Tablo launched its live TV and DVR app for Apple TV

Tablo launched its live TV and DVR app for Apple TV

Apple TV Unknown   5:11:00 AM

Looking to cut the cord and have a new Apple TV? A new app from Tablo can help. Launching shortly for Apple TV 4th generation devices — the new models that include access to the Apple TV App Store — the app allows you to both stream live television and watch recorded programs. The app works in conjunction with the company’s Tablo DVR, a $200 device that can access broadcast programs it receives via a connected over-the-air antenna, as well as record those programs to a hard drive for later viewing.

The company had promised this January that it had this app in the works, and would be launching it sometime this spring. Clearly, it didn’t meet that deadline.

The Tablo DVR, for those unfamiliar, is something of an alternative to TiVo. It’s competitively priced at $200 (for two tuners), while ongoing access to its TV Guide data is an optional and affordable $5 per month. And if you only really use Tablo for watching live television, you can easily skip paying for the guide data, which is mainly helpful for managing future recordings.

For more serious TV watchers, a four-tuner device is also available for $300.

Tablo is not the simplest system to set up for non-technical users because it’s not an all-in-one solution. Instead, it requires you to attach your own external drive to serve as storage for its recordings. The advantage to this, of course, is that you’re in control of how much storage you have available and can expand that at will. However, it does mean you’ll have to buy another piece of hardware beyond the antenna, and you’ll have to make room for more equipment in your media center.

That said, once you get past the initial installation hurdles, the software itself is fairly straightforward to use. The Apple TV app offers a clean user interface, complete with colorful thumbnail images for show titles, and makes it easy to move between watching live TV or viewing your recordings.

Plus, the app will work with Apple TV’s voice-enabled remote, allowing you to ask Siri to skip the commercials or move forward or back in the stream (e.g. “Skip ahead two minutes” or “Go back to the start”). You can also just press the pause button instead, then swipe back and forth in the scrubber while viewing the fast-forward previews.

In the 1.0 release of the app, users will be able to watch live TV, and view and schedule recordings for programs airing in the next 24 hours. You can schedule both one-time and series recordings, says the company. Other features are planned for the months ahead, which will focus bringing feature parity between the Apple TV app and those on other platforms. That means things like the TV View, Movies View and Prime TV View will make their way over to Apple TV, as well.

In addition to Apple TV, Tablo offers apps for a number of platforms, including Roku, iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, Fire tablets, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, web, Kodi and Plex.

It’s also worth pointing out that Tablo is not the only way to watch live TV on Apple TV. The Channels app works with the HDHomeRun TV tuner to offer similar functionality. Meanwhile, Dish’s Sling TV also just launched on Apple TV this week, but is focused mainly on live television, with a smaller selection of on-demand content. Plus, its channel lineup is cable TV, not broadcast networks, nor does it offer DVR functionality.

Tablo says its Apple TV app version 1.0 has been published to the App Store, where it’s pending approval. It will be live shortly, the company says.

Source: Techcrunch

Apple launched its HomeKit based IOT app – but where are the products?

Apple launched its HomeKit based IOT app – but where are the products?

IOS News Unknown   5:05:00 AM

The Apple internet of things arrives, in theory, with iOS 10

Apple has finally launched its internet-of-things (IoT) smart-home service with a new mobile app called "Home." The only problem? A distinct lack of products to work with.

Speaking on stage at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco earlier yesterday, senior VP of software engineering Craig Federighi outlined a range of changes in the latest version of its iOS operating system, due this fall.

One of them was the "Home" app, which brings Apple's much-touted but long-delayed HomeKit system to your mobile device. The app itself was slated for release this time last year, but was pulled.

Craig Federighi outlines HomeKit, again, but seems as confused as everyone else over when products will appear

Federighi showed how, from an iPhone or iPad, you will be able to turn on/dim your lights, open your door locks or garage door, and even answer your intercom, quickly and efficiently.

In a sign that for Apple, nothing exists until it does it, Federighi also announced how combined actions would work "with something we are calling 'scenes'."

The concept of "scenes" – where you pull together a range of actions such as unlocking a door while also turning on lights and a radio under one name like "Arrive Home" – has been a mainstay of smart homes for at least a decade.

"Scenes" also represent the biggest hurdle to effective smart-home management: how to make different products work together in a seamless fashion without forcing consumers to spend hours creating them.

This is one area where Apple's control-freak tendencies have the potential to pay off. By insisting that anyone who wants to work with its HomeKit system follows its hardware and software requirements, Apple is in a position to create a simple and polished interface that just works.

Except.

Those same tendencies mean that very, very few companies are willing to sign up to Apple's controlled ecosystem, especially when the market is still wide open.

Deja vu

Federighi announced HomeKit two years ago at the same conference.

"We thought we could bring some rationality to this space," he said back in June 2014, noting that Apple was working with home-automation companies including Schlage, Honeywell and Haier.

He even talked about scenes, again as if Apple was introducing the concept to the world for the first time. He told attendees: "With Siri integration, you can say something like 'Get ready for bed,' and be assured that your garage door is closed, your door is locked, the thermostat is lowered, and your lights are dimmed."

This year, he said the same thing almost word for word.

Back in 2014, Federighi put up a slide with a range of companies it was working with to develop HomeKit-compatible products. However, only half of them have done so, and most of the remainder have produced only a single product as a test-of-concept.

Among those present in 2014 but missing on Apple's current list of compatible products: Cree, Chamberlain, Kwikset, Skybell, Osram Sylvania, and Withings. And of the others listed: Haier has but one product; likewise iHome and Netatmo.

Federighi shows off a list of companies Apple was working with back in 2014. Half of them appeared to have jumped ship.

Why the lack of support? Because Apple changed the specs last year just when companies were getting ready for a big push into the smart home. Instead of a software solution, it decided that manufacturers would instead have to include a specific Apple-approved-and-stamped chip into their products in order to provide a suitable level of encryption and security.

The concern is understandable: security risks associated with the IoT is the single biggest factor in people not buying smart home products. But Apple's decision to do a u-turn and insist on sticking its own hardware in other manufacturers' products caused an immediate cooling in the relationship: one that has yet to recover.

Window still open

So why did it introduce the Home app at all this week? Because due to its functionality, the application can only be introduced in a major software upgrade – in this case iOS 10.

Although Apple is behind, the market has yet to really take off and the opportunity is still there for it to muscle in. The company clearly feels that it needs to demonstrate progress in 2016 rather than wait until June 2017 (and iOS 11) to pull HomeKit into its devices.

But clearly, it still has some way to go. So far today only one manufacturer – August – has bothered to use Apple's announcements to showcase their product.

It is noteworthy that smart thermostat company Ecobee – which put out an entirely new model with a HomeKit chip in it last year – has said nothing. In fact the "pinned" tweet at the top of Ecobee's Twitter feed talks about how its product now works with Amazon's Alexa voice technology – a growing competitor. The announcement was from back in February.

So, HomeKit is here. At least the app is. The big question is whether it will be moved into the special "Apple stuff" folder that most users feel obliged to create and sit, unused and unloved, alongside Numbers, Health, Pages, Wallet, Watch, Find Friends, iTunes U and all the other apps Apple has foisted on its users that they never use.

Or will the "Home" app break out and make it on the first screen on iOS devices? That depends almost entirely on third-party manufacturers deciding whether to allow themselves to be sucked into Apple's closed system.

Apple's attitude to third parties – where it dictates terms and expects people to follow them – has not worked out so well in other markets. Its Newsstand approach, for example, was a disaster, with publishers simply refusing to hand over control. Apple revamped and relaunched it this time last year with greater flexibility, but it has still yet to take off.

Will Apple's IoT effort go the same path? We should know by this time next year. ®

Source: The Register

7 Best iPad and iPhone Emulators for PC

7 Best iPad and iPhone Emulators for PC

IOS News Unknown   3:16:00 AM

iOS is an amazing operating system, considered by many superior to Android, from several points of view. Of course, the opinions are split and we believe that both of them have their pluses and minuses. But this is not what we’re talking about today.

There are a lot of users out there who don’t own an iPhone or an iPad, but they still want to try Apple’s OS, either for its unique features, exclusive apps or just to test the ones they’re developing on multiple platforms. In this case, the most reliable solution is to use an emulator.

In a nutshell, an emulator, no matter if we’re talking about one for Android, iOS or any other operating system, is a program that enables a computer to act like a different system and run software and apps especially designed for that system.

Fortunately, there are a couple of great iPhone and iPad emulators available for PC, so everybody cam give iOS a shot. Below you will find a list with 7 of the best ones we’ve found, perfect for running them on Windows. Let’s begin, shall we?

Best 7 iPad and iPhone Emulators for PC

iPadian

This is by far the number one choice you can make when it comes to the best iPhone and iPad emulators for PC. It can literally run any app or game made for iOS and it offers support for the latest version, iOS 9.

What we really like about iPadian is that it’s absolutely free and it provides a full iOS interface and a custom-made app store, so you can enjoy your favorite apps.

Download the iPadian iOS emulator from here.

MobiOne Studio

Besides giving you the possibility to run any app you would on an iOS device, MobiStudio is also great for developing cross platform apps for iOS and Android system, thanks to its apps, built on HTML 5 hybrid native app model, on the Cordova/PhoneGap open source framework.

Therefore, you can use this emulator to build native apps and even use them on a compatible device. And this is not everything it can do, as it enables users to build notifications on desktop, share links through email or automatically download the app installation filed on your PC, features that really come in handy for developers.

Download MobiOne Studio emulator from here. 

SmartFace

This might be the ideal choice if, besides running iOS apps on Windows, you also want to develop them. It’s true, this might a bit of a more complex emulator, but once you get to fully understand how it works, SmartFace can be a really powerful tool.

Also, if you’re a developer, you can use it as an Android and iOS debugger on Windows, thanks to its features such as breakpoints, watches and real-time code changes. See, we told you that it’s awesome!

Download SmarFace emulator from here. 

iPad Simulator

In this case, we’re not talking about an actual iOS emulator, since it’s a simple Google Chrome extension. However, don’t get fooled by this, since it’s powerful enough to work as a cloud operating system and simulate an iPad experience, directly in your browser.

iPad Simulator provides a tablet interface, directly on your PC, enabling you to use the iMessage app (notifications included), access to Siri and a ton of iOS apps. The interface is very similar to what Apple devices are delivering, so it’s worth giving it at least a shot, don’t you think?

Download iPad Simulator Google Chrome extension from here. 

Air iPhone Emulator

Moving on with our top iPhone and iPad emulators for PC, the next entry is Air iPhone Emulator, a tool that is trying to offer an experience as close to what an actual smartphone would as possible. Yes, “trying”, because you will definitely notice a difference when running apps, compared with a real iPhone.

Air iPhone Emulator reproduces the smartphone’s user interface, but developers especially will find some issues in testing their apps on it. Otherwise, if you want it just for the overall iOS experience, it’s definitely an option you should consider.

Download Air iPhone Emulator from here.

iPhone Simulator

Call it simulator, emulator or whatever you want, but this little tool right there, despite being pretty simple, it does its job effectively. Basically, it lets you test the iPhone interface and it can be really helpful for anybody who wants to buy an Apple-made smartphone and it’s not sure whether they will like it.

It has it advantages, though, as some of the apps that an iPhone comes with out of the box are disabled by default, while the App Store can’t be accessed at all. The latter can be a major turn-off for anybody who wants to try a full iOS experience on a Windows PC, but after all, that’s why we made this top. You can find way more complex examples above, while iPhone Simulator can be considered just a tool for testing the iOS UI.

Download iPhone Simulator from here. 

Appetize.io

Finally, the last entry in our top is Appetize.io, an alternative to all the iPhone and iPad emulatorsfor Windows presented above, which provides both iOS and Android app deployment on the cloud.

Currently, it provides a free demo, which can be used to emulate devices like the iPhone 4, 4s, 5, 5s, 6 and 6s, as well as a Nexus 5, if you’re interested in Android. It allows users to test any iOS app, as long as they have the .ipa file.

Donwload Appetize.io emulator from here.  

And there you have it, ladies and gents. A list with 7 of the best iPhone and iPad emulators for Windows. Hopefully, our top will come in handy for many of you, no matter if you just want to see how the iOS user interface feels, compared to other mobile operating system, develop apps or just try some titles that aren’t currently available for your smartphone or tablet.

Like always, the comments section is open and we’re looking forward to hearing from you. Which one of these is your favorite? Also, if you know any other great emulators that should be present in our list, do tell us about them!

Mobile trends in early 2016: Android takes another bite out of Apple

Mobile trends in early 2016: Android takes another bite out of Apple

Apple Unknown   11:09:00 AM

A new report published by DeviceAtlas provides an insight into the Android / iOS duel, the popularity of smartphone screen sizes and more. In the report, Android is revealed to be gaining in its share of web traffic, while iOS is falling off. Smaller phones, between 4 and 5 inches, are also shown to be the most popular, although phablets are making small gains

Find out what this report reveals about the most popular screen sizes and Android and iOS's share of the traffic. / © BizzleTechBlog

This new report from DeviceAtlas covers Q1 2016 (January - March) and reveals patterns in mobile devices used to access online content. Let's take a look over some of the key findings.

Android takes web traffic from iOS

The report paints a positive picture for Android: "Android maintained its leading position and grew its share in most countries [DeviceAtlas] analysed." Android saw increases in its share of web traffic in eight out of the ten countries looked at. iOS saw the inverse: decreases in seven out of ten countries. This is a very different story to Q2 2015, when the roles were almost perfectly reversed.

Android maintains overall control, and increases its share in most countries studied. / © DeviceAtlas

Italy saw the most dramatic turnaround: in Q2 2015, Android's web traffic share there fell by 7.39 percent, while in Q1 2016, it rose by 6.59 percent. On the other side of the fence, iOS witnessed a particularly painful fall from grace in Germany, where it grew by 6.47 in Q2 2015, but fell by 5.51 percent in Q1 2016.

Smaller phones dominate

The launch of the iPhone SE earlier this year meant the first compact smartphone capable of competing with top-tier flagships like the Galaxy S7 and Apple's own iPhone 6s. Apple's decision appears to be a good one in light of the data from DeviceAtlas.
4- and 4.7-inch devices are the most popular in six of the ten countries studied, often by a significant margin (in the UK, 4-inch phones account for almost 30 percent of mobile web traffic).

Smaller devices remain the most popular. / © DeviceAtlas

5.7-inches proved the least popular size in all ten countries. Despite this, 5.7-inch phablets made gains in their share of web traffic but by small degrees (one percent growth or less), while 4-inch devices fell in all but one country (Nigeria) by as much as 4.83 percent (Germany).

Apple and Samsung

Apple and Samsung continue to dominate the global market:
"In Q1 2016 Samsung had the largest web traffic share in India, Nigeria, Germany, Italy and Spain, while Apple devices generated the largest amount of website visits in France, UK, Australia, Japan and USA."

One bot accounted for almost a third of all web traffic

A curious finding: bots and crawlers, which can either be neutral (for search engines, market research, etc.) or more malicious in nature (spambots, data scrapers, etc.) accounted for almost 49 percent of all web traffic, with the other half being us, humans. Even more curious is that the most widespread bot was Majestic-12, beating both Google and Bing by huge margins: Majestic-12 accounted for 68.53 percent of the bot web traffic (Google and Bing sat at around 20 and 4 percent, respectively).
The Majestic-12 bot, therefore, accounted for around one third of all web traffic. A pretty mind-blowing statistic.

Humans are fighting for their share of web traffic with robots. / © DeviceAtlas

Although it may be surprising to hear that humans only account for half of all web traffic, the figure "is in line with industry averages for bot generated traffic", according to DeviceAtlas.

Older and non-LTE phone remain significant

While LTE devices achieved 97 percent of the mobile web traffic in South Korea, "web traffic generated by non-LTE phones is still significant in many countries, including India (45%), Nigeria (39%), Italy (36%), Spain (29%), and Germany (20%)."
Find out more and take a look over the report in more detail here.K

Best iPad drawing apps 2016 - Unleash your inner artist

Best iPad drawing apps 2016 - Unleash your inner artist

iPhone News Unknown   4:37:00 AM

There’s an artist hidden in anybody, if you ask us, and it needs just an impulse to get out. Sometimes, creativity can hit you in the most weird moments! And since we’re all tech lovers here, we’re going to presume that this could happen when you’re using your tablet.

So, you want to draw something on your tablet, on an iPad, let’s say. Ok, but how can this be done? Using an app of course.

Here you can find a short selection of the best iPad drawing apps, which will definitely help you unleash your creative side!

1. Tayasui Sketches

If you ask us, the Japanese-sounding app is pretty much number one when it comes to the best iPad drawing apps. With a great interface, including eight brushes (and two more, in the pro version), you can create real works of art. Not to mention that if you also have a stylus for your iPad, the results won’t cease to amaze you!

2. Forge

Developed by stylus-make Adonit, this app is specifically designed to work with the company’s pressure-sensitive Jot Touch stylus, but this is not mandatory. You can use any stylus you want or your finger and get great results.

It has five tools and a color selector, so pretty much of the screen will be empty, allowing you to test your drawing skills. Forge can be downloaded for free, but the number of drawing which you can save is limited. Otherwise, it’s a really nice drawing app.

3. Penultimate

‘The best digital handwriting on iPad’, says the app’s official description. For us, it’s that app which besides allowing us to take notes, it’s also great for drawing. The tools work really great and you can even select the paper types on which you’re drying. This is one of its greatest features, in our opinion!

Finally, all your sketches and drawing can be saved directly to Evernote, so you can show everybody what a talented graphic artist you are.

4. Layers

According to its developers, Layers ‘packs in everything you need to be creative on the go. An art studio in your pocket’. For us, it’s simply one of the best iPad drawing apps.

As the name says it, it allows you to add up to fiver layers on your drawing. The tool set consists in a brush, eraser and a smudge tool, with adjustable texture, size and pressure. Of course, the pro version comes with way more goodies, like an extra set of 15 different brushes. You should definitely give it a try and see what digital masterpieces you can create!

5. Bamboo Paper

Just like Forge, this app was also developed by a stylus manufacturer, maybe one of the most famous ones. Yes, we’re talking about the folks over Wacom, who bring you their drawing and sketching app.

All the content you create can be organized into notebooks, while the app also gives you the possibility of importing photos, different paper types and colors, on which you can let your creativity flow. Not to mention that the user interface is very simple and easy to use, so it has a place in our best iPad drawing apps top.

6. SketchBook Pro

Autodesk managed to create an excellent app, considered by many the most popular one of this type for the iPad. Basically, if you want to create some art on your tablet, this is the app to get. It comes with digital pencils, markers, air brushes and pens, all organized in a simple but in the same time complex user interface.
It also enabling you to work with layers, just like on Photoshop and once your work of art is done, you can easily sync it with your Dropbox account.

7. Sketch Club

If you’re looking forward to sharing your creations with a community of users who are artists just like you, this is the app you were looking for. Besides the possibility of uploading all your sketches and receiving opinions, it also comes with a lot of tools.

You can use the 44 brushes or even design your own, pens, vector tools or even pre-defined pixel art. Aren’t you convinced yet that this is one of the best iPad drawing apps?

8. Art Set

What we really like about this app is the interface. Keeping it short, you pull out the drawer, pick the tool you want to use and start drawing. It’s like having a virtual art set inside your tablet. No wonder it was the number one paid iPad app in over 30 countries.

From the tools you can use, we should mention chalks, charcoal oil pastels and even wax crayons. Do you know any better app which offers you this tools? Yeah, we neither.

And there you have it folks, our list with the best iPad drawing apps you can find in the App Store. Any of these will be really helpful for those of you who like to kill some time making sketches on their tablet! And, who knows, maybe you will discover a new talent…

If you know similar apps which should make it to our list, feel free to tell us about them, using the comments section below!