AppleInsider has obtained a letter supposedly sent to Brazilian Apple Authorized Service Providers suggesting that new policies regarding iPhone and iPad repairs will begin soon.

Though the letter is taken out of context and has been roughly translated via Google Translate, it suggests that AASP's in Brazil will soon begin repairing broken iPad glass panels and performing more in-depth repairs on iPhones with details of that plan being sent in June 2013.

2. iPad Repair - We will soon begin to repair iPad glass. Further details will be sent next week.

3. iPhone Repair - The Changing Patterns of exchange for repair within AASP will be a reality, with details of the plan to be sent in June '13.

4. iPhone - In case of repair under warranty given independently of purchase, all iPhones should led to an AASP and not back to one carrier was bought.

A previous report suggested that Apple would be making changes to its global AppleCare system, including Apple Stores replacing more iPhone parts rather than replacing broken units with an entirely different device.

Rovio's Angry Birds Space has been named Apple's App of the Week, and as a result, both the full iPhone and the iPad version of the game can be downloaded for free for the first time ever.

Angry Birds Space features the same bird flinging gameplay found in other Rovio titles, but it incorporates new zero gravity game mechanics and space-themed level design.

Angry Birds Space features over 160 interstellar levels on planets and in zero gravity, resulting in spectacular gameplay ranging from slow-motion puzzles to lightspeed destruction. With regular free updates, new in-app purchases, brand new birds, brand new superpowers, and a whole galaxy to explore, the sky is no longer the limit!

Angry Birds Space for the iPhone and Angry Birds Space for the iPad will be free to download for the next seven days as part of the App of the Week promotion.

- Angry Birds Space for the iPhone [Direct Link]
- Angry Birds Space HD for the iPad [Direct Link]

Shazam was one of the early App Store success stories, offering users the ability to easily identify music by capturing a snippet of the song and matching it against a database to provide title and artist information. The service has since expanded to integrate with the iTunes Store, YouTube, lyrics, and more, with TV shows and ads even adopting Shazam to allow users to easily learn more about the show or product.

Shazam has offered separate apps for the iPhone and iPad since 2010, but the company today unveiled a universal version of the iPhone app that includes a completely rebuilt experience for the iPad. A number of new features have shown up in the iPad version of Shazam, most notably a background tagging feature that allows users to have all matching incoming audio tagged even while using other applications on their devices. TechCrunch explains a bit more about how it works:

[A]fter downloading the updated version, users will be walked through a brief tutorial that explains what Auto-Tagging is all about, then allowing users to switch it on, if desired. If they do so, the app will run in the background, listening for anything it can identify, and loading those items into a carousel at the top of its homescreen.

From here, users can interact with the content much as before – sharing it on social media, buying the song, show or movie from iTunes or Amazon, or in the case of TV shows, learning more about the cast and episode, viewing a playlist of songs in the broadcast, or heading off to sites like Wikipedia, IMDb, the official website and/or store, and more.

Other new features arriving in Shazam 6.0 include a mapping system that allows users to see popular music on a city-by-city basis, Rdio integration, streamlined sharing, and automatic resubmission of tags for users in areas with poor reception. The iPad app is also adding for the first time Shazam's LyricPlay feature that shows lyrics on-screen in sync with the music.

Shazam is a free download from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Users interested in an ad-free Shazam experience can either upgrade through the free Shazam app or directly purchase Shazam Encore for $6.99. [Direct Link]

Popular email app Mailbox, which launched for iPhone in early February with a reservation system that saw well over one million users sign up before the company eliminated reservations last month, has now gone universal with a native interface for the iPad.


ReadWrite has more on the development, including a brief interview with Mailbox founder Gentry Underwood about how designing for the larger tablet screen was actually more difficult than for the iPhone.

"[Tablets] are these weird hybrid devices that sit in between," said Underwood. "They're part luxury mobile phone, and they're part makeshift desktop experience."

That made it harder, not easier, he said.

"Constraint is the friend of design," Underwood said. "It's easier for us to create a simple mail experience [for the phone]. We have to resist the temptation to take all these pixels and put in all these bells and whistles."

Mailbox is currently compatible only with Gmail, allowing users to intuitively triage their incoming mail through a simple swipe system supporting delete, archive, and a "snooze" function that dismisses email for the time being before reappearing to be dealt with.

The Mailbox team, which is now part of Dropbox, is also moving forward with plans to develop and Android version of its app, but no details on that effort have yet been released.

Mailbox is a free app available in the App Store. [Direct Link]

As noted by The Verge, Microsoft has released a new Windows 8 tablet ad that uses Siri to highlight a few of the iPad's shortcomings, depicting the ASUS VivoTab Smart tablet as a robust productivity machine while implying that the iPad is more suited to entertainment.

In the ad, which is entitled "Less Talking, More Doing," an iPad is depicted next to the aforementioned VivoTab Smart, showing off the system's multitasking capabilities and its built-in office apps. A Siri voiceover points out that the iPad does not support multiple windows at once and does not offer Microsoft Office apps. "I'm sorry, I can only do one thing at a time," Siri laments. "I guess PowerPoint isn't one of those things."


The ad ends on a humorous note, poking fun at a previous Apple commercial that depicted an iPad and iPad mini piano duet in GarageBand. The iPad is shown operating GarageBand next to the hardworking Windows 8 tablet, and Siri asks "Should we just play chopsticks?"

Microsoft also focuses on the price difference between the two tablets in the ad, pointing out that the 64GB WiFi iPad costs $699 while the 64GB Asus VivoTab Smart is $250 cheaper at $449.

Update: Microsoft has released a second anti-iPad add, highlighting the size and weight of the iPad vs. the VivoTab Smart and once again pointing out the multitasking capabilities available with Windows 8 tablets.

Realmac's gesture-based list making iPhone app Clear has been updated to version 1.2.2, adding a feature that allows users to email their lists to other people. When viewing a list, Clear users can shake their phones to bring up the new emailing option.

Emails sent from Clear contain the app's lists plus a link that provides the option to open the sent lists within the app. The Clear update also provides additional secret themes and comes with an announcement that an iPad version of the app is currently in the works.

One of the biggest feature requests we've had has been the ability email lists. So we added it to our Clear list, and here it is!

Shake-to-Email: just shake your phone to bring up the all-new-super-handy email option. Emails contain your lists (of course) as well as a file that whoever receives the email can open in Clear.

We probably shouldn't tell you this, but there's a couple of secret new themes. Enjoy :)

If you've read this far, we'll reward you with the news that Clear will be coming to the iPad. More news soon!

Clear for the iPhone can be downloaded from the App Store for $1.99. [Direct Link]

The new list emailing feature has also been added to the Mac version of Clear, which is available from the Mac App Store for $9.99. [Direct Link]

In an event today at the CTIA conference, case maker OtterBox announced it was acquiring waterproof case maker LifeProof.

OtterBox will keep LifeProof's San Diego location and employees will remain in their current locations. OtterBox global headquarters remain in Fort Collins, Colorado. The companies are not disclosing any terms for the transaction.

Much like OtterBox, LifeProof is a rapidly growing, multi-million dollar business with a strong global brand, comprehensive product offering, impressive intellectual property and thriving company culture. Over the next 30 days, OtterBox will begin incorporating the LifeProof brand into the OtterBox family. More information about product availability and alignment will be determined at the completion of the integration.

“The joining of OtterBox and LifeProof is a way to combine two great brands and provide customers with even more great products, services and choices for smartphone accessories,” OtterBox CEO Brian Thomas said. “Both companies are successful because we foster an environment where everyone takes pride in being part of a culture that knows how to identify opportunities and grow them quickly. Our goal in this acquisition is to create more value for our customers than we ever could have generated while operating individually.”

OtterBox, with more than 600 employees, makes cases for a variety of different phone and tablet models, including the iPhone and iPad. The company claims it current holds 23% market share in the case market and is approaching $1 billion in yearly sales.

OtterBox's newest Apple-related case is the ultra durable Armor Series iPhone case.

LifeProof's main case is its waterproof iPhone case, but it also makes the Nüüd waterproof iPad case.

Google has announced plans to roll out an update to the iOS version of Chrome that will enable voice searching. The feature will function similarly to Siri on the iPhone, requiring a tap on the microphone to bring up the interactive search interface.

Touch the microphone, say your search query aloud and see your results (in some cases spoken back to you), all without typing a single letter. Try these queries with the update (coming soon to the App Store):

- "How many miles from San Antonio to Dallas?"
- "What's the weather in Rome?"
- "Who stars in The Internship?"

Google currently includes voice search in its Google Search app through Google Now integration and has also begun offering conversational voice search with the release of Chrome 27.

Google notes that the upcoming iOS update will also bring faster reloading of web pages in addition to implementing an option for third party apps to open links in Chrome and then return back to the original app. The update will be available "over the coming days."

FiftyThree, the developer behind the popular sketching app Paper, has posted a lengthy article examining the new Zoom feature that was added to Paper earlier this month.

Zoom is one of those UI controls, like the color picker, that has grown so familiar as to become almost invisible. Designers drag and drop it out of a mental library of stock functionality, and the most pressing consideration is whether to use a magnifying glass or a +/- button for the icon.

"Pinch to zoom" reinvented zoom for touch devices, and Apple made the gesture ubiquitous by including it in iOS. "Pinch to zoom" is now probably the single most broadly understood multitouch gesture; it feels like something we’ve been doing all our lives, even though it entered the popular lexicon barely six years ago.

Paper seems to be a favorite of Apple as well, winning both iPad App of the Year and Apple Design Awards in 2012. Apple also featured the app prominently on its home page as part of its 50 billion app download contest.

Paper by FiftyThree is an iPad-only app that can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

As noted by Gizmodo, iLoveHandles has launched a new Trunk Lightning charging cable for the iPhone 5, offering an innovative posable design that allows the short cable to also serve as a stand for the device.

Unlike the short, flaccid charging cables on the market, you can bend Trunk vertical to charge on the wall, bend it the other way and use GPS in the car, or straighten it out and put it in a pocket when you're on the move.

Why do you need all that cord? With Trunk, there is no wrapping, no tangling -- no mess.

Trunk is available through the iLoveHandles online store for $19.95.

Logitech today announced the upcoming launch of its Wired Keyboard for iPad, a $60 accessory specifically targeted at schools. The keyboard is available in both Lightning and 30-pin varieties and aims to eliminate the complexity of pairing numerous Bluetooth keyboards with their respective iPads in a classroom setting.

“Schools are increasingly purchasing iPads for use in the classroom,” said Mike Culver, vice president and general manager of mobility at Logitech. “While tablets are enabling new ways of teaching and testing, there’s a challenge when a teacher needs to simultaneously pair multiple iPads with multiple wireless Bluetooth keyboards. We developed the Logitech Wired Keyboard for iPad to specifically solve this problem, so students can now simply plug it in and start typing.”

Logitech has also given the keyboard a sturdy design to support the demands of classroom usage, with spill resistance and key lifespan of over five million strokes. The keyboard also includes a dedicated row of function keys to provide easy access to shortcuts for Siri, copy/paste, search, media playback, and more.

The Logitech Wired Keyboard for iPad with Lightning connector is expected to launch in August, with the 30-pin connector version following in October.

Bioware and LucasArts’ Star Wars role-playing game Knights of the Old Republic may be coming to the iPad in the near future, reports IGN, after obtaining a revealing email newsletter that Aspyr Media accidentally sent out to fans.

A header in the email, which was meant to advertise a sale on Call of Duty games, leaked the news: "The critically-acclaimed Star Wars RPG is now available on iPad…"

As noted by our sister site TouchArcade, the text likely refers to a Knights of the Old Republic game. Aspyr previously released the Mac port of the original KotOR game and has a presence in the App Store, having released its first iOS app, Sushi Mushi, last November.

As this was an unintentionally released headline, there is little additional information available at this time, but it is likely that more details on the iPad version of Knights of the Old Republic will be available in the near future if the leak is accurate.

VUDU, the third most popular internet video-on-demand provider behind Apple's iTunes and Amazon's Instant Video, today updated its app with a feature that allows users to download movies for offline viewing, a redesigned video player, and more.

Previously, VUDU users using the VUDU Player app had to stream their content from within the app and could not view their movies and TV shows offline. With the new update, users can download their content at various qualities for use when an internet connection isn't available.

Other changes include a redesigned video player that's easier to use, Closed Captioning support for iPhone and general bug fixes throughout the app.


VUDU Player is a universal app that's available for free in the App Store. [Direct Link]

Following the opening of a new retail location in Melbourne last month, Apple is set to open another Australian Apple Store on May 25, this time in Adelaide.


The Adelaide Apple Store will be Apple’s 20th retail location in Australia, and it is located at Rundle Place, a four-story shopping center that houses more than 70 stores. Adelaide is Australia's 5th largest city and the new Apple Store will be the first in the state of South Australia.

At store openings, Apple typically hands out commemorative T-shirts to the first 1,000 customers to visit. The store is set to open at 10 a.m. this Saturday, and Apple has already begun accepting reservations for workshops and Genius bar appointments.

The Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai is perhaps the world's most luxurious hotel, and the latest addition continues that tradition. The seven-star hotel is now giving 24-carat gold-plated iPads from Gold & Co to guests for use during their stay.


The iPads will act as a 'virtual concierge', offering information on restaurants in the hotel, as well as spa treatments and butler services. They carry the Burj Al Arab's logo on the back and they are available for purchase in the hotel's boutique.

Just as Yahoo has announced its acquisition of Tumblr, the Tumblr team has released an update for its iOS app bringing a redesigned user interface that offers up a brand new post type chooser, displaying post options that fan out vertically from the app's redesigned compose button to allow for speedier posting.

The redesigned menu is similar to the radial posting options used by social networking app Path, which displays buttons unobtrusively in the corner of the app. Previously, hitting Tumblr's compose button opened a new window with square-shaped posting icons, which was more obtrusive than the current overlay design.


Old Design on Left, New Design on Right
Tumblr's update, which was obviously in the works prior to the Yahoo acquisition, also includes app attribution for posts from iOS devices, a feature that was not previously available for mobile posters.

After multiple weekend reports that Yahoo was planning to buy Tumblr, Yahoo this morning announced that it had indeed purchased the blogging platform for $1.1 billion dollars.

According to the company's press release, Yahoo plans to allow Tumblr to operate independently as a separate business, with current Tumblr CEO David Karp remaining in charge of the company.

Tumblr for iOS can be downloaded for free from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Anatolia News Agency reports that Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Apple yesterday as part of a tour of Silicon Valley companies ahead of the country's move to purchase 10.6 million tablets for its schoolchildren. Erdoğan also visited Microsoft's Bay Area outpost and Google during his trip.

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (left) visits Apple
The meeting at Apple was just the latest of numerous interactions between Apple executives and Turkish government officials as Apple seeks to win the massive tablet contract. A number of Apple executives including vice president for education John Couch traveled to Turkey back in February to meet with Turkish president Abdullah Gül, while Gül had visited Apple in May 2012.

Ahead of the education tablet bid, Apple is in the midst of a significant push into the Turkish market, having launched the iTunes Store for music and movies there last December and begun hiring for future retail stores in the country.

(Thanks, Paul!)

Gameloft is offering up two of its most popular games for free this weekend. Both N.O.V.A. 3 - Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance and Gangstar Rio: City of Saints can be downloaded at no cost for the first time ever.


Originally released last year, N.O.V.A. 3 is a first person shooter with impressive graphics and a science fiction theme. Like many of Gameloft’s games, it includes a multiplayer mode that supports 12-player battles and voice chat to communicate with friends in real time. Our sister site TouchArcade has a review of both the single player portion of the game and the multiplayer component.


Gangstar Rio: City of Saints was released in late 2011 and is Gameloft’s version of Grand Theft Auto. The game, which takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, provides players with more than 60 missions to complete across five different neighborhoods. TouchArcade reviewed the game when it was released and found that Gangstar Rio offered a robust open-world crime game experience, despite a weak storyline.


Both games are universal and free through the weekend.

- N.O.V.A. 3 - Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance [Direct Link]

- Gangstar Rio: City of Saints [Direct Link]

Haunting Melissa, from Hooked Media Digital and "The Ring" producer Neil Edelstein, is an app that aims to deliver movies on mobile devices in an entirely new way.

Much like a TV show on iTunes, the film is broken up into segments that can be unlocked by sharing a user's viewing experience on Facebook, purchasing each episode within the app for $1.99 or paying $6.99 to $14.99 for the entire film. In an interview with Bloomberg, Edelstein declined to comment on how many episodes would be available.

Edelstein also said that Hooked Media Digital wanted to find a way to present movies and TV on mobile devices as studios have struggled to account for the rise of mobile video.

"The way stories are consumed has changed, so we set out to alter how stories are told," said Neal Edelstein, founder of Hooked Digital Media, in an interview. "It's terrifying to studios the drain that these devices have placed on the industry, so we have to find a new way to harness them."

Although the film could have been released in Apple's iTunes Store, providing it through an app gives Hooked Digital Media greater control over the way the content is delivered. It also gives the studio the ability to add additional story elements at any time, providing users with a unique film viewing experience. In 2011, "The Godfather" director Francis Ford Coppola experimented with similar technology in theaters.


Haunting Melissa is a universal app that is available for free in the App Store. [Direct Link]

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has begun sending educational letters to app developers to make them aware of upcoming changes to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) that was updated back in December.

The two letters [PDF, PDF] inform developers that the restricted collection of personal information of kids 13-and-under has been expanded to include photographs and video and audio with a child's image, among other things. Previously, only identifying information such as the child's name, address, and telephone number was restricted.

Please note that we have not yet evaluated your apps or your company’s practices to determine if they comply with COPPA as it is now – or as it will be starting July 1, 2013. We are sending you this letter to both alert you to the upcoming COPPA Rule changes and to encourage you to review your apps, your policies, and your procedures for compliance.

The revised COPPA Rule requires all developers of apps that are directed to children under 13 – or that knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 – to post accurate privacy policies, provide notice, and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing any “personal information” from children.

App 'platforms' like Apple's App Store and Google Play are explicitly exempted from the law and stores are not required to verify that apps are in compliance with the law; instead, it's up to individual developers to verify compliance.

Thanks Jules!