MacRumors iPhone and iPad Blog: Apps, News, and Rumors

Microsoft has released an upgrade to its Xbox Live app, changing the name to Xbox SmartGlass and dramatically expanding its functionality. Microsoft announced SmartGlass earlier this year, aiming to turn a mobile phone or tablet into a second screen to compliment Xbox content.It allows Xbox owners to remotely control their media, navigate through the Xbox dashboard, and more -- including the...

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has sold through its initial stocks of the iPhone 5 in India following the device's launch there on Friday, but the company was said to have delivered only 10,000-15,000 units for the first wave of sales.“We were sold out within 24 hours of launch. It’s all gone,” said Himanshu Chakrawarti, chief executive of The MobileStore Ltd., a retailer that...

Apple has begun selling its Lightning to Micro USB in the United States for the first time. The adapter, originally released to European customers because of EU requirements, allows users to charge their iPhones using commonplace micro USB adapters.With the adapter, iPhone 5, iPad mini and 4th-generation iPad users will be able to charge their devices with some of their existing cables....

Just hours after the iPad mini went on sale, car audio specialists are already installing it in the dashboards of cars. This example, first noticed by 9to5Mac, was installed in a 2012 Toyota Corolla by Soundwaves of Tampa.The install uses the iPad mini to play Pandora and iHeartRadio through a previously installed audio system. However, because the iPad mini with LTE isn't yet available, the...

iPhone5mod is continuing its rapid pace of development on unauthorized Lightning-compatible accessories today, introducing a new direct plug 30-pin dock connector adapter and a Lightning to micro-USB adapter. Both of these products are substitutes for official Apple products, with iPhone5mod's 30-pin adapter available in both black and white and priced at $15.90, compared to Apple's official ...

AT&T has launched a free online storage service for iOS that allows users to automatically upload and backup images and video. AT&T Locker, which competes with Dropbox and other online backup services, includes 5GB of free storage with upgrades to 30 or 100GB available.AT&T Locker provides users the ability to upload images and video to secure online storage and quickly share on Facebook,...

According to Apple's iCloud System Status page, 8% of iCloud users cannot currently use any iCloud service except mail or iChat. The site gives no suggestion of a cause for the outage, nor a timetable for fixing it -- other than to say services will be restored as soon as possible. On Tuesday, iCloud experienced a widespread FaceTime, iMessage and Game Center outage that lasted nearly two...

Apple has started selling the Nike+ FuelBand (in two new colors) in Apple Retail Stores and the Online Store in the US, Canada and the UK. In some ways it's surprising that it took this long for Apple to begin carrying the wristband which launched early this year; we noted Monday that Apple likes to carry app-enabled accessories.Apple CEO Tim Cook is a Nike board member and noted fitness...

iPad sketchbook app Paper, an Apple Design Award winner, has been updated with a clever new color picker that lets users "mix" colors like they would mix different color paint together. The app also adds support for the Pogo Connect stylus, an $80 drawing tool that uses Bluetooth 4.0 to determine how hard an artist is drawing and Paper adjusts accordingly.The Verge has more on how the new...

Over the past few weeks, we've been covering a few of the recent unofficial Lightning accessories that have been surfacing into the void left by Apple's decision to wait until early November to begin bringing most of its official accessory partners up to speed on the new connector for the iPhone 5, iPad, and iPad mini. iPhone5mod seems to be one of the fastest-moving companies releasing...

Angry Birds Star Wars will be released on November 8th, but today we get our first view of actual gameplay. The game plays like the standard Angry Birds, but with a Star Wars-themed twist. The video shows birds using the Force and wielding a light saber to smash the Darkside-using Pigs.Typical for Rovio games, Angry Birds Star Wars will be available for iOS and Mac....

'Which?', a UK-based consumer advocacy organization, has performed some research and determined that Apple's claims about the lightness of the iPad Mini appear to be accurate. The device is roughly the same weight as some heavier notepads, and is lighter than a can of Coke or a loaf of bread: So there it is; the iPad mini isn’t quite as light as a pad of paper – at least our non-spiraled...

Sprint today became the last of the three major U.S. iPhone carriers to report financial results for the third quarter of 2012, revealing that the carrier sold 1.5 million iPhones for the third straight quarter.The Sprint platform postpaid subscriber base grew for the tenth consecutive quarter, with net additions of 410,000 driven by a postpaid Nextel recapture rate of 59 percent and best ever...

Loren Brichter, the creator of the Tweetie client for Twitter that eventually became the official iOS Twitter app, has created a new word game for iOS that combines tactics from a number of different classic games -- but creates something new at the same time.Letterpress combines the word-finding skills of Boggle with the ability to steal positions and block your opponent that's straight out of ...

Apple's iPad comparison page shows the spec details between the iPad mini, iPad 2 and iPad with Retina Display. Of interest, the iPad mini supports Siri while the iPad 2 does not, despite sharing the same Dual-Core A5 processor as the iPad 2. Before the launch, there was some speculation that there may have been technical reasons why the iPad 2...

Apple has been slow to support the myriad of LTE networks used by cell carriers around the globe. The company only supported Verizon and AT&T in the U.S., and several Canadian carriers when the LTE iPad launched earlier this year, leading to complaints over Apple's marketing of the device in a number of countries.Today, during the announcement of the fourth-generation iPad, Apple briefly...

At today's media event, Apple announced an update to its iBooks app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The updated iBooks app will feature a new continuous scrolling option, support for more than 40 languages including Korean and Japanese, and the ability to share passages from books via Facebook and Twitter.The new version of iBooks will be available later today as a free download through...

With Apple's 2012 October Media event kicking off on Tuesday, some users are interested in avoiding all of the announcements and waiting until Apple posts the recorded video of the event so as to experience it without already knowing the outcome. For those individuals, we've posted this news story, which will be updated with the link to the presentation once it becomes available from Apple. No ...