Jailbreak, News/Rumors

Have in-depth battery information from Siri with BatteryLevelAE tweak

There are many tweaks in Cydia trying to manage and give notifications about your battery life status. But the AssistantExtensions add-on, BatteryLevelAE, is incredibly capable under several circumstances: it can provide time left when talking on the phone, listening to music, and much more depending on the query you choose to use.

It works really simple: once you have installed this tweak on your iPhone, you can say “battery help menu” and Siri will show you the different kind of queries you can use.

The possibilities are:

  • How much standby time do I have?
  • How much talk time do I have?
  • How much audio time do I have?
  • How much video time do I have?
  • How much internet time do I have?
  • How much battery life do I have?

This kind of environmental estimates is more useful to get an accurate idea about how much your battery will last.

Developer, Bilal S. Sayed Ahmad, plans to make possible activating power profiles through Siri and custom presets to save battery when don’t need some features enabled. So, don’t miss further updates, this add-on could be exactly what you need. It only costs $1 in Cydia now.

Source: modmyi

News/Rumors

Darth Droid vs. Obi-iPhone Kenobi (Comic Magazine)

iOS and Android have been fighting for the first place on the smartphone market for quite a while. According to statistics, Apple’s iPhone is the gadget of today’s generation but one never knows what future has in store for both platforms.

We provided today a short comic magazine that highlights the everlasting fight between the two operating systems, in our case the encounter of iPhone and Motorola, resembling Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi. May the Force be with you!

News/Rumors

Kindle 3.0 for iOS released with new library design and retina text

Kindle is one of the biggest actors on the ebook scene, and for this reason there are apps available for almost all platforms. It can be used not only to read electronic textbooks, but also to manage your ebook collection, both in online or offline mode.

The official Kindle app for iOS, has reached the 3.0 version yesterday adding support for the retina text display of the latest iPad and a new, enhanced library design concentrated on two basic tabs: Cloud and Device. Cloud manages all items from your online Kindle library and Devices shows the ones already stored locally on your device.

Just like on previous versions, you can use this app to view or subscribe to a variety of ebooks and magazines, create bookmarks, sync with Kindle devices and change view scheme. On the iPhone, the possibility to see the library in grid view was added, and titles can be sorted by author, title and date.

You will find it useful for providing access to a big collection of ebooks that you can buy from your device and then read it, take notes, highlight fragments of text and whatever else suites your needs.

Source: macstories

 

Mac, News/Rumors

Xcode 4.3.1 Released

Xcode is a complete IDE for buiding Mac and iOS applications. Starting with Xcode 4, the tools have been redesigned to be faster, more accessible and useful to developers, helping them to write better code.

Along with the new iPad, Apple also announced iOS 5.1 which means developers need updates on development tool features for iOS 5.1 and for the new hardware. The latest version of Xcode, 4.3.1, is now available for free in the Mac App Store. It needs 900MB hard disk space, patience and a good internet connection.

What’s new in Xcode 4.3.1:

  • Includes SDKs (Software Development Kits) for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and iOS 5.1
  • New code signing workflow supports signing OS X apps with Developer ID
  • Adds installation of command-line tools to the downloads preference pane
  • Open Developer Tool menu launches Instruments, File Merge, and other tools
  • ARC migration tool converts both retain/release and garbage collected code
  • Additional bug fixes and security improvements

Have fun coding!

iPad, iPhone, News/Rumors

Sara – Siri’s clone available for the entire iOS sphere

From the moment the iPhone 4S was released, personal virtual assistants resembling Siri began to spring up like mushrooms, just like Evi, Vokul and Speaktoit.

A Vietnamese team has recently come up with a new personal assistant that seems to look like Siri, namely Sara that works on all iOS devices.  Producers describe it as being easy to use, easy to customize, easy to teach and always free.  Sara goes even further with its features and beside setting reminders and often making irrelevant conversation it can be taught and trained to acknowledge new orders.

Sara is worth being mentioned because of its availability in other countries than the States and only after a month’s development it provides support for 37 languages. We wonder if it would manage to uncrown the famous personal virtual assistant Siri in the nearest future.

 

 

 

News/Rumors

Readability for iPhone and iPad available in the App Store

Popular text-only reading service, Readability, launched today an iOS app, which offers users the possibility to take their saved articles on their iPhones or iPads, and access their Readability accounts from anywhere. The app is completely free and allows users to access their saved articles from newsreaders and twitter clients.

Up until now, the service was integrated with popular RSS Reeder and could be attached to browsers as add-on, but now the app will be more than a bookmarking platform with special features “designed for readers” like sending articles to Amazon Kindle.

FEATURES:

  • Turn any page into a clean, comfortable, reading view
  • Read on our terms – anytime, anywhere
  • Share what you’re reading
  • Manage your articles with unlimited storage

Let’s read :)

Accessories

Use iRig™ MIDI with your smartphone and acchieve the quality of an instrument, synthesizer, drum machine or recorder.

iRig™ MIDI is seen as an ultra-compact standard Core MIDI Interface for iOS devices just as the producers describe it. The accessory is compatible with MIDI keyboards, pedal boards, drum machines and also with the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad to sustain app like SampleTank, GarageBand many more.

Features:

  • Standard Core MIDI interface connects any MIDI hardware device to Core MIDI-compatible apps like SampleTank FREE and GarageBand®
  • Directly connect MIDI keyboards, synthesizers, drum machines, drum pads, pedal boards and more using the included 2 x 5.2’ (1.6 m) MIDI 5-pin DIN cables
  • 3 MIDI ports: IN/OUT/THRU
  • 2 LEDs for MIDI IN/OUT activity display
  • Micro USB port can charge the iOS device while in use
  • Free apps included*: SampleTank FREE* the powerful sample-based sound module app and iRig MIDI Recorder FREE*

Just let your imagination run loose and transform your gadget into an instrument. With the current accessory one has the possibility to connect to all sort of MIDI keyboards controllers (for example home digital pianos) for having the ability of using the instrument app in a more easily and familiar way. Bonding iRig MIDI with a drum machine will  initiate the hardware device in playing any instrument app on the smartphone. iRig MIDI may also come in handy as a recorder on iOS devices with the iRig MIDI Recorder app.

Best 5 Compatible Apps:

 

News/Rumors

Nokia’s Pulse within iPhone and Android

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is planning to develop applications able of running not only on Nokia and on Windows Mobile devices but also on devices that use Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. It was about time to hear again some good news from the mobile company.

Başak Özer, Nokia’s lead of Social and Location Based Applications division, expressed in an interview for Boston Business Journal her honest thoughts that sounded promising too:

 “Nokia has been able to rediscover itself at times in the past, and I believe this is another one of those times.”

The first beta app is Pulse, which is already available for Nokia smartphones. Pulse is a complementary app for Facebook, Twitter and other social services. It uses the Navteq location technology, enabling people to check-in to places and to share information within a group of friends.

“These are social applications. To be social, you have to be on every platform.” Özer said.

Anyway, Pulse is not the only multiplatform app that Nokia plans to develop. The Finnish company aims to surprise us with other social and location apps.

We cannot say for sure whether or not the former mobile giant felt weak in front of Apple and Android and embraced the “if you cannot beat them, join them” business strategy, because Nokia still is a big mobile maker, but the multiplatform app concept surely represents a profitable  and useful idea.

Source: Mashable via Boston Business Journal

Apple, Mac

AirPlay Mirroring on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

With the new update for the OS X operating system, the AirPlay Mirroring feature on iOS devices will also be available for Mac. Just use the feature with an Apple TV to witness the computer’s screen on a television.

The idea is not new on the market; the iPad has been chuckling over success for quite a while with displaying everything that is happening on the gadget straight on the television. Again there is the proof that OS X Mountain Lion seeks to get closer to iOS features.

AirPlay Mirrorring practically transmits websites, videos and applications from the computer to an HDTV connected to an Apple TV. What is more appealing is that is requires no cables or adapters for making the transmissions possible.

iPhone, News/Rumors

The iPhone has the most long-lasting existence according to Priceonomics study

Priceonomics proved to consumers which smartphone has the highest quality by analyzing the resale value which, according to the research company, indicates best the product quality. They also measured depreciation because

“The highest quality phones should have the best resale values over time and crappier phones should depreciate the fastest.”

After accurate and thorough canvasses, the iPhone proved to be the smartphone that goes a long way while smartphones on other platforms loses their value pretty fast.

Priceonomics’ study was developed on a sample of 70 popular Android smartphones, 30 BlackBerry models and on all the iPhone range. The depreciation was measured by comparing a phone’s initial price with the new price presented on the secondary market. It turned out that after 18 months since the purchase the iPhone holds 53% of the resale value, while the Android smartphones and the BlackBerry holds about 40%. The most interesting inference is that if you choose to sell your device after this duration the lowest cost drop is that of the iPhone; on the other hand, Android phones drop 40% of cost.

Over time, the iPhone is the most long-lasting smartphone, maintaining its value almost unchanged. On a secondary market an iPhone will have almost the same price as the initial one while smartphones with Android platforms will value with hundreds of dollars less.

It is important to mention that Priceonomics offers precise and objective data for consumers so they could take the best decisions, and this study concludes that the iPhone is a better economic choice than Blackberry or Android.

Source: Priceonomics