iOS software

Last November I covered a new service called Sunrise. The goal of the service, after connecting it to your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Calendar accounts, was to help you start the day with a personalized agenda in your inbox. It would incorporate details about upcoming meetings, as well as who you're meeting with, from the various services.

While having an organized agenda automatically created for you each morning with important details was intriguing, after using the service for a few weeks the e-mail started to feel more like spam than a helpful digital assistant.

Fast-forward to today: Sunrise has … Read more

Are you still using the iPhone's default weather app? If so, may I suggest a 99-cent weather app released last week that provides more weather information than the default app, along with a sense of zen-like calm? Haze was released last week and is currently being offered for 99 cents. (When this introductory offer expires, Haze will cost $2.99.)

After launching Haze and allowing it to know your location, the app will offer you a new theme called Purple Haze. After these two steps, you'll be greeted with Haze's simple, subtly animated interface. In the middle … Read more

Did you ever want to leave a message for a Skype buddy who just wasn't there? Skype's new video-messaging feature, now in a beta of sorts, is the interactive way to do it.

Available today for users in the U.S., U.K., and other select countries (Skype isn't listing them all,) video messaging sends a recording to friends who may be offline or on another call.

Android, iOS, and Mac users don't have to do anything to play around with the prerelease feature, except to make sure they've got the most recent software update (… Read more

Android and iOS completely dominate the mobile market, according to new data from research firm IDC.

IDC revealed today that Android owned 70.1 percent of the smartphone OS market in the fourth quarter, on 159.8 million shipments. Last year during the same period, Android owned 52.9 percent of the space, on 85 million shipments.

Android's popularity was similarly strong throughout 2012, as the operating system scored 68.8 percent ownership, on 497.1 million shipments.

Apple's iOS proved to be a distant second during the fourth quarter and throughout 2012. According to IDC, Apple's … Read more

If you didn't get caught in Cupid's spray this year, we have some pretty good ideas for how to spend your free day. Take a day off and spend it with the classiest person you know: that special guy/gal in the mirror. Of course there's nothing stopping you from using this list to get started on the best date ever, if you're lucky enough to feel the sweet warm embrace of requited love.

Go on an urban adventure The world is a big and terrifying place, and it will remind you of that fact every … Read more

Apple TV rumors have about as much currency in the real world today as a Circuit City gift card, but a new round of rumblings this morning are strangely specific.

The word from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek and his "channel checks" is that Apple is planning an event for next month at which it could introduce an SDK for an iTV set in the 42-inch to 55-inch range. He thinks the Apple HDTV itself could launch in September or October at a price point starting around $1,500.

"Apple is likely to largely rely on leveraging content via partnerships with existing pay-TV operators," reads the note to investors.… Read more

Apple iPhone owners can now stream full episodes of popular A&E shows.

The network updated its iOS application this week, allowing iPhone owners to watch everything from "Duck Dynasty" to "Storage Wars" to "The First 48." A&E's other networks, Lifetime and The History Channel, have also received updates supporting the iPhone.

A&E initially launched its app in December for the iPad. The company allows viewers to watch full episodes of the current season of shows for free. As with the iPad application, only Comcast customers will have … Read more

Apple's iTunes generated revenue of $13.5 billion last year, making it the company's fourth-largest business, according to Asymco analyst Horace Dediu.

A business that simply broke even a few years ago has been rising "steadily and rapidly," Dediu said in a post yesterday. iTunes has averaged growth of more than 30 percent over the past two years. The $13.5 billion in sales in 2012 was up from $10.2 billion in 2011.

At the same time that iTunes is adding a greater chunk of sales to Apple's overall results, the Mac and iPod … Read more

You walk the walk, but can you talk the Talkbits? Talkbits is a location-based real-time social voice stream -- in other words, it's like Twitter with voice messages.

Instead of pithy typed messages, the new Talkbits app lets you say something or ask a question and then make that spoken message available for people nearby to listen and respond to. And you can hear messages from other people in a public stream, chatting for free to people nearby or around the world.

These spoken messages are sorted in geotagged channels so you and other people nearby can hear and … Read more