iPad By Davis: “Wake Alarm review: Slap around -- and flip off -- your iPhone for a better night's sleep” plus 7 more |
- Wake Alarm review: Slap around -- and flip off -- your iPhone for a better night's sleep
- Ad hoc 3: Xbox One and the state of the living room
- Mac Pro: The Next Generation - what's Apple's next heavy iron likely to have inside?
- Honor your fallen loved ones this Memorial Day with Tributopia for iPhone
- In honor of memorial day, get FREE SHIPPING all weekend from the iMore store!
- Price Drops: Pocket Informant Pro for iPad & iPhone 66% Off Today Only
- iRadio: Apple could do streaming really well, but they don't have to do it at all
- Deal of the Day: 50% off the Body Glove ToughSuit Rugged Case & Holster for iPhone 5
| Wake Alarm review: Slap around -- and flip off -- your iPhone for a better night's sleep Posted: 27 May 2013 10:42 PM PDT Wake Alarm is a gorgeous new alarm clock for iPhone that features a beautiful, gesture-filled interface and three different alarm styles: Slap & Flip, Shake, and Swipe. That's right, you must physically slap, flip, or shake your iPhone in order to turn off the alarm or trigger snooze. With the Slap & Flip mode, you simply slap your iPhone (at the front-facing camera) for snooze, or flip it over to turn off. If you're a heavy sleeper who needs something more, the Shake mode requires you to physically shake your iPhone until the Shake Bar is filled up. And if you prefer something more basic, with Swipe mode, you just swipe up to turn off and swipe down to snooze. The main screen for Wake alarm is simply a big circle with the time in the center. To set an alarm, you spin the circle. It will automatically cycle through minutes, but tapping the hour in the time will switch to changing the hour. As you move your finger along the circle, the time associated with that location on a clock will be selected. Tapping am/pm will alternate between the two options. The arrow at the bottom of the alarm creation screen will give access to 12 built-in alarm sounds and the ability to save as a recurring alarm by tapping on the days of the week. Unfortunately, Wake Alarm does not support custom alarm sounds from your music library. Although it's not the fault of Wake Alarm but of the limitation of iOS SDK, it's important to note that in order for Wake Alarm to work properly, you must leave it running onscreen and charging overnight. Otherwise, you will only receive a notification when your alarm goes off and the built-in gesture-based features to turn off or snooze the alarm will not work. The good
The bad
The bottom lineIf you're in the market for a new alarm clock and love gesture-based apps, definitely take a look at Wake Alarm. It's beautiful.
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| Ad hoc 3: Xbox One and the state of the living room Posted: 27 May 2013 04:33 PM PDT Take a bunch of tech geeks who also happen to get their game on, power them up, put them in front of mics, hit the record button, and what do you get? Another impromptu episode of hardest core casual podcast on the system. Join John Siracusa, Guy English, and Rene Ritchie as they talk all about the just-announced Xbox One, how it compares to the kinda-announced PS4, the perplexing Wii U, and what's left for Google and Apple in the TV space. Show notesPanelFeedbackYell at us via the Twitter accounts above. Loudly. 
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| Mac Pro: The Next Generation - what's Apple's next heavy iron likely to have inside? Posted: 27 May 2013 11:12 AM PDT At some point relatively soon, Apple is going to have to put the current Mac Pro out to pasture. What's going to replace it is anyone's guess at this point, but it'd be nice to think that Apple would start with a completely fresh sheet of paper. After all, the Mac Pro chassis itself dates back a full decade, to the pre-Intel era - it's largely unchanged in appearance from the Power Mac G5, which was first introduced in 2003. No other Mac in the product line has that sort of legacy - all of them have undergone changes over the years, sometimes radical ones. It's gotten so bad that the current Mac Pro can't be sold in Europe anymore because it falls afoul of recently enacted standards involving the system's power and fan placement. Apple decided simply to pull the existing product from circulation in Europe than bother with a redesign. One can argue that the Mac Pro's external design is an example of form following function, a core aesthetic value present in so many of Jony Ive's designs. Its tall design helps to accommodate different expansion cards, and provides easy access to internal SATA bays and memory. But the function of a pro-level machine has radically changed in the past few years, so shouldn't a radically different form follow too? So to understand what Apple might do to the Mac Pro, let's distill what the Pro itself does well and what sort of customer it appeals to. Then let's think about what sort of creation might best serve that market. It's all about raw horsepowerThe one thing the Pro has going for it, even today, is that it is Apple's fastest machine. Look over Geekbench's Mac Benchmarks, for example. In 64-bit mode, seven Mac Pro models dating back to 2010 outclass every other Mac listed, even the fast-as-hell 27-inch iMac that came out late in 2012. There's no reason to think that Apple's going to offer anything but a super-fast computer as a true Mac Pro. It's built for speed. It uses a workstation-class processor, and even the RAM inside the Mac Pro is built for extra reliability: the Pro uses Error Correcting Code (ECC) memory, typically reserved for situations when data corruption just can't ever be allowed to happen. Obviously, there's a lot of room for improvement. The current Mac Pro is using an older Intel chipset and motherboard design that doesn't permit for faster SATA, USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt. So while the raw computational power of the Mac Pro remains stunning, it's horrifically bottlenecked in a variety of other ways that is boxing the current system into a corner. And that has to change. What it's going to change into is still anyone's guess. If Tim Cook's email to an incensed Pro user following last year's WWDC keynote is any indication, Apple does have something up its sleeves for professional Mac users later this year - whether that means a third quarter or fourth quarter release is up in the air, and that may affect which Intel processor Apple puts in. Intel has a roadmap planned for later this year with new Xeon processors with more modern accouterments like Thunderbolt, USB 3.0 and more, so my suspicion is that we'll see one of those used inside. ExpandabilityOne of the key reasons why the Mac Pro is so large today is because it has several PCIe expansion slots. It's conceivable that a future iteration of the Mac Pro may not need as much internal expansion. Thunderbolt is ubiquitous across the Mac platform (except for the Mac Pro), and that effectively pairs a PCIe interface and a mini DisplayPort connector, ameliorating the need for gobs of internal PCIe expansion. Many of the same vendors who make PCIe expansion cards for Mac Pros offer devices that mirror that functionality in a Thunderbolt-equipped breakout box. It's now possible to achieve broadcast-quality video input and output and use high-speed peripheral interfaces like Fibre Channel and eSATA with Thunderbolt adapters instead of a PCIe card. So the reasons for having a lot of expansion are decreasing. Thunderbolt even negates the need to install multiple video cards in a Mac Pro - Thunderbolt can accommodate additional displays. As long at our future Mac Pro's GPU is beefy enough and equipped with enough VRAM, it's possible that it wouldn't even need slots for video cards. If there's a downside, it's that reducing internal expansion and favoring Thunderbolt can make more desktop clutter - a decidedly un-Apple-like approach. StorageApple is excising optical drives from their computer designs: the Mac mini and iMac no longer have SuperDrives, and the MacBook Pros with Retina Displays likewise eschew optical storage. The only Macs left with optical drives are the standard 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro models and the Mac Pro. Let's accept on faith for a moment that a future Mac Pro will likewise get rid of this capability - that would enable the box to be significantly smaller, as the upper part of the Mac Pro is occupied by space for two optical drives. One place that the Mac Pro doesn't (and shouldn't) skimp is on internal storage. The current box can accommodate up to four internal 3.5-inch hard disk drives. With current 3.5-inch drives topping out at 4 terabytes, that means you can cram a whopping 16 TB of storage internally on the Mac Pro. Apple could save a tremendous amount of space and pick up some significant performance by forcing SSD instead of regular hard drives (SSD is, of course, a configurable option on the Mac Pro). But going pure SSD, especially in an easily expandable internal configuration, will cost users a lot of money to configure. I suspect Apple will continue to offer expandable internal storage in the form of 3.5-inch SATA bays; shrinking down to 2.5-inch drives used in laptops would trade off performance and storage capacity. Take it with a grain of salt or two...As a long-time Mac Pro owner, I'm hopeful that Apple will continue to support the professional market with a high-end, expandable performance-oriented machine. Whether that's a Mac Pro as we might know it or a radically redesigned machine that offers extreme performance is still anyone's guess. Based on the current evolution of Apple's product line, it's clear that Apple is moving away from some of the features and functionality that make the Mac Pro what it is today, which suggests that something different will come. Then again, I may be totally wrong. Apple may stick with the brutalist architecture of the Mac Pro and just replace the CPU and motherboard with a more modern design, slap a few Thunderbolt ports on the back and keep going. Where do you think the Mac Pro is headed? Will it get a complete makeover, or just a mild update? Or is it bound for the scrap heap all together? 
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| Honor your fallen loved ones this Memorial Day with Tributopia for iPhone Posted: 27 May 2013 10:27 AM PDT Aside from enjoying a day off from work and delicious BBQ with friends and family, Memorial Day is about remembering the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. With Tributopia for iPhone, you can do just that and honor your loved ones who have fallen while serving their country. Tributopia lets you create tributes pages, search for existing tributes, and share memories to them. You can also share with friends and family to encourage them to also commemorate their loves ones. Unfortunately, Tributopia does require an account to even explore the app, but if you're looking for a new way to pay tribute this Memorial Day, Tributopia is a unique choice.
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| In honor of memorial day, get FREE SHIPPING all weekend from the iMore store! Posted: 27 May 2013 05:29 AM PDT In honor of the Memorial Day Weekend, everyone in the U.S. gets FREE SHIPPING on all orders from the iMore store! That means today, tomorrow -- any time before Monday night (midnight PT). We have tons of cases, batteries, stylus pens, Bluetooth, photography accessories and more for both the iPhone and iPad in stock, so be sure to browse around and take advantage of the savings on shipping! 
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| Price Drops: Pocket Informant Pro for iPad & iPhone 66% Off Today Only Posted: 27 May 2013 08:52 AM PDT Pocket Informant Pro for iPad and iPhone is on sale today only at 66% below its normal price. It's available for $4.99, down from its standard price of $14.99. The app is a powerful productivity app that has calendar, tasks, notes, and contacts functionality and a wealth of strong features. It's been a leading PIM (personal information manager) app on a number of mobile platforms for many years now. When I say the app boasts a wealth of features, I'm not kidding. Check out this list of existing and new 3.0 features: NEW 3.0 FEATURES         Related Stories
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| iRadio: Apple could do streaming really well, but they don't have to do it at all Posted: 27 May 2013 06:04 AM PDT The rumors of an Apple iRadio music streaming service just won't go away. With WWDC just around the corner, many think that we may see something announced in San Francisco—in the very same room Google recently announced All Access. Apple could knock it out of the park if they entered this space, and I'm sure a lot of us would love to see just such an Apple branded service. But a couple of questions still present themselves. Does Apple really need to do music streaming, and what form could it take if they do? Does Apple need to do a music streaming service?The tl;dr version is; no. Apple doesn't need to do anything. Should, or even would, they is a better question. Apple reinvented the way we listen to music, making digital tracks work for record labels and consumers alike. For many, the iPod and iTunes were their first foray into Apple products. That's exactly where I began 9 years ago. The iPod brought with it the iTunes Store, and in the present day digital downloads have almost completely replaced the sale of physical media. And still, to this day, the largest source of digital downloads is the iTunes Store. The iTunes Store is well established and does good business for Apple. It's also easy to understand. You give them money, they give you music. It comes with a sense of ownership. Apple currently offers iTunes in the Cloud, which lets you re-download previously purchased music, and iTunes Match, which lets you upload your local music to an iCloud locker and then re-download (but not really stream it) from any of your devices. In both cases, it's music you've already bought or acquired, Apple's just helping you access it. A streaming service, one with a subscription, is something else entirely. Competitors who offer streaming also have music stores, like Google for example, but none are anywhere close to as established as iTunes. Google was late to the music store party, and has since thrown a streaming service on top of this. But, it's limited to the U.S. only—officially. The leading streaming services have been designed to be that from the ground up. iTunes was built to sell music. Apple runs iTunes at just above break even, which granted at that scale is a lot of money, but they're not risk-adverse to obsoleting it. Their goal is to sell hardware. Music just encourages people to buy more hardware. Would subscription be even better at that? What could Apple do with a music streaming service?Apple being Apple, I can't believe they would move into the market simply offering the same as the competition. They've achieved their success by offering simpler, easier, and quite often, better. The rumors point to some sort of iRadio service, and I think that would be a better place to start. Spotify and Google have radio features slapped on top of search systems for tracks, artists and albums. You find something you like, and you start a radio station based on that. Apple could do it better. Over the years, customers have bought a ton of music from the iTunes Store, all of which Apple has the records of. They already use it for Genius Recommendations and Mixes. So, in theory, they could offer up a similar recommendation service that captures what you like to listen to. Twitter #music is a good example, and Apple could sit perfectly in the middle between Twitter and Spotify. Use all the iTunes information they already have, send you a radio stream of music they think you'll like, with an instant link to the iTunes Store to purchase the track, see more by the artist and so on. Integration is something key to consider too, since a lot of this music would be listened to on mobile devices. If it needs to be a separate app, then it isn't done right. Apple already has a music app on iOS devices, so for something that they want their customers to adopt, it would need to be integrated into what they already have. And that could work, I'd be quite happy to open up the Music app on my iPhone and have the choice to listen to something new alongside my existing collection. At the moment I live in Spotify and Twitter #music, but that's two additional apps on top of the stock music player. If Apple could bring all that under one roof, similar to how Google is trying to play it with their mobile apps and All Access, it could be a hit. What's on your stream?So, there's a few of my thoughts on the subject. I rely heavily on streaming services for my music, but I rely on the recommendation and discovery aspects even more. It's a competitive market, but what say you guys; are you pulling for an Apple music streaming service? What form would you most like it to take, and would you switch from an existing service if Apple helped you keep all your music in one place? 
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| Deal of the Day: 50% off the Body Glove ToughSuit Rugged Case & Holster for iPhone 5 Posted: 27 May 2013 05:11 AM PDT | ||||||
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