It’s been a busy week filled with amazing iPad drawings, new patents, acquisitions and iBeacons everywhere. Check out our round up below of all the best news you may have missed this past week.
WSJ: Apple acquires social analytics firm Topsy for $200 million
According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is acquiring Topsy for $200 million. Topsy is a social analytics company that provides tools to mine social media conversations and gauge public sentiment. It pulls its data from Twitter, Google+ and other social networks.
Artist creates unbelievably realistic finger-painting of Morgan Freeman on iPad
Kyle Lambert is an incredibly talented visual artist, who recently posted an amazing video of him making a finger-painting of Morgan Freeman on an iPad.
Apple kicks off free holiday shipping, publishes shipping deadlines
Apple is gearing up for the big holiday shopping season with a shipping guide for shoppers who want their iPads, iPhones or Macs before December 24, 2013.
Android vs iOS: State of Software Updates
Apple’s rollout of iOS updates is known to be much better than Android, which involves layers of intermediaries that delay or prevent rollout of new updates. A new chart by Fidlee.com highlights the disparity between the time an iPhone and an Android device receive software updates.
Apple awarded facial recognition patent that could be used to unlock iPhone, hide messages and more
Apple was today awarded a patent by the USPTO that describes a face detection and recognition system to control a personal computing device like an iPhone or a Mac.
You can now buy iTunes Gift cards from PayPal’s Digital Gifts Store
PayPal has just launched its Digital Gifts Store, and has kicked it off by offering iTunes Gift card.
Apple offering eight free songs for the Holidays in Apple Store app
Few months back, Apple started offering free content in the Apple Store app. Apple seems to have rolled out an over-the-air update for the Apple Store app to offer eight free songs to “keep humming throughout the holidays.”
iBeacon Technology used to offer free location-based Newsstand magazines
iBeacon in a new addition to iOS 7 that wasn’t highlighted much during keynotes, but holds a lot of promise due to its ability to deliver extremely precise locations indoors, where GPS usually fails. Exact Editions, a UK based company, is using this technology to let users download select magazine titles for free in certain areas.
Are you having problems with iPhone 5s’ Touch ID?
The Touch ID is great when it works, but a number of iPhone 5s users have complained that the fingerprint sensor fails to recognise the correct print on the first try. Today a new post by Dr. Drang speculates as to whether the iPhone 5s’ Touch ID fingerprint recognition gets worse over time.
WSJ: Apple and China Mobile finally ink a deal for the iPhone
It’s been a long time coming, but it appears that Apple may have finally inked a deal that’ll bring the iPhone to China Mobile. According to the Wall Street Journal, the iPhone will go on sale starting December 18 with the Chinese carrier. This news is not surprising as it has been rumored for months. The final hint was the report that a China Mobile subsidiary recently started accepting pre-orders for the Apple-branded iPhone 5s and 5c.
The Steve Jobs of China says the iPhone is the best smartphone available right now
Xiaomi is a tiny Chinese handset maker that prides itself on making highly affordable devices, selling them online, and creating an Android skin called MIUI. Lei Jun, the CEO of Xiaomi, often gets called the Steve Jobs of China because he’s copied both Jobs’ look and the presentation style. And in a recent interview, Jun called the iPhone the best phone on the planet.
Hackers now have an incentive to release iOS 7 Jailbreak
Evad3rs, the group of hackers that have released evasi0n jailbreak for iOS 6 – iOS 6.1.3 have confirmed that they’re working on the iOS 7 jailbreak. They now have an added incentive to release the jailbreak for iOS 7, not that they needed one. A new website has been launched called isios7jailbrokenyet to crowdfund the Device Freedom prize for the hacker or hackers who release a jailbreak for iOS 7 first.
iOS 7 now installed on 74% of iOS devices according to App Store metrics
iOS certainly has a leg up on Android in the software update department. While only 1.1% of Android users are on the latest version of Android 4.4 KitKat, a whopping 74% of iOS users are running iOS 7.
According to Associated Press, Apple will be rolling out iBeacon technology in its retail stores today. Apple has apparently rolled out an over-the-air update for the Apple Store app, which enables the ability to receive in-store notifications from iBeacon transmitters in Apple retail stores.
Watch Siri and Google Now go head-to-head [Video]
Siri was introduced more than two years ago, and it has learnt several new things over the course of these years, most recently learning to toggle settings like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth etc. Google Now, Google’s answer to Siri, had a late start, but has picked up pretty quickly, thanks to Google’s expertise in parsing raw search queries.
App Store now has One Million iPhone and iPad apps
Nearly a year ago, the App Store crossed 1 million approved apps, but out of them only 700k apps were live. Today, the App Store has reached a million live iPhone and iPad apps.
