iOS

Field Trip (Android|iPhone) helps you find out more about your current location by sending you notifications when you're near landmarks, restaurants, historical sites, and other noteworthy spots. The app draws information from several sources, including Arcadia, Historvius, Food Network, Zagat, Atlas Obscura, Daily Secret, and others to enrich your experience of locations you wouldn't know were uniquely interesting otherwise. You can use it as a personal tour guide or share interesting locales over Facebook and Twitter.

The app also lets you set the frequency of notifications from none to an Explore mode that gives you all the … Read more

The most popular mobile-gaming franchise in the world is now a bit easier for you to get your hands on.

Customers who head over to the App Store today will find that the iPhone and iPad versions of Angry Birds are available for free. Previously, the iPhone version was on sale for 99 cents. Angry Birds HD for the iPad was available for $2.99. Rovio previously offered free versions of the titles, but those were limited to only a few levels. Those now appear to be gone from the App Store.

Angry Birds was the game that kicked off … Read more

Apple's suppliers have achieved a new compliance mark for employee hours, according to the iPhone maker.

To shed light on how its suppliers are behaving, Apple launched its Supplier Responsibility page early last year. This page attempts to show how suppliers are faring with such issues as excessive overtime, underage workers, and other violations of Apple's Supplier Code of Conduct.

Compliance with the 60-hour work week limit varied throughout 2012. But in January, the rate reached a record of 99 percent, Apple revealed yesterday on the Supplier Responsibility page

Apple has inched up a few points in the smartphone market, keeping its title as the No.1 smartphone maker in the U.S. and edging in slightly on Google's territory as the top smartphone platform, according to a report released by ComScore today.

The smartphone market overall continues to grow. According to the report, 129.4 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones in January, up 7 percent from October. As usual, it's an Apple vs. Google fight. The two companies continue to lead in their respective markets, with everyone else trailing behind.

Apple averaged 37.… Read more

I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, at least not in the latest Temple Run game.

In Temple Run: Oz, you play the role of the Great and Powerful himself as you travel the Yellow Brick Road trying to outrun flying monkeys, avoid dangerous plants, and jump over or slide under an array of obstacles.

Released yesterday for iOS and Android for just 99 cents, Temple Run: Oz combines the usual hazards of the Temple Run games with the wonders and dangers of the land of Oz.… Read more

I've lived with a smartwatch, in one form or another, for several periods over the past few years. Recently, with the Martian Passport. Further back, with the iPod Nano and a Hex wristband. Before that, a SPOT watch.

I love the idea of a smartwatch. Certainly, so does the media as of late. Bloomberg reports and iWatch rumors galore, plus various wearable watch-type items at January's CES, have started to give this territory the sense of a category.

Between the Martian and the Nano watch, I loved aspects of each -- and also found them both lacking. There'… Read more

Google today pushed out its first update to its mapping software on Apple's iOS, adding a few new features.

Chief among them is integration with a user's Google contact list, a feature that will pull up any addresses you have stored with Google, and not just on your phone.

The update (iTunes) also adds a new option in the search menu that will quickly look for nearby points of interest, including restaurants, gas stations, movie theaters, and coffee shops. You could search for these things before, but the new menu means you don't actually have to type … Read more

Apple had several names on the table years back when it was ready to launch its smartphone, and only eventually did the name "iPhone" win out.

Speaking yesterday to the University of Arizona's Department of Marketing, former Apple advertising executive Ken Segall said that before the iPhone launched, some other names for the device were considered, including Mobi, TelePod, TriPod, and even iPad.

According to 9to5Mac, which was in attendance at the event, Apple liked TelePod because it conveyed a future-focused angle on a traditionally "old" product, the telephone. Mobi was considered because Apple thought … Read more

Fresh off winning the Super Bowl, or at least the social media advertising wars during the NFL's championship, Oreo is now setting out to conquer the stars in the skies.

The cookie giant has teamed up with Nokia to release a stargazing app for Lumia Windows phones that could result in the heavens above being filled with virtual Oreos.

Called Oreo Skies, the app was designed to let users write messages and tag them to actual stars -- or at least to constellations.

It works like this. First, users can point their Lumia at the skies and pick a … Read more