Tag: iPhone / iPad / iOS

Scout By TeleNav #1 Navigation Application In Apple App Store

Scout

Scout, the turn-by-turn navigation solution from TeleNav has landed in the #1 spot in the Navigation Category in the Apple App Store. Also, as we speak right now is climbing it’s way up the charts in “Top” free applications sitting at the #4 spot.

If you’re an iPhone user and unaware of Scout, here’s the chance to get familiar. The free version of Scout provides voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation along with personalized GPS navigation that gives you information that is needed in a fewer clicks.

Scout also comes with:

  • My Dashboard – Get home faster with personalized commute times
  • My Places – Save and share the places you love
  • My Search – Find it faster as Scout learns your friends, favorites and recent places
  • My ETA – Let your family and friends know when you’re going to get there by sharing your ETA
  • Traffic – Avoid traffic without distractions
  • Nearby – Discover things to do near you, including restaurants, food, cheap gas, music and movies with one tap. Discover and plan ahead online at www.scout.me and sync your favorites between the website and the app.

Now stop playing around with other navigation applications and download Scout for iPhone now. You can follow this link to download the app. Scout is also available on Android!

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins Talks iPhone

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BlackBerry CEO, Thorsten Heins speaks on Apple’s iPhone in an interview with Australian Financial Review and feels “The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about is now five years old”, in other words he feels it’s outdated.

Heins did acknowledge “Apple did a fantastic job in bringing touch devices to market”, he also stated, “They did a fantastic job with the user interface, they are a design icon. There is a reason why they were so successful, and we actually have to admit this and respect that.”

Technology on smartphones has advanced in the last few years and consumers are always looking for the next best thing and Heins feels “the rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly.” BlackBerry can relate as the company took a big hit once touchscreen devices became the new standard.

“One area that the new BlackBerry phones had surpassed the iPhone was in the ability to multi-task-running multiple apps at once” said, Heins. This allows for users to work on their smartphone as if they were working on their laptop or desktop. Read more

BlackBerry Secure Work Space For Android And iOS

BES 10

BlackBerry is opening their doors to Android and iOS with a security solution for both work and personal data on mobile devices, BlackBerry’s Secure Work Space. Managed by BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES 10) users will have a solution for third-party platforms. These solutions will provided secured client applications for e-mail, calendar, contacts, tasks, memos, secure browsing and document editing.

An update for BES 10 will extend BlackBerry security capabilities for data-at-rest and data-in-transit. It will also, provide separation between your work and personal data on your device.

“With BlackBerry Balance technology, we offer the industry’s only true compromise-free separation of work and personal data and applications,” said David J Smith, EVP, Enterprise Mobile Computing. “With Secure Work Space for iOS and Android devices, we’re extending as many of these features as possible to other platforms, critical in today’s Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) world. BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 offers administrators a single, intuitive platform enabling them to effectively and securely manage a variety of devices while protecting their corporate assets and at the same time providing employees the flexibility they desire.”

Secure Work Space is a solution that enables customers to save considerable effort and expense, as they would no longer have to configure and manage expensive VPN solutions.

BlackBerry feels they offer a very “secure and reliable solution” with their Secure Work Space and that it’s a “clear choice for enterprises and governments” to support BYOD policies.

Beta testing for Secure Work Space is already in testing and official availability will be offered by the end of the second quarter. More details we will made available at the BlackBerry Live conference in May.

 

Quick Review: LifeProof iPhone Fre and iPad Nuud

Lifeproof freLifeProof has been in the case game for a few years now. They advertise their cases as being water, dirt, snow, and shock proof. I caught up with the folks at LifeProof at CES this year and took a look at what they had to offer now. They graciously sent me some review samples to put through the paces. This review has been a long time coming, but I wanted to be fair and honest with it, so I used both cases for over a month before deciding to jot down my thoughts. Well, here it goes…

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iPhone 5S Could Arrive In August

iPhone5S

When it comes to Apple releasing new devices the company is usually on point with sticking to their production cycle. According to rumors Apple is looking to release the iPhone 5S this summer, in the August time frame.

With the iPhone 5S it’s said to have the same design as the iPhone 5, but with a better processor and improved camera. That isn’t shocking considering Apple’s history of S devices.

There is also talk about an April launch for the next generation iPads. There hasn’t been much talk about either the iPad 5 or iPad Mini 2, other than back panel leaks.

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Hop Back Into Time With The TimeHop App

Timehop

What if there was a way you could look at old pictures, Facebook posts, tweets, and places you’ve been to all in one app?

Timehop for iPhone allows you to just do that. With Timehop you’re able to look back at what you were doing on todays date going back as far as your online history allows. The app pulls data from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram and Flickr.

Timehop Social Networking

Timehop is very easy to use, you just connect to social networks you use and the app does the rest from there. For example, if you posted a year ago today to your Facebook and tweeted a picture, Timehop will pull your post and tweets of just that day for you to see.

If you want to share what you did years ago you’re able to do that too. You can share via SMS, email, Twitter or Facebook. You can even post it to Timehop so your Timehop friends can enjoy the memories.

To see what your friends have shared you tap on the icon that resembles two people and that will take you to your friends feed. There you can like or comment on their shared posts.

Timehop Image

When it comes to using Twitter, if you tweet heavily you’ll need to take some extra steps for in order for Timehop to be able to grab all your tweets from pervious years. You can follow this link to see how to do it.

As a user of Timehop, it’s interesting to see what you have done in years past, pictures I have taken and even places I’ve been. The app has pretty much become a part of my morning ritual. Wake up, check my emails / messages and brush my teeth while looking over Timehop.

Timehop is only available for iOS, but if you don’t have an iPhone you can head to their website and give it a try via email. To download Timehop just follow this link, to give it a whirl. To access via email go to www.timehop.com.

Amazon Cloud Player Version 2.0 Optimized For iPad

Amazon

Amazon has updated their Amazon Cloud Player to version 2.0 for iOS users. The new version has been redesigned to be compatible with Apple’s iPad and iPad Mini. The update also brings a new interface for users and adds a new setting that allows you to configure the size of the cache that is used for storing your music locally.

If you’re not familiar with Amazon Cloud Player, users are able to upload their music to a cloud service and stream it directly to their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. Cloud Player even scans your music library, searches for matches in the Amazon library and upgrades your files to a high quality copies much like Apple’s iTunes Match.

The free version of Amazon Cloud Player allows users can import up to 250 songs for free. Music purchased from Amazon does not count in the 250 song limit. If your library is bigger than that you’ll need to purchase a premium account, which is $25 a year and allows your library to contain up to 250,000 songs.

 

Facebook Update For iPhone Allows Free Phone Calls In U.S. And Canada

Facebook Calls

Facebook for iPhone received an update today that added the features from the standalone Facebook messenger app. If you have a U.S. or Canada based Facebook account you can make free phone calls to your Facebook friends from the message screen. In addition a new button design allows for easier liking, commenting and sharing posts in the news feed.

Facebook Button

To make a Facebook call, simply tap on a friends name in the chat menu, tap the information button and another screen will appear allowing you the option to make a call if the other party is available

 

Qualcomm Set To Address LTE Fragmentation

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In the wireless industry, when you hear fragmentation the first thought is usually Android. In reality fragmentation exists in just about every form. Take for example LTE. LTE is marketed to us all as a high speed form of data communication and one day will also carry our voice calls.

LTE technology is very fragmented. What we mean by this is that world-wide there are 40 different frequencies used to transmit data over LTE. Anyone familiar with the latest Nexus 4 device knows it is missing LTE and this fragmentation is one of the reasons. We are a global society these days and a device needs to work world-wide in addition to being able to be sold around the globe. A close look at Apple’s iPhone 5 demonstrates this issue. There are three version of the iPhone5 to support the various LTE bands. To keep costs low Apple would like to just produce one device that works across the board with carriers world wide. This was the case with the iPhone 4S.

Qualcomm is set to bring LTE euphoria to device manufactures by releasing a chipset that supports all 40 bands. This will allow less expense for over all production. Instead of a manufacturer having to create 7 models for various carriers they can create one and just set the device to the proper frequencies. These chips will be available to manufactures in the second half of 2013.

For more information on the chipset you can visit Qualcomm via this link.

 

 

Scout For iPhone Adds Location Sharing

Scout Logo

Scout for iPhone users, just keeps getting better as an update to the app has been released that allows users to share their location with family and friends and also send turn-by-turn navigation.

If you want to share your location you can with a tap on your iPhone screen. You can choose to share via text message, e-mail or Facebook.

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The best part about sharing your location with family or friends is that they don’t have to have the Scout app. The shared location has a link to Scout’s HTML5 browser-based turn by turn navigation. As long as the person you are sending the location data to has a smartphone with iOS, Android or Windows Phones they can fully interact

“We’re always on the go – whether it’s our morning drive to work, taking our kids on an adventure for the weekend, or going out with our friends,” said Dariusz Paczuski, general manager of Scout at Telenav. Being able to easily discover local bands and venues, share them with our friends, tell our friends that we’re on our way, and know when they’ll arrive, are great examples of how we’re focused on making Scout even more helpful and more personal for each of our users.”

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The update will also allow for you to share your ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) by sending out a text message through the app when you set your route. Scout even takes into account real-time traffic data.

TeleNav also updated their Scout.me homepage so that it is easier for users to search, save and share venues with family or friends. When saving favorites to your Scout.me account they will also save on your Scout app for you to access later.

If you don’t have Scout, check out the video below to see how it works and you can follow this link to the App Store to download the app and check it out yourself.

Skype Rolling Out Video Message Feature

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Skype began rolling out a video message feature that allows you to sent a video of up to 3 minutes to your Skype contacts. Think of it as video voicemail. It is being made available for Android, iPhone / iOS and the Mac platform. You read that correctly, no Windows Phone support. It seems Microsoft owning Skype doesn’t mean Windows Phone is included in the first round.

While this is a nice add on you are limited to only sending 20 of these videos before needing to upgrade to a premium account. I really think this wont be a widely used feature as it is easy and free to send video in apps such as Tango.

Look for this update to show up over the next week.

Need A Last Minute Valentines Idea? Scout Has Your Back

Scout_valentine_promo

Our friends at Scout have posted a slot machine of Valentines Do’s and Don’ts. Head over to this link and take your spin and leave with a few ideas and some great advice of what not to do.

After three spins Scout will direct you to a list of local ideas for today. Enjoy the day and get out.

Be sure to download Scout for iOS or Android to get you around town tonight with free turn by turn voice navigation.