Riding the orgiastic iOS 5 debut, Foursquare’s pushed out Radar. And it’s a gamechanger, quite literally: It upends the basic social contract of Foursquare and harbinges the near-future of location-based social networking. And it’s going to be weird. More »
With iCloud, you can now watch angst-ridden but sexy vampires on any iDevice, anywhere
Amidst the deluge of software launches from Apple yesterday, it was easy to miss an update to the company’s “hobby,” the Apple TV. Version 4.4 of the set-top box’s OS is rather conservatively named, as it comes with many iOS 5 features.
AirPlay Mirroring
Before, you could stream video and audio content to the Apple TV from an iOS device via AirPlay. Now, with the iPad 2, the Apple TV supports AirPlay Mirroring, which lets you mirror the entire screen of the iPad 2 on the TV connected to the Apple TV.
Photo Stream
The Apple TV now acts like any other iOS device, and any photos added to your Photo Stream on an iPad, iPhone, iPod, Mac or PC will be pushed to the Apple TV. Smart, as a big screen is a great place to share photos. The Apple TV will keep only the latest 1,000 snaps you have taken.
Trailers
You can now browse and watch movie trailers, just like you could do in Front Row all those months ago. Tip: if you don’t have an Apple TV, and use the U.S App Store, you can grab the free Trailers app for your iOS device.
Hockey
What’s to say? Live streaming of mullets and fights joins baseball and basketball on the big screen.
WSJ Live
Watch the streaming WSJ Live channel on the big screen, just as if you were watching regular TV.
There are also bug fixes and small additions (extra slideshow transitions), but the big thing is probably the integration of iCloud. The Apple TV already lets you stream previously-bought content. Now it has Photo Stream, and when iTunes Match launches later this year, the promise of no longer needing a computer at all will come a little bit closer.
Apple TV product page [Apple]
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We’ve heard plenty of you are receiving various error messages while attempting to install iOS 5, and some of us haven’t had much luck either. But have you been able to upgrade? Let us know in the poll below, and jump past the break to sound off in the comments.
Poll: Have you upgraded to iOS 5? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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iOS 5 is finally here on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Now what? With the flurry of features and updates being dropped today and yesterday the whole thing can be a confusing mess. Here’s the best way to get up to speed and enjoy Apple’s latest iOS. More »
SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Location-based startup Foursquare today unveiled a new app feature that allows users to discover nearby places of interest based on their likes and dislikes.
Dubbed “Radar,” the feature sends push notifications to your iOS 5-based iPhone when you’re in the neighborhood of a place you’ve been meaning to visit. Radar is based on your existing Foursquare “lists” of favorite places, so instead of suggesting restaurants or stores you’ve never heard of, the app will notify you that you’re close to some place you actually want to visit. Foursquare tied Radar to Apple’s launch of iOS 5 on Wednesday, which finally brought strong push notification technology options to Apple’s mobile platform.
Sound familiar? It is. After Facebook’s 2010 launch of its “Places” feature – which offers many features similar to Foursquare’s service, including check-ins — it seemed as if Dennis Crowley’s small 80-man startup was all but dead in the water. Similarly, Facebook’s “Deals” program offers a location-based deal notification service much like Foursquare’s daily-deals program, created in partnership with LivingSocial.
“We weathered that storm,” said Holger Luedorf, Foursquare VP of mobile and international, in an interview, noting that Facebook recently shuttered its deals program while Foursquare’s remains strong. “Honestly, we’ve recently announced over 1 billion check-ins, with a user base of over 10 million people. That’s already huge, but we’re focused on growing even more and not spending time worrying about our competitors,” Luedorf said.
Currently, Radar is available only to iOS 5 users, but Luedorf says an Android version is currently in the works. The upgraded app is currently available via Foursquare’s web site.
Find My Friends, Apple’s your-friends-are-now-live-dots-on-a-map social network, is here! Do you like the idea of seeing the location of everyone you care about, constantly? Does this idea completely terrify you? Either way, take my hand, and let’s use it right. More »
Now well into its fifth year of life, iOS has always been known for its exceptional polish — and also, its glaring feature holes. But, just like clockwork, each year since its 2007 debut, those shortcomings have been addressed one by one in a sweeping annual update. In 2008, the platform was opened up to developers giving us the App Store, 2009 saw the introduction of copy and paste — which we’d argue is still the best implementation to date — and last year “multitasking” finally made a presence. So what has Apple chosen to rectify in 2011? Well, for starters, notifications gets a complete overhaul with Notification Center, tethered syncing dies at the hands of iCloud and messaging gets a do-over with the birth of iMessage.
If you recall, we first got acquainted with iOS 5 in May after downloading the developer preview, but how does the final release stack up? And does it have the chops to compete with the latest from Mountain View and Redmond? After drudging through seven betas, we’re ready to conquer all that the final release has to offer, so join us, if you would, past the break.
iOS 5 review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Even if you were one of those Apple fans who was less than impressed by the iPhone 4S, there is still reason for excitement — and that reason’s name is iOS 5. If you’ve got an iPhone 3GS, 4, third- or fourth-gen iPod touch, or either of the iPads you can download Apple’s latest and greatest mobile OS right now. That’s right, all the fun new features like pull-down notifications, iCloud, iMessage, Find my Friends, Twitter integration and lock screen access to your camera will be at your disposal. Sadly you will not be getting a taste of Siri, which appears to a 4S only feature for now. Still, there’s more than enough here to make it a worthy upgrade to your device. So, what are you waiting for? Go hit that update button now.
Update: Just so you’re aware, you’ll need iTunes 10.5 installed to get the latest iOS. There’s also an update to OS X coming down the pipes — version 10.7.2 — which officially delivers iCloud to your Mac. Huzzah!
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
iOS 5 and OS X 10.7.2 available for download: get your iCloud and iMessage on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The new iOS 5 goes live soon, bringing with it revamped notifications and more than 200 new features for your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. These are the top ten, and then some more. More »
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