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VLC has famously been on and off the iOS App Store for various reasons -- but it's back now and looks likely to stay, because the developer is promising another major update besides this week's update, coming in the near future. Nonetheless, don't wait: grab this video player while you definitely can.
An iPhone has reportedly exploded in a Long Island, New York man's pocket, sending him to the burn ward for 10 days. Erik Johnson was given a swath of third-degree burns on his left thigh after he bent over to get keys, when he heard a pop and, according to Johnson's claims, the battery burst and caught on fire, burning the man severely. An iPhone 5c belonging to a MacNN editor isn't seeing any bulging or any signs of problem, nor have we heard any previous claims for this model, but Johnson has photographic proof of the explosion.
Hero Keyboard by Corey Stone is a keyboard app that arranges the letters based on the frequency of use in the English language, to make it easier for the user to type with both of their thumbs. The keyboard consists of three concentric rings surrounding a circular "space" button. More frequently-used letters displayed larger and more centrally than less popular letters. As a result of this configuration, the letters at the top of the first ring spell out "HERO," hence the name of the keyboard.
Precision watch manufacturers are combining forces to combat Silicon Valley's surge into the space. Manufacture Modules Technologies (MMT) is a new Swiss joint venture formed by Fullpower Technologies of Silicon Valley and Union Horlogere Holdings. Its declared mission is to bring the MotionX Horological Smartwatch Open Platform to the Swiss watch industry.
[Updated with comments from Republican ex-FCC head Michael Powell] While the debate about this week's Federal Communications Commission Title II regulation and net neutrality vote rages on publicly and privately. Sonic.net CEO Dane Jasper welcomes Title II, and has said so publicly, joining a chorus of ISPs that welcome the enforcement. Additionally, the FCC has clarified in no uncertain terms what it will do if claims that fees to use existing telephone poles will rise turn out to be true. A former FCC chair, however, remains opposed to the measure.
Deep in the recesses of Southern California is a path, in a park, that splits to the left and the right. The left path leads to a duck pond, and the right does not. Once upon a time there was a child, who would always get her family lost in the park, because every time she would forget they had to go left to get to the duck pond. Every. Single. Time. She would think, "this time, I'll get it right. This time we go right!" And every time, she was wrong. If only smartphones existed back then, she could have used RemindMeAt to set up a note that would appear when she arrived at the park, reminding her to go left.
The newly-updated Airy - YouTube Downloader for Mac does what almost every word in its title says. It downloads YouTube videos, it runs on a Mac. Run this, grab a YouTube video, and save it to your Mac to watch later. It's so simple, you'll be surprised YouTube itself doesn't come with this functionality.
Just when you thought the platform wars were over ... okay, maybe you didn't. Either way, Apples vs. Robots by umetec is a very simple tower defense-type game, where the player protects a group of technology enthusiasts from an oncoming horde of robots by chucking apples. Unsurprisingly, this pay-once-and-play game is an iOS exclusive.
Video playing and translation app VLC has received a major new update today, including a return to an iOS version of the app. The latter has actually been available for a while now, but was only offered to those who had originally "purchased" the official iOS app. The new version today is a minor bump from the "buyers only" v2.4.0, now at 2.4.1 for iOS and available to all. The desktop version for various platforms is 2.2.0, with a v1.1.0 final for Android and a beta of the same version for Android TV also being released.
In a new interview with the UK newspaper the Telegraph, Apple CEO Tim Cook has revealed a few new tidbits about the forthcoming Apple Watch, as well as some of the larger vision behind such innovations as the watch, and Apple Pay, and Touch ID -- an all-out attempt to reduce the ephemera people need to carry with them, from wallets to car keys. In the same report, Cook also confirmed that Apple will "tweak" its retail look to accommodate Apple Watch buyers, who are likely to be even more upscale than average Apple customers.
Fittingly enough for a racing game, let's get this out front: AG Drive ($4) is a Wipeout clone. That isn't a strike against it – the developer admits it, the Wipeout series has plenty of fans, and many worthy titles have followed the same template. But a game can hew close to that template or build a unique identity, and execution, ultimately, is everything.
Recently one Fresh-Faced Recruit turned to the MacNN forums looking for help figuring out why they were having trouble pasting text into Mail. A solution has yet to be found. A discussion about how to clear out cookies that are generated by iPhone Apps is under way in the thread titled "cleaning iPhone App cookies" that was started last week.
At Apple's online store today, take advantage of discounts on refurbished MacBook Pro models that start as low as $999 for the 13.3-inch Retina MacBook Pro with a 2.4GHz processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of flash storage. A $290 discount is offered on the refurbished 13.3-inch Retina MacBook Pro with a 2.6GHz Intel dual-core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and 512GB of flash storage, now $1,409.
When boardgames make the leap from physical to digital, there's often a lot of anticipation about how well they'll translate from one medium to the next. There's something lost between the physical world and the digital, but the convenience of carrying a game wherever you wish to play without lengthy setup times is often enough of an advantage. Games like Small World have seen considerable success when making the leap to digital, proving that they can provide tons of fun if they are done well. We took a look at Magnifico, by Slitherine, a digital adaptation of a board game of the same name.
Ending an unusual scenario where two iOS betas were being tested by developers simultaneously, a new report suggests that iOS 8.2 is likely to be released next week, possibly as early as Monday. Apple has been testing both iOS 8.2 and the forthcoming iOS 8.3, the latter of which is now on its own second beta version. While Apple released a total of five betas for iOS 8.2, the same report claims that iOS 8.3 will only have a maximum of four betas.
Welcome to Daily Deals, the time when we search for deals, offers, discounts, and sales on hardware, software, and other technology for you, the discerning MacNN and Electronista reader. Alongside our usual recap of still-active deals, the new batch of offers include an omnibus deal on Rosetta Stone, a battery case for the iPhone 6, and a heads-up on the OWC garage sale.
In 1952, the first video game was invented at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Tennis for Two was played on an oscilloscope screen, it involved a side view of a simulated game of tennis using two controllable lines and a dot created by an algorithm that was intended to predict the movement of ballistic missiles. Twenty years later came Pong, and four years after that, Breakout! for the Atari 2600 was released. It's been 63 years since the invention of the video game, but Bricks by Konstantin Gonikman proves that, in spite of all the advancements in hardware and graphics, all anybody really wants to do is make a dot move around on a screen by bouncing it off a line.
Previously on Pointers, we talked about how OS X comes with text shortcuts, a way for you to write a couple of characters and then have your Mac expand those out into words and whole sentences. This is true, and if it weren't fantastically useful, we wouldn't have told you about it. However, all the way through that Pointers column, we frequently pointed out that TextExpander is better.
The last chapter of Aereo has nearly been written, with the conclusion of its bankruptcy sale. Falling far short of a peak $34 million expected, the company's asset auction concluded at $2 million. TiVO was the main winner, capturing the trademark, the customer list, and other assets. Patent aggregator RPX purchased the company's patents, with equipment being scattered amongst many bidders.
Tactical shooters aren't anything new to most gamers. Raid-style games are a cornerstone of today's PC game market, thanks in no small part due to the rising success of indie games. We've checked out Door Kickers and Jagged Alliance Flashback for the PC master race, but we've not spent much time with titles aimed at mobile platforms. That changed, however, as we took a look at Frozen Synapse by Mode 7, an iPad port of their well-received PC title.
On February 26, Ericsson filed two complaints with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) and seven complaints in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against Apple, asserting 41 patents covering many aspects of Apple's iPhones and iPads. The patents include standards-essential patents related to the 2G and 4G/LTE standards, as well as other patents that are critical to features and functionality of Apple devices, such as the design of semiconductor components, user interface software, location services and applications, as well as the iOS operating system.
Lux DLX by Sillysoft Games is a play-and-pass strategy board game of troop movements and world domination. The app has been around since 2008, it's the mobile version of Lux Delux. Behind it is an enthusiastic community of players, creating custom maps and providing strategy tips with an in-app accessible wiki.
Apple has added GreatSchools and GasBuddy to its list of sources for data in its Maps program. The latter company is said to be supplying Apple with gas station locations, exact business names and what major gasoline producer they are affiliated with, rather than the gas pricing spot-check that the company is known for. GreatSchools is likewise likely to be providing school locations information rather than specific school information.
Pebble has released a new version of its smartwatch SDK, in preview. Version 3.0 is built with the Pebble Time in mind, including support for 64 colors in apps, a new animation framework, PNG and Animated PNG support, and automatic detection of which platforms the developer wants to build for when compiling. According to the company, developers looking to make apps for the new SDK will need to make relatively few changes to the application to get it to work.
The latest Good Technology Mobility Index Report on the mobile enterprise space, based on a survey of Good's customer base for its own enterprise-level email services, shows iOS gaining ground by taking away share from Android in calendar Q4 2014, with the former growing by four percentage points to hit 73 percent share of global enterprise activations. Android fell by the same amount to 25 percent, while Windows Phone held steady at one percent.
The curiously-named CoconutBattery 3.2 is a free app that examines the batteries in your MacBooks and your iOS devices. One click and you know everything: it gives you the skinny on every possible scintilla of information about the state your battery is in.
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