Apple Asking Some Developers To Have Apple Watch Apps Ready by Mid-February

Apple appears to be asking some high profile app developers and partners to have their Apple Watch-compatible iPhone apps prepared and ready to launch in the App Store in mid-February. According to a source that spoke to MacRumors, Apple has asked its one of its biggest Apple Pay partners to prepare an iOS application with WatchKit support that's ready to launch in the App Store by February 12. 

It is unclear if Apple asking the same of other developers, but it is possible the company is hoping to test some third-party Apple Watch apps with employees ahead of the device's launch to get a better feel for battery life when using non-Apple apps. As we detailed earlier today, thousands of Apple employees in the Cupertino area are wearing and testing the device on a daily basis to work out final kinks ahead of an April launch. 

It's also possible that Apple could use this high-profile partner's app in an upcoming demonstration or launch event to show off how Apple Pay works on the Apple Watch. Apple Pay will be a key function of the Apple Watch, letting users authorize credit card payments right from their wrists. As has been outlined in the past, the Apple Watch will authenticate payments biometrically, requiring a passcode when the device is first placed on a wrist and again if it loses skin contact. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook said earlier this week that Apple Watch development is on track and that the device will launch at some point in April. Pricing for the Apple Watch is largely unknown, but will start at $349 for the least expensive option.

IntelliScreenX 8 (iOS 8.1 Library)

Another extremely popular tweak that's been around a while, IntelleScreenX has now been updated for the iOS 8 jailbreak. IntelliScreenX 7 integrates into the Lock Screen and iOS 8 Notification Center, adding all of your information at a glance. ISX8 adds Swipe — a full featured windowed access to any app. From within an app or on the lockscreen, users can access the following features:
·      Email: Expand to view an entire email message. Mark the message as read, delete, or open the Mail app directly to the email. Compose emails via the compose button (long press). Also a dedicated email page so that you can view beyond Apple's 5-10 only incoming email messages.
·      *Facebook: View your Facebook timeline, including comments. Comment or like/unlike a post. Post a new update.
·      *Twitter: View your timeline and @reply, tweet a new msg, Retweet, and open link/images from within the tweet directly to safari or the Twitter app (if installed). Uses iOS 7 built-in Twitter account
·      *RSS: The most advanced RSS reader for the iPhone. Includes dozens of default popular RSS feeds. Integrates iOS 's Reader functionality for easy viewing
·      *Calendar & Events: Extends Apple's 24 hour view with a 2 week of upcoming events and reminders. (We will be adding additional options such as selecting calendars as well as # of days.
·      Messages Quick Reply/Compose: Included & integrated into IntelliScreenX is Messages+, a quick reply/compose app for Messages.

Asos

For those who like greater control over who accesses the apps on their devices, Asos is great tool to consider. This new iOS 7 and 8 compatible jailbreak tweak is an app locker, which makes protecting your apps easy. Just select which apps you want locked from prying eyes, choose a passcode to unlock it with (or use the same passcode used to unlock your device) and the apps are immediately protected from everyone you don't others to see. Asos is also compatible with TouchID, meaning that unlocking your private apps is as easy as pressing a finger on the sensor. Asos's settings page is locked by default, ensuring that only you have the ability to turn Asos off or change which apps are secured. The settings page may also be accessed via TouchID. Asos also provides several features which make locking apps from prying eyes even more convenient. You can require authentication every time the app is opened, on a timed basis, or once per respring. Asos also blurs your locked apps in multitasking so prying eyes can't see what you were doing. The tweak is available now on the Cydia jailbreak app store for $0.99 via the BigBoss repo. Download it here.

Only 68 percent of iPhones and iPads are running iOS 8

Apple shared its latest data on iOS 8 adoption on Wednesday, showing that 68 percent of iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches are currently running the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system. Apple tracks iOS adoption by looking devices that access the App Store, and marking which version of iOS is running on each of those devices.

The latest App Store Distribution data was collected on January 5. Besides iOS 8 data, it shows that 29 percent of devices are still running iOS 7, and 4 percent are still clutching to iOS 6 or earlier for dear life. 

Apple’s last iOS adoption data was from November 2014, which showed 60 percent of devices had upgraded to iOS 8. An 8 percent uptick in two months time is pretty slow, especially considering the sales boost that Apple must have seen during the holiday season.

Apple's Beats unit sued by Monster over headphone deal

Apple’s Beats Electronics and its cofounders have been sued in a U.S. court for allegedly easing out headphones developer Monster from a partnership ahead of the 2014 acquisition by the iPhone maker.

Describing a 2011 investment by HTC in Beats as a “sham transaction,” Monster and its founder Noel Lee have alleged that the deal was used by Beats to invoke a clause in its contract with Monster to end the partnership while retaining all rights to the headphone technology.

HTC, which has also been named as a co-defendant in the complaint filed Tuesday in the Superior Court of California, San Mateo County, acquired a majority stake in Beats for about US$300 million, with the plan to use the headphones technology with its mobile phones.

Android Auto and CarPlay are coming to Volkswagen cars later this year

Volkswagen is getting serious about smartphone overlays for its embedded system. Later in 2015, Android Auto, Apple's CarPlay, and Mirror Link will start showing up in U.S. models.

Bluetooth in your snowboard bindings?! Meet the XON Snow-1

LAS VEGAS—Learning how to snowboard took me two days of pain and crashes, multicolored bruises blossoming on both knees. It’s not a hard sport to pick up, but I kept wanting to put my weight on my back foot, leaning slightly uphill (you know, away from the direction I didn’t want to fall) instead of on my front foot, which is what you’re supposed to do so you can initiate turns with that back foot.

If only I’d had the XON Snow-1 bindings at the time.

Debuting at International CES, Japanese company Cerevo’s smart snowboard bindings feature four load sensors under your feet to measure your balance, as well as bend sensors you can stick to the head and tail of your board to measure its flex. The data from those sensors, along with an accelerometer, is sent to an iOS and Android app over Bluetooth, and you can see real-time data in the app.

Apple’s next MacBook could be a 12-inch MacBook Air

If 9to5 Mac's latest finding are true, than Apple’s biggest product of the year could be the MacBook Air. (You know, right behind the Apple Watch.) According to early reports, Apple has completely redesigned the MacBook Air, ditching the full-sized USB port, MagSafe connector, and SD card slots for something entirely different.

9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman writes: “The 12-inch MacBook Air will be considerably smaller than the current 13-inch version, yet also slightly narrower than the 11-inch model. The new 12-inch version is approximately a quarter-of-an-inch narrower than the 11-inch version, yet it is also a quarter-of-an-inch taller in order to accommodate the slightly larger display. In order to fit the larger screen into a footprint about the size of the current 11-inch model, the bezels on the display have been reduced on all sides.”

Apple releases SIM-free unlocked versions of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

Apple, as anticipated, released SIM-free versions of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in the U.S. on Tuesday. The two new unsubsidized models now mean you can get Apple's latest handsets without being tied to a specific carrier. The downside, however, is that you have to pay full price for the devices. The 16GB iPhone 6 starts at $649 and the same base model of the 6 Plus is $749.

Prior to Tuesday's release, the only alternative for anyone looking for a fully unlocked phone was to buy one with a T-Mobile SIM pre-installed. T-Mobile is the only one of the four major carriers that doesn't offer a subsidized iPhone with a two-year contract.

CES 2015: AT&T Announces 4G LTE Smartcase With MicroSD Slot for Wi-Fi iPads

AT&T today announced the upcoming availability of its new modio smartcase that will add 4G LTE connectivity to a Wi-Fi-only iPad or iPad mini. The Modio smartcase will be compatible with the iPad Air 2, iPad Air, iPad mini 3, iPad mini 2 and iPad mini. 


The Modio will allow Wi-Fi iPad owners to connect to AT&T's 4G LTE network using the data available on the customers' Mobile Share plans. Mobile Share allows customers to pay for a monthly data allotment that is shared between smartphones, tablets and other connected devices. 

Beyond cellular connectivity, the Modio smartcase also includes its own 4,600 mAh battery to support up to 10 hours of use, along with a microSD card slot that can be used to store up to 32 GB of media and other files. Case owners can install the accompanying AT&T Modio Data application to monitor data usage and manage cellular plan details. 

The AT&T Modio smartcase for iPad mini is listed on AT&T's website as coming soon, with a version for larger iPad Air models to follow. Pricing and exact launch dates for the new cases has yet to be announced.

Belkin significantly expands its WeMo connected-home product line at CES 2015

LAS VEGAS—Belkin got into the connected-home market early with its WeMo brand, and the company announced a significant expansion of that product line at CES today. Belkin showed a raft of new sensors, a Wi-Fi-to-Zigbee bridge, and even tools for monitoring your home’s water and power consumption.

Water sensor

The WeMo Water with Echo Technology is the most interesting item in the new collection. Attach it to any one water pipe in your home, and it monitors pressure changes and vibrations that occur throughout the plumbing and sends this data to an app on your phone. Belkin claims the “WeMo Water can identify usage time, duration, and cost of any end-unit on the system (showers, bathtubs, sinks, toilets, etc.), accurately calculate water consumption per object, and even alert users to potentially devastating damage and leaks.

Why Adobe Max is the premier conference for creatives

Each year they arrive in droves, converging upon cities far and wide for several days of hobnobbing with some of the most creative talents around. This is MAX, the annual “creativity conference” launched in 2003 by Macromedia, the creators of Dreamweaver who wound up being acquired by Adobe only two years later.

Adobe has since upheld this tradition with events in North America, Europe, and Japan. Following the shift three years ago from packaged Creative Suite software and the advent of Creative Cloud, Adobe MAX has morphed into more of a consumer affair, with more designers, photographers, web coders, videomakers, and illustrators in attendance than developers—although Adobe MAX 2014, held in early October in Los Angeles, may wind up being remembered as the year those worlds started to converge. We think it was one of the best conferences of the year, and creatives should serioiusly consider attending in 2015. Here's why:

Private I: Lock your cloud backups away with an encryption key

It’s generally easier to keep safe the files we have under our control, on our internal and external drives, than those that waft far away from us on cloud-storage backup systems. Different backup services handle how they send data for storage and how they encrypt it once it arrives.

A quick overview of how cloud-storage systems work, regardless of the company. Client software running on your Mac finds new files in specified folders or files that have updated modification times since the last scan. Files are analyzed into pieces against which the software calculates a sort of shorthand or signature. This signature is compared against what’s stored in the cloud. If it matches, nothing happens—this is how these services conserve bandwidth.

Apple faces dumb lawsuit over the size of iOS 8

iOS 8 has had its share of problems, and now we can throw one more on the pile: a lawsuit. Two plaintiffs have filed a suit claiming their 16GB iPhones and iPads don’t actually come with 16GB of storage, and iOS 8 takes up too much space—and Apple should make that clearer, in case we are all idiots who don’t get that operating systems do use storage.

Ars Technica’s iOS 8: thoroughly  Reviewed includes a look at how much more storage space iOS 8 consumes, versus a clean install of iOS 7.1.2, and it does gobble a significant chunk: about 740MB on iPhones and 1.03GB on iPads. If you’re using a 16GB device, that’s 4.5 to 6.4 percent. Which doesn’t sound like a ton, but 740MB can hold a lot of photos.

Mylio review: Keep your photos organized, synced and backed up

It’s easy to capture digital memories, but managing all those photos and videos is a galactic drag (after all, there’s no fun in workflow). Unless you’re a pro photographer, it’s hard to force yourself into good habits around renaming, keywording, organizational, and most importantly backup. If you don’t, you can lose a lifetime of memories, plus it’s impossible to find specific photos because they’re stored across various computers, iOS devices, external hard drives, bras (kidding!), and social media sites. Heck, you’ve taken a slew of photos you’ve not yet seen.

Enter Mylio, a database-driven, nondestructive editing and syncing app launched in October 2014. It’s designed for anyone who takes pictures (hobbyists and pros), managing all your photos—iPhone, Facebook, point-and-shoot, DSLR, whatever—in one place, side by side. Mylio also syncs your photos among the desktop, iOS, removable, and remote devices you tell it about, so your entire collection is always backed up and accessible in multiple places. You can edit, share, and export photos using Mylio, too. Sound too good to be true? Let’s find out!