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Showing posts with the label IOS

Apple says iOS is vulnerable to Meltdown and Spectre issues

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Yesterday, we told you about a pair of exploits called Meltdown and Spectre. We focused on the latter because it can affect ARM flavored processors which are used on mobile devices like Android and iOS smartphones. As we told you,  Google's Android Security patch for January will help protect Android users  from having passwords held in a browser, or in a password manager, stolen by a nameless, faceless hacker. Apple has joined the club. The company said today that all of its Macs and iOS devices are vulnerable to the same issues. However, Apple says that it has already released mitigations in iOS 11.2 that protect iPhone units, iPod touches and iPad tablets from Meltdown. Apple Watch is not at risk since it runs watchOS. Apple says that despite fears from users, these updates have not slowed down the performance of the Apple devices that received them. Another update is coming to protect the Safari browser from Spectre. Apple says that this update can slow the browser, but by no

Toughen up your iPhone X with this LifeProof FRE case

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LifeProof, a California-based maker of protective cases and other smartphone accessories, today released a super-tough case for the iPhone X. Called LifeProof FRE, the new case will make sure that your iPhone X survives even in extreme environments. The LifeProof FRE case for iPhone X protects the handset against drops from up to 6.6 feet (2 meters), comes with a built-in screen protector, and is sealed to keep dirt, snow, and debris away. What's more, the LifeProof FRE enhances your iPhone X's water-resistance. Normally, an iPhone X can survive under water up to 3.3 feet (1 meter) for 30 minutes. With a LifeProof FRE case on, the smartphone will be safe up to 2 meters under water for 1 hour. Priced at $89.99, the LifeProof FRE iPhone X case is available in six color variants. You can order the case from LifeProof's official website - see the source link below. Each LifeProof FRE case comes with 1-year warranty, and is shipped for free within the  US . So, any

Instagram users may soon be able to post their Stories to WhatsApp

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Instagram Stories, by design a clone of Snapchat's once defining feature, have been rapidly growing in popularity ever since their introduction back in March, 2017. Despite the feature's initial inept integration in Facebook, the things went quite well when the company introduced it to Instagram. So well, in fact, that Instagram Stories have by now far its Snapchat counterpart in terms of popularity, boasting some 300 million daily active users as of November, 2017. But Facebook's efforts of pushing the format show no signs of abating. In fact, the company is now experimenting cross-posting Stories to t:WhatsApp, albeit only in Brazil. According to  TechCrunch,  who received official confirmation from Facebook, the feature is being tested with a limited number of people in Brazil, with a wider rollout in the cards for later this year. The users who have access to the feature are able to share their Instagram Stories directly to WhatsApp, as a WhatsApp Status.

Cosmic Watch is a cool and sleek app that tracks the movement of Earth and nearby celestial bodies

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Nowadays, we no longer look up — our noses are always buried in our phone screens. Well, if you don't look at the stars, why not put the stars in your smartphones? Terrible satirical jokes aside, there is a handful of apps out there that do a great job at showing and teaching us about the known celestial bodies. Cosmic Watch is one among them. The app's main purpose is to show you how the Sun, Moon, constellations, and planets in our solar system move around our planet. Its Time Travel feature allows you to speed up time and watch said bodies move around our pale blue dot as fast as you like, giving you a glimpse into the future alignments in our solar neighborhood. A solar eclipse detector and world clock round off the time-centered features. Thanks to a few buttons and toggles, you can change the on-screen graphics — the way that Earth is drawn on screen (realistic or glowing wireframe), add or remove clouds, layer extra spheres that show you where the constellations and

iPhone sales could suffer from Apple's $29 battery replacement program, here are the estimated numbers

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Apple's decision to lower the price of iPhone battery replacements to $29 (from $79; 63% discount) could cut into its 2018 smartphone sales. These observations were made by Barclays analysts, but anyone following the Battery Gate scandal would have guessed as much. However, Barclays also has estimates on what the potential damage could be. According to company analyst Mark Moskowitz, a whopping 77% or 519 million iPhone users are eligible to replace their battery via the program. Here are his calculations: In our base case scenario, 10% of those 519M users take the $29 offer, and around 30% of them decide not to buy a new iPhone this year. This means around 16M iPhone sales could be at risk, creating ~4% downside to our current revenue estimate for C2018. As you've probably heard, these developments are a direct result of Apple's admission of slowing down iPhones with older batteries in certain situations in order to prevent more serious issues.  In 

Analysts see uphill climb for Apple HomePod as Amazon and Google rule smart speaker market

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2017 was the first year that smart speakers became extremely popular as Christmas and Chanukah gifts. Amazon, who created the category in 2015 with the Amazon Echo, has a huge lead in market share over Google and its Google Home series. This past holiday shopping season saw both Amazon and Google fight over market share by cutting the price on their low-end smart speaker. Combined, both firms have a large lead in smart speaker market share. During the holidays, the Amazon Echo Dot and the Google Home Mini were both priced at $29. Both were about $50 prior to the sale. Amazon's cost to produce the Echo Dot is roughly $31 a unit according to ABI Research. And while it takes only $26 to build the Google Home Mini, the $3 gross profit was eaten up by overhead, shipping and other costs. That means that both Amazon and Google took a little hit to the bottom line, just to try and increase their smart speaker market share. A fight for market share could be bad for Apple, w

Microsoft to bring Mobile View mode to Office for iOS

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Mobile View is the new feature iOS users will benefit when using one  Microsoft's Office apps , specifically Word. The developers have just announced that a couple of new features and improvements will be added to the Office package on the iOS this month. The most important, Mobile View is supposed to adjust a document to the iPad screen so that you won't have to pinch and zoom whenever a document doesn't fit the size of tablet's display. Word app will also receive Learning Tools, which enable users to adjust text spacing, column width, and page color. Keep in mind though that this feature will require an  Office 365 subscription . Furthermore, some new accessibility settings will be implemented in  Word, Excel, and PowerPoint , such as the option to use large text to make documents, worksheets, and presentations easier to work with. Finally, all three Office apps will allow iOS 11 users to drag and drop documents between apps easier than ever. You'll also be ab

Analyst says his colleagues are too bullish on the Apple iPhone X

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An analyst by the name of Nicolas Baratte works for Hong Kong investment bank CLSA. Baratte says that any one of his colleagues forecasting fiscal Q1 Apple iPhone X sales greater than 35 million units, is too bullish on the tenth anniversary device. Baratte's comment came after Apple reportedly cut its expectation of t:iPhone X sales during its fiscal second quarter to 30 million handsets from 50 million. Chinese tech stocks plunged following the release of this news. The CLSA analyst says that anyone who wanted an iPhone X last month has already purchased one, meaning that demand has been satiated. However, both Baratte and Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Olson agree that Apple can jump start the iPhone X market by cutting prices of the high-end model. Olson, who is bullish on Apple unlike Baratte, expects the tech giant to offer a lower-priced iPhone X model this year, and an iPhone X Plus premium variant as well. That dovetails with earlier reports that Apple will offer a 6

Google Play Music 4-month free trial offer is back, but not for everyone

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From time to time, Google lures more customers into using its music streaming service, Google Play Music,  by offering free trials . If you've missed any of the previous Google Play Music deals, you're in luck since Google is now running a new promotion aimed to add even more consumers to its music streaming service. For a limited time, Google offers new customers four months of its music streaming service for free, as part of its “ 12 Days of Play ” promotion. Unfortunately, the deal is not available to everyone and it's unclear what qualifies people for this promotion. Some  Google Play Music subscribers  claim they have been able to enroll in the trial and get four months of free music streaming service even though they are not new customers. Also, the deal does not appear for many consumers, and the only way to find out whether or not you can benefit from the 4-month free Google Play Music trial is to actually visit the promotion's page. If it doesn't show u

phones that will support Verizon's Gigabit LTE network

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Verizon plans to light up its  Gigabit Class LTE network  in select markets in the United States during 2018. Although the carrier has yet to reveal the regions where its new network will be available starting this year, we do have a list of devices that will support Gigabit LTE. If you've been following our Verizon-related news, then you probably know that a handful of smartphones  have already been updated by the carrier  with support for its Gigabit LTE network. You'll most likely identify them in the list below, which contains all the smartphones that will be fully compatible with Gigabit LTE (256-QAM, 4x4 MiMO, 3-Carrier Aggregation). Samsung Galaxy S7 Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Samsung Galaxy S8  Samsung Galaxy S8+ Samsung Galaxy Note 8 LG V30 Google Pixel 2 Google Pixel 2 XL Moto Z2 Force Verizon also said that some devices will benefit from its  Gigabit LTE network , but users will not get the full experience. So here are the smartphones that should offer 25

Best new Android and iPhone apps (January, 2018)

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Well, folks, it's the new year and it's a new month. And every time we enter a new month, we comb through the app stores to see what great new apps have come out over the past 30 days. Needless to say, December saw tons of new offerings in both stores, so we had some sorting to do. We've got two new experimental apps by Google released for iOS, an app that automatically makes an emoji out of your face, a couple of cool synth apps for iOS musicians, a file manager by Google that can clean up the junk files on your Android device with a tap, and much more. Check them out below, let us know which one you liked, and whether we happened to miss a cool new app that came out in December! New for iOS New apps for iPhone and iPad VIEW MORE + 7 images New for Android New apps for Android VIEW MORE + 4 images

We played HQ Trivia a few times and came away empty handed

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Unless  you've been concentrating totally on the latest battery issues affecting Apple and Samsung , you have probably heard of  HQ Trivia.  This is the app that is rewarding those with advanced knowledge of trivia, with real cash. We figured that we would give this a shot to see if we could turn our knowledge of useless information into some money. If you haven't played, here are the basics of the game. After installing the app on your iOS or Android device, you set up a free account and that is all you need to do to join in the fun. Games start at 9pm EST every day with a 3pm EST matinee on weekdays. But there often is a delay before the first question drops. Each game consists of a series of 12 questions that are introduced by a live host, whose main job is apparently to bore the hell out of you while you're waiting for the next question. When a question is asked, you see it on your screen with three possible answers. You tap on the answer that you believe to be right.

Prisma surpasses 50 million downloads in the Google Play Store, do you still use it?

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Prisma has just joined the esteemed group of Android apps that have been downloaded more than 50 million times. Initially launched on the iOS platform, Prisma made its debut in the Google Play Store back in July 2016. In less than one year and a half, Prisma exceeded the 50 million downloads mark, an impressive achievement coming from such a small company. Even though it's one of the most popular Android apps, we can't help but wonder how many of you are still using Prisma to turn your photos into awesome artworks. One of the reasons Prisma became an instant hit was the algorithm used by the developer to transform pictures into artworks using the styles of famous artists such as Picasso and Munk. Over the next several months after its launch, Prisma gained lots of filters that could be applied to users' photos. However, now that the magic of being the first to offer such a service is likely gone, many might have stopped using Prisma. Despite losing u

17 most memorable best Iphone, Android mobile games of 2017

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As 2017 is winding down to a close, we take a look back at 17 of the most memorable iPhone and Android games of 2017. The mobile game arena is a vast space and there are hundreds of great games, so it's hard to pick the very best ones as you risk to make a mile-long list or simply not including a lot of titles. So rather than trying to figure out the very best, we have summed up the 17 most memorable games from a slightly subjective point of view. What is not subjective about these games is their quality: all of them are outstanding and you will not regret playing them. So get those fingers in shape because those games will put them to work. With no further ado, here is our list of the 17 most memorable mobile games of 2017. Gorogoa $5, Download on iOS A gorgeous hand-drawn puzzle game with an original story

Chinese app finds you a surrogate drinker if you're a lightweight

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In China, the amount of alcohol you consume is in relation to the amount of respect you have for your host. But what if you want to remain sober, or you are a lightweight when it comes to alcohol? In China, an  app  called eDaihe (which translates to "to drink on behalf of") can find you a surrogate drinker who will consume enough booze to let your host feel very respected.  The surrogate drinking service is offered in 36 cities in China including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Pricing is determined through private negotiations between the  app  user and the surrogate drinker. Over 100,000 people subscribed to the  app  during the first 24 hours that it was available. Potential surrogates put up a profile that includes their name, gender, location, and the amount of alcohol that they can handle.   Because of U.S. laws and worries about liability, we most likely won't see this  app  made available in the states. In fact, it is China's unique culture t