Siri is getting a lot of competition from Google Now and Microsoft’s Cortana these days, but some young hackers have just made Siri much more useful, even if they did so without Apple’s permission. Engadget draws our attention to GoogolPlex, a new hack for Siri developed by a quartet of freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania that lets you use Apple’s voice-enabled personal assistant to adjust the temperature on your Nest thermostat or to shuffle through your Spotify playlist. More →
Have you noticed some annoying bugs that cropped up after you installed iOS 7.1 onto your smartphone or tablet? Don’t worry, because apparently Apple has as well. 9to5Mac notices that several visits to its website from around Apple’s campus in Cupertino, Calif. have come from devices running on iOS 7.1.1, which 9to5Mac says is a new update to iOS 7.1 that Apple is testing out to address multiple bugs in iOS 7.1. 9to5Mac also says that there has been a noticeable uptick in iOS 7.1.1 visits in recent days, which likely means “the bug fix update will come over-the-air to iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches in the near future.”
The five largest U.S. wireless carriers and many smartphone makers including Apple, Google, HTC, Huawei, Motorola, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung and others on Tuesday announced they have agreed to include “kill-switch” technology in all smartphone models released after July 2015, Re/code reports, in a move that should help decrease smartphone thefts and further protect customer data. More →
Apple appears to take the most aggressive stance when it comes to secrecy and keeping information surrounding its unreleased products out of the public’s eye. Needless to say, it’s all for naught when your production partners are gigantic Eastern manufacturing giants with tens or even hundreds of thousands of workers. As such, Apple products tend to leak even more than devices made by rival companies, especially since the interest level in Apple products is always so high. And now, the leaks involving Apple’s iPhone 6 have kicked into high gear. More →
The second U.S. Apple vs Samsung patent trial marches on, with the South Korean giant now making its case in the San Jose, California, court. Samsung’s counsel has already called up several witnesses who testified that the company has not been influenced in any way by Apple or the iPhone. However, internal Samsung documents that have been called into evidence by Apple’s attorneys tell a different story. More →
Apple did not announce the iPhone 6 yet, but numerous leaks have already shown alleged components and manufacturing molds of the handset. Furthermore, case makers are already working on cases for the upcoming flagship model, with many such companies having presented accessories for the device at this year’s Hong Kong Electronics Fair. Macotakara reports that at least one company had iPhone 6 mockups made of metal on display, and they are supposedly based on the actual design of Apple’s upcoming handsets. More →
New evidence from the second U.S. Apple vs Samsung patent lawsuit has revealed that Samsung was somewhat afraid of starting a clear, full-fledged anti-iPhone marketing campaign in 2011 – a move which actually proved to be detrimental to Samsung’s success in the mobile business. However, the death of Steve Jobs provided Samsung the “best opportunity to attack iPhone,” according to a highly confidential email exchange between Samsung execs presented as evidence in the trial and obtained by AppleInsider. More →
Apple was awarded a patent on Tuesday for a technology that should allow for much more accurate indoor location detection and mapping, even in the absence of GPS. The new patent, which was picked up by Apple Insider, uses a combination of Wi-Fi access points, location databases and other data to determine proximity to what the patent called “presence areas.” It then analyzes various data such as Wi-Fi signal strength and building architecture to determine a more precise location. More →
Apple cannot be happy with the multitude of iPhone 6 leaks we’ve seen over just the past week. Via 9to5Mac, Czech website LetemSvetemApplem.eu has snagged a new picture from Chinese social networking site Weibo that purportedly shows the front panel of the iPhone 6 side-by-side with the iPhone 5. Interestingly, the display portion of the iPhone 6 front panel is only a little bit smaller than the entire iPhone 5, which suggests that we’re looking at the 4.7-inch version of the yet-to-be-released device. More →
Last year, BGR exclusively published photos of several internal iPhone 5s components well ahead of the phone’s release, confirming that the device was set to receive a big internal overhaul. Now, a new leak that reveals a key internal iPhone 6 part could suggest once again that Apple’s new smartphone for 2014 is in store for much more than just a facelift. More →
A new image leak from China shows what is claimed to be the front panel from the bigger iPhone 6, suggesting once again that Apple’s next iPhone will be the first to offer a significantly bigger display, a major departure from Apple’s iPhone design policy so far. Discovered on Chinese social network Weibo by iPhonote, the image seems to show a 4.7-inch iPhone 6 placed next to a 4-inch iPhone 5s. More →
A new report out of South Korea indicates that LG may be the only provider of OLED displays for Apple’s upcoming iWatch, claiming that Apple plans to sell some 9 million smartwatches this year. Naver seems to confirm that the device will be available in various sizes, backing up KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s recent report about the smartwatch. More →
