Win one of 11 remaining Google Play Gift Cards - or a bonus Nexus 4!
We had the best of intentions, really. Thirty-one days in December, 31 days of contests. But -- surprise, surprise -- holidays and birthdays and sick days caught up with us. We've already given away some 20 Google Play Gift Cards worth $10 each. And now, with but hours to go before we here in the U.S. tip over into 2013, we're finally going to wrap this contest.
Those of you who made it a little further in your math studies than we did might note that we've got 11 Gift Cards to go. And since tonight is the party night of the year, let's just get it all done in one last major contest, shall we?
First, a quick reminder that all 31 winners are also in the running for a free 16GB Nexus 4, courtesy of us. If you've won one of the daily contests, or win one of the final 11 Gift Cards, you're automatically in the running.
But let's sweeten the pot, shall we? We're going to give away a second Nexus 4, and we're going to do it in this final contest.
Early adopters will have something to crow about in the new year. LG has just announced its 2013 television lineup, which will be headlined by a massive, 84-inch 4K and 55-inch OLED sets. More »
Microsoft has shared some news about the state of its most and least loved Web browsers -- Internet Explorer 9 and 6, respectively. Even with IE9 only recently exiting beta, Microsoft reports that 3.6% of Windows 7 users are now running the new browser (no mention of Vista... what's with that?). The post also reveals that the adoption rate is almost five times what IE8 garnered in the early going.
It's also interesting to note that there are now more than 1,000 sites utilizing Internet Explorer 9's Windows 7 integration features -- like the new desktop notification support we showed you in Hotmail.
But perhaps the best news of all is that Microsoft's IE6countdown.com now has more than 400 partners and is generating nearly two million pageviews per month, helping to lure users away from the woefully out-of-date browser. Can the end come soon enough, DS readers?
Historically, Android is usually open-sourced via the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) a few days or weeks after the code is finalized. While this departure from the norm won't affect OEMs like HTC and Motorola that have access to internal builds of Android, small-time developers will likely have to wait months before rolling their own distributions.
As to why Google is holding back Honeycomb, its reasons are actually rather rational. Honeycomb, while originally intended to run on all mobile form factors, is only ready for deployment on tablets. "To make our schedule to ship the tablet, we made some design tradeoffs," says Andy Rubin, the head of Google's Android group. "We didn't want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones. It would have required a lot of additional resources and extended our schedule beyond what we thought was reasonable. So we took a shortcut."
In other words, Google wants to prevent OEMs and homebrew developers like Cyanogen from rolling their own smartphone versions of Honeycomb -- it doesn't want to see the same bitter-tasting tabletified bastardization that occurred with Android 2.1 and 2.2 last year.
Evernote, the popular multi-platform 'digital memory' app, has done some serious re-tooling of its Web interface. In addition to a more polished UI that more closely mirrors the look of Evernote on the desktop, the update brings features like notebook stacks and snippet view to the Web.
Auto-saving is now enabled as well, and you can select multiple items by holding down the Cmd or Ctrl key on your Mac or Windows keyboard. If you've got items stored in your notebooks that you want to share with friends or co-workers, Evernote has improved that process, too. You can quickly post an item to Facebook, share it via email, or generate a Web sharing link to paste into an IM conversation or status update.
The Chinese government issued a set of new Internet rules on Friday. Internet users must now provide their real names to service providers, and ISPs are required to delete forbidden posts and report such activities to authorities. In other words, the so-called "Great Firewall of China" has been further fortified.
You can't win 'em all, right? Sure, 2012 saw its share of high points, but there were plenty of missteps along the way from companies both large and small. Unfinished products, serial delays, lawsuits and layoffs -- after the break, we've got a list of some of the not-so-pretty moments in tech.
The new iPad has the same battery life as the iPad 2. This may strike some as peculiar because the iPad 3 has a new more highly-powered battery. However, although the battery does carry more juice, this is offset by the new features of the iPad 3 which require more power, for example the high-definition Retina display and the 4G connectivity. That said, the new iPad battery life is still perfectly reasonable and is suitable both for casual at-home use [...]
Recently, Google has been busy beefing up Latitude to make it more competitive with other location apps -- and more fun to use. Location history was added recently, iOS users can post check-ins via Latitude, and now Google has begun rolling out location-based deals which are tied to the service.
If you're in the U.S., you can now score local savings at participating merchants by checking in with Latitude. Google will also be offering "status deals," which users can unlock by visiting a particular merchant on a regular basis. Mashable notes three status levels: regular, VIP, and guru -- though partners can apparently customize those titles if they choose.
Right now deals are available from merchants like American Eagle Outfitters, Arby's, Finish Line, Macy's, Quiznos, and RadioShack.
Using some early numbers from both StatCounter and Net Applications, Mozilla's noisiest hominid, Asa Dotzler, has illustrated Firefox 4's meteoric rise to around 5% of Web browser global usage share. Internet Explorer 9, which launched two weeks ago, seems to be enjoying a much more casual stroll in the park with just 1.5% of the global Web usage share.
Interestingly, we can see IE9 dipping between March 20 and 21, just before the 'Important' Windows Update rolled out. It's hard to say whether IE9 is only growing because of the installed-by-default Windows Update, but that small dip definitely sticks out -- did excitement peter out? Did people download IE9, try it out, and summarily uninstall it? Perhaps, given their close proximity, the stats show an attention shift from Microsoft to Mozilla?
Numbers-wise, if the bottom left corner of the graph shows 2.3 million downloads for IE9, we can guesstimate that that it has now been downloaded 5 million times. Firefox is clocking in at 37 million downloads after five days of public availability.
We wonder whether Microsoft knew its release schedule would coincide so closely with Firefox 4. Internet Explorer 9 -- a great browser by almost every metric -- was never going to do well against anything emanating from the maws of Mozilla. The main thing, though, is that Microsoft has now shown that it's serious when it comes to the Open Web. If Internet Explorer 10 is good, and 11 and 12, then we might finally see it compete with the zealous Mozillan horde.
Rejoice! No longer will you have to fork over $700 for a Photoshop CS5 license! Adobe has unveiled a new subscription scheme where you can rent the entire Creative Suite, or individual packages, by the month, or for an entire year.
Adobe Photoshop can be yours for $35 per month if you agree to rent it for 12 months, or $49 per month if you require its services for a shorter period. Dreamweaver can be had for even cheaper, at just $19 per month. The entire Master Collection is still rather expensive, though, at $125 per month.
Today, Adobe also ushered in the release of Creative Suite 5.5, and simultaneously upped its release cycle from 18 months to 24 months. This means, if you rent Photoshop for two years, it's actually the same cost as buying it outright. There's no rent-to-own option, though -- so you wouldn't have access to the cheaper upgrade price once Creative Suite 6 rolls around next year. Still, if you need access to Photoshop, After Effects or Premiere for a one-time project, the new rental scheme could be exactly what you're looking for.
In other news, Adobe has announced that it will be launching three rather exciting iPad apps that work in conjunction with Photoshop: Eazel, Nav, and Color Lava. Eazel lets you five-finger paint on your iPad, and export the result into Photoshop; Nav acts as some kind of workspace, brush and menu extension, and the hopefully named Color Lava is a paint mixing palette. The apps are expected to appear in the App Store in the next 30 days.
With Windows 8 milestone 3 now up for grabs for select Microsoft Connect partners, it's inevitable that leaked bits and pieces will start popping up around the Web. In fact, the first "official" wallpaper image from the still-brewing OS is already making the rounds.
As you can see, it's got a similar feel to the good ol' Windows 7 default background, but features a more subdued smattering of cerulean hues. Those of you who want to use the Windows 8 wallpaper on your current desktop can download it from our file dump.
A few other details have been revealed, too. According to ZDNet's source, the Windows 8 Jupiter libraries and Twin UI are starting to take shape -- though all that's been located thus far are "[various files] scattered throughout the OS" and the aptly-named twinui.dll.
The latest Apple operating system, iOS 5.1, to hit devices is pre-supplied with the new iPad. the new Os has been designed to fix a few bugs that were previously identified with iPads and iPhones, and also beings better battery life and WiFi connectivity. There are also a host of brand new features which are available on the new iPad 3. The Camera App The new camera is a massive upgrade on the iPad 2 and is something that many [...]
Rejoice! No longer will you have to fork over $700 for a Photoshop CS5 license! Adobe has unveiled a new subscription scheme where you can rent the entire Creative Suite, or individual packages, by the month, or for an entire year.
Adobe Photoshop can be yours for $35 per month if you agree to rent it for 12 months, or $49 per month if you require its services for a shorter period. Dreamweaver can be had for even cheaper, at just $19 per month. The entire Master Collection is still rather expensive, though, at $125 per month.
Today, Adobe also ushered in the release of Creative Suite 5.5, and simultaneously upped its release cycle from 18 months to 24 months. This means, if you rent Photoshop for two years, it's actually the same cost as buying it outright. There's no rent-to-own option, though -- so you wouldn't have access to the cheaper upgrade price once Creative Suite 6 rolls around next year. Still, if you need access to Photoshop, After Effects or Premiere for a one-time project, the new rental scheme could be exactly what you're looking for.
In other news, Adobe has announced that it will be launching three rather exciting iPad apps that work in conjunction with Photoshop: Eazel, Nav, and Color Lava. Eazel lets you five-finger paint on your iPad, and export the result into Photoshop; Nav acts as some kind of workspace, brush and menu extension, and the hopefully named Color Lava is a paint mixing palette. The apps are expected to appear in the App Store in the next 30 days.
Samsung is running a promotion on its official Facebook page that lets Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy SIII (S3) users get their hands on a free flip cover and set of 6 TecTiles for registering their device. All you have to do is head to the Samsung Facebook page, click the "Holiday Offers" button and then follow through to register your device. While quantities last, you can get some free swag for giving Samsung a little information about yourself. You'll need an active Facebook account and authorize the Samsung "app" for your page, but that's about it.
Registering your phone with the manufacturer may already be something you want to do, so might as well get something free for it, right? Head to the source links below to get your own.
Falcon Pro (for Twitter) pitches itself as "the ultimate Twitter experience on Android," and while one can usually take these app-store hyperbole laden statements with an idiom-laden statement -- in this case a grain of salt -- there is one thing that I'm looking for in a Twitter client that Falcon Pro promises.
In news that will no doubt shake the very bedrock of your belief system, Apple has asked Toyota to remove its Scion theme and its advertising from ModMyi, a Cydia repository. The Scion theme has been available for weeks, but after it received a ton of press in the last couple of days, Apple finally lashed out.
It's not like we should be surprised, considering Apple has claimed in the past that jailbreaking is illegal -- but at the same time, did the Cupertino cronies hear about the ruling that made circumventing DRM, and thus jailbreaking, legal? Anyway, whether Toyota was supporting illegal, legal, or deliciously gray and ambiguous, activity, it doesn't matter: Apple asked Toyota to remove the theme, and Toyota graciously bent over and capitulated.
This story raises a much more interesting topic, though: this is the first time a multinational company has publicly acknowledged and embraced the jailbreak community. Considering jailbreaking is technically legal, and Cydia's creator, Jay Freeman, estimates that up to 9% of OS devices are jailbroken, it simply makes good, commercial sense to target jailbreakers with ads. Toyota was simply trying to make some money, for shame!
As long as Apple continues to throw around its increasingly-expansive mass, the legality of jailbreaking will continue to be inconsequential. It will be interesting to see if another big company dares embrace the jailbreak community after this, too.
The App Store is flooded with apps, both good and bad, so it can be overwhelming to decided which apps you're going to spend your hard earned cash (or gift cards) on. Stress no more! We've gathered up some of our all time favorite iPad apps that we believe to be worth every penny.
1Password 4
1Password is not only one of the best apps for your iPhone, but one of the best for your iPad, Mac, and PC as well. With 1Password, you can say goodbye to using the same, insecure password for all your logins all over the internet and instead give each login its own individual secure password yet only need to remember one password to gain access to them all.
1Password is not just extremely useful and practical, but it's very well designed and gives the perfect combination of functionality and beauty.
Apple's built-in Calendar app on the iPad is great and all, but if you yearn for something different, Calendars by Readdle by be just what you're looking for. This full-featured calendar app will sync with Google and iOS Calendar and has a great design. Calendar has support for custom repeating events and feature special keyboards for different entry elements to make it quick to enter events. You can also swipe between screens (something that you surprisingly can't do with the built-in Calendar app) and the week and day views feature a visual/spacial design that many users consider a must-have.
Tweetbot has been one of our favorite Twitter apps for quite some time, now. It's perfect for the power tweeter, with useful features like intuitive gestures, granular notifications, and flexible mute filters all wrapped up in fun sounds and a great design.
One of the great advantages to the iPad over the iPhone is that it's larger screen is awesome for photo editing -- especially on the Retina iPad. Camera+ was originally an iPhone photography app that focused on taking better photos, but it's come a long way since then and now includes great tools and sharing options for the iPad. And if you use an iPhone, your photos will seamlessly sync between Camera+ on your iPhone and iPad.
The iPad is a great device for editing videos and creating movies, but with the restrictions of simply shooting video and trimming clips, the built-in Camera app doesn't give you much flexibility, but iMovie does! iMovie is a fantastic video editor because it's super easy to make fun videos in just a matter of minutes. Videographers may yearn for more, but for everyone else, iMove is an excellent video editor for the iPad.
If you own a printer, Foldify will make it fun again. If you don't own a printer, Foldify will make you seriously consider rushing out to get one. The reason for that is Foldify's ability to project itself from the iPad, where the app runs, to the real world, where the app's results live. The idea is remarkable simple -- draw one pre-defined templates, then print them out, fold them up, and enjoy real, touchable, arrangeable models of what you made. The execution is even more remarkable, because the developers managed to keep the app as simple as the idea, and that's no easy feat.
Weather 2x is an absolutely gorgeous weather app for both the iPhone and iPad. The included gestures are perfect and intuitive and the information is displayed and organized in a very elegant manner. If you're in the market for a full-featured weather app that includes everything under the sun, then Weather 2x isn't for you, but if you're looking for a beautiful, minimalist weather app that brings the most important information to you in an elegant package then Weather 2x may be exactly what you're looking for.
Instapaper is one of the most popular read-later services on the web and iPad that saves web pages and articles for offline reading and is optimized for readability on your device's screen. It offers a distraction-free text only environment with the ability to adjust fonts, text sizes, line spacing, and margins to truly satisfy your specific reading needs. You can save articles to Instapaper via a bookmarklet that you save in Safari or from one of the many Twitter, reading, and social apps in the App Store.
If you use Google Reader, you want Reeder - plain and simple. It's an RSS reader that will sync with your Google Reader account and present your feeds on a beautiful and clean interface. You can also choose to sync with Fever and Readability and Reeder allows you to share to nearly every social service out there.
Instacast 3 is the all new version of Vemedio's popular iPhone and iPad podcasting app. With it, Vemedio has switched out a lot of old methods for newer technologies like automatic reference counting and Core Data to make Instacast better and faster. Alongside these fancy new technologies is Instacasts new Cloud sync. Instead of using Apple's iCloud to keep your podcasts in sync, the folks at Vemedio put in a lot of work to create their own. All you need to do to use it is sign-up for a free account and all your data will be seamlessly moved to the cloud. If Apple's free Podcasts app isn't up to your needs, give Instacast a whirl.
Byword is a text and Markdown editor that focuses on being simple, distraction free, and beautiful. It's available on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac and can keep all your work in sync via iCloud or Dropbox. It also features a special keyboard with a swipable row at the top that includes selective word and character counters, a tab key, smart paring characters, and undo key, Markdown helpers, and more.
Notability is a full-featured handwriting app that you can use to take notes, annotate PDFs, and more. The inking in Notability is quite beautiful and taking the tiniest of notes is a breeze with the zoom window or by simply pinching-to-zoom into your document. In addition to handwritten notes, Notability allows you to add text and record audio notes. It also feature a convenient auto-sync feature with Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, or WebDav so that you can be assured that your notes are always backed up and accessible from anywhere.
Some people poke fun at the idea of taking photos with an iPad, but Scanner Pro offers an unarguably awesome use for the iPad's camera -- the ability to scan documents and store them as PDFs. The resulting scans look just like a job done by a scanner, not a camera. Scanner Pro features an auto-edge detector that is very accurate and will help fix any distortion that you may have capture by not taking the photo from directly above the document. It also syncs with iCloud, Dropbox, and more to ensure that your documents are accessible from any device.
Want to create posters, write papers, design spreadsheets, and create presentations? Apple's iWork suite consisting of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote has go you covered. All three of these apps are universal for both the iPhone and iPad and sync over iCloud with their Mac counterparts.
This really is just a short list of fantastic apps out there, and we know there's some other great ones that have been left out. That's where you come in! What are the best paid apps you have installed on your iPad and use regularly? Let us know in the comments below!
