttonI think the iPhone’s home button is a bit over-worked. Single press, double press, long press, music functionality, and an accessibility custom triple press. At some point some other hardware control might help this poor beleaguered button.

Kickstarter project Halo Back is looking to aid the home button with a special screen protector that will add a bottom mounted back button. As the iPhone has gotten larger, reaching up to the top of the screen for those apps that have software back buttons isn’t quite as convenient as it used to be.

It would seem a number of people agree with Halo Back as the project has already raised over $100,000, over five times their initial goal, and there’s still sixteen days left to back the project.

You can watch their pitch video below, or head directly to their project page for more info.

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Build 2015: Android and iOS Apps Coming to Windows 10 Phones

***Update for tech clarification at the end***

The Windows Phone platform has often been criticized for a lack of apps. Windows 10 will bring new tools for developers to create universal apps that run on Phones, Tablets, Laptops, Hybrids, Desktops, and the XBox.

Yet it can still be difficult courting developers to stray from the iOS and Android duopoly. There have been rumors swirling that Microsoft would be allowing ported Android apps to run on Windows 10, and at the Build Developer conference Microsoft took it one step further.

windows 10 microsoft build developer conference apps software ios android

New tools will be provided to easily transition Java and C++ apps from Android, and developers will also be able to transition Objective C apps from iOS to Windows Phone.

Developers typically focus on iOS first to bring new services to market thanks to the consistency of Apple’s ecosystem. Conceivably, those same developers can invest far fewer resources to bring that service to EVERY device running Windows 10 than moving that same app to Android.

microsoft king candy crush apps software gamesKing.com was given as an example of one of the first companies to utilize these new tools, porting Candy Crush from iOS to Windows Phone in a matter of hours.

There’s now even less of a barrier for developers to bring services to the Windows ecosystem, especially as Microsoft expects Windows 10 to be on over one billion devices within the first year of release, handily outpacing the number of gadgets running iOS 8 or Android 5.0.

***Update***

For those wondering, Microsoft will be adding a subsystem to Windows 10 that can run Android Open Source Project software. The APK’s which install Android apps will be installed directly, in a secure partition, though if apps call certain API’s or depend on services Google wont allow on Windows, then obviously the app wont work. Microsoft will be providing tools to easily port certain actions, say an App calls for Google Now, it can be pointed over to look for Cortana instead.

For iOS apps, Microsoft is providing software for devs to completely recompile apps written in Objective C. iPhone apps will not be running in Windows Phone in the same way Android apps will run in a little emulation pocket.

While we’ll have to wait for Windows 10 on more devices to see the fruits of Android APK support, Microsoft has already released the iOS re-compiler for free, which hopefully means we’ll start seeing iOS services show up in the Windows store soon.

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App Review: Broadcast Live Video with Periscope

The video broadcasting wars are heating up. Where we used to only have Google’s Hangouts, now we have services tied to Twitter for real time live streaming video and chat. Let’s take a quick look at Periscope, currently only available for iOS

Periscope on the iTunes App Store

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