Hasta La Gadget!

Late last night, Twitter announced it had acquired We Are Hunted, which is a music startup based in San Francisco. The acquisition had many believing a Twitter Music service would soon be launched, which actually has happened, but unfortunately for the average person, there’s no way you can use it right now.

It seems the Twitter Music iOS app has been officially launched, but it isn’t available for the masses and is instead only available to “influencers” at this time. One of the first “influencers” to talk about the service is Ryan Seacrest, which of course he took to Twitter to voice his thoughts on the service. In his message, Seacrest says, “playing with @twitter‘s new music app (yes it’s real!)…there’s a serious dance party happening at idol right now.” Quite the riveting hands-on demo. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Apple EarPods Hit With Lawsuit From Hearing Aid Maker, Braeburn’s acoustic iPhone 5 dock amps your phone’s sound naturally,

Some Apple iPhone and iPod Touch consumers have been up in arms, claiming that the Cupertino company has consistently refused to properly honor warranties and fix faulty devices. It would seem Apple has dealt with the issue, according to Wired, which got its hands on a PDF of the alleged settlement that will be filed in court in the coming weeks.

According to the document, Apple will be settling a class-action lawsuit that was brought against it over what is said to be failure to honor both its standard (12 month) and 24-month extended warranties, neither repairing nor replacing its devices that fail if the white tape located within the device had turned either pink or red.

3M, which makes the tape, has stated that mere humidity can make it turn pink and possibly red. This covers several of Apple’s devices, including the iPhone/iPhone 3G/iPhone 3GS, as well as the 2nd and 3rd generations of its iPod Touch. Several lawsuits have been filed in California against Apple over the refusal to repair, and now many device owners could be seeing a small payout in the near future.

The legal document that was leaked shows the settlement amount at $53 million, as well as the signature of Apple’s Noreen Krall, chief litigation counsel. As part of the settlement, Apple does not acknowledge that it has done anything wrong. Although the settlement is outlined in the document, it isn’t final yet, assuming it is the real deal – it needs to be filed, and a judge need to sign off on it, otherwise it’s back to the drawing board.

[via Wired]

iPhone warranty lawsuit prompts $53 million settlement, according to leak is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We talked about the Smarter Stand for iPad over the summer last year, and the company behind the product ended up shattering their initial Kickstarter goal, reaching over $150,000 in contributions. However, they’re back again, but with a solution for iPhone users. The Smarter Stand for iPhone incorporates a stand and a headphone wrapper in one small package. The Kickstarter campaign ends this Wednesday, April 10, and they’ve already surpassed their original Kickstarter goal of $15,000. However, you can still get in on the action and pre-order one for yourself. However, we ended up getting some samples to try out and see if the Smarter Stand for iPhone lives up to the hype.

First off, this new Smarter Stand has a very unique design. It makes for a pretty good headphone wrapper by itself, but it also acts as a stand for your iPhone, allowing you to keep your headphones wrapped up while you have it propping up your smartphone. However, you’ll have to have your headphones plugged into your iPhone in order to use the Smarter Stand as a stand, since it uses the headphone jack as a fulcrum of sorts. The Smarter Stand has a convenient location to slide the headphone plug into, although it seems to only work best with the stock Apple earbuds (or EarPods, as they’re now calling them). The stand isn’t too friendly with other headphone plug designs, as you can see with my own pair of headphones in the gallery toward the bottom, but it at least still works, albeit not as great as using regular Apple earbuds.

However, what I really like about the Smarter Stand is how it allows for room to feed the headphone earpieces through the middle after you wrapped them up. It’s a small design facet, but it’s incredibly genius and really handy. The two forks at either end also make it really easy to wind up your headphones, although you have to be careful not to wind your headphones up too tightly or too loosely — too tightly can result in destroyed headphone cords, while wrapping too loosely can lead to unwanted unraveling.

As a stand itself, the Smarter Stand works pretty well. Again, you have to have your headphones plugged into your iPhone in for the stand to do its thing, but you can still have your headphones wrapped up if you want, and if you want to utilize your external speakers, you can simply unplug your headphones past that first notch to keep them plugged in, but not activated. Sadly, you can’t adjust the angle of the stand, but it sits at a nice 45-degrees (roughly), which we found to be optimal anyway.

In the end, if you need a simple and cheap stand that also doubles as a headphone wrapper, this is probably what you want. You can get one for as low $9 (plus $3 shipping to US), and it’s made out of flexible, but stiff thermoplastic polyurethane, so while it looks like a cheap accessory, it’ll hold up quite well. However, it only works well if you’re using Apple’s own headphones. You can use other brands, but the stand doesn’t quite work as nicely. It’ll at least work either way, but that’s definitely something to be aware of if you’re planning on backing the project.

The Smarter Stand is available for the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4/4S, as well as all generations of the iPod Touch. As for Android version, the company says that each Android device would require its own exclusive design (which can get expensive), but they’re open to making Smarter Stands for certain Android models if the demand is up.

Smarter Stand for iPhone Review is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google launched its Google Wallet service nearly two years ago, and has since been a great way for Android users to pay for stuff without the burden of having to carry around their wallet everywhere they go. Apple, not to be outdone by Google in its Maps and possible Street View space, is expected to develop its own digital wallet within the next year or two, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.

Munster believes a payment option for iOS users will use a technology that will replace or be in addition to NFC, although its system will work with already existing mobile payment solutions. The mobile payment option is expected to be made available with the iPhone 6 in the first half of 2014. Munster also believe Apple will rely on its iTunes database as it currently holds over 500 million accounts, which the majority of those most likely have credit cards linked. Hopefully if what Munster predicts becomes true, Apple will find an easier way to approve transactions that wouldn’t require iTunes users to input their password every step of the way.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: iOS 7 Concept Reimagines Lock Screen, Text Messaging And More, Apple Patent Hints At Their Own Version Of Google Street View,

Sony’s new combination music player for iPhone/iPod will be released on May 11.

It is Lightning Connector compliant for iPhone/iPod touch/iPod nano out in autumn 2012 or later.

Music can also be listened to through CDs and FM/AM radio as well as from other types of smart devices or Walkman by connecting them to the music player via an audio connecting cord (sold separately).

“Sleep Timer” and “Playback Timer” are other useful functions on this player.　You can go to sleep and wake up to your favorite music.

Price: 17,800 yen
Color: white
Size: 400 × 197 × 114mm
Weight: 2.4kg