Apple

HTC says it has sold nearly 5 million units of its HTC One smartphone. Although only around half of the 10 million Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphones sold, the figure is still a strong result. The news will be a morale boost for the Taiwanese company amid reports that it has lost several senior executives following a disastrous first quarter that saw the company return just $2.8 million profit on over just $2 billion is revenue....

HTC is continuing to develop for its Desire range of devices, and has introduced the Desire 600. The mid-range device inherits a number of features found in the HTC One, including the BlinkFeed news and social feed on the homescreen, 30-second video highlights generated from images taken during an event, as well the BoomSound audio processing and speakers....

Waiting for Apple’s iWatch? Good luck with that if you’re expecting anything fancier than a fitness-tracking iPod nano with a wrist strap. You should save your money, your hopes and your time and buy Beloved Crapware Vendor™ Brando’s Fashionable Bluetooth Vibrating Bracelet + Watch instead. This piece of plastic tat connects to any smartphone via Bluetooth (the battery sucking old Bluetooth, not the fancy new everlasting low-energy Bluetooth) and vibrates for any incoming calls, showing caller-ID on-screen as it does so. It also suffers from severe separation anxiety, buzzing away at you if your phone is allowed to get more than two meters away (that’s around six feet in last century’s measurement). It is, in every sense of the word, junk. And yet it’s styling (Daft Punk crossed with cheap 1980s novelty sunglasses) and cuteness make me love it. Especially as it’ll only cost you like $50, which is a fraction of the price of the unicorn tears you’ll haver to drip onto a Philosopher’s Stone to make a genuine iWatch spring forth (Digitimes reports that Apple is using its huge cash reserves to buy up the entire eastern world’s supply of unicorns). Available now. Source: Brando Related StoriesAnalyst: Don’t Plan To See An iWatch Until Later In 2014, But It Will Probably Use BiometricsOne Ruggedized UE BOOM Bluetooth Speaker is Cool, But Two Gets You Stereo SoundNuForce Mobile Music Pump: The Best-Named Headphone Amp Ever?Map Camera Adds Maps To Your PhotosMakeDoc For iOS Turns Beautiful Markdown Files Into DOCX Monstrosities

Amazon will be putting its Kindle Fire tablets on sale in 170 more countries next month, and has also expanded its Appstore to operate in nearly 200 countries. Pre-orders for the 7-inch and 8.9-inch models of the Kindle Fire HD through Amazon.com, its UK site, France, and Amazon Germany have commenced, with shipments to customers due to start on June 13th....

MakeDoc is a single-serve iOS app which costs just $3. That’s a lot less than the app it might replace for many of you: Microsoft Word. MarkDoc does (mostly) one thing: it takes a clipboard filled with Markdown text and turns it into a DOCX file. That’s it. Well, that’s almost it – makeDoc will perform the same conversion trick using OPML and plain text files for the source text. Most Markdown editors for iOS will convert text into rich text or HTML or a PDF, but as far as I know you have to go to the Mac to output a Word file. Why would you want this app? Because even if you’re one of those enlightened people who crafts their words in the RAW format of writers (Markdown), you will sometimes need to send a DOC file to a digital luddite. You might see the value of a lightweight and universal file format in which you concentrate on writing and think about the formatting only when you export, but some people like to have their work tied up in a proprietary, bloated file which is hard to edit without an expensive software suite. MakeDoc supports the “open in…” feature of iOS so you can send the results to any compatible apps (I suggest emailing it as fast as possible and then taking a long hot shower). What I’d really like is a URL scheme so other apps like Drafts could beam their Markdown payloads direct to the app for quick and dirty (emphasis on the dirty) conversion. Source: iTunes Store Related StoriesSound for Disasters: Eton’s Tough New Rukus Bluetooth Speaker is Solar-Powered, SplashproofAnalyst: Don’t Plan To See An iWatch Until Later In 2014, But It Will Probably Use BiometricsOne Ruggedized UE BOOM Bluetooth Speaker is Cool, But Two Gets You Stereo SoundNuForce Mobile Music Pump: The Best-Named Headphone Amp Ever?Map Camera Adds Maps To Your Photos

Last week we wandered about Mountain Lion’s Messages application to get a feel for the territory. In today’s lesson we’ll dig into some of Messages’ less obvious features, including screen sharing, initiating remote slideshows and presentations, and viewing past chats. Messages and screen sharing When exploring the Mac’s sharing features I explained how to share the screen of another Mac on your local network. Through Messages it’s possible to do the same thing, but over the Internet. To do this, each participant must use an AIM, Bonjour, Google Talk, or Jabber account. Screen sharing isn’t available through the iMessage protocol (meaning two iCloud accounts) or Yahoo. To share someone’s screen, select their name in your buddy list and from the Buddies menu choose Ask to Share PersonX’s Screen (where PersonX is the person you want to interact with). That person will receive an invitation via an alert sound and a dialog box. For them to allow their screen to be shared, they simply click the dialog box. They can also elect to send you a text reply. For example, if they are in the middle of something, they can  just click the Text Reply button and type I can’t right this second. Try again in 5 minutes. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A patent application published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday reveals Apple is actively researching methods to ensure a video's multi-channel audio is always played back correctly, no matter how a user holds the device.

HP has taken a stab at the fledging mobile desktop market with its new Envy Rove. Like the Sony Vaio Tap 20 and the Dell XPS 18, the Envy Rove does double duty as an all-in-one touchscreen Windows 8 desktop computer, while it also incorporates an in-built battery for mobile use around the house. The Envy Rove is one of three new all-in-ones HP announced today, which also offer a choice of the latest Intel ëHaswell' silicon scheduled for widespread availability in July....

To be honest, I’m writing this post based solely on the awesome name of this iOS-compatible headphone amp: the Mobile Music Pump. What is it? An amp to boost the puny output from your iPhone’s headphone jack to make big headphones sound better. According to the maker, NuForce, over-the-ear (OE) headphones need 10x more power than the equivalent in-ear (IE) headphones to do the same job. That makes sense – the OE cans are bigger after all. It’s just over two-inches long and just 22 grams (less than an ounce) in weight, and will make your headphones “sound distinctly clearer and more natural.” I don’t know. It’s already a pain to take a big pair of headphones out of the house with me. Now I need a separate amp as well? And it’ll need charging, too – the battery life is rated at 8 hours. I like great-sounding music as much as the next man, but I’ll stick with my Koss Porta Pros for now. The Mobile Music Pump is just $60. Source: NuForce Related StoriesMicrosoft’s New Windows 8 Ad Uses Siri To Mock The iPad [Video]Sound for Disasters: Eton’s Tough New Rukus Bluetooth Speaker is Solar-Powered, SplashproofAnalyst: Don’t Plan To See An iWatch Until Later In 2014, But It Will Probably Use BiometricsOne Ruggedized UE BOOM Bluetooth Speaker is Cool, But Two Gets You Stereo SoundMap Camera Adds Maps To Your Photos

You know how all your photos have a ton of extras tucked inside? Like – to pick a completely random example – the GPS data. And yet, whenever you send your vacation photos to your mom, she mails back to ask “where is that cool restaurant with the camel and the statue of Elvis outside?” or somesuch thing. Of course, you want to scream “Just look in the EXIF data, you idiot!” but, bring a good son/daughter, you just tell her. Again. Well, a new app for the iPad and iPhone will help you make the implicit explicit. It’s called Map Camera. Map Camera adds – surprise! – maps to your photos, either as you take them or afterwards. You can have it add the map itself or just a timestamp and location. And if you export photos they retain all EXIF data, unlike exporting from some apps I could mention (cough iPhone cough). And it’s not just good for vacation photos. Want to invite somebody to a soirée at your home or office? Snap a picture with Map Camera and you have a ready-made invite. The app is available now for a mere $2. It’s worth that just so you never get another location question from your mother. Source: iTunes Store Related StoriesiPhone Case Makers Collide: Otterbox Has Bought LifeProofMicrosoft’s New Windows 8 Ad Uses Siri To Mock The iPad [Video]Sound for Disasters: Eton’s Tough New Rukus Bluetooth Speaker is Solar-Powered, SplashproofAnalyst: Don’t Plan To See An iWatch Until Later In 2014, But It Will Probably Use BiometricsOne Ruggedized UE BOOM Bluetooth Speaker is Cool, But Two Gets You Stereo Sound