Devices Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

China becomes the world's top smart-device market

by Mike Schramm (Feb 18th, 2013)

China is one of the fastest-growing markets for smartphones in the world, and here's some data that further reinforces that trend. According to mobile marketing firm Flurry, China has now overtaken the US to become the top smart-device market in the entire world. The country been moving up on ...

Tekserve CTO speaks out on the trouble with managing iPad business migrations

by Mike Schramm (Feb 12th, 2013)

Macworld has a fascinating interview up with Aaron Freimark, the CTO of NYC's well-loved independent Apple retailer Tekserve. Freimark's current job is to help companies do something we've talked about here quite a few times before: implement iPhones and iPads into their business ...

Getting your iOS screen clean on: wipin' secrets

by Erica Sadun (Feb 12th, 2013)

In this world, there are those who don't let a little grease and grime bother them. And then there are those of us who buy bulk cleaning products at Costco and carefully tend to our oleophobic screens, caressing and conditioning our babies. Guess which group TUAW blogger Kelly H. belongs to? ...

Bloomberg blames iOS device thefts for NYC crime rise

by Mike Schramm (Dec 28th, 2012)

Crime in New York City is trending slightly upwards this year, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg has picked a strange culprit to blame the rise on: Apple's iOS devices. In his weekly radio show, the mayor pointed out that New York City was home to 108,432 "major crimes" this year, which was 3,484 ...

Apple wins patent rights to new curved glass process

by Mike Schramm (Dec 26th, 2012)

Apple has been granted patent rights for a new process using high temperatures to shape and mold a curved glass casing, similar to the one currently on newer Samsung devcies, as opposed to the very flat screen found on the iPhone 5. This exact patent doesn't have a huge influence on Apple's ...

Woz predicts that in 2013, iOS devices are headed to work

by Mike Schramm (Dec 17th, 2012)

Apple's co-founder Steve Wozniak often appears here on the pages of TUAW for doing some silly things like joking around with Stephen Colbert or starring in an iOS game. But the man's still got a great mind (and a lot of experience with technology), so when he makes some predictions for 2013 ...

Audiobus claims to mix audio sources on your iOS device

by Mike Schramm (Dec 10th, 2012)

We've seen before that iOS can be very powerful in terms of producing audio, but there's one big drawback, and it's that iPhones and iPads are still only designed to be used for one task at a time. If you want to do more than one task at a time (like combining beats with a synth, or processing ...

Nielsen reports that iPad is most wanted this holiday season

by Mike Schramm (Nov 20th, 2012)

Nielsen has released its annual report on which electronic goodies consumers in various age groups are looking for this Thanksgiving. Once again, Apple products are claiming most of the top of the list. Kids in the US aged 6-12 are looking for an iPad as the number one item under their ...

Sword of Fargoal 2 and the iControlPad 2 both head to Kickstarter

by Mike Schramm (Sep 17th, 2012)

Two big followup iPhone projects are looking to Kickstarter for funding. First up, the developers of Sword of Fargoal 2 have launched a US$50,000 campaign. The first game in that series was a relatively early hit on iPhone. The sequel has a much larger scope and is expected to hit several ...

Apple prompts developers to prepare apps for China

by Mike Schramm (Jun 14th, 2012)

We've mentioned before that Apple has big plans to sell devices and computers in emerging markets such as China, but this year's WWDC has moved the plan from Apple selling hardware to its developers trying to sell apps as well. If you saw the keynote on Monday, you probably noticed that Tim ...

51% of households in the US own something made by Apple

by Mike Schramm (Mar 28th, 2012)

According to a new survey put together by CNET, over half of all households in America now contain something made by our favorite company in Cupertino. Over 55 million homes in this country own something that Apple makes (whether that be a computer, an iOS device, or an Apple TV), which means ...

Thoughts on Messages, FaceTime and an open standard

by Mike Schramm (Feb 25th, 2012)

So here is an interesting read for this weekend: It's about Messages, how they've just made it across to the desktop (in beta form, sure, but coming soon in final version form), and how they sort of "compete" against FaceTime in Apple's messaging domain. Writer Trevor Gilbert's suggestion is that ...

Apple patents new method for water detection

by Mike Schramm (Feb 21st, 2012)

Apple has submitted a patent that describes a better method of detecting water in an electronic device. In other words, Apple has devised a way to know if your iPhone has been in a pool (for example) before you try to return it to an Apple Store as defective. The patent describes a method of ...

Mass Effect 3 getting an iOS game

by Mike Schramm (Feb 7th, 2012)

Mass Effect 2 got its own iOS game when it was released on the traditional consoles a few years ago, and since Mass Effect 3 is due out in another month or so here, you probably won't be surprised to hear that EA is again planning another iOS game tie-in for the release. This time around, though, ...

GameStop iOS trade-ins a big success

by Mike Schramm (Dec 29th, 2011)

GameStop recently started taking trade-ins on iOS hardware, and it turns out the decision was a great one for the company: President Tony Bartel said in a statement that the program "has exceeded our expectations," especially citing lots of post-holiday traffic, as people bring in their old ...