Tag: iPhone

20 Billion App Installs and Counting For Google, Android

Because having Larry Page and Timothy Cook compare their respective manhood would be inappropriate, another thing for Google and Apple to compare is the amount of downloads of mobile apps designed for iOS and the Android environments. While Apple still has the upper hand with 30 billion app installs, Google’s Android mobile operating system is experiencing success too, to the tune of 20 billion installs.

At the Google I/O Keynote, the totals for both installs and the amount of apps and games available was revealed, and it’s pretty clear Google Play is holding its own against its Apple competition. As you can see from the lead image, Google is boasting 20 billion application installs. Furthermore, there are 600,000 apps and games available at Google Play, compared to Apple’s 650,000. What does this mean besides both companies offer users a lot of ways to augment their phones? Well, aside from the fact that users of either iPhones or Android phones have a lot of choices when it comes to applications they can pick from, it also indicates that Apple and Google are well ahead of the competition regarding being the a consumer favorite.

With the looming collapse of Rim, which makes the BlackBerry devices, perhaps the only platform left to make inroads against the Android/iPhone stranglehold is the Windows Phone. No word on how many apps their store offers, but it’s probably not as many as Google Play or the App Store.

As pointed out by the Verge, considering the fact that Google announced 10 billion downloads at the end of 2011, and they’ve already doubled that in less than a year, how long before Android apps catch up to Apple’s 30-billion-downloads total?

[Lead image courtesy]

June 27, 2012
Earn Money For Your iPhone Photos With Foap

The rapid advances in smartphone cameras over the last couple of years mean that for many of us, our go-to camera isn’t made by Canon or Nikon. It’s made by Apple or Samsung. Some of us – myself included – have taken entire vacations where our traditional point-and-shoot camera either doesn’t leave its place in our suitcase, or gets left at home altogether.

The point is, most of us have hundreds – even thousands – of random photos on our phones. Some of them are even good. Some of the good ones are even good enough to be stock photos. For those pics, there’s Foap. Foap is an app that takes ordinary iPhone photographers like you and me (or maybe just you; my pictures are mostly of my kids and my dogs) and hooks them up with people who need stock photos.

The process is actually pretty straightforward: you take pictures, upload them to Foap, and tag them. Then Foap sells them to companies in need of stock photos. Foap charges these companies $10 per photo. That $10 is then split evenly between you and Foap: you get $5 and Foap gets $5.

That, of course, is not quite all there is to it. Not every photo you upload is automatically approved. And being approved doesn’t necessarily mean it will be bought. There are, however a few things you can do to improve your chances. First of all, don’t edit the photo too much. If you go crazy on your photo with Instagram or Camera+ or one of the zillion other photo editing apps out there, you’re not going to leave a buyer much room to work with the photo on their own. Also, tag your photos. Tags help would-be buyers find your photos more easily. Finally, don’t post pictures of other people without their permission (preferably written). Otherwise you could find yourself in legal trouble for profitting from an image you had no legal right to sell.

In addition to letting companies find your photos, Foap also gives you the opportunity to go on “Missions.” That is, they take requests from companies who need a particular kind of photo. If you have that photo – or have the opportunity to take it – then you can upload it and stand a better chance of having it bought.

Foap is available in the iOS App Store for free. There is an Android version reportedly in the works, but it isn’t yet available.

[H/T: GigaOm]

June 27, 2012
iPhone: $150 Billion In Revenue In First Five Years

What were you doing five years ago this Friday? Let’s put things in a little bit of perspective: George W. Bush was President of the United States, Pixar’s Ratatouille was in theaters, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was less than a month away from hitting stores, the San Antonio Spurs had just swept the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, and the Boston Red Sox were just a few months away from winning their second World Series in four years after an 86 year drought.

In the midst of all this, something else significant was going on. On June 29th, 2007, Apple’s first iPhone finally launched, over six months after Steve Jobs took the stage to announce it. Here’s what Apple’s website looked like back then:

A lot has changed in the five years since the first iPhone hit stores. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Apple’s smartphone – which many experts thought would be a flop – has completely revolutionized the smartphone market. Google completely overhauled their Android operating system to incorporate touchscreen technology following the iPhone’s launch and the once mighty BlackBerry is in the midst of a slow, painful death.

If you pay much attention to Apple – particularly to Apple’s earnings reports – you know that the iPhone is their biggest moneymaker. Last quarter they sold 35.1 million iPhones. That’s 12 million more units than the iPad, iPod, and all Mac models combined. In the previous quarter the iPhone accounted for more than half of Apple’s revenues. In fact, it generated more revenue by itself than all of Microsoft.

All told, according to recent data released by Strategy Analytics, Apple has sold 250 million iPhones in the first five years of the device’s life. Those 250 million iPhones have brought the company a staggering $150 billion in revenue. That, for those of you who don’t feel like doing the math, comes out to $600 in revenue per iPhone.

To put the iPhone’s impact in a little bit of perspective, the folks at VoucherCodes.co.uk have put together an infographic with some interesting facts about the iPhone’s 5-year history. Check it out below:

Source: VoucherCodes.co.uk

June 27, 2012
People Hesitant To Kill Life-like Robots, May Not Care So Much About Siri [Research]

All robots are not treated equally by humans, researchers are finding. The more lifelike a robot is, the more likely humans are to feel some kind of emotional connection or attachment to it.

This is what Christoph Bartneck at the University of Canterbury and his team are finding. Bartneck, who is a senior lecturer and an associate editor for the International Journal of Social Robotics, spoke about the research in an interview with New Zealand’s HitLabNZ:

“We set out to study this perception of life-likeness or human likeness, and the experiments that we did, usually go around trying to understand and being able to measure this phenomenon.”

The researchers asked people to interact with the robot for a while, then terminate it, and people were more reluctant to do so, particularly with robots who showed more intelligence, said Bartneck.

The show’s host brought up people’s connections with their iPhones, but Bartneck doesn’t consider Siri to be in a class with the robots he’s talking about. In other words, there’s a good chance you don’t give a crap about hurting Siri’s feelings (as various parodies on YouTube can corroborate).

“Of course an iPhone doesn’t have any arms or legs,” says Bartneck. “It doesn’t really do anything other than communicating with you, so it’s more a computer than a robot, but indeed, look how much distance people put between themselves and the iPhone – not very much. They keep it close at all times. Even in their bed.”

Kieran Campbell at nzherald has some additional quotes from Bartneck, who says some tests found that people may refuse to undress in front of the more life-like robots. Campbell reports:

Studies show people can also get embarrassed around robots.

“Particularly if a robot looks like us and we’re asked to do something with it that we probably wouldn’t do with a stranger, like take our clothes off for example.

How many times have you thought twice about getting undressed in front of your iPhone?

Here are some life-like robots that you might want to cover yourself in front of:

Shimi the robot will be hanging out at the Google I/O. He doesn’t seem incredibly life-like. We’ll keep our ears open for any wild stories.

June 26, 2012
Help the Higgs Boson Elude Pesky Scientists in This Fantastic iPhone Game

If you’ve been following news from the world of physics lately, it’s likely you’re familiar with the search for the Higgs boson, or, as the press more dramatically calls it, the God particle. The Higgs (which nobody involved in the search for it seriously refers to it as “the God particle,” although one bemused physicist coined a rather colorful name for the particle) is one of those so-close-yet-so-far-away players that always seems to be just without reach of the physicists who have dedicatedly pursued it since Peter Higgs proposed its existence in 1964.

While the detectives of the physics world proceed with their dragnet of the subatomic world, a clever developer named Andy at Test Tube Games has devised a fun game where, in an interesting twist on the Higgs story, you actually help the elusive Higgs boson stay hidden from the scientists that are trying to root it out. Set as one part spy movie and two parts puzzle game, Agent Higgs, who is clad in a completely appropriate Groucho Marx disguise, is set inside a particle accelerator wherein you must help the Higgs remain hidden among the known particles and antiparticles as you confront the fundamental forces of nature.

The objective is to maneuver electrons and other particles around the board, sliding them against the walls and other barriers until you eventually reach the Higgs boson (thus hiding it), at which point you move on to the next stage. With over 100 different levels, each one of increasing difficulty as you solve them, you’ll be graded on how efficiently you completed the stage and whether you did so with the absolute minimum amount of moves.

The game recalls another iOS game, Unblock Me, in that you have to strategically move blocks around a board in order to move on to the next stage. However, there are many more complexities to Agent Higgs because you must work with the different properties of the particles you move around, meaning this game has a few more rules than Unblock Me. This is where the game’s brilliance comes into play (in addition to the surprisingly fun soundtrack) because it actually teaches you some basics about the particles relevant to the Higgs while you play. For example, Level 4 just told me that a neutrino is like an electron except it has no charge and that it can pass through solid matter (i.e., you can pass right through the barriers to reach the Higgs).

For now, this game is only available for iPhone and while it does cost $0.99 to download, the game is fun enough that you’ll get your time and money’s worth out of the app (plus, there are no ads with the game), especially if you like to nerd out about the Higgs. Besides, $0.99 is an incredibly small amount to pay and give credit to a fun and very good idea.

[Via New Scientist.]

June 26, 2012
iOS 6: What’s New In The New Beta

Yesterday we told you that Apple had released the second beta version of iOS 6 to developers. At the time little was known about the update, since Apple didn’t include a changelog with the new release. In the 20 hours since then, though, iOS developers have gotten the chance to explore the update and see what’s new.

According to 9to5Mac, who have done a pretty thorough examination of the new beta, Apple has made quite a few small changes (in addition to the expected bug fixes). The first thing the new beta did is reveal a change that was actually made with iOS 6 beta 1. It seems that now when you tap the “Download and Install” button, the gears on the Settings icon are animated so that they turn. Unfortunately, though, this only applies to the gear icon on the software update page, not the actual Settings App homescreen icon.

One small change introduced with iOS 6 beta 2 is the Twitter icon. A few weeks ago Twitter made a minor change to their famous bird icon. With yesterday’s update the iOS’s Twitter-related features now take that into account. The new icon is visible on both the Tap to Tweet button in Notification Center, and in the sharing menu:

The second small change is much more useful. Calendar events displayed in Notification Center now show their end time as well as their start time:

The update also has introduces some changes that allow the user to have a little more control over what is shared and how. First, there are now more options for deciding which items get synced via iCloud. Previously you could decide whether to use your cellular data network to sync iCloud documents and iTunes, but not your Safari Reading List. With iOS 6 beta 2, Reading List has been added to the menu.

Finally, you can also fine tune your use of Photo Stream. Photo Stream, introduced with iOS 5, lets you upload every picture you take with your iOS device to iCloud. When Apple introduced iOS 6 at WWDC 2012 two weeks ago, they unveiled a new feature: Shared Photo Streams. With Shared Photo Streams, you can let your friends see the pictures you’re taking. In iOS 6 beta 2, you can now turn Shared Photo Streams on and off from the same screen where you turn Photo Stream on and off.

Of course, the fact that the new beta has these features doesn’t necessarily mean that the final version of iOS will have them. After all, we’re still a few months away from the public release of iOS 6 and the new iPhone. As Apple has proven with past betas, a lot can change in that time.

June 26, 2012
iOS 6 Beta 2 Seeded To Developers

Apple has released the second beta version of iOS 6 to developers today. The update went live less than an hour ago. Developers with iOS 6 beta 1 installed on their devices can download the update over the air directly to their devices.

It’s not clear what has been changed with the new beta version. All Apple says is that it includes bug fixes and improvements. The update is 322MB in size. Apple has not yet updated the developer site with further details on the new beta.

The first beta of iOS 6 was released shortly after the WWDC 2012 keynote two weeks ago. According to early reports the new features were generally great, but the system tended to be fairly buggy and unstable. This release presumably fixes some of the instabilities of the previous version. It’s also possible that it adds new features, but we’ll have to wait until the developers start digging around in it to know for certain.

The final version of iOS 6 is scheduled to release sometime in the fall. Though Apple didn’t say so during the keynote, iOS 6 will release at the same time as the new iPhone, which has been widely rumored to be coming in October.

June 25, 2012
Here’s What You’ll Look Like Wearing The World’s Dumbest Pants

If you’ve ever bemoaned the fact that you have to dig down in your skinny jeans pocket to retrieve your smartphone, or, if you’re a virgin and strongly wish to remain that way, it appears that your fall wardrobe has already been partially set.

That’s because the folks over at Alphyn Industries are now offering the DELTA415 Wearcom Jeans. These pants feature a straight leg cut and premium coated denim for a “deep indigo color.” Oh yeah, they also have a see-through pocket on the right leg to house your smartphone.

From the product site:

The patented Wearcom pocket is made of durable polymer film to allow for complete interactivity with any touch screen device. A button hole above the genuine leather film edge opens into the front pocket for threading headphones/mic wire into right pant pocket.

Apparently, the pants were inspired by fighter pilots’ G-suits, who are notorious for having to check Facebook every few minutes. The see-through pocket fits any touchscreen device up to 3×5 inches – so iPhones, iPods, Droids, and many more.

So, here’s what you’ll look like browsing Instagram through your pocket:

And a closer view:

The jeans will run you $160 and if you’re bigger than a 38 waist, you need not apply.

Maybe I’m being a bit hard on the DELTA415s. I mean, getting your smartphone out of your pocket can definitely be a bitch, especially if you’re rocking something with a 4.5-inch screen. But there’s gotta be a better way. Right?

[via Gizmodo]

June 25, 2012
iPhone 5 Rumor: New iPhone Getting NFC Chips

There have been rumors for over two years now that the iPhone would be getting near-field communication (NFC) technology. Back in 2010 many expected it to be included with the iPhone 4. When that didn’t happen, they thought it would come with the iPhone 4S (back when it was expected to be called the iPhone 5). That, of course, didn’t happen either. Now, though, it looks like the new iPhone really might, at long last, getting NFC.

According to 9to5Mac, references found in hardware code dumps strongly suggest that the new iPhone will have NFC chips built in. If true, this has massive implications both for the mobile payment market, and for Apple’s announcement regarding iOS 6. During the iOS 6 section of their WWDC 2012 keynote two weeks ago, Apple showed off Passbook. Passbook is a new app designed to provide users with easy access to things like boarding passes, movie tickets, rewards cards, coupons, and so on. The version of Passbook we saw at WWDC relied on bar codes and QR codes for scanning such things. With NFC, though, actually scanning the code wouldn’t be necessary.

What’s more, with NFC integration, Passbook could very easily become a mobile payment app as well. Though Apple has said they aren’t planning to get into the mobile payment space, the fact is that in a way they already are. They’ve already got millions of credit cards on file thanks to the iTunes store. With NFC built into the iPhone, Passbook could simply charge purchases to your iTunes store account. In fact, they’ve already implemented something very like this with the Apple Store app. You can pay for Apple Store purchases just by putting in your iTunes password while you’re in the store.

While this is all still just a rumor, it’s growing increasingly more likely. If Apple really is bringing NFC and mobile payment to the iPhone, they’ll be pretty much the last major mobile platform to do so. Android users have been able to use Google Wallet to make payments with their NFC-capable phones for several months now, and Microsoft unveiled NFC support for Windows Phone 8 last week. While Apple has been known to forego certain kinds of features their competitors include, putting NFC in the iPhone is potentially very lucrative for them. It’s not likely that they’ll let the iPhone be left behind in this area for another year.

There’s an interesting question raised by NFC on the iPhone: will we see a Google Wallet iOS app? After all, Google doesn’t appear quite ready to relinquish Google Maps’s presence on the iPhone. Will they allow Apple to be the only game in town when it comes to mobile payments on the iPhone? The odds are that they won’t. I contacted Google to get their thoughts on the matter, but they haven’t yet replied.

June 25, 2012
Make New Friends With Facebook’s Find Friends Nearby

Facebook rolled out a new feature over the weekend designed to help you make friends with the people around you. The new Find Friends Nearby feature went live first as a mobile web page, but was quickly rolled out to the iOS and Android versions of Facebook’s mobile app.

The feature, originally called Friendshake, was developed by the team behind Glancee, an app that helped users connect with the people around them. When Glancee was bought by Facebook, the app’s three developers went to work for Facebook and shut down Glancee. Now it looks like Glancee’s features have been rolled into Facebook’s apps.

Unfortunately, the name “Find Friends Nearby” can be a little misleading at first glance. It sounds an awful lot like a feature Facebook already has – the ability to see who’s checked in near you – combined with a feature Apple rolled out with iOS 5 last year – the Find My Friends app. Find Friends Nearby isn’t about helping you find the people you’re already friends with, though. I guess Facebook figures your smartphone has plenty of options for doing that already (you could even… call them). No, Find My Friends is about making it easier to add new people to your Friends list.

Say you get invited to a party by a friend. While you’re there you discover that your friend has pretty good taste in friends, and you’d like to connect with some of the people you’ve met. Usually that involves having each of them tell you their name (and, if they’re anything like me, spell it for you) and sending friend requests one by one. While these new people you’ve met might be cool, they may not be cool enough to be worth all the hassle. That’s where Find Friends Nearby comes in. If you want to add five people, you just have them all go to fb.com/ffn on their phones (you do the same, of course), and it will pull up a list of the people around you. Then you can add as many of them as you want.

As noted above, you can do the same from your iOS or Android device’s mobile app. There are a few more steps involved in the process, but the result is basically the same. Go to the Apps section of your menu and tap Find Friends. You should have two options – Find Friends on Your Phone and Other Tools – above a list of people you may know. Tap Other Tools. There you’ll see a whole lot of ways to find new friends – your city, your home towm, your workplace, and so on. The last item on the list should be Find Friends Nearby:

Tapping that takes you to basically the same screen you see if you use the mobile website instead. Which means that until Facebook streamlines the feature a little, the only reason to use the mobile app instead of the webpage would be if you’re not signed into Facebook on your phone’s browser. In that case, navigating through the menus to get to Find Friends Nearby might be more convenient than typing in your password, especially if your password is long and complicated.

While a lot of the apps out there for locating friends or getting in touch with the people around you can seem a little stalker-y, this one is actually pretty handy. The process of adding several new friends at once can be a real pain in the… thumbs. It’s nice to see Facebook doing something to make users’ lives a little easier.

[H/T: TechCrunch]

June 25, 2012
Wear This Smartphone Controller On Your Finger

Let’s be honest with ourselves here: the majority of mobile games are absolutely awful. We can’t completely blame the game designers though. They have big ideas and a touch screen can only do so much. That’s why you see many companies now selling Bluetooth game pads that mimic game console controllers for those games that don’t work that well with a touch screen. It’s a solution, but not a particularly mobile one. One company took to Kickstarter with an idea that just might be crazy enough to work.

Meet Ringbow, the game controller that you wear on your finger. It seeks to solve the problem of control in mobile gaming. So how does a ring improve the controls of mobile gaming? The creators envision a player wearing the ring on their index finger while using their thumb to control the d-pad built into the device. It’s an interesting idea, but I’m sure it’s one of those devices that you have to use to understand. To help with that, the company created a video that explains the potential that Ringbow has for mobile gaming.

The Ringbow is being developed for Android at the moment, but will soon have support for iOS. It will hold a charge for about five hours before needing a recharge through mini-USB. It should be enough for even the most intense gaming session on mobile as I can’t see a match of Angry Birds lasting more than five hours.

While the device should be compatible with the majority of apps on the smartphones, there are developers creating games just for the Ringbow. For those who pledge $45 or more to Kickstarter campaign, they will get a package of games developed just for Ringbow. Pledging $55 or more gets you access to the Ringbow API so that you can make your own games for the device.

If you would like to contribute to the Kickstarter, you can do so at their campaign page. There’s some really neat prizes available for the higher pledges. If you find Ringbow to be the future of mobile gaming, maybe it’s worth the $1,000 plus pledge.

June 24, 2012
Samsung Easy Phone Sync Helps You Dump Your iPhone

Switching to a new phone is often a daunting task. Getting your contacts, messages, apps, photos, and whatnot moved to your new phone can be a tricky process, and sometimes not everything makes it. The process is especially daunting if you’re jumping ship from one mobile phone OS to another – i.e., from iOS to Android, or vice versa. For many smartphone users who are thinking of making a switch, that can be enough to make them decide to stick with the platform they’re on.

With the Galaxy S III hitting the U.S. soon (kinda), Samsung wants to make it as easy as possible for would-be users to switch to their new flagship phone. With that in mind, they’ve released Easy Phone Sync. The purpose of Easy Phone Sync is to make switching from an iPhone to any Galaxy device as easy as possible. You install Easy Phone Sync on your computer and on your Galaxy phone. The app transfers all of your content – music, photos, videos, messages, podcasts, and all – from your computer to your new phone.

The app is free for Galaxy owners. The Android app is available from Google Play. The desktop version is available for both Mac and Windows, and is available at easyphonesync.com.

While it may not be quite as easy as syncing a new iPhone using your old iPhone’s backup, it looks pretty darn close. If you’re switching from the iPhone to one of Samsung’s devices, this sounds like your best bet for migrating your stuff to your knew phone.

June 22, 2012
Obama Endorses Apple for Cult of Personality of Staff

Writing about the Obama campaign’s new organizing app, Dashboard, there was something blindingly apparent to me: the President’s campaign staff really has a jones for all things Apple.

In another sign that Apple has triumphantly branded itself as the Company of Cool, the computing devices featured on the Dashboard homepage are slightly modified devices resembling the unmistakable design of Apple’s Mac:

Here is the promotion photo from Apple’s Mac page:

Dead ringer, eh?

But it doesn’t stop there. If you’re gonna hit the campaign trail, take your White House-endorsed iOS device with you:

Coincidentally, the only image I could find of the iPad and iPhone propped up against each other in a similar arrangement was from the page for the official iOS apps for the Democratic Party:

For somebody that plays down his cool factor by frequently citing what a dorky dad he is on the talk show circuit, Obama’s campaign staff’s use of images of products by Apple, the Company of Cool, certainly isn’t playing along with that message.

June 22, 2012
Apple Plants The App Store Flag In 32 More Countries

Apple’s march toward global application domination continues. Last week during Apple’s WWDC 2012 keynote, CEO Tim Cook promised that the App Store would be coming to 32 more countries around the world. An email from Apple to iOS and OS X developers today has confirmed the expansion, which goes live today.

Though Cook didn’t say which countries, the email does. Most of the new markets are in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Here’s the complete list: Albania, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Chad, Congo, Fiji, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Micronesia, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Sao Tome e Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Turmkenistan, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe.

The addition of 32 new countries/territories brings the total to 155. According to 9to5Mac, developers who want to sell their paid apps in the App Store in these new territories have to agree to new sales contracts before the apps can go up for sale.

June 22, 2012
Visit Equestria With My Little Pony Games Hitting Mobile Later This Year

It was announced a while ago that Zynga and Hasbro had entered into a partnership to bring some of Zynga’s more famous games to life via board games and toys. Many people thought that the partnership would go both ways with Zynga making games based on established Hasbro franchises. Turns out that was not the case with Gameloft announcing their own partnership today.

Gameloft announced today that they have entered into an agreement with Hasbro to create games based on the company’s Littlest Pet Shop and My Little Pony brands. The games will be out before the end of the year and will be hitting all the major mobile platforms like Android, iPhone and iPad.

“Creating highly inventive and accessible digital play experiences based on our world-class brands continues to be at the core of Hasbro’s mission and we envision Gameloft to be a key player in the ongoing execution of that global strategy,” said Mark Blecher, Senior Vice President of Digital Media and Marketing at Hasbro. “This agreement brings together Hasbro’s powerhouse girls’ brands with one of the industry’s preeminent mobile game developers which will take My Little Pony and Littlest Pet Shop play to an entirely new level of fun.”

A Gameloft representative confirmed with us that the developer’s My Little Pony game will be based off of the runaway success that has been My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. That news alone should be enough to get the little girls (and bronies) everywhere excited about the possibilities of games based on their favorite franchise.

As Gameloft is gearing up on game development for these franchises, might I suggest a few fan-made games that they should draw inspiration from.

My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic

PonyKart

My Little Investigations

See Gameloft, the fan base has already done your work for you. You could release any of these on any platform and they would probably sell at least a few hundred thousand in a day. If the Bronycon Kickstarter can reach its goal in a day, Gameloft can make bank on any potential My Little Pony game if it respects the franchise and the fan base.

June 21, 2012
Get iOS 6 Sharing Menu Early With New Cydia Tweak

When Apple unveiled iOS 6 at last week’s WWDC 2012 keynote, they showed off a lot of great new features. A revamped Maps app, Facebook integration, FaceTime over 3G, new privacy settings, and a whole lot more. One of those new features was a much-needed improvement to the iPhone’s sharing menu.

With iOS 6, you’ll get a revamped revamped sharing menu that replaces the old stack of text-filled buttons with much more aesthetically pleasing grid of icons showing your various options – Twitter, Facebook, Messages, Email, etc. Unfortunately, though, iOS 6 is still a long way off, since it’s launching in the fall alongside the new iPhone. That means that if you’re sick of the boring old buttons and really want the new hotness, you’ll have to wait.

Unless, of course, you’re a jailbreaker. For those with jailbroken iDevices, a new Cydia tweak gets you the features of tomorrow’s iOS update today. The update, creatively dubbed iOS 6 Photos Menu, changes the share menu on your jailbroken device to match the menu from iOS 6. With the tweak, you can easily upload photos to Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, send them in an email or MMS message, assign them to a contact, and more.

iOS 6 Photos Menu is available free in the Cydia store. There’s no configuration necessary – just install, respring, and you’re good to go.

June 21, 2012
Samsung Releases Two Galaxy S III Ads, Doesn’t Mention Apple Once

As you’ve probably heard by now, Samsung’s new Galaxy S III is on its way to stores in the U.S. right now (kind of). By all accounts, it’s a fantastic phone packed with a whole slew of amazing new features (assuming you get one that doesn’t blow up).

Which is why Samsung’s latest ads for the Galaxy S III are refreshing. If you’re familiar with Samsung’s advertising at all, you know they have a bit of a… fixation with their main rival in the smartphone market: Apple. A huge chunk of their advertising for products like the Galaxy S II or the Galaxy Note have focused on Apple. More specifically, they’ve shown a marked tendency to insult Apple’s fans. Two separate ads earlier this year ridiculed Apple fans who wait in line for new products, while another implied that they were sheep.

The two new ads for the Galaxy S III, though, take a different approach. In a somewhat unusual move for Samsung, neither makes any reference – subtle or overt – to Apple or the iPhone. Instead, they focus on the Galaxy S III’s new features, including the ability to transfer data back and forth between devices by bumping them together, and the fact that you can text and watch video at the same time. Check the ads out for yourself below.

June 21, 2012
Tetris Clones Beware, You May Be Held Accountable For Copyright Infringement

I think everybody knows what Tetris is by now. If you don’t, then you obviously never owned a game console since the Gameboy. It pretty muck kickstarted the puzzle genre and it spawned countless imitators. The company that owns the trademark, Tetris Holding, is extremely protective. Their latest target was the iPhone game, Mino.

Wired reports that a District judge has ruled that Tetris clone “Mino” was found to be infringing on the copyright of the original puzzle game. How did Mino infringe on that copyright? Let’s take a look at the two games:

Tetris for iPhone

Mino for iPhone

As you can see, the games are pretty much the same. They look the same and obviously play the game, but does that constitute as copyright infringement? As Wired points out, gameplay design has to be patented, so why did the judge rule in Tetris Holding’s favor?

The court had to take apart what it means to be artistic expression protected by copyright and the “mechanical or utilitarian features” of a game that must have a patent. The 14 elements of Tetris that the company claimed Mino copied were deemed to be artistic expression under the court. Here’s what the court had to say:

The “wholesale copying” of Tetris was troubling to the court, which found that the Tetris design, movement, playing field dimensions, display of “garbage lines,” appearance of “ghost” pieces, color changes and automatic fill-in of the game board at the end of the game (all of which were copied by Xio) were aesthetic choices, and were protected, original expressions of an idea. While the idea of a game that required one to rotate figures into a field was not protectible, the design of the component parts was. The court found that the overall look and feel of the games were nearly identical and that any differences between the two were “slight and insignificant.” The court concluded: “There is such similarity between the visual expression of Tetris and Mino that it is akin to literal copying. While there might not have actually been “literal copying” inasmuch as Xio did not copy the source code and exact images from Tetris, Xio does not dispute that it copied almost all of visual look of Tetris.”

So the gist of this case is that Xio could have made any number of puzzle games that played like Tetris and they would have been in the clear. The problem arose because they not only copied the gameplay of Tetris, but the copy was made in a way to intentionally look like Tetris. Pro-tip: If you can prove that people wouldn’t be able to tell your product apart from another, it’s copyright infringement.

Now, don’t get discouraged if you were wanting to make a Tetris clone. There are thousands of puzzle games out there and a lot of them have the same rules. As long as you make the game look different, you can still use the same rules of Tetris. You can even change it up and add your own rules. Here’s a few great examples of games that took Tetris and made it better:

It’s easy to make your own puzzle game and not copy Tetris. All these games copied and made their own tweaks to the Tetris design for you. Now, I’m not condoning that you blatantly copy any of these games, but I am saying that it’s easy to create your own unique puzzle game while following the rules of the genre.

June 21, 2012
iPhone 5 Rumor: 19-Pin Mini Dock Connector Confirmed

One of the changes that’s been grinding around in the iPhone rumor mill for a few months now is a smaller dock connector. Back in May we brought you a story that the new iPhone would have a smaller dock connector and a larger display. Later, leaked images appeared to confirm both changes (as well as a repositioned headphone jack).

Now TechCrunch is reporting that they have confirmed the smaller dock connector. In a move they expect to “send shocks through the iPhone accessory ecosystem,” they say they’ve confirmed with “[t]hree independent manufacturers” that the new iPhone will have a 19-pin dock connector rather than the traditional 30-pin connector that was first introduced with the third-generation iPod all the way back in 2003. The reason behind this move is pretty clear: the new iPhone is likely to be getting some significant internal upgrades (e.g., 4G LTE and a better battery). Shrinking the dock connector and increasing the screen size are two ways to make extra room inside the iPhone’s case for all those extra goodies.

This news follows a story we brought you yesterday that also appears to confirm the new iPhone’s redesign. Drawings included by Apple in a patent on turn-by-turn navigation from a mobile device appeared to show the new iPhone, rather than any previous model. Most notably, the images in the patent show a FaceTime camera that is centered above the iPhone’s earpiece, rather than offset as in the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, and a much smaller dock connector.

While it’s always possible that all these various rumors are false, the fact that they’re all pointing the same direction strongly suggests that we already have a pretty good picture of what the new iPhone looks like. Unfortunately, we’ll still probably have to wait until October to know for sure, assuming an Apple engineer doesn’t leave one in a bar again.

June 21, 2012
Foxconn Head Slams Samsung In Slightly Racist Rant

If you’ve got a pair of eyes and half a brain cell and have been paying attention to the tech world for the past couple of years, you know that Samsung and Apple aren’t exactly the best of buddies when it comes to the smartphone market. Despite being great friends on the supply side (Apple is Samsung’s biggest components customer), the two companies pretty much hate each other on the consumer end. Apple, for its part, believes that Samsung is in the habit of ripping off Apple’s designs. Samsung, meanwhile, thinks people who buy Apple products are sheep.

Apparently, though, the rivalry doesn’t stop with Apple and Samsung. During a recent shareholders meeting Terry Gou, chairman of Hon Hai, parent company of Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn, vented at length about Samsung. Gou apparently still carries a grudge from 2010, when Samsung “snitched” on four flat panel manufacturers in Taiwan during a European Commission investigation into price fixing. Samsung escaped the €433.92 million ($551 million) fine levied against the other companies in exchange for their cooperation.

According to Focus Taiwan Gou, who owns a personal stake in Sharp in addition to Hon Hai’s significant investment, praised Japan-based Sharp at the expense of Korea-based Samsung. “I respect the Japanese and especially their execution and communication styles,” he told shareholders. “Unlike the Koreans, they will not hit you from behind.”

Backing off a bit on the sweeping racial generalizations, Gou also praised the iPhone, which Foxconn manufactures. He suggested that consumers wait to buy Samsung’s new Galaxy S III until after they’ve seen the new iPhone, which will put the Galaxy S III to shame.

The Galaxy S III is due out in the U.S. sometime in the next week or so (depending on your carrier), while the new iPhone is coming out sometime in the fall, probably October.

June 20, 2012
Chevy Sonic, Spark Are First To Get Siri Eyes-Free

One of the highlights of Apple’s WWDC 2012 keynote was the introduction of iOS 6. During the presentation, Apple unveiled a bunch of great new features that would be coming to their mobile operating system when it launches alongside the new iPhone this fall.

Among those awesome new features were improvements to Siri, and the addition of turn-by-turn navigation to the Maps app. As part of that, Apple announced that Siri would be getting an “eyes free” mode. That is, a button on the steering wheel of your car would activate Siri, allowing you to give commands (including navigation requests) without ever taking your hands off the wheel or your eyes off the road.

As part of the announcement, Apple said that they had been working with a number of auto manufacturers who were on board and would be bringing eyes free Siri integration to their vehicles soon. They flashed the logos of nine auto makers on the screen, including GM, BMW, Toyota, and Chrysler. Ford, which already has similar technology in place with its SYNC system, was conspicuously absent from the list.

The question, of course, was which of these auto makers would get Eyes Free-capable vehicles rolling off their assembly lines first. The answer, it seems, is GM. According to GM Authority, GM is prepping two models that will have Eyes Free integration: the Chevy Spark and the Chevy Sonic. The timing of the rollout is unclear, but the report suggests that there will be an announcement sometime within the next year. That suggests that we won’t be seeing Eyes Free in the 2013 models of either vehicle, though the 2014 model seems pretty certain.

It is not yet known when any of the other car makers will be rolling out Eyes Free integration in their vehicles.

June 20, 2012