iCal will be getting a major upgrade once it's fully integrated into iCloud, but until then you may want to tame the beast with a few easy tweaks. Whether it's learning how to use the application or importing third-party calendars into, we'll show you how to get the most out of this ubiquitous application.
I love food and I love cooking, but I know that not everyone appreciates it when I broadcast photos of even the most mundane dishes to all of my social networks. Well, I've found a way to make memories of the food I eat without infiltrating your Instagram feed. Evernote Food helps me keep track of all the exciting dishes from restaurants I enjoy frequenting, as well as any at-home cooking experiments that've gone right by enabling me to archive it into my Evernote account. I can snap a photo of the meal, add in the location and a small description, and then it's instantly uploaded to my Recipes and Food Notebooks. Then when I head to the grocery store, I can access those Notebooks for inspiration.
Download Evernote Food [iTunes Link].
This is the best LCD TV we've ever tested. Sony has had a tough ride in the last few years but after a catalogue of mistakes, it's finally come good in the most spectacular of ways. The KDL-46HX853 takes LCD picture quality to a whole new level, particularly where contrast and motion handling are concerned. The set looks gorgeous too, and features what's for our money the best - or at least the most sensibly focussed - online service around. This all adds up to an achievement made all the more remarkable when you consider that this outstanding TV is being delivered at a more aggressive price than the usually ultra-competitive Korean brands are offering on their range equivalents. To sum all this up, with the KDL-46HX853 Sony isn't just back, it's back with a vengeance.
The way the Toshiba BDX3300 doesn't bother to disguise its BBC iPlayer, Acetrax, YouTube and Picasa services as apps is somewhat refreshing, since the functionality is identical to much more expensive - and certainly more polished, usability-wise - smart TVs and Blu-ray players. When it comes to pure Full HD picture quality, the Toshiba BDX3300 delivers, and we also like the fact that it can support an awful lot of digital files via USB and over a network. It may lack finesse and at times appears a tad archaic, but we can't find it within us to criticise anything on a super-slim Blu-ray player that combines the best of the smart TV landscape with a price that hovers under £80/£120. For a simple 2D Blu-ray upgrade with some YouTube goodness, we can't recommend the Toshiba BDX3300 highly enough.
Asus Transformer Pad 300 review
You can't release a £399, 10.1-inch tablet and not expect comparisons with the iPad, so we'll cut to the chase. The Asus Transformer Pad TF300 is currently one of the best 10-inch Android tablets you can buy, and represents better value with equivalent performance than the Asus Transformer Prime. The top-notch benchmark scores, wonderful use of the keyboard docking station, excellent battery life and superb usability make it a top recommendation in our eyes. If you're platform agnostic and are tossing up between this and the iPad, things get trickier. The Transformer is better value, has double the storage, a fantastic keyboard dock which makes it much more versatile, and Ice Cream Sandwich closes the gap hugely. Individual needs and budget will determine if the Asus Transformer Pad TF300 is right for you, but we applaud Asus for marrying value and performance, and the TF300 comes highly recommended.
The TX-L42DT50B is a relatively high-end TV - that much is obvious from its slim depth and metallic bezel, the latter of which is some achievement considering Panasonic's rather lacklustre history in this department. Feature-packed inside, we're able to detect that this isn't the brand's flagship set, but there's really no major flaws aside from a stubborn refusal to include 3D specs. It's a decision which rather underlines why most brands - including Panasonic, to some extent - is quickly turning to passive 3D system with its 99p 3D glasses.
Toshiba's 55ZL2 is designed to get any tech obsessive's pulse racing. After all, it breaks new ground in not one but two huge areas. First it can genuinely produce a watchable 3D picture without you having to wear glasses. And second, to help it achieve its first innovation, it employs a native 4K or Quad HD pixel resolution for the first time on a domestic TV.
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It's becoming increasingly tough to squeeze into the tightly-packed puzzle genre in the App Store. With tons of tile-matching, piece-sliding, and color-swapping titles available in abundance -- albeit with challenge and mental stimulation often lacking -- sometimes the only puzzling thing is what is qualified as a puzzle. Enter Cubis Creatures, a game developed by the aptly named FreshGames, which has come to push staleness out of the genre and replace it with smart and satisfying gameplay.
Cubis Creatures tasks players with correcting the mistake of a wizard's poorly-performed magic trick, which has sent all of his friends into a deep slumber. To wake them from this state, players must match blocks in each creature's mouth -- which is still nicer than how most college kids are awoken by their friends after a night of partying. You'll be given four creatures to raise from slumber -- done over the course of 20 stages -- but additional ones can be added on. Add in daily tournaments and there's never a shortage of challenges.
The puzzles that keep these critters asleep take place on a checkered board, which is populated by colored blocks. To eliminate these blocks, you'll launch others into the playing field from the front or right side. Solids stop them, other blocks will slide one square, and contact with two or more that share its color will clear all touching matching pieces. Throw in things like lasers that can eliminate any piece, bombs that shake up the board, and two-toned blocks will require matching both colors before they'll be cleared, and you've got a puzzle game that requires real strategy. Because the board doesn't rotate, there are occasions where blocks aren't visible; but it's luckily never debilitating.
The bottom line. Cubis Creatures takes on the difficult puzzle genre and comes up with highly stellar results. With stunningly vibrant visuals, a quirky story, and lively tunes, the entire experience is just plain fun. There's nothing puzzling about why Cubis Creatures is a blast.
You wouldn’t think so much drama and hand-wringing goes into the creation of something as simple as a SIM card, but where international standards are concerned, compromises must be made. Research in Motion and Motorola have done just that with Apple’s proposed nano-SIM design, which appears to have the majority of votes already.
The Verge has filed an update on the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) search for a new nano-SIM standard to replace the current micro-SIM used in Apple’s iPhone 4 and 4S, as well as other popular handsets such as the Nokia Lumia 900.
While ETSI members have already been quietly voting on the future of the SIM card this month, a competing standard proposed by Nokia, Research in Motion and Motorola persists. That is causing some concern among members that two different standards could emerge, much like the VHS and Betamax situation during the heyday of home video.
To appease ETSI members, Motorola and RIM have gone back to the drawing board to find a compromise “by merging the two proposals into one, a notion supported by Samsung.” While Apple seems to feel it’s not possible given the more radical approach used by the competing standard, the iPhone maker appears open to adoption of both standards, given Cupertino already has the support it needs for its own nano-SIM.
“At that point in the meeting, Apple already knew that it had somewhere around 80 percent of the voting body behind its standard from the chairman's previous show of hands.” the report reveals. “And realistically, how many carriers would stop carrying the iPhone over its SIM design anyway? Apple's pioneering move with the micro-SIM in 2010 ultimately led to broad-scale adoption -- presumably, it has no reason to think it can't push nano-SIM with even more force than it could two years ago.”
ETSI members won’t meet again until May 31 in Japan, when we should have some idea of whether or not Apple will accept the proposed compromise.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
(Image courtesy of The Verge)
Ever wonder how far in advance Apple works on their products? According to a new report, the 2012 iPhone was in progress even before co-founder Steve Jobs’ death last year, which he reportedly worked closely on.
Bloomberg is reporting that Apple plans an “overhaul” of the iPhone design for this year, confirmed by “three people with knowledge of the plans.” Rumors have ramped up in the last week that Apple will introduce a new iPhone with a larger display, which “could be released by October.”
This latest report is noteworthy because one source has revealed that late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs “had worked closely on the redesigned phone before his death in October,” which nearly coincided with the launch of the current iPhone 4S.
“The design change will be Apple’s first for the iPhone since 2010, when it introduced the iPhone 4,” the report reveals. “Electronics makers, led by Samsung, are moving toward bigger screens, as consumers use handheld devices for a broader array of tasks, including watching video, playing games and browsing the Web.”
Another of Bloomberg’s sources appear to have confirmed that Apple “has placed orders from suppliers in Asia for screens that are bigger than the 3.5-inch size now on the smartphone,” although as usual, the name of the source was not revealed since these plans have not been made public.
“Apple has been working on the new device since before the current iPhone 4S model was introduced last October, said one person with knowledge of the project,” the report concludes. “Jobs, who had gone on medical leave from Apple starting last January, played a key role in developing the phone, this person said.”
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
With not one but two movies currently in production about the life of Steve Jobs, Apple fans are rightfully wringing their hands wondering if the iconic co-founder’s life will be told properly. We’d place our bets on Sony’s version, which now carries the distinction of having Apple’s other co-founder as a consultant.
Reuters is reporting that screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is hard at work adapting Walter Isaacson’s bestselling biography on the life of Steve Jobs into a major motion picture for Sony, and now he has a little help from an old friend: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Even though Woz (as he’s known to Apple devotees) hasn’t worked for the company since 1987, he remained in contact with Jobs until his death last year. Between this and his intimate knowledge of Apple’s products, he makes a perfect candidate to act as a “tutor” for the film and its creators.
Sorkin, whose adaptation of the Facebook story The Social Network earned him an Oscar, hasn’t quite figured out the key “element of tension” that will be at the center of the new film, but told reporters this week that it won’t be a straight biography.
"I know so little about what I am going to write,” Sorkin confessed. “I know what I am not going to write. It can't be a straight ahead biography because it's very difficult to shake the cradle-to-grave structure of a biography.”
Sorkin points to his adaptation of the book The Accidental Billionaires, which recounted the lawsuit against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg against his Harvard friends after the social network launched.
"Drama is tension versus obstacle,” Sorkin explains. “Someone wants something, something is standing in their way of getting it. They want the money, they want the girl, they want to get to Philadelphia -- doesn't matter... And I need to find that event and I will. I just don't know what it is.”
The screenwriter is busy at the moment launching his new HBO show The Newsroom, but plans to “turn his full attention” to Jobs in late June.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
Who knew “jailbreak” could be considered a dirty word? Apparently someone at Apple thought so, which is why the word was censored from the iTunes Store for the better part of Wednesday night and Thursday. Everything is back to normal now, but the hacker community sure got a kick out of it while the fun lasted. So what else is making news today? Glad you asked. Read on for everything else this Thursday, May 17, 2012 has to offer.
One can only imagine that the word “jailbreak” is spoken in hushed tones up in Cupertino, given that Apple has made it clear it doesn’t appreciate users hacking their iOS devices. But would they go so far as to censor the word from iTunes? According to MacRumors, that’s exactly what happened earlier today, at least in the U.S. iTunes Store. Everywhere the word “jailbreak” appeared -- whether it was in songs or TV shows or apps -- Apple replaced with “j*******k” instead. While the censoring appears to have kicked in late Wednesday and persisted throughout much of the day, Apple appears to have finally caught on and has since corrected the gaffe, much to the glee of Thin Lizzy fans everywhere, we’re sure.
There’s little doubt that the iPad is a formidable opponent, but most of its competitors on the Android have pockets deep enough to keep fighting the uphill battle. The same cannot be said for Plastic Logic, the U.K. company infamous for ditching its QUE proReader tablet before it even shipped to stores. According to Engadget, the whole dream has now died, with the company closing its U.S. office in Mountain View, California and axing around 40 jobs there, while also pruning staff at offices in merry old England, Germany and Russia. While Plastic Logic has killed its hopes of launching tablets and e-readers of its own, the company appears to be ready to continue supplying screens to other companies, including their new flexible color e-reader display that sounds awfully cool.
It’s kind of sad that in 2012, contract-free mobile broadband still seems so hard to come by. The big U.S. carriers would rather bait you with cheap hardware and a two-year commitment, but leave it to T-Mobile to mix things up a bit. The fourth-placed U.S. carrier announced today four new “No Annual Contract” mobile broadband passes which offer “a pay-in-advance, overage-free solution” with an allotment of data to fit most every user. For the occasional user, $15 will buy you a one-week pass with up to 300MB, while one-month passes are available in $25, $35 and $50 amounts which nets you 1.5GB, 3.5GB and 5GB, respectively. The new plans roll out Sunday, May 20 at T-Mobile retail stores, select dealers, national retailers and online, but you’ll need to grab your own device to take advantage of it -- which includes a variety of 4G Mobile Hotspots, laptop sticks and connected tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
According to Business Insider, Hewlett-Packard appears ready to jettison up to 32,000 employees from its workforce next week in what one source calls a “massive” layoff. The news isn’t exactly a secret, with CEO Meg Whitman having already gone on record that such layoffs were under consideration. A source claims the HP cuts could trim between 10 to 15 percent of its workforce, which currently stands at 320,000 strong worldwide. At the lower end of that spectrum, 10 percent would amount to 32,000 jobs lost, although it’s unlikely that HP would make such a huge cut in one fell swoop, but rather make smaller cuts to bleed out over time. Employees in manufacturing appear to have less to worry about than their co-workers, but any way you slice, this could be quite ugly for the tech world.
Speaking of getting the axe, Verizon Wireless issued a statement to The New York Times on yesterday’s story about grandfathered unlimited data plans going away this summer. Seems as if there’s a bit more to it than that: “Customers will not be automatically moved to new shared data plans,” the carrier notes. “If a 3G or 4G smartphone customer is on an unlimited plan now and they do not want to change their plan, they will not have to do so.” That said, when the new shared data plans arrive, “Unlimited Data will no longer be available to customers when purchasing handsets at discounted pricing” -- although customers who purchase phones at full retail price and “are on an unlimited smartphone data plan will be able to keep that plan.” Translation: Unlimited data is still going to die, but it’s going to take some time for Verizon to cleanse its junkies of that bad habit.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
WWDC 2012 is set to start on June 11 in San Francisco. As always, we're completely in the dark until the event actually kicks off. So, what will Apple unveil at the event this year? No one really knows, but that doesn’t stop them from speculating--and you love speculation. Admit it, it keeps your blood boiling and gives you something to look forward to! Well, just for you, we’ve rounded up the most important and viable WWDC rumors currently making the rounds. Read on, and please speculate with us in the comments below!
Image courtesy of 9to5Mac
Normally, we don’t hold much truck with rumors suggesting that a new piece of hardware is going to make its debut at WWDC. After all, it is the World Wide DEVELOPERS Conference: an event geared towards developers that make the software we in turn typically love and take for granted. That said, if what Ars Technica says is true, taking the wraps off of a new Mac at the event makes a whole lot of sense.
Word around the campfire is that the new 15-inch MacBook Pro will be the first Apple computer to have a Retina display. That’s great news for Mac users, but it’s also kind of a pain for developers as they’ll have to adjust the code of their programs to accommodate the higher resolution display. By announcing the computer at WWDC, they’ll have time to get their geek ducks in a row before the hardware becomes available to consumers. In addition to a Retina Display, folks are also whispering that the new MacBook Pro will boast...
As 9to5Mac points out, part of the laptop’s new slimmer lines are said to have been accomplished by Cupertino’s omission of an optical drive. Sure, why not? They’ve already done away with optical drives in the MacBook Air and the Mac Mini. It makes sense to carry the changes on throughout the rest of their hardware line up as well, especially when you consider how much dough they’re making off of sales from the Mac App Store and the purchase of external super drives.
With USB 2.0 getting a little long in the tooth, and high priced Thunderbolt peripherals trickling out at a snail’s pace, it’s believed by 9to5Mac that USB 3.0 will finally make an appearance. This rumor may be viable. While Apple is generally slow to adopt new standards (we’re still waiting on Blu-ray compatibility), USB 3.0 has been around for long enough that Apple’s hardware engineers might have been given the go ahead by the powers that be to bake it into the company’s new hardware moving forward. It’s most likely that the standard will allowed to run side by side with Thunderbolt, as opposed to replacing it, especially when you consider the potential transfer speeds that Thunderbolt enable hard is capable of reaching. Nothing else currently on the market can touch it.
Yep, an operating system counts as software, so it’s a safe bet that we’ll be seeing the official release of Mountain Lion ay WWDC. Developers have had a few months to play with it already, and Apple has been busy polishing the OS for release. What’s the difference between Mountain Lion and old-fashion Lion? We’ve already talked about this at length, but in a nutshell, the latest iteration of OS X will boast:
In addition to the Calendar and Address Book, PhotoStream and iTunes Match syncing that Apple hardware users are already benefitting from, we’ll soon also be able to sync our Notes, Game Centre data and Messages data though iCloud. Speaking of Messages, the chat and texting application is set to replace iChat. Fortunately, we’ll be gaining more than we lose. Messages will allow users to text with iOS users from their desktop or laptop, as well as chat with other computer users via much loved standards such as Jabber, Google Talk, AIM and Yahoo! Messenger.
Thanks to Mountain Lion, Mac users will soon have access to iOS-style Message Centre functionality. Will it be enough to sway people away from the awesomeness that is Growl? Only time will tell.
Just like with your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, Mountain Lion is said to boast deep Twitter integration. This could make it possible to tweet information form a wide number of OS X-based applications. Great. Like I didn’t have enough trouble focusing on my work already.
The introduction of a new iPad, with a smaller 7.85 inch display and a different resolution will force developers to rework their apps if they want them to be universal. Because of this, it’s a fair shake to assume that if Apple’s going to unveil an iPad mini any time this year, it’ll be at WWDC 2012 -- especially if the company follows tradition and releases a new iPhone in the fall. The summer release of an iPad Mini would allow consumers throw their money at Apple right up until the leaves start to turn. By then it’ll be time to start salivating over the iPhone 5. You can read up on the history iPad Mini rumors here.
Sure, why not? iOS five has been awesome, but we're always happy to see Apple march forward with new features to make the mobile computing experience that much more extraordinary. Our geeky co-workers at TechRadar have put together a great rundown of what we can expect from the next version of Apple’s mobile operating system, including Near Field Communications (NFC), dual app multitasking for iPads, and even the possibility of widget support.
However, we're not sure if they’ll end up branding it iOS 6. The naming of the new iPad’s proof that Apple is not willing to get itself tied in numbers when marketing their hardware. In light of this, it's not likely that jumping to a new number to indicate an incremental update to what’s still essentially the same operating system will fly with them anymore either. iOS 5 still has enough play left in it to all for the addition of a new new features like NFC chips and the addition of widgets. We may not see iOS 6 until an paradigm shift in the operating system’s is functionality is made… but Apple, rumors being what they are, we're ready to be proven wrong.
Apple users know what it’s like to buy a product for its potential rather than its current value. New Mac owners waited nearly a year to see a significant number of products make use of the speedy Thunderbolt ports built into their hardware. Now the waiting game has begun with next-generation wireless networking.
Buffalo’s 802.11ac AirStation WZR-D1800H router, which shipped this week to retailers across the country, is so bleeding edge that no products can yet take advantage of its theoretical max transfer speed of 1.3 Gbps. Most of your Wi-Fi-enabled gadgets--including your MacBook and iPad--top out at 802.11n, which is currently the fastest Wi-Fi bandwidth available. The IEEE is still ratifying the 11ac standard, and we won’t start to see compatible devices until it's legitimized. We expect the rollout of 11ac to gain momentum after Cisco and Netgear release competing routers later this year, but until then you might be wondering if it’s worthwhile to invest in the technology early.
To answer that question, let’s look at what the AirStation offers. It's a gigabit dual band wireless router that supports up to four ethernet-connected devices, as well as one USB device for network sharing. It's also backwards compatible with previous Wi-Fi standards, though you won't see high speeds if you're on a device that tops out at the low end of the spectrum (an older laptop, for instance, may only be 802.11g-capable).
Although 802.11ac boasts a maximum speed of 1,750 Mbps, the current standard supports just half that. However, Buffalo has future-proofed the AirStation by packing in both 802.11ac and 802.11n technologies. So for now you can enjoy the benefits of the current Wi-Fi standard while preparing for the 11ac-compatible devices that will emerge in several months.
So, should you consider buying Buffalo's 802.11ac router now, even though nothing currently takes advantage of its higher speeds? Yes. You'll be ready for what's to come, and it couldn't hurt for AirPlay streaming either. We can’t fully endorse this particular 11ac router until we get the chance to test it here at Mac|Life HQ, but you can bet that we'll have a thorough review for you soon.
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