Late last week, I was looking for an RSS reader that had been updated for iOS 8. I couldn’t find any that I liked on the App Store, so I decided to give Digg a try. Yes, that Digg. I know that to many people that name may sound like a joke, but, as it turns out, the new Digg run by betaworks is a great service with a very good iOS app.
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As Opening Weekend iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Sales Top 10 Million, We Look Back at Previous iPhone Launches
This morning, Apple issued a press release announcing that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have sold more than 10 million units in their first three days of sales after launching last Friday in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK.
“Sales for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus exceeded our expectations for the launch weekend, and we couldn’t be happier,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We would like to thank all of our customers for making this our best launch ever, shattering all previous sell-through records by a large margin. While our team managed the manufacturing ramp better than ever before, we could have sold many more iPhones with greater supply and we are working hard to fill orders as quickly as possible.”
10 million units sold over the opening weekend is a new record for iPhone sales. Last year with the iPhone 5s and 5c Apple sold 9 million units and in 2012 Apple sold 5 million units of the iPhone 5. In fact, Apple has consistently beaten their opening weekend iPhone sales every single year.
The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will also launch in another 20 countries this Friday, September 26. Those countries include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.
Apple: Record 4 Million Pre-Orders of iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 Plus Made in 24 Hours
Apple announced this morning that they had seen a record number of first day pre-orders with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, with over 4 million pre-ordered in the first 24 hours. Apple notes that the demand well exceeds the initial pre-order supply and many iPhone customers aren’t scheduled to receive their iPhone until October. There will be some additional stock at Apple retail stores and mobile carrier stores on Friday.
“iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are better in every way, and we are thrilled customers love them as much as we do,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Pre-orders for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus set a new record for Apple, and we can’t wait to get our best iPhones yet into the hands of customers starting this Friday.”
The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be available from this Friday in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK.
The two iPhone models will also launch in another 20 countries on the following Friday, September 26, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.
Kickstarter: Lunecase - A Unique iPhone Case with a Wireless Notification System
Here’s a unique product looking for funding on Kickstarter, the Lunecase by Concepter. It’s “an intelligent case that receives notifications from the iPhone. Powered by electromagnetic energy. Wireless, smart, elegant.”
So what’s so unique about another iPhone case? For starters, the back has a built-in notification system that displays an icon for both incoming phone calls and SMS messages – all without using a drop of the device’s battery. Lunecase does this with the help of LEDs, as it uses free energy that is emitted by the device, converting it from the iPhone’s electromagnetic energy into a usable energy to power the notification system embedded in the case. Read more
Cathode Brings the Vintage Terminal to iOS
Your favorite customizable terminal app for the Mac is now available for iPhones and iPads, letting you wirelessly connect to any computer offering SSH access. The app gives you lots of control over its vintage look and feel, letting you change color, lighting, “shape,” and your choice of retro bitmap fonts. For iPad owners, the app supports Bluetooth keyboards, and works in both portrait and landscape orientation. Cathode supports multiple sessions and can automatically connect to nearby computers using Bonjour. For the geeks out there, Cathode costs a cool $5.99 from the App Store.
GoodReader Gets a Big Update for iOS 7
GoodReader is the missing file manager for the iPhone[1]. It virtually eliminates the compromises you have to make on a mobile device by allowing you to download files from the web; view and arrange documents, photos, music, and video into folders; and connect to local servers over Wi-Fi or your Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive, WebDAV, or FTP server on the web. Conveniently, you can connect to GoodReader over your local network to grab files by plugging in an IP address on your Mac or Windows box.
GoodReader’s most immediate change is their update interface, which puts all of the most used tools in a tab bar at the bottom of the display. The two tabs you’ll likely use the most are WiFi and Connect, which starts a WiFi transfer or lets you grab files from the web. Otherwise, a tools button in the top right of the file browser brings up the usual action sheet for selecting files, creating new text documents, creating folders, renaming files, opening files in other apps, etc. In short, everything’s a lot easier to find[2].
Tossing an album onto your iPhone? GoodReader finally lets you listen to audio in the background while you read or do other things on your iPhone.
Images copied in the clipboard can be pasted as a file in GoodReader[3]. Look in the second page of tools for the paste command when an image is copied to the clipboard. The opposite is true as well: you can copy images to the clipboard to paste into other apps like Mail. Images can now also be imported / exported directly into and out of GoodReader, so multiple photos can be saved to your camera roll at once for example. This can be incredibly useful for shuffling files from your iPhone between multiple online services, like Dropbox and a hosted web server.
Various improvements to PDFs have been added across the board, such as faster rendering for certain files and the ability to flatten (embed) annotations as they’re emailed prior to sending. And while GoodReader itself doesn’t require iOS 7, GoodReader will open iWork 2013 files for those that are running Apple’s the latest iOS.
The iPad and iPhone versions can be purchased separately on the App Store, each version costing $4.99. Links below:
- What I mainly use GoodReader for: if I purchase an eBook on the go, I can paste the download link into GoodReader, which will usually suck down a ZIP file since all the DRM free formats are there. I can unzip the archive, send the EPUB to iBooks, and send my other files to my computer or to a service. You don’t have to manage much on OS X if you use something like Hazel so MOBI files are automatically dropped into your Kindle the next time you plug it into your Mac. As a nice bonus: iTunes doesn’t mediate anything. And you can apply this system to a lot of things, such as music downloads if you make purchases on anything outside of iTunes or Amazon (i.e. Bandcamp) or even documents a friend might share with you from Dropbox or SendSpace. ↩︎
- Remember when you had to visit that red web downloads folder to get files from the web? ↩︎
- Part of the problem is that images are often linked to other web pages, and the Copy action in Safari copies the URL the image links to, not the actual image itself. Unless you can get to the root of the image on your iPhone or iPad, getting to images on mobile is not as easy as right clicking and selecting “view image” on a desktop browser. ↩︎
#MacStoriesDeals - Monday
If you’re still new to iOS 7 and want to check out or tips, previews, and news, check here. Here are some great #MacStoriesDeals today! You can find us as @MacStoriesDeals on Twitter.
#MacStoriesDeals - Friday
On the heals of iOS 7 and new iPhones, here are some great #MacStoriesDeals! You can find us as @MacStoriesDeals on Twitter.
iPhone 5c: Everything You Need to Know
During today’s media event at the Apple Campus in Cupertino, California, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller, took the stage to announce the iPhone 5c. The iPhone 5c is Apple’s first plastic-bodied phone with a 4-inch screen, is shaped like the iPod touch, and is also Apple’s first iPhone that’s available in an array of bright colors. The 16 GB iPhone 5c starts at $99 on contract.