This week’s roundup of new iOS gear offers items to make music, keep your hands warm, look at tiny things, and keep track of your Apple TV. Here are the accessories that caught our eye this week. (via The Week in iOS Accessories: Microscopes and cassettes? | Macworld)
Not so long ago, you needed your computer and portable devices to be directly connected to the speakers and screens you wanted to play their content on. AirPlay frees you from that need, allowing you to stream audio and video via Wi-Fi from your iTunes library to AirPlay-enabled devices—like Apple TV, audio systems from a variety of manufacturers that have AirPlay built-in, and systems connected to an AirPort Express on your Wi-Fi network. iTunes on the computer and the Music, Video, and other apps on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch automatically detect AirPlay-enabled devices on the local Wi-Fi network and present them for you to choose from. Tap or click it and pick the system you want to send the stream to. You can even pause while you’re in one room, then tap AirPlay again to pick a different system in another room and tap Play.
The next-generation iPhone is rumored to bring some radical changes for users, and it will also mark a very public break-up between Apple and Google. Much-loved Google products on iOS will now disappear or be replaced with Apple variants, while hardware design changes will bring long-term improvements, but short-term headaches for some users.
The latest beta releases of iOS 6 are now giving a clearer indication of which of Google’s services Apple will drop or replace with its own, with several reports indicating upcoming design and hardware changes that you’ll have to keep in mind. Until the new iPhone is announced on September 12, as reports indicate, here are the changes being discussed and what they mean. (via Four things Apple will eliminate with iPhone 5 and iOS 6 | Macworld)
If you’re an iTunes Match subscriber who lives where you can count on an Internet connection wherever you are, you don’t need to worry about what music is on the device you’re carrying—you can always access it via iCloud. But Internet connectivity isn’t always reliable, especially during the summer travel months. To see what music you have stored locally on your device, open Settings, go to Music, turn off Show All Music, then return to the Music app to browse your library. You’ll see cloud icons wherever there’s music in your library that’s not on the device. Tap the ones you want to add to your local library. For albums, scroll to the bottom of the list for a Download All button. That way you’ll have the music you want with you even in the remotest parts of the earth.
Apple recently released a Podcasts app for iOS. This application has a number of performance and interface issues, but some podcast listeners may find it superior to using the Music app (though many standalone podcast apps have far more features than Apple’s app).
When you look at the Podcasts app, it seems as though you can only subscribe to podcasts that are in Apple’s store. This is not true, but the way to subscribe is unintuitive.
When you’re in the Podcasts app and viewing your podcasts, there’s a black bar at the bottom of the window with a Search field to the right. Paste a podcast URL into this field and tap on Search. A dialog will display asking if you want to subscribe to the podcast. Tap Subscribe to add it to your podcasts.
This isn’t supposed to happen in the App Store ecosystem.
Early Thursday morning, Kaspersky posted a blog entry that details a new malicious app that has made it’s way to both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. The app’s name is Find and Call, and it’s the first time we’ve ever seen a malicious app make it into Apple’s App Store.Once installed, the app asks you to register your phone number and email address. Find and Call will also ask if you want to “find friends in a phone book” before discretely uploading your entire contact list to a remote server. The app will continue to upload your contacts, and will SMS messages to those people that contain a link to download the app themselves. These SMS messages show up as if they were sent from your number, so the recipients are much more likely to click on the link. (via Report: Trojan Horse found in the iOS App Store | Macworld)
iBooks 1.5 includes new fonts and ways to customize your reading experience, including a night theme which switches the display to white text on a black background. Besides providing you with excellent readability in low light, it also significantly reduces glare than might distract your “ready to go to sleep” companion if you’re reading in bed. To activate it, tap the Font icon in the controls at the top of the page, then the Themes button, and then Night (if the controls at the top aren’t visible, tap the page. Tapping it again will hide them). On the iPad there’s also a Full Screen switch at the bottom of the Themes list which hides the graphical elements that frame the text within a virtual book and gives you a few more words to the page.
Salespersons? There’s an app for them.
As rumored last month, Apple updated its Apple Store iOS app on Thursday, expanding its in-store pickup pilot program to all of its U.S. retail locations and adding a new EasyPay feature that lets customers buy some items simply by scanning their barcodes.
Power problems of a different sort.
Apple has confirmed that some iPhone customers are experiencing lower battery performance after upgrading to iOS 5.Users started complaining about the battery life of the iPhone 4S soon after the device’s debut. In the last week, additional complaints have surfaced regarding iOS 5 in general.
In a statement to AllThingsD, Apple confirmed battery problems, saying it “has found a few bugs affecting battery life.”
Apple says it will “release a software update to address those in a few weeks.” Update: Apple has now released a beta version of iOS 5.0.1 for developers.
SEE ALSO: A Potential Fix for iOS 5 Battery Woes: Your Time Zone Settings
In the meantime, some users have found success in mitigating iOS 5 battery woes, either by disabling the automatic time zone setting or by making other modifications to iCloud or location services.
What was just an announcement is now about to come to fruition.
by Dan Frakes, Lex Friedman, Macworld.com Oct 11, 2011 1:32 pm
The iOS 5 pieces are are beginning to fall into place. Just a day before Apple’s scheduled release of iOS 5 to the masses, the company rolled out iTunes 10.5, which customers will need to install before they can upgrade their iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads on Wednesday.
One of the hallmark features of iOS 5 is Wi-Fi syncing; coupled with iTunes 10.5, you’ll be able to sync your iOS devices with your Mac or PC without tethering them via a USB cable.
But even more prominent among iTunes 10.5’s new features is support for Apple’s new iCloud and iTunes Match services. With iCloud, much of your Mac- and iOS- focused data—contacts, calendars, photos, and more—gets stored on Apple’s iCloud servers, making it easy to both access that data and keep it synchronized between all your devices. With respect to iTunes, iCloud tracks all of your iTunes Store, App Store, and iBooks Store purchases, making them available from any device. (Interestingly, Apple says that over a third of music sold through the iTunes Store is purchased on an iOS device.) It also stores your iOS-device backups.
iCloud, like iOS 5, is set to make its debut on Wednesday.
The iTunes Match service, which will cost $25 per year, lets you also store music you didn’t buy through iTunes.…
