Verizon's been
telegraphing its intent to drop unlimited data plans for
nearly a year, and despite the fact that LTE smartphones
launched with all-you-can-eat options, those plans haven't changed one bit.
Reuters reports that Verizon will finally nix the megabyte buffet this summer, replacing it with a fully tiered data pricing scheme, though CFO Fran Shammo also floated the idea that tiered data could open up an avenue for family data plans. We've never really enjoyed sharing minutes, so we doubt counting our kilobytes will be much fun, but we suppose there's always room for Verizon to pleasantly surprise us with a really low price for mobile web browsing. Right? By the by, Fran also reiterated claims that the next iPhone
will be a global device, and said that when it launches on AT&T, it'll hit Verizon stores at the very same time.
Verizon finally killing unlimited data plans this summer, says it'll get iPhone 5 at same time as AT&T originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 14:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Remember when you took your driving test and and had an inspector second-guessing your every stop, turn, signal and lane choice? State Farm's new Driver Feedback app is like having said individual with you
all the time. Simply put, it uses your smartphone's accelerometer and GPS to gauge your acceleration, braking and cornering habits (
sound familiar?) and spit out a score, letting you brag to your (parents / significant other / stranger / the family dog) just how safe and secure you are. State Farm claims it
doesn't collect any information and won't adjust your insurance rates based on your score, which is a bit of a bummer if you ask us -- wouldn't it be nice if you could earn some cash back for perfecting your heel-toe? Either way, you'll find it for free in the iTunes App Store.
Continue reading State Farm app uses iPhone sensors to grade your driving habits, oh joy
State Farm app uses iPhone sensors to grade your driving habits, oh joy originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 09:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Remember when you took your driving test and and had an inspector second-guessing your every stop, turn, signal and lane choice? State Farm's new Driver Feedback app is like having said individual with you
all the time. Simply put, it uses your smartphone's accelerometer and GPS to gauge your acceleration, braking and cornering habits (
sound familiar?) and spit out a score, letting you brag to your (parents / significant other / stranger / the family dog) just how safe and secure you are. State Farm claims it
doesn't collect any information and won't adjust your insurance rates based on your score, which is a bit of a bummer if you ask us -- wouldn't it be nice if you could earn some cash back for perfecting your heel-toe? Either way, you'll find it for free in the iTunes App Store.
Continue reading State Farm app uses iPhone sensors to grade your driving habits, oh joy
State Farm app uses iPhone sensors to grade your driving habits, oh joy originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Apr 2011 18:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If you're not already running the
Plex Media Server on one of the twenty-three beige boxes networked across your tiny domicile, you may be sorely tempted to install a copy this week, because the iOS app has just received a truly massive update. Where once the XBMC spinoff would have to transcode every video it delivered to your device across the ether, Plex claims it can now either bypass that CPU-intensive process or use an iOS-optimized technique, pumping H.264 video over the air far more efficiently. Second, it can deliver that content from iOS direct to your TV, via either a video-out cable or experimental support for
AirPlay. Not bad, right? How's universal search sound -- the ability to type in a word and have the app reach out to local servers, remote servers, and online video services like YouTube and Vimeo too? Yeah, that $4.99 price tag is looking mighty affordable right about now, and there are plenty more improvements to peruse at the links below.
Plex 1.1 for iOS improves streaming over 3G, pipes video to your TV originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Apr 2011 06:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We were tempted to call it an April Fools' joke, but it seems the story's true: Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer reportedly let slip that his company is producing camera for the next batch of iPhones and iPads during a public interview with the
Wall Street Journal. Traditionally, Apple's sourced its sensors from OmniVision, including the delightfully
backside-illuminated 5 megapixel CMOS unit you'll find in the iPhone 4, but
since Sony too has BSI tech and OmniVision has reportedly encountered delays, your next portable Apple product might house a Sony Exmor R sensor like the one we admired on the
Xperia Arc. Mind you, that may not end up actually happening, because of the context in which Sir Howard revealed the news -- according to
9 to 5 Mac, he said that the factory producing sensors for Apple was affected by the Japanese tsunami. Oh well.
Sony CEO casually mentions he's supplying cameras to Apple originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 02 Apr 2011 14:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If a broken clock is right twice a day, Apple's is off
twice a year these days --
once each time Daylight Savings Time needs to be calculated in territories that depend on it. iPhone and iPod touch users are reporting on Twitter and the official Apple forums that the Clock app is been demonstrating all kinds of erratic behavior -- regardless of phone model or AT&T / Verizon pedigree -- with some alarms going off early, others late, and plenty of others working perfectly. Amusingly, still others report that DST adjustments occurred in places that don't recognize DST at all: "My iPhone 4 had the wrong time this morning - in Phoenix," reports user M Gnu, "We don't do DST, but iPhone apparently thinks otherwise."
Since DST went into effect on Sunday in the US, many didn't notice issues until this morning, but even eagle-eyed iPhone owners could have a nasty surprise as one Engadget reader reports: "My iPhone 3GS changed time correctly yesterday, but for some reason over night it reverted back an hour, thus leaving me an hour late for work." There doesn't seem to be a single easy fix, but affected users report a variety of ideas might work -- restarting the device, changing the Time and Date setting away from Automatic, calling the iPhone with another phone, or turning on and off Airplane Mode.
How's your iDevice hanging? Let us know below.
View Poll
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Apple's iPhone / iPod touch daylight saving time woes continue originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 10:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apple CFO
Tim Cook got all buddy-buddy with Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi this week, talking about Apple's business strategy -- nothing out of the ordinary there -- but this morning, that analyst decided to publicly paraphrase an intriguing part of the interview. Guess what? It sounds like a
cheaper iPhone may indeed be in the cards:
While Tim stopped short of explicitly stating that Apple would pursue a lower price iPhone, he did state that Apple was working hard to "figure out" the prepaid market and that Apple didn't want its products to be "just for the rich," but "for everyone"; he also stated that Apple "understood price is big factor in the prepaid market" and that the company was "not ceding any market." Cook noted that Apple executives - including himself - had spent "huge energy" in China, noting that it is "a classic prepaid market." He further noted that the handset distribution model was poorly constructed and that Apple would look to "innovate" and do "clever" things in addressing that market.
As you can see, there aren't any statements of fact here, just some general strategy ideas, but if Apple indeed plans to put an iPhone in every pot, it would be helpful if it didn't have to rely on
the carrier subsidy model.
Apple's Tim Cook hints at cheaper iPhone, prepaid possibilities to come? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Bloomberg and the
Wall Street Journal seemed pretty sure that an iPhone nano was inbound, but the
New York Times' anonymous sources dispute that tale -- the paper writes that "Apple is not currently developing a smaller iPhone," and that the company is "not planning to introduce a smaller iPhone anytime soon." While the publication doesn't outright deny the existence of such a device at any point in the story, it does quote an anonymous Apple executive as saying that it doesn't make sense for the company to create multiple iPhone form factors at any given time, and an anonymous Apple engineer as saying that cheaper components, not a smaller size, would make for a cheaper overall price.
One thing's for sure: either Apple's making one, or it's not.
In related news, the
Times' sources corroborate the idea that Apple will
make MobileMe free, and says that the
next full-sized iPhone is nearly complete. Woo!
NYT: Apple considering a cheaper iPhone, but not a smaller one right now originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The
Wall Street Journal has weighed in on rumors of Apple's
smaller iPhone, and citing "people familiar with the matter" the publication says that the rumors are likely true. One such familiar person reportedly saw a device half the size of the iPhone 4, bearing the codename "N97," and said that the handset will be only about half the size of the original, and at only around half the price too. Amazingly, those anonymous sources continued to divulge information, expressing the idea that Apple could
finally make its MobileMe cloud service suite free, and that it
just might be the platform from which Apple could finally launch a
streaming music platform and lessen the need for all those gigabytes of flash storage in your pocket. We'll let you know if or when any of that happens, okay?
Update: The
WSJ's source proved even more talkative after getting an eyeful of the
Samsung and
Sony announcements this morn; the publication's article has been updated to read that the device is "signifcantly lighter" than the iPhone 4, has an "edge-to-edge" touchscreen, and "voice-based navigation" of some sort.
WSJ corroborates the mini-iPhone, says Apple may make MobileMe free (update: 'edge-to-edge' screen) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Feb 2011 18:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We're a little short-staffed on Qualcomm chipset engineers at the moment, so forgive us if we can't immediately confirm this tale, but we're hearing iPhone hacker Zibri has discovered proof of
the Apple / Qualcomm collaboration in his very own build of iTunes. Zibri claims that by tearing apart the latest version, he found the chunk of code above, which contains files that are allegedly the exclusive "building blocks" of Qualcomm radio firmware. That doesn't tell us anything about a supposed iPhone 5 or iPad 2, unfortunately, as it's probably just referring to
that CDMA chipset in the Verizon iPhone 4... but with the right building blocks, one can craft any number of wonders.
Apple hacker digs up Qualcomm baseband proof by decompiling iTunes? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Jan 2011 13:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apple's proprietary dock connector
may keep would-be peripheral manufacturers at bay, but if you want to build your own iOS companion devices, there's another way. You might have noticed that the
Square credit card reader uses Apple's 3.5mm headset jack to transmit power and data at once, and gadgeteers at the University of Michigan are busy open-sourcing the same technique for all the DIY contraptions you can dream of. Project HiJack has already figured out how to pull 7.4 milliwatts out of a 22kHz audio tone, and built a series of prototype boards (including working EKG, temperature, humidity and motion sensors) that transmit data to and from an iOS app at up to 8.82 kbaud -- using just $2.34 worth of electronic components. See the basic principles at work in the video above, and -- as soon as the team updates Google Code -- find out how to build your own at the links below.
iPhone headset socket hijacked to power DIY peripherals (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Jan 2011 02:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It'll probably be subject to an additional fee as usual, but Verizon and Apple
have just revealed that the new
CDMA iPhone 4 will act as a mobile WiFi connection for up to five devices. It'll come with an iOS-specific version of the Verizon 3G Mobile Hotspot that folks have been enjoying on their Droids for many moons now. That should allowing for laptops, tablets and the like to get online via iPhone without
a pesky cord, and almost certainly make the
long-verboten iPhone - iPad tethering connection finally attainable. Joy to the world!
Update: Verizon called it an app, but
getting hands-on we can see that's not the case at all -- Personal Hotspot is built right into the CDMA iPhone 4's build of iOS 4.2.5. Perhaps we'll see it migrate to other devices as well?
Verizon iPhone 4 will have 3G mobile hotspot (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 11:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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9to5 Mac reports that Apple will drop its 10 percent restocking fees on January 11th. We've confirmed with our own sources that this is true. January 11th happens to be the day that Verizon will hold
a mysterious event in New York City, presumably for the
Verizon iPhone. While this certainly isn't incontrovertible evidence that the Verizon event is actually more of an Apple event, this definitely adds some tinder to the flaming rumor mill. Then again, Apple could merely be following
Best Buy's lead, with the 1.11.11 date pure coincidence. Either way, we're fans of open return policies for expensive products, so if you ask us, it's more of a good thing.
Apple will drop restocking fees on January 11th originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 02:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Wouldn't it be nice to connect your phone to your car and
control Pandora with your voice? If you drive a 2011 Ford Fiesta, you can do so right now, by downloading the
Ford Sync AppLink platform that's finally ready for primetime. So far, Pandora's one of only two apps that natively support voice commands (the other being OpenBeak) and it only works on BlackBerry and Android, but Ford says that Apple's iPhone will play nice with AppLink sometime in "early 2011." You'll find a thorough press release trumpeting the news after the break, and the download should be available at our source link any minute now. Then, you get to transfer it to a USB stick, and plug it into your car. Just imagine saying
that to someone fifty years ago.
Continue reading Ford Sync AppLink ready to download for 2011 Ford Fiesta, iPhone support coming early next year
Ford Sync AppLink ready to download for 2011 Ford Fiesta, iPhone support coming early next year originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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You might have heard
how careless some third-party iPhone apps can be with your personal data, but it may not yet have hit home -- offenders can include must-have programs like MySpace and Pandora, too. The
Wall Street Journal tested 101 popular apps for iPhone and Android and discovered that over half transmitted unique device identifiers (UDID) to a flock of advertisers without so much as a prompt, and that some (including Pandora) even transmitted a user's age, gender and location to better target their marks. Now, before you boycott your favorite music apps, you might want to hear the other side of the story, which is that all this data is typically processed in batches and anonymized so that advertisers can't necessarily separate you from the crowd. However, the worry is that there may be little stopping nefarious individuals
from creating a database that links your UDID to all this other data you send out. It's a juicy proposition for targeted advertising, sure, but also potentially real-world crime, so we doubt this will be the last we hear of the UDID privacy scare.
Wall Street Journal says apps may violate privacy, fingers MySpace and Pandora originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 18 Dec 2010 18:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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