Liv Games releases Monster Wars on iOS at Macworld | iWorld 2012

I first met Liv Games' Orian Livnat at last year's Macworld, where he showed me a wild game called Legendary Wars that mashed up a number of different genres and ideas in a mix created by Livnat and his family and friends. At the time I thought the game was a really interesting idea, but even I didn't expect the kind of success Liv Games has seen. A year later, the company had multiple booths in the mobile app showcase section at Macworld | iWorld 2012. Even while also running the show during the day, the team was hard at work on releasing the followup to Legendary Wars, Monster Wars.

That game is out now, and as you might imagine from the title, it follows the other side of the story, that of the monsters from the original game. Just like Legendary Wars, the graphics are colorful and the animations are very well done. Livnat and his crew have really blown what was already a very broad idea out even further, adding more unit types, more abilities, more game modes to play around with, and lots more upgrades and add-ons to earn throughout the longer campaign. Fans will really love spotting all of the updates here; there are lots more "pets" running around during batle, for one thing, which Livnat says players really enjoyed in the first game. The option to actually control creatures like trolls, liches, and undead knights is intriging as well. Fans of the first game should definitely pick up Monster Wars, and at the launch price of just 99 cents, this much content is hard for anyone to turn down.

While Monster Wars is only Liv Games' second title, Livnat himself has quite a few projects underway, both as partnerships with other companies and as projects he's working on with friends. It sounds like he and his team are pretty run off their feet (he happily showed me pictures of the crew working late during Macworld to submit Monster Wars to the App Store), but he also says he's not interested in giving up the company to an acquisition.

Legendary Wars did bring offers, says Livnat, but for now, it sounds like he's more interested in making games that people are really enjoying. Monster Wars has only been on the App Store for a little while, and already the reviews are filling up with lots of satisfied players. Liv Games seems to be doing quite well on all of its development so far, and it'll be interesting to see what Livnat and his burgeoning studio comes up with next.

Liv Games releases Monster Wars on iOS at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Liv Games releases Monster Wars on iOS at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Incipio Hive Honeycomb dermaSHOT Silicone Case for iPad 2 review [Giveaway]

“The Incipio Hive Honeycomb dermaSHOT Silicone Case for iPad 2 looks interesting and feels great but it doesn’t fit exceptionally well around the edges, ruining the overall affect.”

The first thing you’ll notice about the The Incipio Hive Honeycomb dermaSHOT Silicone Case for iPad 2 is the look. It’s covered in more hexagons that a Dungeons & Dragons map. This honeycomb texture isn’t superficial either — it’s thick and structural and designed to absorb shock and keep your precious iPad from being hurt by accidental bumps or drops.

The hexagons are a bold look for Incipio, something you’re either going to love or hate. I like that they’re taking risks and doing something different.

The feel is wonderful. The Incipio Hive Honeycomb dermaSHOT Silicone Case for iPad 2 is soft but not slippery or slimy. It almost feels like it’s been covered in baby powder, but that’s probably just the anti-static coating.

The major flaw in the design, however, is that the Incipio Hive Honeycomb dermaSHOT Silicone Case for iPad 2 is too soft to stand up to the long vertical edge of the iPad 2. It lacks both the elasticity to stay tight and the structure to keep position. And so the Incipio Hive Honeycomb dermaSHOT Silicone Case for iPad 2 hangs from the mid-point and makes me feel like it could just slide off at any moment. I don’t know if the case is too big or they just need a better material.

On the bright side, the Incipio Hive Honeycomb dermaSHOT Silicone Case for iPad 2 comes in black, red, and gray, slips on and off easily, and exposes all the ports. It also comes with screen cleaner and a screen protector to keep the front safe and sound.

The Good

• Excellent grip
• No stickiness
• Screen protector included

The Bad

• Side edges aren’t snug enough
• Highly distinctive look

The conclusion

The Incipio Hive Honeycomb dermaSHOT Silicone Case for iPad 2 looks interesting and feels great but it doesn’t fit exceptionally well around the edges, ruining the overall affect. It was just too loose.

The giveaway

Simply leave a comment below telling us how the Case-Mate Pop! Case for iPad 2 could make your life easier and you’re entered to win one of your very own! Giveaway starts now and ends Sunday, February 5 at midnight PT. U.S. shipping address required for delivery.

How to Change Carrier Logo on Your iPhone Using Zeppelin

If you like the idea of changing the boring carrier logo with a Batman or Superman logo then check out Zeppelin – a jailbreak tweak that lets you change the carrier logo on your jailbroken iPhone. Zeppelin developed by Alex … Continue reading →

SB XLVI Guide is your personal Super Bowl guide in your pocket

If you’re heading to the Super Bowl this weekend, SB XLVI Guide will be your companion in your pocket. It’s your guide to official Super Bowl events, a map of Indianapolis, a 3D map and seating chart to the Lucas Oil Stadium, and a reference for local restaurants and nightlife.

Whether you’ll be in Indy or not, the Super Bowl XLVI Guide is your must-have companion to Super Bowl Week!

• A detailed guide to local restaurants, nightlife, and official Super Bowl events
• A 3D map of Indianapolis and an interactive 3D map of Lucas Oil Stadium for gameday
• You can follow all of the social media buzz with NFL Huddle
• Pin your parking spot and find your seating section in the stadium
• And much more!

SB XLVI Guide is available on the iPhone for free.

• App Store link

Have an app you’d love to see featured on iMore? Email us at iosapps@imore.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

First BlackBerry 10 superphone pictures leak. Or, RIM’s homage to Android’s homage of iPhone

New images have leaked showing what may be code-name London, or the first of the next-generation BlackBerry 10 superphones expected to ship from RIM at the end of 2012 and… they look like Android phones that look like iPhones. Kevin Michaluk from CrackBerry.com pitches them a phone-sized PlayBooks but after being teased with the far more original looking, Porsche Design-style concepts we saw a few weeks back, I can’t help but be a little disappointed.

Sure, Apple didn’t invent the black slab form factor, but in an era that was then dominated by front-facing QWERTY devices, including the Treo, Windows Mobile Standard, Nokia communicators, and, yes, BlackBerrys, Apple inarguably popularized them. They popularized them to such an extent that Google smartly, swiftly switched gears from making Android BlackBerry-like to iPhone-inspired. RIM dabbled in that form factor as well, with the near disastrous Storm line, and now the expanded Torch line.

But to lead with it into the new generation of BlackBerrys, and now, some 5 years later? (And yes, once again, I informed you thusly.)

A big part of me hopes not. I’m tired of iPhone clones. Sure, Samsung has proven that the closer you are to copying Apple without being Apple, the more money you make in the not-Apple market (just look at Motorola and HTC profits by way of comparison), but Apple didn’t get to where they are — sitting on one of the largest bankrolls in history — by copying the BlackBerry or Treo back in 2007.

They looked at the market. They saw a problem with existing offerings. They tried to solve it with something new. RIM has had 5 years since then — 5 years to study Apple, look for the iPhone’s weaknesses, and figure out how to take then next great leap forward. To figure out how to do to Apple what Apple did to Palm and RIM.

They wasted a lot of that on the Storm and Torch and PlayBook. Hopefully they’re not wasting one precious moment of it now.

I want BlackBerry back. I want them putting pressure on Google and Apple. I want more great phones to choose from. I don’t want Jonathan Ive to be the lead designer-by-proxy of yet another me-too phone line.

Delight me RIM. Surprise me. You’ve got a new CEO. He has great contacts. I’m holding out hope for you.

Source: CrackBerry.com

What’s Bluetooth? [iOS A-Z)

B is for Bluetooth, a wireless technology that lets your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad talk to headsets, keyboards, speakers, computers, and other accessories

If you’re new to iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and are wondering just what exactly Bluetooth is and what it means to you, worry not — iMore has you covered. Bluetooth is an open standard wireless communications protocol, which just means that it’s a commonly available way for devices to talk to each other, and to other electronics, without having to be plugged in together. The most common things iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users do with Bluetooth include connecting to headsets and speakers.

Bluetooth works over short-wave radio (between 2400 and 2480 MHz if you’re techie) and has a range of about 30 feet. If you move further away than that, say leave your iPhone in your car and go into a store, you’ll lose connection.

There are several different Bluetooth profiles, each of which enables its own type of functionality. iOS doesn’t support all Bluetooth profiles, but it does support several important ones.

• HFP 1.5, the hands-free profile for connecting to hands-free headsets and speakerphones
• PBAP, the phone book access profile to allow for car kits to download contacts or display caller information (iPhone only).
• A2DP, the advanced audio distribution profile, which enables higher-quality audio, including stereo audio, to be sent to remote speakers
• AVRCP, the audio/video remote control profile, that lets pause, play, stop, next track, and previous track commands to be sent to headsets and speakers
• HID, the human interface device profile, or the protocol that connects to a wireless keyboard.
• PAN, the personal area network profile, which lets you tether to a computer and share your cellular internet connection. (Part of the Personal Hotspot system.)

Most previous iOS devices, including iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch support up to Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (enhanced data rate). EDR allows for faster data transfers, meaning smoother, better sound support and internet speeds (between 2 and 3mbps).

Bluetooth 4.0, a newer specification is supported by the iPhone 4S and will presumably be supported by future devices like the iPad 3. Bluetooth 4.0 allows for BHS (Bluetooth high speed) and BLE (Bluetooth low energy), which aim to provide better, faster data with lower battery drain.

There are very few Bluetooth 4.0 accessories available yet, for example the Find My Car Smarter. However, Bluetooth 4.0 offers the potential for more ubiquitous, persistent, and useful peripherals than ever before.

Want to know more? Check out more of our iOS A-Z words-of-the-day, or jump ahead to our complete iPhone and iPad glossary for the full on dictionary list!

• Bluetooth accessories for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

Facebook rumored to be readying $5 billion IPO

Facebook, the massive social network that counts one of the most popular iPhone apps of all time in their portfolio, is rumored to be readying a $5 billion IPO (initial public offering). Yes, Zuckerberg and co. might finally be ready to hit the stock market. The New York Times reports:

The Internet giant plans to list a preliminary fund-raising goal of about $5 billion, one of these people said. Another cautioned that any such number was largely a placeholder for determining filing fees, and that the final amount could differ significantly. And the company could still decide to delay its filing.

While huge, it narrowly misses out on being the biggest tech IPO ever — that distinction belongs to Infineon. That is, of course, unless Facebook raises the stakes to $10 billion, then they’ll own all the records. And the money.

Facebook has enjoyed enormous growth but not without growing pains, including and especially in regards to user privacy and transparency. Along with Google and Twitter — the former public, the latter still private — Facebook faces Federal privacy oversight for the foreseeable future.

Still, if Facebook does pull the trigger on this IPO, will that change anything? If any of us could buy stock and become a shareholder, does that make trusting our data to Facebook any easier, or any more difficult?

Source: New York Times

Screen Grabs: Big Bang Theory’s Raj falls head over heels… for Siri (video)

Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com.

Finally! A TV show that we've actually seen (sorry, Gossip Girl). The Big Bang Theory's most recent episode featured Raj finding love with Siri. The uptight astrophysicist is incapable of speaking to women unless he's been on the sauce, but finds no such social inhibition with his iPhone's virtual assistant. Of course, like any geek receiving attention from the opposite gender, Dr Koothrappali soon becomes unhealthily infatuated with the handset, leading him on a trip to Cupertino to meet the person behind the microphone symbol. We won't spoil what happens, but you can probably work it out -- there's video past the break.

Continue reading Screen Grabs: Big Bang Theory's Raj falls head over heels... for Siri (video)

Screen Grabs: Big Bang Theory's Raj falls head over heels... for Siri (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Foxconn plans to build five additional iPad production plants in Brazil

Apple’s largest production partner, Foxconn, has plans to build five new production plants in Brazil to help support the growing demand for the iPad tablet.

Officials from Foxconn and the Brazilian government will reportedly meet following the Chinese New Year to decide on where the factories will be built, but São Paulo is said to be pushing heavily for the investment. [...] In addition to helping supply Apple with iPads, the factories will be tooled for notebook and general electronics production. [...] A Foxconn representative declined to confirm its Brazilian expansion plans to Economia, calling the report “pure speculation.”

This news comes shortly after iPad production in Brazil got a generous tax break from local government following Foxconn reportedly investing up to $300 million in a São Paulo factory. The new production facilities could house up to 1,000 employees each, with officials from Foxconn and the Brazilian government said to be meeting after the Chinese New Year in order to make a final decision on the desired location.

With Apple selling through over 15 million iPads during Q1 2012, increasing production to help meet future demand is a no-brainer. And although Brazilian-made iPads may be a little behind schedule, adding more facilities to the mix can only help the situation in terms of availability.

Source: Folha via AppleInsider

Hands on with FavorIt for iPhone

FavorIt is the place where favorite friends and favorite apps meet. This new twist to app discovery lets you share your five favorite apps with your Facebook friends and view theirs. You can also see which apps are popular among all your friends.

This is one of those types of apps that needs participation from your friends in order to be useful, but the good news is that it only takes a few moments to login and do your part, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to get your friends on board!

We took a closer look while at Macworld 2012.

• Free – App Store link

When you know the apps that your friends call their FavorIts, the possibilities are endless!

Rediscover those awesome iPhone classics or join in the latest App Store craze. Find out who’s also addicted to that zombie-words-tower game, or learn about the latest time-saving productivity tool. Has the latest bird-themed release kept you up until 2am? Don’t just love it, FavorIt!

FavorIt – Where Favorite Friends and Favorite Apps Meet is available on the iPhone for free.

• App Store link

Have an app you’d love to see featured on iMore? Email us at iosapps@imore.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Apple’s Stock Off to Fast Start in 2012 with 50-Point Gain in January

With stock trading for January coming to a close today, Apple's performance for the first month of 2012 has been notable, with the company's stock riding strong earnings to a monthly gain of over 50 points that has increased its price by nearly 13%. Much of that gain came alongside Apple's stellar earnings release one week ago, but Apple has continued to drift upward since that time and closed at yet another record high of $456.48 today after touching $458.24 early in the day's trading.


Apple's market capitalization now tops $425 billion, and a weakening of Exxon Mobil's stock price over the past week has enabled Apple to open up a nearly $25 billion lead in the race for world's most valuable publicly-traded company.


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App Giveaway: Revertis for iPhone and iPad

If Tetris were to wed a matching game, their resulting child may be something similar Revertis. The goal of this casual puzzle game is to draw 4 dots at a time in such a way that matches identical colors. The objective is simple, but execution may not always be.

I’m enjoying playing Revertis. It’s relaxing, has nice music, but isn’t mindless.

Are you on your way home from the work? May be in a subway or in a bus? Do you have 5 minutes? Would you like to shut down those thoughts in your head? Just for 5 minutes? Try Revertis! It is like meditation! It helps you to relax and trains your brain at the same time.

• 10 different game modes
• Competitive modes with limited time per turn
• Post your results on Facebook
• Game Center integrated
• Unique animation
• local leaderboards
• option for color-blind people
• soundtracks
• achievements
• German & Russian localizations

Revertis is available on the iPhone and iPad for $0.99.

• App Store link

Have an app you’d love to see featured on iMore? Email us at iosapps@imore.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Add customization options to ‘slide to unlock’ text with Slider Pro [Jailbreak]

Slider Pro is a lightweight but useful jailbreak mod in Cydia that lets you customize the slide to unlock text on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. It comes with a handful of great presets including adding the date and time to your lock slider. Time and date are available in a number of different formats. If you’d just like to add custom text to the slider, you can do that as well. Once installed you can just pop into your general Settings app and customize it from there.

If you’re looking to add functionality to your lockscreen but don’t want to overload your jailbroken iPhone with too many tweaks and mods which may conflict with each other or just bog down your device, then this may be the way to go. It’s especially convenient if you have an app like IntelliscreenX or LockInfo and want to hide the lock clock to create more room for additional widgets. It’ll allow you to use space that’s already there in a more efficient way.

Slider Pro is already available in Cydia and will run on any iOS device running iOS 4 or higher. If you’re looking for even more tweaks and utilities to install, check out our guide to the best jailbreak applications for iOS 5.

• Free – Cydia Link

More jailbreak resources:

• How to jailbreak guides
• Jailbreak apps, hacks, and themes
• General jailbreak and unlock help forums

ZFS Comes to OS X Courtesy of Apple’s Former Chief ZFS Architect

Apple's flirtation with ZFS, the file system backed by Sun, has been well-documented with rumors and speculation dating back to 2006. The interest was fueled in mid-2007 by a claim by Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz that ZFS would supplant HFS+ as the file system for Mac OS X Leopard. While ZFS did not materialize in Leopard, Apple clearly continued to work on the project, with claims of some support appearing in marketing materials for Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard.

Optimism surrounding that development was apparently premature, however, as all mentions of the file system later disappeared from Apple's site amid claims that licensing issues had led the company to scrap the project. By late 2009, Apple had shuttered even its open source ZFS project site, indicating that it had abandoned all work on the project.

In March of last year, Ars Technica posted a lengthy profile of Don Brady, the 20-year Apple engineer who had helped transition to the HFS+ file system for Mac OS X and also headed up Apple's internal ZFS team from 2006 until it was disbanded in 2009. As the report notes, ZFS offers a number of advantages over HFS+, including a 128-bit structure to address large file and volume sizes, as well as features for simplifying data management and increasing data integrity such as copy-on-write technology to preserve the file system structure should errors or failures occur while new data blocks are being written.

At one time, there was a lot of hope that Apple might transition from HFS+ to ZFS as a more modern replacement. In particular, ZFS's automatic snapshot feature was believed to be the perfect fit for Apple's Time Machine backup tool. When Snow Leopard was first announced in 2008, it was slated to have full read-write ZFS support, at least in the server version.

But when WWDC 2009 rolled around, all mention of ZFS support was scrubbed from Apple's website. A patent infringement lawsuit was still pending between NetApp and Sun, with NetApp claiming that it held patents on copy-on-write. Furthermore, Sun's CDDL open source license was also believed to make ZFS incompatible with Mac OS X, and that Apple couldn't reach suitable license terms with Sun.

With Apple shutting down its ZFS project in 2009, Brady soon left the company to form his own venture, Ten's Complement, with a plan to bring ZFS to the Mac. Brady and Ten's Complement have been working on the project since 2010, with an extensive beta program having been underway for quite some time, and it now appears that the company is ready to begin rolling out its ZFS products under the ZEVO name. First off the line is the Silver Edition, which is now available for $19.95 and brings some of the basic advantages of ZFS to Mac OS X.

Z E V O's Silver Edition brings you sophisticated ZFS storage technology in an easy-to-use solution.

It's ideal for those wanting modern, reliable storage that is simple to set up, validate, and manage. Our Z E V O Storage Setup Assistant makes setting up a single disk for Z E V O a snap. In a few simple steps you'll be up and running.

The company will soon be releasing its more advanced products, including the $39.95 Gold Edition with such features as Time Machine-like rotating data snapshots and data redundancy. A forthcoming Platinum Edition carrying additional features such as RAIDZ support, data deduplication, and an advanced management utility is set to launch this spring, with pricing yet to be announced. Finally, the company is also working on a Developer Edition that will offer a combination of GUI and command line interface tools for complete system control.

Ten's Complement is not the only group to still be working on bringing ZFS to Mac OS X, as the MacZFS open source project continues to build on the foundation laid by Apple and Sun. But Ten's Complement seems to be the first to bring ZFS to the Mac in a commercial package to facilitate implementation and maintenance of the file system for users looking at options for securing the integrity of their data.


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China Telecom aiming to launch iPhone 4S in February

Beijing Telecom, a subsidiary of China Telecom, has announced that they’re aiming to release the iPhone 4S by the beginning of March, and that the final regulatory certifications just made it through on Monday. As you might guess,  iPhone launches in the area can get a little crazy, but with wider carrier availability, maybe the congestion and panic will let up a bit. Currently, the iPhone 4S is only available on China Unicom, though there have been hints that China Mobile will enjoy the next-gen iPhone.

It’s interesting to hear more about the retail side of the iPhone in China, since the vast majority of news from that corner of the world revolves around Apple’s manufacturing partner, Foxconn.  I’m sure by this point, Apple’s retail presence isn’t sullied by knock-off stores anymore, even though there’s still plenty of copycat devices floating around.

There’s no pricing information available for the CDMA-based iPhone 4S on China Telecom, but something tells me a steep pricetag won’t deter the locals from snatching ‘em up.

Source: China Daily

Could Apple release a separate 4G LTE iPad 3 and Phone 5 in select markets?

We’ll likely get a new iPad 3 sometime this March and an iPhone 5 later this summer or fall, but will either or both of them run on the new, ultra-fast 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) networks? And if they do, will LTE be built into every device, or will there be special models made for just those networks that support it?

Right now there’s only one iPhone 4S and it runs on both GSM/HSPA+ and CDMA/EVDO Rev. A, on every carrier that offers it. That’s a change from the iPhone 4 that debuted as GSM/AT&T only and later had a different model, with a different antenna, released for Verizon. Likewise, the iPad 2 still doesn’t come in a unified model, having on version for AT&T/GSM and one for Verizon alone.

So, while Apple has moved to unify their manufacturing for iPhone 4S, they have in the past, and still to this day, made separate models of iPhone and iPad to handle different network technologies.

And they could do it again for LTE.

Size and power consumption

Previous generation LTE chipsets were deemed unusable by Apple due to their size and battery-draining power demands. Early Android LTE handsets like the HTC Thunderbolt bled power at an almost comical level. Early devices were also chunky, but soon thinned out again and grew in length and width instead of depth, like the Nokia Lumia 900, letting larger screens take advantage of that extra space.

While rumors persist of a 4-inch iPhone 5, it’s hard to imagine that Apple would let the iPhone 5 casing grow very much if at all just to accommodate an LTE radio and its battery. And they wouldn’t put one in the iPad 3 now if they weren’t planning on putting one in the iPhone 5 later. The phone is still the flagship, for now.

Qualcomm is releasing new chips, however, and it’s possible they’ll have one ready in time for the iPhone 5 that’s small and power efficient enough to meet even Apple’s demands. Let’s grant for a moment that that proves true. There’s still a much bigger problem when it comes to LTE.

Availability

Verizon has a decent U.S. LTE roll out, claiming coverage in 190 markets of varying size. AT&T claims 26 markets with large scale deployment not complete until the end of 2013. Sprint will have 4 markets on LTE by mid 2011, but it will likewise take years to roll out nationally.

Internationally things get worse. Both Rogers and Bell have a handful of LTE cities each. In Europe and Asia there are a smattering of cities, but many huge markets are still years way.

LTE simply isn’t very common yet, and Apple is the company that didn’t even add 3G to the iPhone until the second generation version launched in 2008.

Models

Would adding the expense — both component and engineering — of an LTE radio, along with any remaining size and power demands, make sense to Apple if there are so few markets able to make use of it? Apple sold the one-iPhone 4S-model-to-rule-them-all faster and further than any other handset in the history of the business, getting it into more countries, on more carriers, for more users than ever before. Would that be possible if the iPad 3 or iPhone 5 similarly included LTE all in one model?

Instead, what if Apple kept the current radio stack in place for the iPad 3 and iPhone 5 and but also launched separate models for LTE in the markets where they make sense, like the U.S., Canada, and those European and Asian countries that support it.

Not all LTE operates on the same frequencies, so engineering even an international LTE radio wouldn’t be dead simple, let alone a GSM/CDMA/LTE across all bands. Letting HSPA and CDMA continue to do what they do now, in markets that don’t have other options, isn’t a bad idea.

But if complexity and scarcity are still the case, why worry about LTE at all in 2012? Why not just wait until 2013?

Verizon

The current iPad and iPhone run at up to 14.4mbps on AT&T and GSM carriers. They run at 2-3mbps on Verizon’s CDMA network. Apple went out of their way to avoid calling the HSPA+ iPhone 4S a “4G” phone last year, knowing if AT&T and others claimed it as such, Verizon’s version would be made to look less-than by comparison.

That hasn’t hurt Verizon’s sales yet — iPhone 4S set records on every carrier including Verizon, eclipsing devices with bigger screens and LTE radios on the same shelves — but it likely hurts Verizon pride. With the best LTE deployment in the U.S. and a desire to use it that’s so strong Verizon reportedly won’t let Windows Phone and BlackBerrys on their network without LTE anymore, how happy would they be to sit on CDMA for another year, to again have to market an EVDO Rev. A iPad 3 and iPhone 5?

Apple could pull the trigger on LTE in 2012. In most markets they don’t need to, but in the U.S. in general and Verizon in specific, there’s reason to consider it. Doing two models — HSPA+/CDMA for most of the world and LTE for Verizon and the other carriers that support it — wouldn’t be unprecedented for Apple, and could indeed be the best of both worlds.

Corona iOS 5.0.1 Untether Updated to Fix iBooks DRM Issue

Jay Freeman a.k.a Jay Freeman – founder and developer of Cydia has just released a new version Corona iOS 5.0.1 Untether jailbreak (v1.0-7) to fix the DRM iBooks issue. iPhone Dev team had released a new version of Redsn0w – … Continue reading →

iPad Drives Apple to Perch Atop List of Top-Selling PC Manufacturers

Late last year, research firm Canalys predicted that Apple might become the world's largest PC manufacturer during the fourth quarter of 2011 if tablets were counted alongside more traditional computers. With the major firms now having reported their sales numbers for the quarter, Canalys has pieced together the numbers to confirm that Apple has indeed taken the lead on the strength of the iPad.

Canalys today announced that Apple, after reporting stellar results, became the leading worldwide client PC vendor in Q4 2011. Apple shipped over 15 million iPads and five million Macs, representing 17% of the total 120 million client PCs shipped globally in Q4. Overall, the total client PC market, including desktops, netbooks, notebooks, and pads grew 16% year-on-year. Excluding pads, the client PC market declined 0.4%.

The report notes that tablets such as the iPad accounted for 22% of PC sales during the quarter, with the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook also contributing to the strong tablet performance.


Based on data from Canalys and other research firms, it appears that the iPad would have been able to top the list even without the help of the Mac, which itself achieved record sales during the quarter. Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, with Canalys, Gartner, and IDC all pegging non-tablet market leader HP's shipments between 14.7 and 15.3 million units.

Whether or not iPads and other tablets should be counted as PCs has become a vigorous debate as observers take differing views on how "personal computers" should be defined. But with Apple making the iPad "PC Free" by eliminating the need to sync to a computer via iTunes and increasing numbers of consumers relying on their iPads for everyday computer functionalities such as browsing, email and music, as well as a broad array of apps, lines between the two types of devices are becoming increasingly blurred.


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Witness 2: Home Alarm System For Mac And iOS Gets Sneak Peek, Auto-Activation, Applescript Support & More

Orbicule has released Witness 2, a major upgrade to its home surveillance solution for Mac and iOS.   Here’s how it works: Witness turns any Mac into a home alarm system, using its FaceTime camera as a motion sensor. If motion is … Continue reading →

Angry Birds boss doesn’t see app piracy as a problem

In a recent interview, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said that app piracy isn’t a huge threat to their signature title, Angry Birds. In fact, it may help increase their popularity. Hed draws a lot of parallels to the music industry, and sees suing your fanbase as fundamentally “futile”.

“We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have. If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow. … Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day.”

This is pretty smart on Rovio’s part, since they don’t just have a little slingshot game now — they have a brand. That brand is proving to be way more valuable for cartoons, merchandise, and cross-licensing (like the case with Rio) than as an iPhone app. It’s on these fronts that Rovio is staying agressive.

“We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products. There is tons and tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products.”

While Angry Birds might be the exception rather than the rule when it comes to app store success stories, Hed’s mindset here should show that publishers should always be thinking beyond the app. There’s a big world outside of mobile apps, and the more of it developers can latch hooks into, the more relevant their software becomes.

Of course, smaller developers might think that’s easy for Hed and his massive pork-and-poultry-fed bank account to say. With thinner margins for their apps, and nowhere near the same popularity with which they could viably sell shirts, plushies, or other branded goods, no doubt they’re hit much harder by app piracy than Rovio.

Source: The Guardian