Apple has 2x or more credit cards on file than Amazon

Following Apple’s most recent earnings report, Tim Cook revealed in a conference call with analyst that there are now more than 800 million iTunes accounts in use and said that “the majority of those have credit cards behind them.”

How does this compare to Amazon, the king of online commerce? Turns out that Apple actually has twice as many credit cards on file than Amazon, at least. This poses a tremendous opportunity should Apple decide to introduce a mobile payment service of its own, as expected…

Leo’s Fortune is the best platformer we’ve played in a while

Ah, the platformer, a genre that has stood the test of time for generations. Once Mario and his brother graced our living room screens, we were hooked on the run-and-jump adventure that platformers offer. After so many decades, it is starting to get hard to tell titles apart. It seems like anyone can make a platform game, but not everyone can make it good.

Leo’s Fortune is a platform game that is visually attractive, mechanically exciting, and filled with complex puzzles that keep you coming back for more…

Angela Ahrendts to join Apple as retail chief next week

During this afternoon’s quarterly earnings call, Tim Cook announced that Angela Ahrendts will be officially joining Apple next week. The announcement was made last October, but Ahrendts has been under contract with her previous job—CEO of luxury clothing company Burberry—until now.

Ahrendts will join Apple as the Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores, a position that has seen significant turnover in recent years. In 2011, Ron Johnson left for a CEO position at JC Penney, and his replacement, John Browett, was ousted in less than a year due to a conflict in strategy…

Aaron Sorkin talks Jobs movie at Tribeca Film Festival

Aaron Sorkin took a moment yesterday to speak about his upcoming Steve Jobs movie. The Academy Award-winning screenwriter was answering questions at New York City’s School of Visual Arts for the Tribeca Film Festival last night when the subject of the Sony-backed Jobs film came up.

Sorkin of course avoided talking about the drama that surfaced yesterday surrounding the picture’s director and cast, but he did offer up a few details about his script. Some of it we’ve heard before—such as his goal to do something other than a ‘Jobs biography’—but there were a few new tidbits…

iOS 7 presents new challenges for theme makers

While the release of a Winterboard update with support for 64-bit devices is very exciting, the entire process of creating a theme has been fundamentally changed because of how iOS 7 is built. The move away from so-called “skeuomorphism” in favor of translucency and vector-based design creates additional barriers that theme makers didn’t face on iOS 6 and earlier… 

evasi0n7 1.0.4 brings security update and fix for Retina iPad mini

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s release of evasi0n7 1.0.3, evad3rs today pushed another update to the iOS 7 jailbreak tool. evasi0n7 1.0.4 provides important untether security updates as well as a fix for the iPad mini with Retina display issues.

This is the second evasi0n7 update in two days. Yesterday’s release was also supposed to provide a fix for the boot loop issue that some Retina iPad mini users were affected by, yet many still encountered the problem. As the evad3rs note, evasi0n7 1.0.4 will hopefully fix this problem once and for all…
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Instapaper goes free as Apple’s App of the Week

Apple has named the popular read-it-later app Instapaper its App of the Week for this week. This means that through next Thursday, you’ll be able to pick up the application for both your iPhone and iPad, for free—a savings of $4.

For those unfamiliar with the app, Instapaper bills itself as the simplest way to save and store articles for reading. You can save content on virtually any device, like a bookmark, and return to it later for reading at your convenience…

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Stephen Hawking’s Snapshots of the Universe released for iPad

Ebook and mobile app publisher Random House Digitalhas released an interesting iPad education app in the App Store. Stephen Hawking’s Snapshots of the Universe, suitable for children aged 9+, uses the work and writings of Stephen Hawking, the famous English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge, to teach students the basic theories of the movement of the stars and planets.

The astrophysicist apparently had a say in the app’s design as he envisioned an app that would help explain the fundamentals of space to both adults and children through fun mini-games. The interactive experience is optimized for iOS 7 with clean and streamlined graphic elements.

Available sections cover the basics of our solar system and let you spin planets in orbit, drop objects with Galileo to learn about gravity, search for black holes in the constellation of Leo, discover Einstein’s warped worldview and G-force in outer space and lots more…

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Apple seeds iOS 7.1 beta 2 to developers: here is what’s new

Apple has released the second beta of iOS 7.1 to registered developers this afternoon. The update, which carries the build number 11D5115D, can be downloaded via Apple’s developer center.

Today’s release comes nearly a month after the first beta, which brought about only a handful of changes including a new ‘ dark keyboard’ feature, and other small tweaks and improvements…

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China Mobile aggressively promoting iPhones and iPads for big launch

Earlier this month, reports surfaced that China Mobile and Apple finally inked a deal for the carrier to begin offering iPhones to its some 700 million+ subscribers. Yesterday, China Mobile confirmed the news, taking pre-orders for the iPhone 5s and 5c.

And it looks like the world’s largest carrier is enthusiastic about its new partnership with Apple, as it has gone all out on marketing materials for the launch. Many China Mobile retail stores have dedicated much of their ad and display space to iOS devices…

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Tank Domination rumbles through the App Store

When I was a little kid, I “played tanks.” That is, I drew a picture of a tank on one side of a blank piece of paper, and then drew another tank on the other side. Then, I’d “pew, pew, pew” as I drew dotted lies across the page, finishing with a nice, scribbly “ka-ploosh” as my Crayola-based ammunitions struck the armored vehicles.

Tank Domination is sort of like playing tanks. Except the paper is an iPad, the Crayola drawings are high-definition graphics, and the “pew, pew, pew” is awesome explosions that look so real it will melt your face off…

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Skype updated with redesigned sign-in screen and other improvements

Microsoft has updated its iOS Skype client today, bringing the app to version 4.1.5. The update brings about a number of improvements including a redesigned sign-in screen, performance enhancements and bug fixes.

The new sign-in screen was designed to reduce startup time so you can start chatting quicker. And it accomplishes this by making it much easier for folks to login to the service with their Skype ID or Microsoft account…

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iTranslate goes universal, adds native iOS 7 iPad UI

I generally dig software by German developer Sonico Mobile. As I’m not a native English speaker, you could imagine Sonico’s free translator and dictionary program called iTranslate is one of the apps I always keep on my Home screen no matter what. I’m happy to report that the team has now produced a universal binary which perfectly adopts to iOS 7 by functionality and design.

The new iTranslate for iPhone and iPad is now available free in the App Store, bringing with it the native iPad interface featuring revamped appearance for iOS 7 aesthetics. Check out the screenshots and additional tidbits right after the break…Read More on iDownloadblog.com

Spotify update brings Browse mode to iPad, lets you follow friends/artists and more

The Swedish streaming music startup Spotify has pushed a new update to its free iPhone and iPad client today. The new Spotify 0.9.1 enables the Browse mode on iPads, while bringing the ability to follow friends and artists, enabling the search/public toggle for playlists on the iPhone and introducing more responsive searching and revamped playlists, along with the usual bug fixes and performance improvements.

Spotify, which received its major iOS 7 update on October 22, two months ago brought out the completely revamped Browse tab. Basically a new way to search for music, Browse taps a simplified interface for finding your favorite artists and albums or discovering new ones with just a few taps.

Browse used to be iPhone-only, but today’s update brings the feature to iPad devices as well while replacing the old What’s New view…

Apple’s gift card only Black Friday deals launch in Australia

Just as we suspected yesterday, Apple’s Black Friday promotion may disappoint even the most ardent of fans as this year Tim Cook & Co. have opted to treat shoppers to Apple Store gift cardsinstead of actual discounts on products. Apple’s deals are now live on its Australian web store and we’re expecting the U.S. Apple Store to come online with the promotion later in the day. The problem with Apple’s gift card-only approach is that these things are redeemable against future purchases only.

As a result, eager shoppers who are on the lookout for real discounts on products, right there and then, will instead need to visit their retail or online Apple Store again in order to actually spend their credit…

How NBA teams are using iPad to improve their game

The Wall Street Journal a month ago revealed that Samsung of South Korea signed a lucrative deal worth a hundred million bucks to provide its tablets and TVs that referees will use to review close calls. It’s part of the Galaxy maker’s ongoing and massive advertising push which includes big name celebrity endorsements, event sponsorships, sports tie-ins and more.

But despite the partnership which moves Samsung into the valuable space so close to the action, Bloomberg is reporting today that NBA is still very much in love with their iPads and has produced a video explaining how NBA uses Apple’s devices to improve their games. More on that right after the break..

Apple reportedly shaking up supply chain to preserve more profits

Apple has long been known for its supply chain prowess, mostly thanks to one man: Tim Cook. Before taking over the CEO position in 2011, Cook was the company’s chief operating officer and oversaw a number of successful product rollouts that garnered impressive profits.

But according to a new report, the iPad-maker isn’t resting on its laurels. Apple is apparently adjusting its supply chain model from having OEMs being responsible for both component procurement and production, to purely production, as it moves to raise its product margins…

Beautiful Apple Store app launches on iPad

Today, Apple has finally launched the Apple Store app for iPad. The iPhone application was released back in June 2010 and all this time Apple has failed to provide the native tablet experience, until today. Apple Store for iPad, available now on the App Store, is heavy on gestures and brings a completely redesigned appearance which feels right at home in iOS 7 and takes advantage of the larger canvas on iPads by putting product images front and center.

The many Apple Store categories are nicely organized and always accessible via a sleek navigation bar which automatically gets out of the way. While the app provides important product description and other meta data, the use of white space and smart design adds up to readability.

Released in time for your holiday mobile shopping, Apple Store for iPad is arguably perhaps the best iOS 7 app Apple has written thus far, and I don’t mean that in a small way. Yup, it’s that good.

Jump past the fold for the full reveal…

Zelda-like adventure game Oceanhorn finally arrives in App Store

This week, Apple gave the iPad Editor’s Choice spotlight to a sweet little 3D adventure game by a small independent company. This mobile adventure is proof that epic and expansive games like The Legend of Zelda can work on iOS.

Oceanhorn: Monsters of the Uncharted Sea is a 3-D adventure game where players battle enemies, solve puzzles, and collect coins while exploring the island of the Uncharted Sea. Get ready for questing in this beautifully rendered mobile game…

Leaked document shows White House in favor of banning unlocking, jailbreaking

The last we heard, things were looking good in the fight to reform out-of-date policies on deviceunlocking here in the US. Last week, the FCC chairman sent a letter to the CTIA saying he’d like to see changes made before the holidays. But don’t get your hopes up just yet.

According to information recently leaked by WikiLeaks, the White House—despite publicly supporting unlocking—has been secretly negotiating a treaty with other countries and special interest lobbyists that would make this and other processes illegal by international law…