First introduced with iOS 4.2 last November, Apple’s AirPlay technology lets we wirelessly stream sound as well as video from a computer or iOS device to an Apple TV, an AirPort Express, to a compatible third-party hardware device.

Any kind of iOS device running iOS 5 can send audio or perhaps video via AirPlay. To enable AirPlay, you first should select the media you wish to play back, as well as begin it playing. Then tap on the AirPlay icon and select an AirPlay-compatible device. (Devices capable of only streaming sound are signified with a speaker icon; those that can do video, with the picture of a TV set.)

iOS 5 expands on those capabilities with wireless AirPlay Mirroring for the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2. Thanks to this brand new feature, we can stream whatever is on your iPhone 4S or iPad 2 to the HDTV through the second-generation Apple TV-ideal for presentations to simply sharing with others in the room.

If we have an iPhone 4S to iPad 2, we can mirror your screen to a television to play back both audio and video via your own Apple TV.

To stimulate AirPlay, double-press the Home button on the iPhone 4S or iPad 2 to mention the multitasking bar, as well as then swipe to the right to find the AirPlay icon. Tap it, and we ll see your device on top, with any kind of Apple TVs in range listed under. Choose an Apple TV, and a Mirroring toggle should appear under it. Enable mirroring, and you ll be able to broadcast anything on your iOS device to the TV. (Note that AirPlay mirrors the exact aspect ratio as your iPhone and iPad, so it won’t fill the TV screen. We can rotate your device to change orientation, however, which is reflected in just what we see on the TV screen also.)
While in mirroring mode, an AirPlay icon will appear to the left of the electric battery percentage icon in the menu bar, which turns solid blue.

In the past, websites required unique code to be AirPlay-compatible, but now, any kind of HTML5 video that plays in mobile Safari is streamed via AirPlay to your own TV. If you are mirroring the iPhone 4S or iPad 2’s display, but want a local to embedded video to play full screen on your TV, you can go to the Movies app and tap the AirPlay icon, or perhaps tap the AirPlay icon that appears next to a Internet video, to enable traditional AirPlay streaming.


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Though it didn’t score iOS 5’s flashiest updates, the stock Calendar app certainly gets a few noteworthy upgrades of its own in the latest edition of Apple’s mobile OS. Most improvements introduced by Apple seem focused on improving the calendaring app’s interface.



Possibly no brand new Calendar feature is more greeting than the overdue ability to swipe between days. To move from day to day in the old version of Calendar, iOS device users had to depend on the tiny left as well as right navigation arrows. With iOS 5, just swiping across the screen in either direction takes we to a new day.

Turn the telephone sideways, and Calendar will switch to the brand new landscape-only horizontal view.
Similarly greeting is a brand new landscape mode on the iPhone. Rotate your own iPhone to the wider mode from almost any kind of screen in the Calendar app, as well as we ll see an endless scrolling horizontal calendar see. (If you enter landscape whilst adding a new event, you just get the widescreen keyboard but stay on the Brand new Event screen.)

Talking of creating events, iOS 5 ushers in a host of improvements to that process. You can tap and hold on your calendar to create a brand new event set for the time that we tapped. If we re in Month see, tap and hold on a specific day to do the same thing. Additionally brand new is the ability to tap and drag events to move them to brand new times. As well as whenever we tap on events, you can use the tiny dots that appear to change their begin as well as end times, too.

We can now drag events around to move them to new times.

Whenever you re typing in the details of a brand new event, the changed Calendar app makes things easier than before. The Title field is pre-selected, meaning that the virtual keyboard is already present, instead of waiting for you to make your own first tap. The Notes field used to make we navigate to a separate screen; in iOS 5, it’s now fully embedded in the main event-creation screen instead.

At long last, we can finally save customized default alert times in Calendar. Head over to the Settings app, and under Mail, Contacts, Calendars, you can set separate default alert times for birthdays, events, as well as all-day events. (The certain options are limited-you can’t set a default alert regarding an all-day event for 9pm the night before, for example-and there’s no method to schedule multiple alert for the same event.)

Other Calendar improvements help Apple’s stated goal of detethering your own iOS device from your Mac. You can now add, edit, as well as delete calendars straight from your own iPad or iPhone-no computer needed. Another new way allows you to change the pastel colors of the calendar(s); you can’t choose colors willy-nilly, but we can choose among seven lovely hues.

Calendar largely feels the same as it did in past incarnations-but as if it’s simply received an affectionate tune-up. The app is easier to use, especially for adding brand new tasks, and it gains simply enough to make utilizing it easier and more efficient.


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Back when it simply made Macs, Apple had an attitude toward gaming that veered toward indifference. That changed with the arrival of the iPhone. With its touch interface, built-in accelerometer, as well as eye-catching screen, Apple’s phone-and indeed, all of Apple’s iOS devices-made best portable gaming systems.



Realizing the importance of games to the iOS platform, Apple introduced Game Center with the iOS 4.1 update last fall. The service, that allows we to match up with friends for iOS gaming, has been a success by the numbers-Apple said at least week’s iPhone press event that 67 million users have signed up for Game Center.

Still, Apple’s ambivalent attitude toward gaming can be found in the first iteration of Game Center-linking up with friends hasn’t been as easy as it could be, as well as even if you have a bevy of Game Center buddies, there aren’t a lot of how to interact with them.

iOS 5’s version of Game Center looks to change that, by making it easier to find both friends and games whilst also adding many of the social elements that other online gaming services have implemented to great effect.



iOS 5 gives you a chance to personalize the Game Center presence by adding a pic to the previously spartan profile. The first time we release Game Center in iOS 5, you're prompted to choose a photo-you can choose you from your own library or shoot an image with the front-facing camera from in Game Center. Don’t feel such as the image has to be perfect; we can usually change it later by tapping Change Photograph from the Me tab in Game Center.

Talking of that Me tab, it displays brand new information in iOS 5. Previously, the tab showed how many friends you had on Game Center (in red), how many Game Center-supported games we have (in yellow), and how many achievements we unlocked (in blue). The Friends and Games flags stay, though they’re now blue and red, respectively. Achievements has been replaced by a Points flag-that is the number of points you ve racked up by unlocking achievements.

Game Center now tallies the points you ve racked up whenever you unlock achievements in games. It additionally compares your points to exactly what the friends have scored in games you both own.
Those points additionally make an appearance in the Friends tab, as Game Center looks to encourage a small friendly competition in iOS 5. Tap on an individual friend, as well as the Points see on the ensuing page shows a side-by-side comparison of how many achievement points the two of we have racked up in commonly played games. Game Center additionally lists points the friend has accrued in games we don’t own-a not-so-subtle prod to possibly download those apps as well as take your own competition to the next level.

In addition to showing point comparisons and the games the Game Center friend plays, the Friends tab additionally now lets you view your friend’s friends. It’s you of the ways Apple is hoping to help we connect with more people on Game Center in iOS 5.

It’s easier to find friends with Game Center’s brand new recommendations feature.

Finding friends, after all, had been a shortcoming of Game Center in past versions of iOS. Before iOS 5, adding a friend in Game Center meant tapping an Add Friends button in the Friends tab and then sending a request to either an email address or perhaps to somebody s Game Center nickname. Both techniques had their limitations-the individual we had been emailing will not even use Game Center, and if you didn’t understand yet another user’s Game Center nickname, that was your hard luck.

The Friends see in the Friends tab first lists shared friends-that is, other people we ve befriended on Game Center. But below that, you can see an entire list of the friend’s friends-using their full names and certainly not their Game Center IDs-with details on how many friends as well as games we have in common with this would-be companion. Tapping on the name of a person in the Friends list brings you to a screen showing common friends in more detail; there’s also a button for sending a friend request.

There’s an even easier method to add friends in Game Center, however. Whenever you tap on the Friends tab, the first thing we see, above even the list of your current friends, is a Recommendations button. Tap it, and we re taken to a list of potential Game Center buddies, which is pulled together based on friends as well as games you have in common. Sending a friend request on the Recommendations list is as simple as tapping on the people name and then tapping the Send Friend Request button.

Tap this button at the top of the Games tab, as well as you ll get a list of recommended games.

Game Center in iOS 5 doesn’t simply would like to help you find brand new friends; it also wants to make it easier to add games to your iPhone, iPod touch, as well as iPad. The Games tab adds a Game Recommendations button over your list of Game Center-supported Games. The ensuing list of recommendations includes a blend of apps your Game Center friends play as well as popular App Store downloads.

Tap on a game in the Recommendations list, and we ll get more details on which of the friends play the game. Separate tabs additionally show leaderboards and achievements for the game.

If we like what we see, we don’t have to leave Game Center to buy the app. Just tap the price of the game, listed underneath its title. Doing and so takes you to an App Store-like view that Apple has built directly into Game Center. From there, we can buy the app just as you'd if we had been in the mobile App Store app.

Game Center bases its recommendations on games the friends such as too as popular App Store downloads.
You can also find and purchase apps directly from your Game Center friends’ list of games. In prior versions of Game Center, tapping on a game in that list would definitely take we to the App Store. Now, we get the leaderboard as well as achievement views, along with a list of which friends are playing that particular game. As in the Recommendations list, tapping on the price of the game takes we to an App Store-like page inside Game Center, exactly where we can download the app. It’s a great method to add Super Stickman Golf, which your own friends are always babbling regarding.

Note that Game Center doesn’t clearly distinguish between iPhone and iPad apps when it lists friends’ games. But iPhone owners shouldn’t worry about inadvertently buying an iPad-only game that won’t work on their device. If we try to buy an app that just runs on the iPad from your iPhone, we ll be taken to a page that tells you the game just works on the iPad, along with options for understanding more about the game itself to the iPad.

iOS 5’s version of Game Center retains the Find Game Center Games button at the bottom of your list of games. Tapping it takes we from Game Center to the App Store app, as it did in previous versions of iOS.
iOS 5 introduces other changes to gaming, a few of which include developer tools that many end users will not see-at least until they’re put to work building a brand new generation of iOS games.

One of those developer-side tools will add OS-level support for turn-based games. (Think Words With Friends, where we get a notice that it’s the turn to play in a game with a remote opponent that goes at a pace we and your opponent determine.) Tools for turn-based games will mean support for asynchronous gaming, better notifications, as well as improved methods to find opponents. We’ll have to wait till games built using these APIs hit the App Store to gauge the full impact of these changes.

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Brand new multitouch gestures have been in the frame for iOS because early this year, whenever they first showed up in the iOS 4.3 beta. That feature can have disappeared from the final version of that launch, but four- as well as five-finger gesture didn’t drop off Apple’s to-do list completely. Instead, they’re creating their debut with iOS 5.-at least for iPad 2 owners

Gestures in iOS 5 should come as less of a shock to the program as the ones Apple introduced to Mac OS X Lion this summer. All of the single- and two-finger gestures previously supported in iOS carry over to the latest update, and so you won’t have to unlearn any kind of of the favorite moves.

Tapping is still the most common move for navigating the device. The tap, hold, and drag for highlighting text, copying as well as pasting, or deleting as well as moving apps remains, as well as users will continue to swipe as well as flick to move through app pages as well as scroll through text. A two-finger pinch gesture zooms in as well as out of the screen (a double tap works to zoom in as well). Moving 2 or more fingers in a circular gesture continues to be the tried-and-true method of rotating a screen and other elements.

Four- or five-finger vertical swipe
With iOS 5, your own iPad 2 will gain many brand new multitouch gestures for working with apps and the multitasking bar. These gestures need more fingers-and therefore, more space-than the typical iOS pinching, swiping, and tapping gestures; as a result, these gestures are available only on the iPad. The good news, however, is the fact that anyone already familiar with the iOS gesture-based user interface should have no problem understanding and making use of the latest additions to the growing list of available taps, swipes, flicks, as well as pinches.

If we re tired of pressing the Home button repeatedly to pull up the multitasking bar, you can like these three brand new gestures, all of which require four to five fingers to execute. With them, you can switch between apps as well as return to the home screen a great deal faster.

Four- or perhaps Five-Finger Vertical Swipe Like a double-press on the Home button, a four- to five-finger up swipe will pull up the multitasking bar along the bottom of the screen. To return it, swipe downward to hide the bar (to single-tap anywhere above it).

Four- or five-finger horizontal swipe
Four- or Five-Finger Horizontal Swipe With a four- or perhaps five-finger horizontal swipe, we can quickly move between your many recently utilized apps. For example, if we re in Safari as well as want to switch to yet another open app, you can perform a four- or perhaps five-finger horizontal swipe left to right to move from one app to another; it’s similar to the one-finger swipe you use to move between home screens. You can swipe just between apps that have recently been used; to see those (and which order they’ve been used in), pull up the multitasking bar by double-pressing the Home button or perhaps by performing the four- or five-finger vertical swipe mentioned earlier.

As you swipe, the app we re in will follow your own fingers as well as move off the screen in the direction you're swiping. As it slides off, the next app will begin to crawl in from the other side of the screen until you swipe far enough for it to snap to center. We can swipe quickly to jump through apps almost immediately, or perhaps drag slower to fully appreciate the animation.

Four- to five-finger pinch
Four- or perhaps Five-Finger Pinch When you re in an app as well as would like to fast return to the home screen, we can use a four- or perhaps five-finger pinch gesture. (This accomplishes the same thing as clicking the Home button.) Begin with four or perhaps five fingers outward, and then pinch them together. Depending on the speed of your pinch, you can either slowly shrink the app till it disappears into the home screen, to do a quick pinch and so that the app disappears at the same speed as it would if you clicked the Home button normally. This gesture has no reversal option; to reopen a recently closed app, we ll have to pull up the multitasking bar.

Gestures in AssistiveTouch If you have trouble with (to aren’t capable of performing) these to other gestures, you can use the brand new AssistiveTouch feature in iOS 5. With AssistiveTouch, we ll be able to access a menu overlay to trigger any kind of of iOS’s multi-finger gestures by performing a one-finger tap. We can also create, save, as well as play back custom gestures.


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One of the best parts of iOS 5-regarding device management, at least-is that we no longer have to connect the device to the Mac or perhaps PC whenever we want to sync your information or download a subsequent software update. There are 2 features at work here: iTunes Wi-Fi Sync and Software Update.

Constantly connecting your iOS device to your own computer to keep it in sync and backed up is a real pain. Lucky for you, we don’t have to do it anymore, thanks to iOS 5’s brand new Wi-Fi Sync feature.

Wi-Fi Sync (as its name might suggest) allows the device to sync with the computer over a Wi-Fi network rather than through a USB connection. It’s slightly slower, but we can do it any kind of time the device is on the same Wi-Fi network as the desktop. Better still, your own device stays perpetually connected: You can adjust settings as well as re-sync without to disconnect and reconnect any wires. (We can always continue to sync the old-fashioned method, of course.) Yet another benefit to this perpetual connection is the fact that whenever syncing, you re no longer stuck with the Do Definitely not Disconnect screen every time we re updating your own song list or perhaps changing a setting; instead, it all happens in the background, allowing we to multitask as well as use your own device during a sync session.

Set up Wi-Fi Sync: To enable Wi-Fi sync for your own device, you should connect the device to your computer-one last time!-and open up iTunes. Click on your device in the Source list as well as then scroll down to the bottom of the summary pane.

Check both the Sync With This Device Over Wi-Fi as well as the Open iTunes When This Telephone Is Connected box as well as press the Sync button to enable Wi-Fi syncing for your iPhone, iPod touch, or perhaps iPad.

The device will just sync with your computer whenever iTunes is running; as a result, you need to check the first two boxes in the Options section: Open iTunes Whenever This Phone Is Connected, and Sync With This Device Over Wi-Fi. Press the Sync button to save your own changes, and you re all set. By default, your device will sync with iTunes any time it’s plugged in as well as both are on the same Wi-Fi network; we can additionally force a sync by going to the Settings app on your device and tapping General -> iTunes Wi-Fi Sync as well as then tapping Sync Now.

With Wi-Fi Sync, we can keep your own daily activities running smoothly. But just what regarding whenever the next iOS update inevitably comes out? You don’t would like to have to connect your device back to the computer. And good news: With iOS 5, we don’t have to.

Install updates on your own iOS device: If you ve ever utilized an iOS device before, you re probably fairly familiar with the process of downloading app updates from the App Store app: When a little red badge appears in the upper right corner of the App Store icon, you open the App Store, navigate to the Updates tab, and download the app updates all at as soon as, to one by you. The Software Update process for iOS 5 is remarkably similar; but instead of going to the App Store, we go to the Settings app for any kind of program updates.

Such as the App Store, your own device perpetually checks for new software updates in the background. Whenever one is available, you see a red badge appear on the Settings app; to download it, open the app and navigate to General -> Software Update. There, we see a few short information about the update and a button to install it. You can also force the system to check for an update by navigating to the Software Update pane.

Due to the fact these iOS updates are “delta updates” (they contain only the parts of the system that have changed, and so we don’t have to download the entire program each time there is an update), they’re smaller; therefore, we can download them just about anywhere we have a decent 3G or perhaps Wi-Fi connection-on the bus, at home, walking down the street, you name it. To install these updates, however, you should have at least 50 percent battery lifetime on your device, or have it plugged into a power source.

Simply as a friendly reminder: Even though we can install these updates anywhere, you should always (usually, always) back up your own device before we do. You can use Wi-Fi Sync to back up to the computer, or perhaps, if you have iCloud Backup enabled, we can use that.

Install updates from your own computer: Maybe you re not that adventurous, as well as you d choose to install the software update the old-fashioned method. No problem: Just connect your own device to your own computer as well as check for updates in iTunes. (If we re making use of Wi-Fi Sync, we can additionally do this by plugging your own device into a power source and connecting it and your own computer to the same Wi-Fi network, and then opening iTunes.)


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Flexibits, makers of Fantastical, the natural-language calendar app for Mac OS X, released an update to the app today that added the ability to edit as well as delete events as well as support for iCloud calendars. We took a look at it back in July this year when it added BusyCal help to its roster of features as well as remarked that even though we had “only been playing with it for a brief time”, we were “incredibly impressed”.



Now, Flexibits has taken the app further with the addition of two of the most highly requested features by its users. It now allows you to edit your calendar events as well as delete them, all from in its intuitive and streamlined interface. You also gain the ability to add notes to events, bringing the app closer to full feature-parity with iCal.



Fantastical already had support for Google, MobileMe as well as Yahoo! calendars, as well as has now added iCloud integration into the mix too, claiming the distinction of being 1 of the first Mac apps to do so in the process. If you're an iCloud user, you should grab the v1.1 update as soon as your Internet connection will allow.

If you're a brand new user, Fantastical will cost you $19.99 on both the Mac App Store as well as the Flexibits Store. It is compatible with all Macs running Mac OS X 10.6 to later.


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Taiwanese smartphone giant HTC continues its content push with an announcement that it has agreed to acquire children’s app and interface designer Inquisitive Minds Inc. for $13 million.
Inquisitive Minds is behind the popular Zoodles brand, which provides children with safe learning environment on desktop computing, smartphone and tablet devices by blocking third-party advertisements, introducing parent dashboards, games and other educational features.
HTC has indicated that it is willing to make acquisitions to help expand its strategic options, with the $13 million acquisition helping the Taiwanese vendor move further into the U.S market, where it is the largest provider of Android smartphones.
In its announcement HTC said that Inquisitive Minds already boasts around 2 million users.

In February, HTC acquired London-based mobile platform firm Saffron Digital, also investing $40 million in U.S.-based gaming company Onlive Inc. In the months following, the company purchased S3 Graphics in an attempt to boost its patent portfolio in the light of increasing legal action from smartphone rivals Apple.
Most recently, HTC said that it was considering purchasing a mobile operating system, noting that the company has discussed doing so internally but will “not do it on impluse”. Reports linked it with the ailing webOS platform but the company has yet to indicate which mobile platform it intends to purchase.
The purchase is likely to see HTC incorporate more child-friendly smartphone and tablet applications in an attempt to compete with Apple’s iPhone and iPad, which has received praise for its usability by a younger audience.
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Described as “Google Music or Grooveshark for ebooks”, CodexCloud is a brand new online service which will appeal to any kind of bookworm with a tablet.

The service is bound to be met with the same controversy as Grooveshark due to the fact essentially, it allows you to read certainly not just public domain books available through Project Gutenburg, but also allows to upload purchased books to the cloud to share with other people.

While Amazon already allows users to loan their Kindle ebooks to other users for a limited period of time, CodexCloud takes things one step further and simply allows users to share them online with anyone, at any kind of time, and for as extended as they want.



While it was built with the main aim of allowing users to sync their e-books over several mobile devices, and read them through your own browser, the fact remains that publishers and authors are not fans of CodexCloud. The website does bear the disclaimer:

All content on CodexCloud is provided either by user upload or from royalty-free sources such as Project Gutenburg.
All users have agreed to the terms and conditions that prohibit the upload of material they do not have the legal right to distribute. As such, users are responsible for determining that they have the legal right to distribute all material that they upload to CodexCloud. When we are properly notified of content that infringes on the rights of others, we act expeditiously to remove such content from our service.

Thus how does CodexCloud work? After signing up for a free account, we can access CodexCloud’s books from any kind of device with a browser - whether or not on your computer, iOS device to Android device.
Under Bookshelf we can browse the most popular titles, that currently include titles by Neil Gaiman, Kurt Vonnegut, Terry Pratchett and JK Rowling. When you begin to make lists, saving the e-books to the service, your books will appear on the bookshelf.



You can create several lists, and access a set of pre-set lists from a sidebar including popular, suggested for we and many recent uploads.  Whenever creating your lists from books already available on CodexCloud, simply work a search for the title to writer, and then drag and drop the title into the list.

CodexCloud supports many e-book formats, but .epub books are suggested for best results. When uploading other formats including lit, html, pdf, mobi, rtf as well as txt, CodexCloud will convert the books for you making use of Calibre. You can upload books through URL, upload them straight from the computer, or use the services mass uploader, that supports epub just.



Now for the most important part, the actual experience of reading a book. We tested CodexCloud on Chrome, the iPad’s Safari browser, and the Google Nexus S native Android browser. On Chrome as well as the iPad, the experience was good, if certainly not a little buggy sometimes. Turning pages is done on the iPad by swiping or perhaps double-clicking, but sometimes CodexCloud was a small slow to answer. On the Google Nexus S, the small screen turned the menu at the top into a garbled mess, as well as turning pages proven to be tricky.

Our biggest complaint, however, whenever it comes to using CodexCloud as an e-reader is that there is no method to bookmark the place in the book. That said, when you come back to a book you're reading, it will remember the last spot, but just on the device you had been reading it on. Luckily, you can download books in .epub format from the website, as well as read them using your own preferred e-reader app.

Grooveshark has survived 4 years, thus it’s possible that CodexCloud will follow in its footsteps, but definitely not without the same amount of controversy.

Just what do we think of CodexCloud? Allow us know in the comments.


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Companies are taking a fresh consider older technologies as well as putting a prettier user experience on top of it. Flipboard is a perfect example of the, letting you read what your own Facebook as well as Twitter friends post in a magazine style page-flipping experience.



heystaks wants to do simply that for your own Google and Bing search results. Available for both iOS and Android devices, heystaks does a beautiful job at giving we an experience that makes you want to check out more look results than we may on a regular Google search results page. You can sign up with your own Facebook account, and the searches and tapped results are saved with your own heystaks account.

heystaks gives you a regular look box, but shows results split between Google as well as Bing. You can flip through the results and tap on the 1 you d such as to read, while keeping the other results at the bottom of the app. It’s a great design, as well as solves the problem of clicking away from a Google result as well as never coming back.

We can add tags to any given look result, allowing the community to find the content easily also.



You can create “staks”, that are shared look topics. These is made public to private, and watching the public stak stream is pretty interesting. A public stream can be shared to seen of all of the results we ve clicked on. The only drawback of heystaks is the fact that the sharing way for singular results is via email. Sharing a result via Twitter to Facebook would definitely make me use this app more, but this is something the company can add without having much effort.

Getting the many from search results is something that Google is attempting by integrating the +1 information it’s collecting, to show we results that can interest you more. There are Google Labs items that allow you see previews of results, but heystaks gives we a really nice mobile interface, whilst giving you results from both Google and Bing. It’s free as well as value a look.


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As soon as the Kindle Fire was unveiled, I think we all knew this tablet would be popular thanks to the low cost. With that low price, we can also bet that the things is hard to get with tablets being sold out shortly after launch. Analyst Ashok Kumar is now stating that Amazon will move more tablets than previously thought.

Kumar, an analyst with Rodman & Renshaw, mentioned that his check with the supply chain indicated that Amazon could move as many as 5 million tablets in Q4. That would give the Fire about half the numbers of the iPad. The reason for the increase is also cited as the record pre-orders that had been received. Naturally, supply should rise to meet that demand.



The Fire will give Apple a real run once things get going, if it can keep the momentum. Amazon is the first real competitor to release a tablet that has a chance at matching the iPad. Things can turn quickly for Amazon though it the tablets get into customer hands as well as have issues with performance.


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It’s time, women and gentlemen, the first full year of Angry Birds having a entire separate game dedicated to seasons is done, and your own question has been answered: yes, Rovio will make a brand new Halloween expansion every year, certainly not simply the first! For those of we out there definitely not having followed Angry Birds since the beginning, there was originally an Angry Birds standalone game and an Angry Birds Halloween standalone game. Once the Halloween game became almost as popular as the original, Rovio got wise as well as continued the holiday theme, eventually combining them all into 1 single collection called Angry Birds Seasons - that custom continues here with the expansion that started the entire thing: Halloween.



Just what you ll be able to see here is many of the speedy tiny blue birds dressed up in classic Halloween costumes heading for a hill that sounds like its full of monsters. They seem all freaked out at first, then laugh with 1 another mainly because they understand they can handle the danger, no big deal. As soon as they approach the hill, they find a bucket full of candy. This bucket additionally seems to contain a small creature that we do not reach see in the flesh.

What we must assume here is the fact that the monsters the 3 blue birds imagine is boss-like bad guys at the end of every set of Halloween levels, for one. For 2, the thing in the bucket, any it is, appears such as it’ll be a brand new character fighting on the good men side. Teeny tiny small bird of some sort, what will the powers be? Will you bring candy to me? We shall see!

BONUS: the folks at AngryBirdsNest have recommended that because this expansion is probably to be released around Halloween, the same time as rumors place the classic Tim Burton stop-animation musical masterpiece The Nightmare Before Christmas in theaters once again in 3D, that this Angry Birds expansion might be a collaboration with the folks at Disney, the current distributors of the film. Rovio did a similar thing with the film RIO whenever it was released, creating an entire spin-off game for the film.



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Apple can be planning to add customizable avatars to its iOS Game Center. It’s anything we’ve extended seen with Microsoft’s Xbox Live Avatars as well as Nintendo Miis, but Apple will soon be hopping on the bandwagon. The business has filed for 2 patents entitled “Avatar Editing Environment” and “Personalizing Colors of User Interfaces,” revealing the avatar customization user interface that is in the works for iOS.

Dug up by AppleInsider, the patent applications reveal that the iOS Game Center avatar user interface would begin with a blank canvas and then allow users to choose basic features like type of eyes, nose, mouth, and hair, etc. Other accessories like glasses to hats can also be added. All of the selections, including rotating as well as resizing, would definitely be easily made on the multi-touch screens of the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Both manual and automatic avatar creation is offered to simplify the process and similar to how avatars work in Wii games and Xbox Kinect games, the iOS Game Center avatars would also appear inside games. They will additionally be displayed on users’ profiles along with users’ game scores and achievements. The patent applications were originally filed earlier this year in April.


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Up till this point with Android, I’d have mentioned that this application was “increased for Honeycomb” as that’s the current operating program made specifically for tablets - but as that’s all regarding to change this week in Hong Kong, I’ll just say “for tablets.” This is ASTRO File Manager, an awesome little app that’s made a big splash in both the worlds of Android hackers As Well As regular people who simply want to move their files around on their Android devices with the greatest of ease. It’s all gotten a little easier this week with an update that utilizes your entire giant display.



Updating to the latest version of ASTRO File Manager, that being version ASTRO_3.0-203-std, will bring we split-screen selections, folders with lovely previews including thumbnails for photos and filetypes for other people, and one-touch pop-up menu options all around. We can now drag as well as drop items inside the app instead of having to choose Move or perhaps Copy as well as Paste from the menu, and the entire app has a new set of Advanced Settings.

There’s also brand new single screens showing information regarding apps that we d normally have to head to your built-in Applications screen to find, this including the ability to set up a selection of your apps features. With this of course comes the full force-close menu, lovely blue-tinted lines separating everything, and an overall newly refurbished aesthetic that’ll have you wondering how you ever got along without it before.

Download ASTRO File Manager from the Android Market right this 2nd - we ll be glad you did!



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Back in July Jawbone announced that it would be bring a new interactive bracelet sensor to iPhone users called the UP. The bracelet was supposed to be able to track all types of things as well as be worn constantly by the user. It can track exactly what the user eats, their sleep, as well as how they exercise and then shoot that content to the iPhone via an app. When the UP bracelet was announced, we didn’t know when it was coming or perhaps how a great deal it would definitely cost as well as details were missing.

AT&T has now listed the UP on its website as well as the device is going on sale soon. This bracelet is interesting, but it doesn’t resemble something many people would wear all of the time. It does allow you to track your caloric intake making use of a photograph of what you are eating taken with the iPhone. That will certainly make it easy for dieters.

The app can additionally track your sleep phases so you can be sure you are resting well as well as it can send we wake up alarms that others won’t hear. The app additionally has more than a little bit of social interactivity with it. We and friends can issue each other challenges for the most steps taken and other things for days, weeks, or perhaps even an entire month. Pricing isn’t announced just but, but it should be coming soon.


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According to JPMorgan Chase analyst Rod Hall, the almost four-day BlackBerry service outage can cost RIM over $100 million. The service went down on Monday due to a hardware failure in Europe that caused a backlog on RIM’s servers, that then brought down the service in the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, as well as eventually the US and Canada.

RIM has been very apologetic regarding the situation and has changed customers with its progress throughout but has definitely not revealed any plans about compensation for the downtime. During the press conference yesterday, co-CEO Jim Balsillie announced that the service was fully restored. He was asked regarding the matter of compensation, but responded that the business did not know at the time as the focus and priority has been on getting the service back up and running.

Below RIM’s service terms, the company is contractually obligated to maintain a certain ratio of up time for its servers. The nearly four-day outage could have breached the agreement as well as need RIM to pay out punitive fees. However, the company has definitely not confirmed any kind of amounts that it may owe.
Hall’s estimate of $100 million is based on the monthly fee that RIM charges its wireless carriers for each active BlackBerry user. Even though he admits a large margin of error due to the confidentiality of those agreements, he believes that RIM will indeed have to provide a portion of those fees back to the carriers.


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Google is doing some fall cleaning as well as sweeping out a lot of old experimental projects and social features, including the failed social attempt that was Google Buzz. In a blog post today, Google VP of Product, Bradley Horowitz, essentially explained that success requires focus as well as thought on what we work on and exactly what we don’t work on as well as therefore their decision to discontinue many products.

Back in July, Google had announced that it was shutting down Google Labs as well as integrating a few of its projects into more successful products whilst axing other people. Today appears to be the finalization of that clean out with Google Labs completely shutting down later today. Horowitz additionally confirmed that Code Look, Jaiku, iGoogle’s social features, and the University Research Program for Google Look will all shutdown on January 15, 2012.

Google Buzz will get the cut in a few weeks to focus on the much more successful Google+ social network. During yesterday’s Q3 earnings call, it was touted that the social platform has already reached over 40 million users. Horowitz reveals that the business has learned a lot from their mistakes with Google Buzz as well as with its closing, the company can focus on delivering “anything truly awesome” for Google+.


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Apple’s iPad may still be sitting pretty at the top of the consumer tablet charts, but questions still stay over whether or not Android 3.x Honeycomb really has been a sales failure so far. Google and its manufacturer partners are yet to announce official sales figures for tablets running Android, leaving us dependent on supply chain rumors as well as guesstimates. Android developer Al Sutton reminded us, though, that with a small math we can get an estimate of quite how many Honeycomb slates are in the wild. The amount? Roughly 3.4m.

That’s based on Google’s latest platform version stats - the fortnightly changed breakdown of exactly what proportion of devices use each Android version - and the official activation numbers announced as part of the search giant’s financial results yesterday. Then, Google CEO Larry Page said 190m Android devices had been activated in total.

According to the platform stats, 1.8-percent of Android devices that have accessed the Android Marketplace inside the 14 day period up to October 3 2011 have been running Android 3.0, 3.1 or perhaps 3.2 (in contrast, 38.2-percent are running 2.3.3 Gingerbread or higher). Bashing those stats together gets we the 3.4m tablet figure.

Now, it’s worth noting that, because Google’s platform numbers are based on access to the Android Market, only those tablets that are Google certified - i.e. meet all of the company s criteria to include the official download store - are being counted. There are certainly more tablets available running alternative versions of Android as well as using third-party app stores, such as Amazon’s AppStore for Android, as well as they won’t be included in the total.

Nonetheless, it’s a disappointing figure compared to Apple’s iPad sales. The first-gen iPad sold 15m units in approximately a year, anything it seems all of the Android OEMs combined can’t challenge with Honeycomb.


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If you're a hard-core camera geek, you are the type that is into hacking firmware to give the camera the features you wish the maker had given it from the factory. There have been some interesting hacks put forward for the Panasonic GH2 in the past and the latest that has surfaced makes the camera video high quality a lot, a great deal better.

Out of the box, the GH2 can record video in 24Mbit AVCHD format full HD resolution video. For a few of us that is plenty of quality, but others need more. This new hack has cranked the GH2 up a bunch of notches as well as lets the camera record 176Mbit AVCHD Intra video. That Intra tagged onto the back is a huge change.

AVCHD grabs only many of the frames from the sensor to make the video. AVCHD Intra on the other hand will grab every frame from the sensor creating video look better when played back. You can see a video under from a user going by Driftwood that was shot using the GH2 in 176Mbit AVCHD Intra and see what we think. How exactly you apply this hack isn’t mentioned in the video.


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All eyes will be on the iPhone 4S queues this morning, but Apple’s latest iOS 5 update is additionally prompting a few feedback, as well as definitely not all of it positive. iPad owners upgrading to the latest version have discovered that their first-gen tablets in fact won’t get multitasking gestures, anything it seems Apple has quietly changed its iOS features page to clarify.

Unfortunately, the business is but to amend the UK version along with other international versions of the page, at time of writing. According to those pages, first-gen iPad owners running iOS 5 should be able to “using four to five fingers, swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar, pinch to return to the Home screen and swipe left or perhaps right to switch between apps.”

As many have complained regarding in Apple’s help forums, however, that’s certainly not the case. Apple is but to comment publicly, but instead has reportedly been pruning a few of the more frustrated posts from its user forum and making the amendments to the US website.

Limitations between different hardware versions are common, of course, but owners of the original iPad are particularly frustrated mainly because, with an Xcode hack, they had the exact same multitasking gestures working on iOS 4.3. This appears more such as a decision based on positioning than you on capabilities.


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The iPhone 4S’ Siri personal assistant program is you of the new smartphone’s headline features, but buyers outside of the US have been discovering certainly not all of the functionality is present. Currently - as we mentioned in our iPhone 4S review - Siri cannot access Maps to Yelp business functionality outside of the US, but according to Apple’s FAQ those services will be added “in additional countries come 2012.

The exact list of nations exactly where international support will be enabled isn’t known, though today Siri - which Apple describes as being in beta - is just available for US English, UK English, Australian English, French and German anyway. 2012 will bring support for additional languages, Apple additionally confirms, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian as well as Spanish.

Without having the local functionality, many of Siri’s headline-grabbing features don’t currently work outside of the US. Asking your iPhone 4S to find nearby restaurants isn’t supported, as well as neither can the smartphone bring up business addresses as well as phone numbers.

Is this partial feature-set enough to make you reconsider your own iPhone 4S purchase intentions? Allow us know whether or not you re still planning on choosing up the phone in the comments.


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