Apple

Apple’s Worldwide Retail Takeover In One GIF

Apple opened its first brick-and-mortar store back in 2001, and they’ve spread to pretty much everywhere since, as you can see in this animated map from Business Insider. Is there anywhere you can go where there isn’t an Apple Store nearby? Love ’em or hate ’em, you can’t really escape the warm Apple-shaped glow of…

Our Favorite Android, iOS, and Windows Phone Apps of the Week

Good week? Bad week? Weird week? No matter. You’ll be playing with your smartphone all weekend anyway, so here’s some cool new apps! Multi-Platform Updates Facebook Messenger This week’s teensy weensy update brings two new features to the free app. Groups lets you create a one-tap way to open a new message to the people…

Microsoft Office Finally Comes to the iPad Today, And It’s Free(mium)

It’s coming up on a year since the original release of Microsoft Office for iOS, but in all that time there’s been no iPad-specific version to be found. And now it’s here (for free, to try) as of two o’clock this afternoon, as a gift from Microsoft’s new cloud-guru CEO Satya Nadella. https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-office-for-ios-complete-video-walkthrough-an-513400475 Just like…

Steve Wozniak Tells Us He Can’t Pick An Actor To Play Him—Can You Help?

There are rumors that Christian Bale would play Steve Jobs in the good Jobs movie—written by Aaron Sorkin. But who can play the awesome Steve Wozniak? He’s one of my personal heroes and I’m having a hard time imagining it. So I asked him about his opinion. Here’s his reply: The problem is that actors…

How a 2005 Steve Jobs Ultimatum Turned Into the iPhone We Know

Way back in 2005, Apple engineer Greg Christie was toying around with ideas for a touchscreen telephone. Then, Jobs gave him an ultimatum: show serious progress in two weeks, or someone else gets the project. There’s nothing like a threat to sharpen one’s focus—and Jobs’ demand for ” bigger ideas and bigger concepts” really did.…

Apple’s Trying To Make iOS Emojis More Racially Diverse

After Miley Cyrus quite rightly grumbled about the lack of racial diversity in iOS emojis a long time ago, MTV Act decided to ask Apple what it had done about it. Surprisingly, it turns out, it’s pushing for change! The enquiry—sent directly to Tim Cook!—was replied to by Katie Cotton, Apple’s vice president of worldwide…

How the New HTC One Compares to Its Toughest Competitors

The new HTC One is here, folks! Last year’s model was one of the best Android phones you could lay hands on, but the smartphone world never rests. How does HTC’s big aluminum prizefighter stack up to the competition? We’ve charted all the most important specs and features for you below. https://gizmodo.com/the-new-htc-one-htcs-flagship-phone-gets-a-full-metal-1550634340 As far as…

Apple has begun testing a new “related search suggestion” in the App Store, which may actually help make finding things easier. Because, damn, it couldn’t be much worse right now.

This App Lets You Chat Even When You Have No Reception

It’s not too often these days that an iPhone still surprises you. We’ve more or less seen it all by now. Except, we haven’t. FireChat is a new app that takes advantage of a little-known iOS feature that makes it easy to set up and run a network even when there’s no cellular signal. The…

Apple is adding NPR to iTunes radio, making it the first news station on the streaming service. (Read in your best public radio voice). [Re/code]

Report: Apple Is Negotating a Streaming TV Deal With Comcast

The WSJ reports that Apple is currently negotiating a streaming TV deal with Comcast that would use an Apple set-top-box—ahem, Apple TV refresh—and Comcast’s position as the company that controls a ton of the United States’ broadband infrastructure. https://gizmodo.com/the-one-thing-apple-tv-needs-to-take-over-your-living-r-1547314110 According to the report, negotiations are in very early stages and any deal would be all…

Girl Uses Classic iPhone Prank on Mom to Hilarious Results

A few years ago I told you about an amazing prank you can pull on your friends/co-workers/family. This girl just executed it with beautiful precision on her mother. https://gizmodo.com/ios-5-shortcut-feature-enables-a-hilarious-prank-5855293 Here’s how it works: Go into someone’s iPhone settings and change their shortcuts so that some normal term they would type then automatically changes to something…

Our Favorite Android, iOS, and Windows Phone Apps of the Week

Earth has made 7 rotations since we were here last week. Let’s celebrate with some great new apps! Multi-Platform Updates Timera Timera lets you combine historic and current photos in one image, right from your phone. With a location-based feature to help you find historic image locations and a community of users tagging new locations,…

Report: Apple Is Negotiating an On-Demand Music Service Like Spotify

Billboard reports that Apple has been talking to record labels about potentially launching an on-demand music service that would compete with Spotify and Beats Music. According to the report, the talks are in very early early stages, and as we know, these licensing talks with the major labels can take years—if they materialize at all.…

Just Tap Your Phone On Every Wall and This App Will Draw a Floorplan

It’s not a bad idea to measure a room before you go out and buy a bunch of new furniture. And if you’ve got an iPhone, that becomes less of an ordeal because you can trade your tape measure for this slick app called RoomScan. It automatically generates floorplans by simply tapping your phone on…

Report: Christian Bale Could Star in the Good Steve Jobs Biopic

Still bummed about Ashton Kutcher’s I-kinda-look-like-the-guy big screen portrayal of Steve Jobs? Well hang tight, as Hollywood’s cinematic Bat-Signal for a Real Actor has been answered. Christian Bale is being rumored to take on the role in the upcoming, Aaron Sorkin-penned, project. It’s still early days for the film, but David Fincher is in talks…

I Want These Gorgeous Wood Panels on My iPhone Right Now

Those two little glass panels on the back of the iPhone 5 are a little silly. They look pretty cool, I guess. But what are you supposed to do if they break? It’s definitely not worth getting a new phone. Well, thanks to a sympathetic designer, you now have a very pretty option: wood. Richard…

Look Out For This Dangerously Convincing Apple ID Phishing Scam

Just 24 hours after the world learned about the dangerously convincing Google Docs phishing scam, a security company revealed a very similar exploit involving the Apple ID log-in screen. And, weirdly enough, it’s hosted on EA’s website. https://gizmodo.com/beware-of-this-dangerously-convincing-google-docs-phish-1546278702 Netcraft explained the scam on its blog on Wednesday. It begins with a legitimate EA.com URL that…

A Connected Scale That Adjusts Your Recipe If You’re Low on Ingredients

Is there anything worse than raiding your kitchen for a recipe only to discover you don’t quite have enough of one of the required ingredients? Going to the store is one solution, but for those of us too lazy to go that route, the iPad-connected Drop kitchen scale will actually adjust a recipe based on…

The One Thing Apple TV Needs to Take Over Your Living Room

Apple has already stopped calling Apple TV a “hobby.” It’s too important now to the company’s future, and too successful in its own right. But the thing that pushes Apple TV into your living room won’t be any one box redesign or killer app. It’ll be the remote. https://gizmodo.com/why-apple-tv-just-became-apples-most-important-product-5931185 You can find the full case…