Emjoi your FACE!

Everyone loves the glee Emoji’s bring us young and young at heart, but now, someone has gone a step further by doing that thing where you go I SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT and created an App where you can make an Emoji out of your FACE. Or yo mama’s face.

Created by San Francisco based App developer Tom Smith, Imojiapp has the ability to turn any face into a sticker that can then be used as an Emoji in iMessages.

Simply download the app (free from the App Store), sign up with your email address, agree to the terms and conditions ( Duh) and you’re off face creating!

Here is the favorite so far at the iPhone Antidote offices. Meet Papa Nu Guinea Pig as an Emoji.

3nder is here!

So the next ‘nder’ App some people may or may not have been waiting for is here!  That’s right, it’s the threesome answer to Grindr, Tinder, and Brenda, and it’s called, trumpets please – 3nder. That’s pronounced ‘Threender’ for those of you playing at home. And playing at home (with more than one person) is indeed the aim of the game in the particular circumstance. Or, you know, in hotels and stuff too.

The App is new, even though the idea behind it certainly is not –  neither is how it works. Once you download the App from the App store, you log on through Facebook, set your parameters  such as distance around you in which you’re interested in finding people, how many people you are and how many people you’re looking for, and what kind of interests and desires you have.

For example – 24 yr old single guy looking in the local 300 mile area for a couple of bi ladies who are interested in adding a male bedroom partner to their date nights. And, good news guy – after playing around with the app for research, we can attest that there indeed are such ladies on 3nder!

The App then works it’s magic, and shows you pictures of people in your prescribed area, their interests and desires, if they are in a couple or single,their sexual persuasions,  etc. Scrolling through the pics, you have the option to swipe up over them to indicate interest, and to swipe down if it’s more of a mmmm….no. You can them continue on scrolling through your options.

Once you swipe up and you are lucky enough to be matched ( meaning of course that they are also interested in you)  you have a set time to talk to the person or people that you’re interested in, so there’s less of the procrastination that some find in Tinder, where you find a match and then everyone just sits around being excited about the match and not talking to the person.

As 3nder says, it’s ‘the gentlest way to form a trio, without the knowledge of your friends and family.’ And it just might be.

3nder is currently available free through the App store, although you can upgrade to an incognito version for $2.99. An Android version will be available later this year.

‘King Penguin threesome on the beach’ image provided by Liam Quinn under the CC BY-SA 2.0 License

Kindle unlimited – books foreVER!

Kindle has today officially announced the release of their new Kindle Unlimited product, which should make the bibliophiles amongst us prettttty happy! Kindle Unlimited is a subscription service that offers unlimited access to all of Kindle’s library of titles and thousands of Audible audiobooks.

If you subscribe, you can access all of this on a Kindle, or on a Kindle app on the iPad, Mac or iPhone for a monthly fee of $9.99. . The nice guys over at Kindle are offering a 30 day free trial which also comes with a free three month Audible service.

Reading is pretty much one of the only things you don’t have to do in moderation, if you think about it, unless you’re paying a lot of money to do it. And now you don’t have to! Yay reading!

iPhone Tip Of The Day

This one’s for the walkers out there, you good honest souls you! When using maps in iOS 7, you have the option to choose walking directions as a dafault in settings, and to have Siri read you the directions turn- by- turn. Snazzy.

To set walking directions as your default, go to Settings>Maps. Scroll down to the Preferred Directions section and choose between walking and driving.

To ask Siri to give you prompted map directions whilst walking, tap the Directions button in the top left hand corner, select the walking icon at the top of the screen, enter your destination and then tap Route.

Interesting, (and some might say challenging), fact for you – Given that the world is about 25,000 miles in circumference and that the average walking rate is 3 miles per hour, it would take a person walking nonstop approximately 347 days to walk around the world.

Go to it!

iPhone Tip Of The Day! Camera Edition

If you’re like us, you use your iPhone camera a lot. Which is super handy and awesome, right, but sometimes there’s that little issue of lighting that can overexpose, underexpose, or just crappily expose your photos.

Here’s a handy tip for getting better lighting by using the Exposure and Focus Lock feature:

*Point the Camera at the lighting you want to use.

*Tap and hold to lock the exposure to those light conditions.

*Turn the phone to the object of your photographic attraction, taking the locked exposure with you.

*Shoot your photo as normal.

*Magic.

This feature is also be used to lock focus, so you can overcome weird depth issues as well by doing  exactly the same as above. And now, you, like us, can become just that little bit closer to shooting photos like a pro!

Sweet Bro!

New iwatch rumours

The iWatch rumors have ramped up recently, with sources claiming October will be when the new wearable Apple product will be announced.

Excited much?

Both Re/code‘s John Paczkowski and the Nikkei Asian Review Newspaper both have sources who both claim that come october there will be a special event to announce the watch, and that we can expect to see the new technology tie in closely with the Health App which Apple announced at WWDC and which will be available to the public with iOS 8 a month earlier.

Nikkei added that the wearable tech will have a curved OLED touchscreen and that Apple is expecting to sell up to 5 million units per month. Because it’s going to be an awesome product, obviously ( hopefully)!

Other rumors doing the rounds is that the iWatch will be a product of an Apple/Nike collaboration, that the iWatch face will be round and that  it will come in two or more sizes.  See our previous article on the iWatch to see the people Apple has hired to purportedly work on the product.

We know there’s a lot of anticipation and skepticism surrounding the idea of this product, so it will be interesting to see what happens when ( if?) it launches. We personally think it will surprise many of the doubters, that it will sell by the bucketload, that it’ll be rad, and that it will be announced in October and be available before Christmas.

We also like putting it all on black, so there you have it.

Just sent a text you didn’t mean to? We got you!

Ever have that moment of sheer panic when you realize that you just sent a text to the person you were talking about, not the person you were talking to?

Yuck.

Here’s something you can try the next time you realize you sent a message and you realllly don’t want it to be actually sent.

Put your phone into airplane mode IMMEDIATELY. Like, faster than your little fingers have ever moved before kind of immediately. If you’re successful, the message will fail to send, allowing you to delete the message into the ether, never to be seen by any human’s eyes again.

Just a word of warning- there’s a great chance it might not work. Your phone/network might be too fast, and then you’re on your own, guys. Plead temporary insanity, drunkiness, or a badly played off joke. Or you could be, like, honest we guess, people say that’s a good thing don’t they?

OR OR OR, OR – someone kidnapped you, took your phone, and is using it to torture you by screwing your life up in very minute ways…

Remember: Text responsibly!

ioS 8!

Welcome to the new iOS 8! As well as a bright new user interface update, iOS 8 will bring to our phones a new level of sharing – between family members, between app developers and between iDevices and Macs.

We’re pretty excited about the new software functionality this operating system is promising, and below you will find a comprehensive outline of everything ( that we know of so far) that iOS 8 will bring to your lives with it’s release in the Fall.

New Spotlight

The search function in iOS is called Spotlight, and with iOS 8 it brings a much broader ability to search, both on your iDevice and on the internet. For example -type in a term and you can see a part of a Wikipedia article, including a picture and a short summary. Tap it, and Spotlight takes you to the full article.

Spotlight will also show you search results like trending topics, popular websites, nearby restaurants with phone number and hours of business that can connect you to maps,  search results within the iTunes Store or the App store, and search results for movie times.

It seems like there is a slight crossover with Siri’s functionality in the new Spotlight, but making things easier all round can only be good!

Messaging

Messaging gets a lovely new overhaul with iOS 8!  Starting off impressively is the new ability to add video and audio messages. Simply touch and hold the new microphone button to record your message, and swipe to send. on the other end, to hear a message, you can now hold your iPhone to your ear and listen or just tap the play button next to the message.

All messages, text, video and audio, will now have the option to be deleted automatically, or within a time period ranging from a year to forever.

With iOS 8 you will be able to create larger and better controlled group conversation threads where people can be added and can leave at their leisure. Group conversations can be named for an event or experience, the attachments can be seen all in one place rather than opening them one at a time, and you can put the conversation on ‘Do Not Disturb’ so you can read the thread when you want without being, well, disturbed.

A new option with messaging which I’m sure teenagers are just going to love is the new location services within the messaging app. It is of course just that – an option – to show others that your are messaging where you are ( and if you really are studying in the library with Rachel, why do you have your location option switched off? HUH? uh oh).

Other than that, we can see this addition promising to be very useful. You can show your location with individuals or everyone for an hour, until the end of the day, or indefinitely.

Finally, a small but lovely touch is the new ability to send multiple photos and videos at once through messaging. YAY Let’s bombard EVERYONE WITH SO MANY CAT PHOTOS AND PHOTOS OF THOSE SWEET MOUNTAINS WE SAW ON OUR VACATION!

Health

The new Health app gives you an easy-to-read dashboard of all of your health and fitness data (Think heart rate, calories burned, blood sugar, cholesterol etc) . This data can be collected ( if you choose) from 3rd party sources and apps such as Nike, Fitbit, FitnessPal, medical devices etc and shown here consolidated for you and others ( again, if you choose) to access. This can mean that your Doctor or fitness specialist can be notified when something is wrong, or if you’ve hit a certain metric or met a goal.

Apple has been working  with the Mayo Clinic working towards what they say will  ‘bridge the gap between patients, doctors, and health-tracking devices…with ‘the potential to revolutionize how the health industry works.’

With health in iOS 8 you can create an emergency card  with all of your vital medical information ( think blood type, allergies, medications) that’s accessible from your Lock screen.

Despite all of the focus on Apple’s health related initiative before WWDC, the company spent very little time going over the Health app. It is likely we’ll see an additional focus on Health in the coming months as it is likely to also integrate with Apple’s much-rumored wearable device, the iWatch.

SIRI

Siri gets several updates with the ability to be invoked hands-free with the phrase “Hey, Siri” along with Shazam song recognition, 22 new dictation languages, as well as streaming voice recognition to show you guys search results as you speak. In order to preserve battery life, Apple requires that the device be plugged into power for “Hey Siri” to work.

Notification Interaction

When a notification comes up on your phone, from Facebook, Skype, Messages,  Calendar – whatever- you will now be able to respond those notifications without leaving the app you’re already in. Hoo- RAH! Such a small thing, that will make it so incredibly less frustrating than before!

Email 

Now from your inbox, you can swipe to mark an email as read or flag it for follow-up. Jump between a draft email and an email in your inbox super easily, and when you get a reservation, flight confirmation or phone number in an email, a notification appears. Just tap to add an event to your calendar or a phone number to your contacts.

Safari in iPad

Just like above, you can now see all your tabs on your iPad, just like on your iPhone. You can see all your open web pages with tabs from the same site grouped together. There’s also a new Sidebar that slides out to reveal your bookmarks, Reading List, and Shared Links.

Home Button

From any screen, press the Home button twice to see the multitasking interface which now comes complete with a few friendly faces. These are the people you’ve recently talked to and if you swipe to the right — your favorite contacts as well. Just tap one to call, text, or start a FaceTime call.

New keyboards

QuickType is the new predictive text and something we’re sure will change the way we communicate. We can also see it being comedian’s late night fodder for sure, but until then – it’s a clever and useful feature of iOS 8.  As you use the new keyboard over time, it will learn the way you communicate, get to know your favorite phrases, and suggest options for the logical next word that adapts to the current context with the caveat that those words change, depending on who you are talking to. The iOS 8 predictive text engine is optimized for 14 countries.

Apple is also going to allow users to install third-party keyboards for the first time, which means keyboards like Swype can be used natively on the operating system.

Family Sharing

Family sharing is pretty cool. Up to six people in your family can share all kinds of things across their devices. This includes: calendar information and purchases from iTunes, iBooks, and the App Store, (with the ability to pay for family purchases with the same credit card and approve kids’ spending right from a parent’s device.) You will be able to automatically set up a family photo stream where you can share photos, videos, and comments. And everything stays up to date on everyone’s devices.

Family Sharing can automatically share your location with your family members and show you where they are. You can hide your location too… because that’s not suspicious or anything.

iCloud Drive 

You can safely store all your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, images, and any other kind of document in iCloud, access them and work on them live from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC.

Using iCloud Drive means you’ll always have access to the latest version of all your documents from any device.

What’s really cool is that now your apps will be able to share files, which means you can access and work on the same file across multiple apps. The example Apple gave is this: you can create a drawing in a sketching app, then open it in a paint app to color it in. Or create a chart in one app and place it in a slideshow using a presentation app. No more making copies or importing documents from one app to another. It’s a whole new level of collaboration between apps.

Cross platform interaction

Um, what? You can do what now? Yass. Now you can make and receive phone calls on all of your devices and your Mac as long as your iPhone running iOS 8 is on the same Wi-Fi network. Incoming calls show the caller’s name, number, and profile picture. Just click or swipe the notification to answer, ignore, or respond with a quick message. It all works with your existing iPhone number, so there’s nothing to set up.

AND

PERSONAL HOTSPOT WHAT. If you’re out of Wi-Fi range but your iPhone is close by, your iPad or Mac will now be able to connect to your phone’s new personal hotspot to surf the interwebs and all that cool internet type stuff.

 Swift

This is a new programming language that Apple has introduced, which for developers, is pretty dope. For the general population, it’s also pretty dope, but on a different level. What it comes down to for you guys – apps for iOS 8 will be better. Which we like.

Extras We’ve learnt about since the WWDC keynote !

iPads will gain the ability to take Panoramic photos like the iPhone, while the Camera will gain an instant burst mode, a timer mode, and separate controls for focus and exposure. iBooks will support an auto night mode and the ability to organize books by series, while notifications will include travel time.

A mysterious Tips app, which was first depicted in an early screenshot of iOS 8, is also mentioned, though it is unclear what this app will do. It is possible Tips will provide iOS users with information on lesser known iOS features, serving as a tutorial app for those who want to learn the ins and outs of their devices.

So there you go, guys, iOS 8. Overall we’re really quite impressed, and very much looking forward to it’s release in the Fall. Apple developers have access to iOS 8 and will be working on creating awesome apps for the update so we can use the operating system precisely how Apple planned. It will, of course, be free.

The only downfall of iOS 8 – Those of you who have an iPhone 4, it doesn’t appear as if iOS 8 will be compatible. . Soooo… you guys…. have you heard about the new iPhone 6 that’s coming?

Stay tuned for our comprehensive outline of OS X Yosemite – and let us know if you have any questions about iOS 8 and we’ll try and answer them as best we can!!

WWDC 2014

The WWDC keynote began at 10:00am Pacific time at the Moscone Center in San Francisco with an introduction by Tim Cook, however it soon became The Craig Federighi show, with the Senior Vice President of Software Engineering introducing both iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite.

The big theme of the keynote was sharing, from new Family sharing, to the new iCloud Drive, to cross platform interaction, or, ‘continuity’, the ability to use Apple functionality  across iOS Devices and Mac, from phone calls, to messaging, all the way to your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs and images.

Both system updates have a pretty new makeover, with new buttons, icons, transparency and fonts. The acquisition of Beats by Dre wasn’t only briefly alluded to, when Craig Federighi showed how to make a phonecall from his Mac, and called The good Doctor himself. The introduction to the new health app was nice, albeit brief, leading many to believe that a more in-depth look at the app will be coming, as it will have more integration with the rumored iWatch than with the iPhone or iPad.

As many had guessed, no new products were announced, but the amount of subtle and apparent improvements to both system updates were enough – for now.

Stay tuned for a comprehensive run down of all the awesome new functionailty and UI of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite!

WWDC Lands Tomorrow!

Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference starts tomorrow at San Francisco’s Moscone center! The proceedings will kick off tomorrow morning at 10:00 A.M. PST with a keynote speech most likely given by Tim Cook.

In that speech, we’re preparing to hear about iOS 8, OSX 10.10 ( or El Cap as it is believed to be called), as well as a range of other updates and possibly new software products such as the much rumored ‘Healthbook’.

We as consumers won’t see any of the new updates or products for a while, as the conference is used as a chance to have developers, well, do their developing job in time for the update or product’s release to the public months afterward.

There is always a chance that Apple will pull magical rabbits out of their beautifully packaged hats tomorrow, the same as there is always a chance that people will be disappointed if there is only incremental updates to the operating systems.

We’re hoping for the first of those options, and we actually think we might get it this year. We also may or may not still believe in Santa Claus, so there’s that.

But! We’re excited for tomorrow! You can watch the whole keynote on your Apple TV or catch the live stream via Apple. It requires Safari 4 or later on OS X v10.6 or later; Safari on iOS 4.2 or later.

OR you can keep an eye out for our comprehensive coverage of the keynote, with everything you need to know about what was revealed straight from sunny San Francisco!