Monday, June 30, 2014

1Password Shows Off iOS 8 Update

AgileBits, the company behind 1Password, a digital password vault, released a new app for iOS 8 beta testers. It allows people to use Touch ID to gain access to passwords. In addition, you can now use a Safari extension to login to websites. Check out a Vine demoing it by clicking here.

Beta Notes

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Apple Debuts "Parenthood" iPhone Ad

Today, Apple released an ad showcasing a selection of iOS apps for parents. The ad is played with the song, "Life of Dreams." The ad is in the series of "powerful" ads. Check out the video below.

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Apple May Be Developing a Smart Home Device for HomeKit

Apple may develop some smart products for their HomeKit platform, announced at WWDC 2014. For example, they may make a smart speaker for music or maybe a set of lights. No one seems to know. Macworld's Chris Breen had this to say about the rumor:

"The sources say that Apple is unlikely to move forward with devices to compete directly with Google’s Nest as the Cupertino-company feels it can build products that can gain usage wider than that of thermostats and smoke detectors. It is likely that Apple is building advanced speaker systems or control panels for homes, the sources say. It is possible that Apple’s recent acquisition of Beats Electronics and the audio company’s existing speaker systems play into this vision."
- Chris Breen

Friday, June 27, 2014

Photos App for OS X Will Replace iPhoto AND Aperture

 "With the introduction of the new Photos app and iCloud Photo Library, enabling you to safely store all of your photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere, there will be no new development of Aperture," said Apple in a statement provided to The Loop. "When Photos for OS X ships next year, users will be able to migrate their existing Aperture libraries to Photos for OS." 
- Apple
The Photos app for OS X (coming next year) will replace not only iPhoto, but also Aperture (Apple's pro version of iPhoto; for professional photographers). This got mixed reactions. Most people are hoping that the Photos app is really good and that the enhanced editing tools surpass those of Aperture. Others don't care and are taking up on Adobe's offer to switch to Lightroom. Adobe will even convert Aperture libraries to a Lightroom library. To learn more about switching to Lightroom, follow this link.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Better 16 GB iPod Touch Available and Lower Prices for 32 GB and 64 GB Models

Today, Apple released a better version of the 16 GB iPod Touch, in addition to reducing the prices of the 32 GB and 64 GB models. The 16 GB model now has all the features of the current larger capacity iPod Touches, with the exception of the included iPod Touch Loop. It starts at $199. The 32 GB and 64 GB models cost $249 and $299 respectively.


Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Google I/O Conference 2014 Live

Google's yearly conference, I/O, is live right now! I/O is a developer conference for Android developers. I'll be tweeting for live updates, so stay tuned to the Tech Talk 4 Geeks' twitter (@TechTalk4Geeks). Also, you can view the live stream by clicking this link.

A scene from Google I/O

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

MLB at Bat Will Support CarPlay

CarPlay, the technology that allows an iPhone to use the screen of select cars as an interface, will support MLB at Bat. It is interesting how MLB will incorporate the app into a car. So far, it is supposed to allow users to listen to games. The app normally allows further interaction, such as seeing play-by-play statistics. Perhaps some other features will be incorporated. However, it may not be a good idea at the same time due to distracted driving.


Monday, June 23, 2014

Microsoft OneDrive Has Increase in Storage

If you're an Office 365 subscriber, you're getting a whole terabyte of storage to use starting in July! In addition, if you're not a subscriber, you get 15 GB of free storage. Finally, upgrades in storage are slashed by 70%! With Apple expanding iOS with third-party cloud storage in iOS 8, it might be a good idea to invest!


Sunday, June 22, 2014

iWatch to Have More Than 10 Sensors

Apple's rumored smart watch is expected to exceed the amount of sensors than its competitor's. Apple seems to be focusing heavily on the accuracy of fitness. In addition to providing many sensors, Apple is currently recruiting pro athletes, such as Kobe Bryant, to try the smart watch. The iWatch is also expected to have a large function in the upcoming Health app in iOS 8.

Mockup of iWatch - Image Credit: Mac Rumors

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Apple Maps Have Improved

Since its release, Apple Maps have been the pinnacle of criticism for users. There were many incorrect directions and addresses. However, Apple has been improving their service. Many people find that they see improvements every Friday. In addition, Apple has bought some mapping companies which could assist with Maps in iOS 8.


Friday, June 20, 2014

Kobe Bryant Seen With What Might Be The iWatch

According to 9to5Mac, Apple is recruiting various pro athletes to test iWatch, possibly for fitness capabilities. In May, Kobe was seen at the Apple campus with a fancy watch on. This watch could be the iWatch that is expected to come out later this year. Take a look...

Image Credit: 9to5Mac

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Fire: Amazon's First Smartphone

Amazon has released their first smartphone! Here are some of its flagship features...

Dynamic Perspective

This lets you see new areas of apps with just a flick of the wrist... literally.

Firefly

Firefly lets you take a picture of a name, number, book, or anything else and get instant information on it. It's basically Google Googles.

Camera

Fire comes with a 13 megapixel camera and image stabilization.

Fire comes out on July 25, 2014 and all these features are explained in further detail in the video below.


Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Scroll Through Home Screens Without Swiping

Did you know that you can go through your home screens in iOS without swiping through them? Well, you can! Just tap on the dots near the bottom of the home screen closest to the direction that you want to go. It's hard to describe, so you should try it yourself! I hope this helps!


Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Podcasts App To Be Included with iOS 8

Podcasts were originally just a part of the Music app. However, later in its life, Podcasts became its own independent app on the App Store. But now in iOS 8 (Beta 2), it seems that the app is included and cannot be deleted. Is this a good move? I practically never use the app myself, but I'm not sure if many others use it either. What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Image Credit: MacRumors

Monday, June 16, 2014

250 New Emojis

Today, the Unicode Consortium announced the seventh version of the Unicode Standard, which is basically a standard what everybody should have in their keyboards. There are 250 new emojis in the standard. Here's an example image:


We can hope to see these emojis in future versions of iOS and Android...

Sunday, June 15, 2014

With New App Store Policy, First iOS App is Released

The first Bitcoin app on the Apple App Store is Coin Pocket. It's a standard Bitcoin wallet. It lets people send and receive Bitcoins. A new policy now allows for the promotion of digital currencies. Bitcoin is a popular digital currency that allows people to use their computers to "mine" Bitcoins and spend those Bitcoins to a participating vendor. The Coin Pocket app is available for free from the Apple App Store [Direct Link].

Image Credit: MacRumors

Saturday, June 14, 2014

What iPhone 6 Could Look Like...

It has been rumored that the iPhone 6 will be either in a 4.7" or 5.5" size... or both! Here are some pictures.

Image Credit: Mac Rumors

Image Credit: Mac Rumors
The iPhone 6 is expected to be announced this fall. Sorry for the short post today...

Friday, June 13, 2014

iOS 8 Has Password Sharing

iOS 8 will let users use saved passwords to quickly sign into apps. For example, using Gmail in Safari and saving that password will allow the user to use the same password in the Gmail app. Pretty cool, right? Check it out! iOS 8 will be available in the fall this year.

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Image Credit: MacRumors

Thursday, June 12, 2014

iTunes and App Store Were Down Today

Today, the iTunes and App Store were down for many users around noon. However, the System Status page had no comments on the outage. The outage was resolved around 2:00 PM.

Image Credit: MacRumors

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Use Alt+Up To Get Recent Messages In iMessage

Here's a quick tip for Mac OS X. When in the Messages app, click in the message box, then hit the alt (or option) button and also tap the up key. This lets you quickly access the previous message you sent in the conversation you're in. It's just a quick way to retype messages. If you hit this key combo again, you'll get the next message you sent and so on. I hope this helps!


Tuesday, June 10, 2014

iOS 8 Reminds Users That an App Has Been Using Location Services

iOS 8 will remind users that an app has been using their location. It then asks them if they'd like to continue allowing that. Whether this feature will show up in the final version, I'm not sure. It seems like a tedious task that Apple's asking their users to do. For example, people who have 300 apps on their phones like me won't like this idea. What are your thoughts?

Image Credit: MacRumors

Monday, June 9, 2014

Apple Posts Video Depicting OS X Yosemite's Design Changes

At WWDC 2014, Apple showed the video embedded below. However, the video wasn't available on YouTube until now. What I find strange is that when it was shown at WWDC, the video wasn't directly streamed for viewers like most videos would be. It was shown through a camera pointed a screen. Just a little comment I felt like sharing.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Philips Creates Prototype Hue Widget for iOS 8

Philips tweeted a snapshot of their new iOS 8 widget for their popular lighting product, Hue. The widget shows several preset options for the Hue to change to, along with a way to instantly turn all lights off.
iOS 8 will finally support widgets when it comes out using a concept called "extensions." The widgets will be displayed using the "Today" view in Notification Center.

Many smart home products often require a companion app that must be opened in order to control an appliance, such as a light. Using notification center would make the process much quicker.

The Philips Hue is available for $199.99 (Starter Pack) and iOS 8 will be available in the fall for free.

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Quickly View Definitions of Words On Mac

Have you ever seen that one word on the internet that you just don't know what it means? While you could just Google it, why not do it like a geek and tap on it with three fingers (only on trackpads). Just hover over the word and tap with three fingers. Then, you'll instantly get a dictionary. Have fun!


Friday, June 6, 2014

New Developer Tools in a Nutshell: The Scoop (WWDC 2014)

WWDC is truly all about the developers. After all, it stands for "World Wide Developers Conference." So here are some of the new APIs and tools for developers announced at WWDC this year.

iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite:

iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite has many more ways of becoming one with the developers. Extensions allows apps to add their own "share sheets" into the iOS UI. For example, you can share a photo from the Camera app using Pinterest or Instagram. Photo editing works the same way. You can edit using a third-party photo editor by using the edit function and using one of the custom-made filters or functions made by that developer. Widgets are finally in iOS. Using the Today view of Notification Center, apps can create widgets that will reside there. Apps like Pages can now store documents in third-party storage spaces such as OneDrive and DropBox. And, yes Mrs. Myers, Google Drive, too. Also, developers can make their own custom keyboards. Apps can now authenticate using Touch ID, add health info into the Health app, add home automation devices to HomeKit, make cloud storage simple with CloudKit, and make their apps work with Handoff (see yesterday's post). Finally, Metal replaces OpenGL to make much faster performance opening many possibilities for developers with pre-rendered graphics.

Swift:

Swift is an entirely new language that's modern, safe, and doesn't complain about having semicolons at the end of every single line of code. It's Objective-C without the slowness of C. One thing I personally like is how much easier it is to type out code. For example, here's how to make a simple "Hello, World" program (every programmer's first program).

In Objective-C:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
printf("Hello, World!");
return 0;
}

In Swift:

println("Hello, World!")

That is literally it! No semicolons. No main method. No imports. It's so simple! That just saved you from typing four additional lines of code. Needless to say, Swift is a great new language and I think that every developer looks forward to coding in it. 

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Continuity in a Nutshell: The Scoop (WWDC 2014)

At WWDC, Apple announced something really cool. It's called continuity and it lets all your Apple products live in harmony.

Handoff:

iPhone and iPad using Handoff with Safari
Let's say you're surfing the web on your iPhone (iOS 8 required) and you sit down at your Mac (OS X Yosemite required). Your Mac notices the proximity between the phone and itself, so it shows a special icon in the dock that allows you to pick up where you left off on your iPhone. This works with all kinds of apps including Numbers, Mail, and third-party apps with the API.

Calling and Texting with iPad and Mac:

If you have an iPhone and a Mac or iPad, then you know that calls (not FaceTimes) and texts (SMS, not iMessages) don't get pushed to those devices. Until now! Your iPhone can now work as a relay device for other devices. You can text from your iPad to an Android or call a friend using a Mac.

Instant Hotspot:

For those who have personal hotspots on their iPhones, this is for you. Normally, for a Mac or iPad to connect to the iPhone's network, one would have to turn on their iPhone's hotspot, then connect using the iOS device or Mac, and then type in a password. But now, Mac and iPad can connect to the iPhone with just a click or tap. No need to turn on a hotspot, just connect and iPhone will turn it on for you. When you're not using internet, but are still connected, it'll disconnect to save battery life.

That's it for today, but be sure to keep checking Tech Talk 4 Geeks for more news, tips, and rumors. In the next few days, there should be some more WWDC news. Then, next week, E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) is here. So stay tuned for a plethora of tech news!

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

OS X Yosemite in a Nutshell: The Scoop (WWDC 2014)

Yesterday's keynote confirmed to us the details of OS X Yosemite (including its name, which apparently took a lot of decisions). Here are the details:

iOS 7 Design:

OS X Yosemite gets a new paint job. It looks a lot like iOS 7. I mean, just look at the new Finder icon (shown to the left)! What is that?! At least this brings less inconsistencies to the Apple universe. The new OS has a new font for menu bars. From my perspective, it seems to be "Helvetica Neue Ultralight," which is the same font used in iOS 7. All the windows are translucent.

Messages:

Messages can now receive text messages (as in SMS) using your iPhone as a relay device. It used to only be able to receive iMessages (messages sent from other iOS devices and Macs). The same idea goes to phone calls.

Instant Hotspot:

A nice feature of iPhone is the personal hotspot*. Your Mac can now detect your iPhone nearby. It will then allow you to turn on its hotspot with just a click. No password. No hassle. All internet.

I'll be getting more WWDC news soon, including continuity and all the developer news. See you guys soon!

* Additional charges may apply when using your device's cellular network.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

iOS 8 in a Nutshell: The Scoop (WWDC 2014)

Today's WWDC gave us a lot of new features to look forward to in the fall. Let's dive right into the features and advancements in iOS 8!

Messages:

You can now record your voice to send messages in iMessage. Just another way to quickly send messages. In addition, you can now take videos quicker with the easy to tap video button on the left side of the phone. As for group messaging, you can now share locations, name conversations, and mute notifications from specific conversations.

Keyboards:

In iOS 8, you can use predictive text to type faster. It uses clues based on your writing style and the context of what you're doing (i.e. writing a business letter as opposed to chatting with friends). In addition, third-party keyboards are now compatible. Keyboards like Swype can be accessed. Maybe fan-made emojis.

Family Sharing:

Family Sharing is just what it sounds like: sharing with your family. Families can share device locations, calendars, photos, iTunes content, App Store content, and more without any hassle. Also, kids can ask permission digitally before they buy an app. 

Health:

Compatible with third-party apps like Nike+, Health lets you store all of your health information in one place. It also lets you create an emergency card that will be displayed on the lock screen just in case of an emergency.

That's it for today, but be sure to stay tuned because I'll be covering more on WWDC news as well as cover iOS news that wasn't covered in this post. 

Monday, June 2, 2014

What to Expect From WWDC 2014...

Here's a quick rumor roundup as to what we should expect this morning at WWDC 2014...

  • iOS 8
    • Healthbook
    • Preview App
    • TextEdit App
  • OS X 10.10
    • Codename: Yosemite
  • iMac Refresh?
  • Smart Home Platform
Have a good WWDC!

[UPDATE - 6/5/14: Items with a strike were not announced at WWDC 2014]

Image Credit: MacRumors

Sunday, June 1, 2014

WWDC 2014 Attendees Receive a $25 iTunes Gift Card

People attending the WWDC conference tomorrow received a nice gift when they registered today. They received a limited edition WWDC themed iTunes gift card. It's worth $25, a dollar for each year that WWDC has been held. In fact, the card flat out says "25 years and coding." WWDC starts tomorrow at 10 AM.