iOS 7 is the besterest

iOS 7 is getting kudos and awesomeness from all kinds of places! Heck yes!

The guys over at Pfeiffer Consulting have released the results from their yearly Mobile OS User Experience Benchmarks (which smartphone is the besterest to use).

And guess what? Oh… yeah, it’s in the title.

iOS 7 was found to be the best user experience, scoring a total of just over 73%, with the closest competitor being iOS 6 on 60% and 57.25% for Android.

When conducting the study the company looks at the following:

*Cognitive Load

*Efficiency

*Customization

*User experience Friction

See all the scores below! Also, check out the full report here.

What do you guys think?

For realz, this is gotta make Apple feel like this…

Images courtesy of  9to5mac, cbc.ca & sfgate.com

Apple crediting iWork & iLife purchases!

Did you purchase a new iOS device after September 1st, but just before Tim Cook announced that all new iOS devices purchased would come with iWork and iLife apps for free?

Did you buy apps from iLife or iWork and then kicked an Apple voodoo doll cos you felt ripped off?

Were you perhaps confused about it all and bought the apps anyway not thinking they were actually going to be given out for free?

GOOD NEWS!

Apple have begun to send out emails to eligible users that did any of the above letting them know not to worry kiddies, their iTunes accounts will be credited for the money they spent on the apps that were supposed to be free!

If you think that you should have received an email and you haven’t yet, you get right on that phone and call Apple! 800-275-2273

Here’s the official email from  Apple.

Dear iTunes Customer,

On September 10, 2013, Apple announced that iPhoto, iMovie, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers iOS apps are now available as a free download on the App Store for qualifying iOS 7 compatible devices activated on or after September 1, 2013.

Our records indicate that you purchased one or more of these apps on or after September 1, 2013 so we have provided you with the iTunes code below in the amount of $5.34.

This credit can be used towards the purchase of any content on the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBooks Store. Detailed instructions for redeeming the code can be found at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1574.

Code: [redacted]

Thank you and we hope you enjoy using this credit towards your next purchase on iTunes.

Regards, iTunes Customer Support

For full iTunes Terms and Conditions click here:http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/ww/

Apple courtesy of Macrumors. Image courtesy of Appleinsider.

National Geographic Photographer lurves the iPhone 5s

National Geographic photographer Jim Richardson went to Scotland ( lucky, cos Haggis and Irish whiskey is awwwwesome) and he took his iPhone 5S.

Uh…and?

AND he took a bunch of photos and said that the camera on the 5S is really, really sahweet. We may be paraphrasing.

He said this exactly:

“With intense use (I’ve made about 4,000 pictures in the last four days) I’ve discovered that the iPhone 5S is a very capable camera. The color and exposures are amazingly good, the HDR exposure feature does a stunningly good job in touch situations, the panorama feature is nothing short of amazing—seeing a panorama sweeping across the screen in real time is just intoxicating. Best of all it shoots square pictures natively, a real plus for me since I wanted to shoot for Instagram posting.

Once I figured out what the camera could do well I began to forget all the things it couldn’t do at all.
While the iPhone 5s still uses an 8-megapixel camera, it utilizes a sensor that has a 15 percent larger surface area, which means it will produce higher quality photos in low-light conditions. It also has a 5-element lens with an aperture of f/2.2, an improvement over the iPhone 5’s f/2.4 aperture and the pixels are larger, at 1.5 microns, for better light absorption. All in all, the iPhone 5s has a 33 percent increase in light sensitivity.”

Have you got an iPhone 5S? How are you finding the camera?

Check out Jim Richardson’s blog post on National Geographic here, or follow him on Twitter @jimrichardsonng

Image courtesy of Appleinsider.

Deal of the day!

This is an awesome deal.

AT&T are offering the OtterBox Pursuit Series Waterproof Box in small or medium at a knockout price!

Instead of $25 for a small or $40 for a medium, you can now get 3 for $11 or 1 for $5 PLUS FREE Shipping.

Whaaaaaa!

Yup. Go here and here! Do it!

Beware, we’re not sure how long this deal is going to be around, and there have been rumors of some people’s orders being cancelled. So cross your fingers and hope for a pretty, cheap as chips Otterbox on it’s way to your house!

High five!!

Images courtesy of Att.com & Grandfather.com

Who wants to win a shiny Gold 5S? Anyone?

GUYS GUYS GUYS

Wanna win a brand new shiny iPhone 5S? In GOLD?

UH… D’UH? It’d be a bit weird if you didn’t, just saying.

The wonderful tech website 9to5Mac are teaming with a vinyl skin manufacturing company, dbranc inc. to promote their wares, which are all pretty awesome, and to give away an unlocked gold 64Gb iPhone 5S.

That’s right! You’ll also get a bunch of gold skins to use on any of your other devices to make them look fancy and shiny so they don’t feel all left out and jealous of your new phone.

To Enter: Make sure you’re following @9to5mac on Twitter and retweet the competition post or reshare it on Facebook.

Not this post, although, you can do that too, but it should be their post that you share. You’ll find it here.  And the share button is alllll the way down the bottom. 

Good luck! Actually, guess what we just decided. If we win, we’ll just give it to one of you guys. Deal?

Image courtesy of VH1, Sonny Radio & 9to5Mac

Facebook Privacy Change is a comin’

This is going to be a quick one, guys, because going on and on and on about Facebook privacy changes is important but kinda boring, and no doubt you’ll see it repeated many times on your newsfeed.

But just in case you don’t we felt you better know!

Facebook is getting rid of a privacy feature that let users limit who can find them on the social network.

With an announcement on Thursday, Facebook announced that you will no longer have control over whether users can find you when they try to search for you.  The feature is called “Who can look up your timeline by name?”

For those who didn’t have this setting enabled would have, with their eagle eyes, seen it disappear last December, but those who have had it enabled will start to see removal notices in the coming weeks.

According to the Facebook guys, only a single digit percentage of the almost 1.2 Billion people on it’s network used the setting, so they’ve decided to take it away as a privacy option.

So if you had the tick box that let you hide from search enabled, uh, sorry? Now people will be able to see that you have a Facebook account. But keep in mind these words from Michael Richter, Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer.

“The best way to control what people can find about you on Facebook is to choose who can see the individual things you share.”

It’s important to remember that if you care about your privacy in relation to the information you share on you Facebook Profile, you should check and update your privacy settings often.

The ‘Friend’s Only’ option is your… friend. Friend.

Image courtesy of Facebook & Seattle Wolf.

Deals of the day!

Alright alright alright! It’s deal time!

We scoured the world ( internet) for you guys to try and find some really good deals, and we found a couple! Yay! Time not wasted!

 

You guys want to keep those shiny iPhone shiny and non-stinky right?

 

There’s differing opinions on the worthiness of protection cases, but if you’re into ’em, then this is a pretty good deal.

 

Tanga has an OtterBox Commuter Series Case for iPhone 5/5S (black, purple, or white) for $12.99. Shipping is $3.

Check it out here.

T-Mobile changing the way we travel with phones?

WOAH WOAH WOAH WOAH WOOOOOAH.

This is pretty groundbreaking stuff, and we don’t want to startle you guys but, it’s pretty hella exciting.

T-Mobile has announced a new way of doing things. Something that (we hope) will change how other carriers do things in the future as well as change how we travel.

CEO John Legere has dropped a few hints on Twitter – “Today is the day! The day we change the way the world uses their phones!”

And then they did. So here’s the deal.

Starting October 20 for new customers and October 31st for existing customers, T-Mobile’s Simple Choice Plan, will include unlimited 2G data in 115 countries, free texts, and calls for only 20 cents per minute, all without signing an annual contract!

We don’t know about you guys, but this is something we are really excited about. 

Traveling internationally with your phone is always super useful and yet also really annoying.Previously, there has just been too many choices, and none of them were good.

Do you choose to try to buy a local sim in each country? Or one sim to rule them all that kind of works and costs a bajillion dollars? What about using your home sim and being really careful until you forget and start playing online mushroom wars drunk one night in Sofia?

Thanks to T-Mobile, now you don’t have to worry about it!

The international data comes at no additional cost as long as you’re on the Simple Choice Plan, and unlimited free texts and 20 cent phone calls will be an additional $10/month. This addition will also enable unlimited calling to landlines on over 70 international countries.

Take a look here to see what countries are included and all the extra details:

And remember, this means you can use your smart phone overseas, SAHWEET, but it doesn’t mean you always should. C’mon, don’t be that guy. Or the guy who travels with a guitar. We hate that guy. Sorry guy.

All the cool teenagers have iphones

Are you a cool teenager? Do you have an iPhone? Well, uh, sorry, cos we’re sure this might not be what you want to hear and all…. but you’re now in the majority!

According to a survey administered by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, 55% of teenagers now use an iPhone. This is up compared to 48% in an April survey and 40% this time last year.

“Our most recent semi-annual Teen survey demonstrates that Apple remains the most popular tech brand amongst teens. As of Fall 2013, the iPhone represented nearly 55% all phones used by teens and the iPad family remained at close to 70% share of tablet ownership.

We believe that while Samsung seemingly had some momentum with teens over the past year, Apple’s brand and product quality has enabled it to remain the top choice for teen consumer electronics.”

Here’s the table of results straight from the sauce!

Mmmmm… sauce.

We mean… yay Apple! Way to keep ahead in one of the most important demographics!

And take THAT other smartphone companies for suggesting, like we know you have, that Apple products are for uncool parent type people!

Hey! Everyone’s cool in our books! As long as everyone accepts Bill Murray as their cool King. K? K.

Image courtesy of Rogerfields.com, foodnetwork.com & Imgur.

iPad mini for the WIN!

You guys remember a little while back, cloud streaming company Agawi released results from Touchmark benchmarking on Smartphones?

You know, when they test to see which smartphone had the best response time, starting from when your fingertip hit the screen to when the response happened?

The one that the iPhone 5 smashed like plates on anti-plate day?

This one. 

Yeah, that’s the one.

Well they’ve done it again- this time for tablets. And guess what?

The iPad mini and the fourth-generation iPad have the most responsive touch screens! Booya!

In the tests, Agawi tested both iPads, the Microsoft Surface RT, the Kindle Fire HD, the Nexus 7, the Galaxy Tab 3, and the Nvidia SHIELD.

Apple’s iPad mini was the most bestest and Samsung’s Galaxy tab 3 was the least bestest of them all. Sad Face Samsung!

There are the results, thanks to Agawi:

Seems like being the bestest at screen response time is becoming a thing for iOS devices. Kinda like wearing hypercolor in the 90’s. That was iPhone Antidote’s thing we were bestest at. Now our thing is buying stinky iPhones.  There’s a path there somewhere.

What do you guys think, have you used several tablets and experienced a difference in screen response time?

Image courtesy of macorg.com