Posts tagged: Cool Features

New Apple Releases today!

 

Apple had a bunch of upgrades released today!

 

The new iPad mini, along with a revamped full size iPad, a 13- inch Macbook Pro with retina display and a new superslim iMac update. Let’s have a look!

 

# The 13 Inch Macbook Pro with retina display comes with a hefty price tag – $1699 (With free shipping)- but with over 4 million pixels making the screen pop with vibrant color and amazing quality,  this model being the  lightest Macbook Pro– and with incredible power, storage capability and speed, it is apparently well worth it for professionals who can afford it.

Considered to be very similar in performance to using the 15-inch model that was released over summer, the advantage of the 13-inch is that it is significantly lighter- by almost a pound.

It is generally agreed that Apple are making the Macbook Pro their flagship laptop– the one that elicits all the gasps, the one that is the dream laptop, and according to all sources, they are well on their way.

 

#The new iMac update comes with an all-new design– impressively reducing the thickness of the machine ( 40% less volume than the previous model) , drastically improving the speed of the machine and totally re-engineering the widescreen display.

The new machines come in 21.5 inch and 27-inch displays that have been improved by adding an anti-reflective coating– making it 75% less reflective, and by moving the LCD right up behind the cover glass making the display a lot clearer and brighter.

The machine also comes with 60% faster graphics, a brand new ‘fusion drive’ which combines huge storage capacity with lightening fast speeds. This combined with the latest Intel quad-core processers means that this machine packs a lot of power- and a lot of speed.
The 21.5 inch will be available in November at a starting cost of $1299, and the 27-inch will be available in December at a starting cost of $1799.

 

#With the new iPad mini weighing in at half the weight of the full size iPad (.68 pounds), and the screen being two-thirds smaller ( 7.9 inches rather than 9.7) , the first impressions out is that yes, the mini iPad is small, but it is not tiny or dinky. Having kept the impressive build and feel of the full sized iPad it has the same feeling of the iPhone 5- amazingly light in the hand and yet you still feel like the device is a serious one.

The screen resolution is impressive for it’s size with the same number of pixels present as on the iPad and iPad 2, it has a front facing and back facing camera, up to 10 hours of battery life, a fast A5 processing chip, and all apps made for the iPad are able to be used on the iPad mini.

Apple aren’t really entering into the tablet wars as much as a lot of people thought- rather, they are just releasing an extremely good, smaller version of a very good device. Prices start at $329, with pre-orders starting October 26th.

 

#The fourth generation iPad was also released today, with an upgraded A6X chip that makes it run twice as fast as the previous model whilst still retaining the 10 hours of battery.  It also comes with Apple’s new lightening connecter and and wifi speeds that are up to twice as fast as the previous model.
The new model comes in the same storage and pricing configuration as the previous iPad, starting at $499 for the 16gb wifi models. Preorders start October 26th.

In good guy Apple news, customers who are understandably annoyed that they purchased the 3rd generation iPad within the last 30 days will be able to swap out the two devices at *certain* Apple retail stores at no extra cost. Customers are advised to call ahead because the option to swap the iPads is not made by Apple, but is instead a store by store policy.

And that’s a wrap! We hope you guys enjoy these products if you can!

The Future is Now – Top 5 iPhone Accessories

The Kogeto Dot 360 Degree Panoramic Add-On Lens for the iPhone

 

Yes, your iPhone is cool. Yes, you’re cool for having an iPhone. But wait- there’s more! Here are the top five coolest, craziest, best iPhone accessories for your iPhone.

 

 Be cooler.

 

1. Freeloader Pico Solar Rechargeable iPhone Charger

Everyone knows that whilst your iPhone is cool, the battery life is the least cool aspect. We all want our phones to last for as long as possible before we try and find our charger to make us tied to one spot. This a a great, environmentally friendly accessory to try and fight that tied-down feeling. Using advanced solar cell and lithium ion battery technologies, PICO takes only 30 minutes to deliver its power to your iPhone. PICO can be powered from both its own solar cell or from connection to a PC or lap top (cable supplied). $39.99

 

2. The Kogeto Dot 360 panoramic video

Once this is on your iPhone, you’re free to start taking fully 360 degree videos. This accessory makes your iPhone able to record everything. Everything. Once you’ve captured absolutely everything around you, wherever you may be, or be doing, you can share it with your friends via facebook, twitter etc. It’s like inviting your friends into a 3D version of your life. Started on the website kickstarter.com, this is an amazing app. While it seems futuristic, the future is, apparently, now.

Available in different colours, $49.00

 

3. iPhone Photo Printer by Hammacher Schlemmer

Using nothing other than a free downloadable app and this tiny teeny printer that you dock your iPhone into, you can get brilliant quality photo prints ( 1, 4, or 10 images on each 4 inch by 6 inch borderless sheet) from your iPhone photos. It takes less than a minute and is smudge proof, tear proof, fade and water resistant. Pictures are worth a thousand words right? $159.95.

 

4.Vuzix Wrap 310 XL Video eyewear

This wicked accessory lets you be kinda like a spy, wearing cool dark glasses, sitting there not actually watching what’s in front of you ( like your boring job or boring commute to said job) but instead watching any movie or video on your iPhone or iPad, through your sunglasses. It displays both standard 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios and is super cool. $169.99.

 

5. Microscope lens for iPhone 4 – 3B Scientific iPhone Microscope 100X Magnification

Want to see if you have bed bugs? Or the really tiny little bits of, well, everything? This is for you, and it’s kind of unbelievable that this technology is available. It’s literally an accessory that turns your iPhone into a microscope. You can even take photos of all that microscopic awesomeness and share it with your friends. Around $45 Amazon.

 

Go get ’em.

App of the day – iTranslate Voice

iTranslate Voice

iTranslate Voice

Fervent wannabe linguists rejoice- iTranslate is the best translator app since people realized that lazy people want to speak other languages too. Simply speak your chosen phrase or word into your iPhone, it senses when you stop speaking and not only spells out the phrase in your chosen language but speaks it too.

After lots of trialling by iPhone Antidote, with both American and Australian accents, it understands most sentences and phrases -even obscure- first go, and the translations seem startlingly accurate ( trialled with Slovak, Thai and Spanish).

You can even use it to learn if you’re smart and committed, but for the intended use, translating, the major ( but understandable) problem is that you do need to be connected to the internet to make it work. You would have to have a rather large data roaming plan to use it whilst travelling, but for emergencies, or the chance to ask questions or have a conversation with someone in another language whilst sitting in a wifi-connected hostel, hotel or cafe is unbelievable. On sale now for $0.99

Some Awesome iPhone Shortcuts

A helpful time saving trick for using your iPhone is using shortcuts. Most useful for writing emails or texts, you can for example use the shortcut ‘hme’ and the phone will fill in your prescribed sentence, ” Will be home soon’ or, ‘meets’ for ‘in a meeting right now, I will call you back as soon as I can’ or ‘fce’ for ‘I’m sorry I drew genetalia on your face when you were passed out last night’.

 

So many uses.

 

You can set up your shortcuts on your phone by going to Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts.

 

Just be careful- your friends could read this too and this could happen to you

Cool iPhone Web Browser Features

iPhone Safari Tips

Are you looking to save an image that you have hit across the web suddenly? Well, here’s something that may come handy for you. When you are going through the picture on your Safari browser, simply hold on to the image and you will be prompted with an option to ‘save image.’ Just save it and you can use it as wallpaper or screensaver.

 

Well, the Safari browser also offers some short-cut options—like if you are looking to type a website address, you can easily omit the .com extension in the URL box and land directly into the website page. Also, you can choose the other extensions like .edu or .gov by pressing down the .com button for longer time period.

 

We’ve mentioned it before, but thought it might be handy to mention it in the context of the web browser.  Here is how to take a screenshot! It’s pretty easy—just press down the Home button while taping the Lock button—click! And you have your screenshot.

 

Hope it helps!

How your iPhone can save your life

Your iPhone might Save a Life

 

We all know what your iPhone can do for your social life- let you keep in contact with all your friends, help you meet new ones, keep up with all the new trends, etc. But it is important to know that your iPhone can also literally save your life. Whatever kind of emergency you may find yourself in, there are ways your iPhone can help you – apart from dialling 911- that you need to be aware of.

 

How many of you know CPR? How many of you know it but fear that you ( or the person doing it to you) might freeze up when it came down to it? Firstly, if you don’t know CPR, download the new CPR guide. It’s free, has a step by step how-to guide and has the ability to dial worldwide emergency numbers from every screen.
If it’s the freeze that has you worried, tell everyone you know that is actually trained in CPR and you know won’t freeze to download The Fire Department App. Once they’ve signed up, this app intercepts data from 911 calls and using the iPhone’s GPS, will alert them and anyone in the area trained in CPR– so help can get there faster. It also alerts that person to where the nearest defibrillator is. Invaluable.

 

A fantastic app that you should know about is PanicGuard. This app has the ability to bring great comfort for those who worry about the safety of their daughters/sons/brothers/sisters/friends, etc. All you need to do is set up an account on their website and install the app on your iPhone. If you find yourself going into a worrying or potentially dangerous situation, turn the app on, and PanicGuard will track your movements until you switch it off.
If the potential danger turns into actual danger, just shake your iPhone vigorously and it will begin to emit a very loud alarm and trigger your iPhone’s flash in an attempt to scare off anyone who might be trying to do you harm.
Once the alarm has been activated your iPhone will send a text to your chosen emergency contacts, letting them know that you are in danger and your exact location. The beauty of this app is that once the alarm stops, the phone returns to the home screen to fool anyone else into thinking that the alarm is over. It actually starts recording a short video in case anyone around you needs to be identified at a later time, and uploads the video in case the iPhone is broken or smashed.

 

A less intense, but still important app is Circle of 6, created specifically for college students. This app lets you pick six friends, representing them with icons on your screen which you press in a situation where you might need help. It also sends your exact location to whichever friend you choose. Although this app can also be used for scary situations, they are very useful for situations less serious, and in need of a little subtlety, such as needing to be interrupted on a bad date, needing advice, and needing to be picked up because you had a few too many drinks. All of which are important.

 

Hopefully you won’t ever need your iPhone to save anything except your social life, but just in case, it is very comforting to know that this technology can be in our hands, on hand, to help us if need be.

How to Scroll Up Fast on an iPhone

Tap the top of your iPhone to scroll up fast

 

So just a quick little post today.  Just wanted to let everyone know about a cool little feature that helps page usability on the iPhone.

 

If you are every scrolling down a long list or webpage on the iPhone (or other iDevice) there is a fairly simple way to scroll back up to the top of the page.

 

All you have to do is tap the top of the page on your iPhone.  Check it out in the image above to see what I mean.  All you need to do is tap where the arrow is pointing, and it will actually scroll the entire way back up to the top of the page.  This can be a real timesaver if your looking at a webpage that is seemingly endless.

 

Hope it helps some people!

How to Play Music while your iPhone is locked

Play Music on Your iPhone Lock Screen

 

Simple enough, but an awesome feature if you didn’t already know about it.  There is a relatively easy way to play music on your iPhone if it is on the locked screen.

 

Simply double click home (circular) button and a quick menu will pop up with the last song you were playing.  Simply press play, next or previous to start playing music!

 

The iPhone 5 – Release and Specifications Rumors

Some Possible Specs for the new iPhone 5

 

Listed above in this graphic we made are some of the most prevalent iPhone 5 rumors that we could find out there.  Some ideas may have seemed pretty obvious like a possible larger screen or a new revised form factor for the iPhone 5.  Additionally, it is quite likely we will see either a June or October release date.  Apple has followed this in the past, and it seems likely that they would do the same for the iPhone 5.

 

In line with previous iPhone releases, it would make sense to see the iPhone 5 have a new upgraded 128GB model.  This would increase the size from the current maximum of the 64GB model.  With the passed two iPhone releases both having 720P video, it seems like it would be time to upgrade to the highly anticipated 1080P, Full HD, video recording to stay competitive against other smart phones in the industry.

 

While the iPhone 4S saw an upgrade to the processor, it is still quite possible that we will see an even faster processor in the upcoming iPhone 5 release, although it is more likely we will see some of the other features mentioned first.  Same deal with the camera, while the iPhone 4S saw an improvement in camera quality, the iPhone 5 could add a few megapixels for an even stronger release, likely upgrading to 10MP.

 

Recently, new rumors regarding an in-cell touchscreen for the iPhone have been anounced, leading to speculation that the new iPhone could be slightly thinner than previous generations, making this the thinnest iPhone yet!  Finally, there have been leaked images of iPhone 5 replacement home buttons, which show that the iPhone 5 will have a different body than previous generations (although the home button will actually appear the same).

 

That’s it for now, but stay tuned for all the newest updates with regard to the new iPhone 5!

How to Lock Your iPhone Screen from Rotating

Have you ever been lying in bed, using your iPhone to browse the internet, and you turn over just to have your iPhone’s screen flip sideways?

Lock Your iPhone Screen from Rotating

Apple created a feature in the iOS software to enable the iPhone to switch perspectives if you were to tilt the iPhone over.  This can be really helpful if you actually want the perspective to be rotated, but it can be quite annoying if you are laying down or are otherwise horizontal.

 

Rest assured, however, there is an easy way to fix it.  If you would like to temporarily disable the screen rotation, follow the steps below.

 

First, hit the home button twice to bring up the bottom menu.

Then, slide the menu to the right (to view what is to the left) and click the circular logo with the arrow on it once.

This will change the circular logo to include a lock logo inside of it.

 

Once you have done this, you will be able to lay in bed and read on your iPhone without any worries about the screen changing its rotation.

 

Enjoy!