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

A Chinese firm has already created a knockoff of what is supposedly the next iPhone. As reported by the French site NowhereElse.fr [Google Translate], an Android phone called the Goophone i5 was designed to look like the leaked images of the next iPhone. Though the new iPhone is expected to be taller vertically, the Goophone sports a 940x640 3.5" screen, a 5 megapixel rear camera and a 1.3...

In the wake of Apple's $1 billion victory over Samsung in its high-profile lawsuit over patent and trade dress issues, The Verge reports that the company has officially requested U.S. sales bans on eight Samsung smartphones found by the jury to infringe upon Apple's intellectual property.- Galaxy S 4G - Galaxy S2 (AT&T) - Galaxy S2 (Skyrocket) - Galaxy S2 (T-Mobile) - Galaxy S2 Epic 4G -...

The company behind the popular LifeProof iPhone case today announced a new waterproof iPad case called the Nüüd. The case is an alternative to other high-protection iPad cases like the OtterBox Defender, with the addition of waterproof protection (to 6.6 feet).The most interesting part of the Nüüd case -- and the origin of the odd name -- is that the case appears to have no protection over...

With Samsung having already issued a public statement following the $1 billion verdict against the company in its patent and trade dress dispute with Apple, the company has now published its internal memo to employees about the issue, noting that it will continue to fight on through all available means until it wins its case.Certainly, we are very disappointed by the verdict at the US District...

Facebook employee Jonathan Dann has written a blog post detailing how the company's iOS engineering team designed earlier Facebook for iPhone apps and the extensive coding that was required to rewrite the new Facebook 5.0 app.The post is a bit technical in parts, but is worth a read for developers and others interested in how one of the most popular iPhone apps gets made.An excerpt:One of...

The new Evernote Smart Notebook bridges the divide between digital and analog by giving Evernote users the option to take physical notes in a special Moleskine notebook and then easily importing those notes into the Evernote app.The notebook is $24.95 and allows a new Page Camera feature in Evernote to take photos of a page and have it immediately available and searchable in Evernote.The...

The developer of the iPhone game Ninja Fish has released a video showing what the game would look like on a next-generation iPhone with a taller screen. The developer doesn't have any special information about the next iPhone, but is sharing the video as an intellectual exercise to show how games could look on the larger screen. Ninja Fish for iPhone is available in both a free, ad-supported...

Angry Birds Space has received a new update adding a new episode with content tied to NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover. NASA and Rovio have partnered extensively on marketing for Angry Birds Space, using the game to promote NASA's educational and scientific discoveries. The new update sees the piggies hijacking the Curiosity Mars Rover and serving 20 new levels on Mars for the angry birds. NASA...

Repair firm SmartPhone Medic has just posted a new video comparing several parts from the next-generation iPhone to their counterparts from the iPhone 4S. The parts shown include the front panel and flex cables for the external controls and dock connector/headphone jack, and while all of these parts have been seen previously, the video offers another good look at what changes can be expected ...

Chair Entertainment, the division of Epic Games responsible for the first two games in the Infinity Blade series, has released a new game called Vote!!!. The game pits U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney against each other with the same gesture-based fighting mechanics from Infinity Blade.Though the game only launched today, it has already drawn a lot of media attention in...

EA/PopCap announced today that it would be releasing a sequel to Plants vs. Zombies in the Spring of 2013. The company hasn't released any information about pricing, systems, or availability -- but did issue a press release with "comments" from characters from the Plants vs. Zombies universe:“Spring is crullest curlie ungood time, and plantz grow dull roots,” noted an unidentified...

Austin Yang, an industrial designer current living in Edinburgh, Scotland, has created a working iPad typewriter keyboard that uses a hammer with a capacitive touch bumper to touch the iPad's on-screen keyboard.Oddly, the physical keyboard doesn't map properly to the QWERTY keyboard on the iPad, most likely because of the mechanics of the typewriter that Yang has created. This is the likely...

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Steve Jobs' home had been burglarized last month, with a thief entering the under-renovation house and taking over $60,000 worth of property including several iMacs and iPads, Tiffany jewelry, and Steve Jobs' wallet with $1 in it. Kenny the Clown (Source: Jeff Vendsel/Marin Independent Journal) The San Jose Mercury News now reports that one of those...

Instagram has updated its app to version 3.0, adding significant support for location -- both for browsing your own photos, and finding those taken by others.Among other things, the focus on location will allow users to find other pictures taken around them -- at a concert or sporting event, for example -- but will also allow them to navigate through old photos as well. Instagram founder...

The Next Web points to a Tweet from developer Shahruz Shaukat noting that the desktop version of iTunes is currently experiencing an interesting glitch in which searching for "podcast" or "podcasts" in the U.S. iTunes Store yields only a single app result: Apple's own Podcasts app. Clicking through to "See all" under both iPhone and iPad apps similarly displays only Apple's app. Default ...

The Dark Sky weather app was originally funded via a Kickstarter campaign. It is designed to provide precipitation predictions for the very short term and aims to tell you if it will rain at your location in the next hour. This information can be useful for commuters and joggers, and this intense focus cuts a bit of a niche in the crowded world of iOS weather apps. Dark Sky's developers raised...

A couple weeks after dropping the price of the iPhone 4S to $149, Sprint has further slashed the price to $49 after a mail-in rebate for a $100 American Express gift card. Apple will price-match Sprint's offer, giving buyers in retail stores a $100 Apple Store gift card. All these purchases require agreeing to a new two-year contract.This may be the lowest price for the iPhone 4S yet in the...

As we noted earlier this week when iOS 6 Beta 4 was released to developers, one of the newest features in the release was the addition of a "Wi-Fi Plus Cellular" setting to the General/Cellular control panel.The setting appears to allow apps to fall back on the iPhone's cellular data connection when having difficulties moving data via the Wi-Fi connection, something that can happen with a weak...