Although our favorite smartphones and tablets come with speakers, they are rarely ever very good. In terms of both loudness and clarity, smartphones and tablets just can’t compete with a higher-quality, external speaker.

There are a number of companies that are trying to capitalize on this fact, including Bass Egg. Bass Egg is a company that is currently in the process of producing a very high-quality reverberation speaker that sounds fantastic and appeases even the most judgmental audophile’s ears.

The Bass Egg itself is still currently in the pre-production stages, but the company sent me a prototype to use and review. As a sort of disclaimer, the prototype is nearly the final Egg, but it’s missing Bluetooth. Other than that, the final, purchasable model will sound and look the same.

And honestly, that’s a really good thing.

Design

Speakers can sometimes be rather beautiful pieces of engineering – and the Bass Egg is no exception. I don’t personally think that it looks much like an egg, but it’s beautiful, nonetheless. The body is made out of a matte metal that has been molded into an hourglass shape. It’s a really nice design, even if it doesn’t look much like an egg.

On the top, there’s a flat piece of smooth plastic that houses four capacitive buttons – Mode, Previous/Volume Down, Next/Volume Up, and Play/Stop. In my time reviewing the speaker, the buttons were always incredibly responsive, never missing a press. If you don’t like using capacitive buttons, though, don’t worry: the Bass Egg comes with a remote so you don’t have to use them.

On the back, you’ll find the Bass Egg’s plethora of ports. Aside from an On/Off switch and 12-volt DC power port, you’ll also find miniUSB, USB, and 3.5mm headphone jack ports; and also a TF card reader. All of them can be used to play music, making this speaker an incredibly versatile one.

Finally, here’s the bottom. It’s a small, metallic, circular disk that, once placed on a flat surface, will vibrate that surface and subsequently play your music through whatever that surface is. As the name of the type of speaker implies, a reverberation speaker vibrates the surface that it’s on. The vibrations cause the air around the object to move, thus making music.

Performance

I’m going to start this section out in a very blunt manner: the Bass Egg is one of the best speakers I’ve ever used.

It really sounds fantastic. It gets loud, stays clear, and is incredibly fun to play around with to get the best sound. Generally, I stuck to larger surfaces throughout my review – they always gave me a louder sound. If you go for a smaller surface, the Bass Egg will still pump out your song at a decent volume, though it won’t be as loud as a bigger one.

Wood, glass, metals, and even cardboard boxes will all give you a distinct “style” of sound. I tended to prefer wood-based surfaces out of all of them, as they give off a deep and beautiful sound.

Whichever surface you do choose to use, make sure it’s cleared off and free of debris. If, for example, you’re using your desk, don’t leave pens, pencils, and various pieces of office miscellany on the desk; if you do, the vibrations will cause those objects to move around and make the song sound really horrible. While this is one of the reverberation speaker’s few drawbacks, I personally think the few minutes it takes to clear a surface is worth the incredible sound that comes out of the Bass Egg.

Conclusion

When it comes down to speakers, everything is subjective. However, I like to think that I have a rather discerning ear. I can’t stand any low-end pieces of audio equipment because, frankly, listening to music should be enjoyable. Luckily for the team that designed the Bass Egg, their product does just that.

The COO of the company tells me that the Bass Egg is currently being produced – and it’s actually for sale right now. The original Kickstarter that we reported on stated that the product would cost about $99 when it was released. Unfortunately, the price has risen to $119, but that’s still a fantastic deal should you want one.

And believe me, you really want one.

You can purchase your own Bass Egg from the company’s website for the original price of $119. If you want to get the Bass Egg for just $90, you can head on over to the company’s website and enter the promo code THXFBF. This promo runs until January 31, 2013.

The post Accessory review: The Bass Egg appeared first on Pocketables.

AT&T’s FaceTime troubles started late last year when the company announced that only users of its Mobile Share plans would be able to access the iOS video-chatting service over cellular, effectively leaving in the dark the millions of other customers who hadn’t signed up for the new plans. A little while later, AT&T changed its claims and said that all owners of LTE phones on any tiered data plan would also have access to FaceTime on the carrier’s network – but that still left out customers who hadn’t upgraded to a newer handset.

Thankfully, AT&T has done a complete about-face on the issue and today announced that, over the coming weeks and months, all users of FaceTime over cellular-compatible iOS devices will be given access to the feature on AT&T’s networks. That’s right: you won’t have to spend outrageous amounts of money on any Mobile Share plan, nor will you have to pony up some cash and buy an LTE handset – if you’re an AT&T customer, you’re going to be able to use FaceTime over cellular when the rollout is complete.

The announcement comes from AT&T’s senior vice president of voice and data products Mark Collins on AT&T’s Consumer Blog, where he had only good things to say about AT&T’s hesitation to provide all its customers with FaceTime access on its networks. After writing about AT&T’s FaceTime “testing” and praising its decision to open access to everyone, Collins went on to say that the rollout will begin in the next couple of weeks, with the rollout being completed within a matter of months.

[AT&T Consumer Blog via AppleInsider]

The post AT&T to finally enable FaceTime over cellular for all data customers appeared first on Pocketables.

This weekend, I decided that my smartphone bill was too high and went to the nearest AT&T store to resolve the issue. After I was done, I upgraded from my 200MB data plan to a 3GB one, dropped my unlimited texting plan, and walked out the door saving a measly - but worth it – $5 a month.

While I was there, I also switched back from my Apple iPhone 4S to my Samsung Galaxy Nexus as my daily driver. The reasons for me switching smartphones yet again came down to the ecosystem – and how I’m going to start using more of Google’s services with my newfound and actually usable data plan. In addition to the other fantastic services that Google provides, I’m now the proud user of Google Voice exclusively for all of my telephonic-communication needs.

That means I’m no longer using my AT&T-given number and instead am using the one I picked from Google. Calls, texts, and voicemails all go through the Voice app on my Nexus device, while the traditional Android messaging app lies dormant in the Jelly Bean app drawer on my device.

If you’re an AT&T user, you’ll know that by dropping my texting plan, my bill went down $20. The old 200MB plan that I had (and doesn’t exist anymore) was costing me $15 a month; $30 a month gets me a 3GB plan. Now, instead of $35 a month on texting and data, I’m paying $30 for both – and I’m getting more than 15x the data.

We’ve explained how utilizing Google Voice’s features can save you money in the past, and with tiered, pricy data and overly-expensive texting plans becoming the norm, now is the perfect time to stick it to the carriers and find your own ways of accomplishing tasks that would otherwise cost you money.

Signing up for Google Voice requires only a Google account. Unfortunately, to access all of the features, you’ll have to live in the United States and have a US-based telephone number to authenticate your Voice account. If you meet those requirements, hit up the download link below (on either your iOS or Android phone; Windows Phone doesn’t yet have an official port) and give Voice a try.

Who knows, maybe you’ll like it and start saving money on your next smartphone bill, too!

Download: Play Store

Download: iTunes

The post How to save money on your US smartphone bill with Google Voice appeared first on Pocketables.

In terms of the best-selling smartphone manufacturers, Sony ranks third in the world behind Apple and Samsung. To stay there, it seems that the maker of the Xperia Play and Xperia tablets is looking to get itself out of the low-end smartphone market altogether and start making higher quality devices like its fiercest competitors.

Today, Sony’s Xperia product marketing manager Stephen Sneeden detailed the company’s two-year plan to do such a thing.

We’re ready to be a premium smartphone provider, logically then, at the very entry level is where you lose the ‘Sonyness’. And it’s where you cannot implement some of these wonderful things from Sony at such a low cost, we might leave the very entry tier to some other manufacturers. Maybe it’s not the flagship product, but I can still aspire to this other phone that has a number of these same characteristics.

In other words, Sony – a company that used to be widely regarded as a producer of some of the highest-quality devices – is trying to go back to its roots to reestablish that title, and hopefully gain some market share in the process.

Will you be giving Sony another chance when it comes time to get your next smartphone? Let us know in the comments below!

[CNET]

The post Sony Mobile might abandon low-end smartphone market, says executive appeared first on Pocketables.

If you read my Humble Bundle posts, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of the site and the team behind it. I love that I can pay whatever I’d like and, in return, help out charities and fantastic developers – all while getting some of the best games for a number of my devices.

Sometimes, though, I like downloading apps for the very low price of free. That’s where a new bundler, The Free Bundle, comes in: it allows you to download some of the greatest free indie games around. This latest bundle includes games like Nitronic Rush, Ascension, Imscared, and Aboro’s Big Adventure.

If you’ve ever played any of these games before, you’ll know that they’re all free – and because of that, you might be thinking that downloading them through the bundle is a waste of time. (And the bundlers know this too, as they explicitly point out that you can “actually pick them up at each of the author’s websites if you want to.”)

Even though you can download the games directly from the developers, I’d like to make a positive point about this bundle: I’ve only ever heard of one of these indie games. So without this website, I likely wouldn’t have ever been able to find, download, and enjoy the other four games that The Free Bundle is showcasing. And that, to me, is a very good reason to keep this site bookmarked.

If you want to take a look at the five games that are being shown off, hit up the source link below. Let us know if you get any of them!

[The Free Bundle]

The post Deal alert: The Free Bundle helps you find great, free indie games appeared first on Pocketables.

In addition to T-Mobile’s earlier CES announcements – wherein the company announced the launch of its new HD voice and LTE networks, as well as a new unlimited 4G data off-contract plan – the Deutsche Telekom-owned US carrier also said that in three to four months, it will start selling the iPhone to customers and removing its handset subsidies.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere said that the removal of subsidies and the offering of the iPhone could increase the GSM carrier’s US market share by up to five percent, bringing the company closer in terms of market share to its biggest nationwide rivals AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. Offering phones without subsidies gives customers the opportunity to have no-contract plans, meaning that their payments would be lower and that they could leave the carrier at any time – which Legere thinks will give consumers a reason to switch.

Of course, if those things weren’t good enough, T-Mobile is also in the stages of acquiring US carrier MetroPCS to expand its admittedly shoddy coverage. Better coverage, cheaper plans, and the availability of the popular iPhone seem to be what T-Mobile is betting on for the future.

Whether or not the carrier will succeed will be found out after all the changes have been made. Will you be making the switch to T-Mobile when its plans are completed?

[Reuters]

Make sure to stop by our CES 2013 forum for hands-on impressions, giveaways, and much more!

The post T-Mobile to offer iPhone, cut subsidies in three to four months appeared first on Pocketables.

New devices aren’t the only things being announced in Las Vegas at CES 2013. Accessories are also incredibly popular at the Consumer Electronics Show this year; in fact, there is an entire pavilion dedicated to iPhone cases alone.

Because of this, it only makes sense that the world’s largest accessory makers have shown up in Las Vegas to show off their latest creations. One such company is Otterbox, the popular maker of some of the toughest cases available for a wide variety of devices – including Android phones, BlackBerrys, iOS devices, and a number of Windows Phones.

Today, the company announced its new Armor Series line of cases. Otterbox says that it’s the “toughest case ever built,” complete with water-, drop-, dust-, and crush-proof features to make sure that whichever device is inside will stay safe and not broken. In fact, you could drop the case from ten feet, apply two tons of pressure onto it, and submerse it in 6.6-feet of water for up to 30 minutes without ever breaking your device.

The iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S are the lucky devices that get to slide into their new, tough clothes first, on February 22. You’ll be able to order through AT&T’s online website, or you can go to an AT&T store and buy one there. The iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III will be getting their own cases “soon.”

Of course, if you don’t necessarily want to purchase a case – but you still really want one – go enter our Otterbox case giveaway in the forums!

[Otterbox via Mac Rumors]

Make sure to stop by our CES 2013 forum for hands-on impressions, giveaways, and much more!

The post Otterbox shows off new Armor Series cases at CES appeared first on Pocketables.

There’s never been any doubt that Apple’s iOS App Store has been wildly successful. It seems that a few times every year since the Store’s inception, Apple has announced that it has reached another milestone in terms of app downloads. Today, the day before CES officially starts, Apple has announced the App Store’s newest milestone: 40 billion downloads.

Apple says that those 40 billion downloads are thanks to a current (and growing!) app library of over 775,000 apps. That, unfortunately, is a lump sum of every app in the App Store, and not split up between iPhone- and iPad-only apps.

Of course, an ecosystem is nothing without people to buy into it – and Apple says that its walled-garden is home to over 500 million user accounts that have contributed to those billions of

Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue had this to say about the company’s latest achievement:

“It has been an incredible year for the iOS developer community. Developers have made over seven billion dollars on the App Store, and we continue to invest in providing them with the best ecosystem so they can create the most innovative apps in the world.”

In the press release, a number of developers had nothing but good to say about Apple’s ecosystem – obviously – but it should show that developers big and small are still interested in the hundreds of millions of users of iOS devices.

[Apple via Mac Rumors]

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Samsung’s original Galaxy Tab was one of the first Android tablets that really made people stop and think of Android as more than just a phone operating system. With a speedy processor and Flash support, it was also one of the first that – despite its smaller size – could go up against the original iPad.

Since then, Samsung has gone wild with the Galaxy Tab branding, unleashing a large variety of different Galaxy Tab models. The one you see above is the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 for Sprint. I’ve been using the 10-inch tablet for nearly one month now, and I am now ready to give my final review on the device. So is the tablet worth its $549.99 off-contract price, or even its $449.99 on-contract price?  Read on to find out!

Quick Specs

The Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is not, unfortunately, a marvelous combination of high-quality components. The large, 10.1-inch screen has a resolution of only 1280 x 800, meaning that while it’s crisper than some laptop displays, it pales in comparison to newer iPads and other tablets. The lack of dense pixels is really noticeable while using the tablet, to the point that I would sometimes just have to give my eyes a break and look at another, denser screen.

Underneath the screen is a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and a dismal 8GB of internal storage. Thankfully, the tablet has a micro SD slot that will support cards with storage capacities of up to 64GB. In addition to the core components of the tablet, there are also 3G and LTE radios for Sprint connectivity, as well as WiFi and Bluetooth for more local connections.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is preinstalled, as is Samsung’s horrible TouchWiz interface, along with a number of useless apps from the manufacturer and Sprint. As with most skins and preinstalled apps, these can’t be uninstalled without root access – which is certainly easy enough if you follow one of the many guides that are out there, but it’s a waste of time, nonetheless.

Packaging

I published an unboxing post when I received the device, so I’ll make this brief. The packaging for the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is a typical Samsung affair: tablet on top, accessories and booklets underneath. The box is nothing to write home about, but it gets the job of shipping the tablet from the factory into your hands done.

Hardware

Samsung, in my opinion, makes some of the worst devices on the market in terms of hardware and build quality. That trend continues with the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, which – save for the front panel of Gorilla Glass – is clad entirely in a hard, matte plastic. Unfortunately, it’s not hard enough to prevent slight indentations if you press a little too hard. It doesn’t feel particularly fantastic in-hand, but the use of cheaper materials always seems to give a device a better chance of living through a number of drops, bumps, and scrapes.

The device’s two speakers are on either side of the screen. Even for tablet speakers, they are pretty bad. They aren’t loud, nor should you want them to be: there is no bass in these speakers, and if you pump them up to try and get even the tiniest bit of bass, they crackle and pop. If you’re wanting to buy this tablet for listening to music or watching movies, make sure you’ve got some earbuds or earphones next to you.

Here’s the back of the tablet. You can see the 3MP shooter up top, as well as the Samsung and Sprint logos underneath it. Samsung threw in a proprietary dock connector at the bottom, making this a useless device for a number of docks and accessories. Even worse is the fact that Samsung doesn’t include an adapter for the port, which means you’ll have to use the one included cable for all of your charging, syncing, and connecting.

The top of the Galaxy Tab is home to all of the buttons and most of the ports. From left to right, there is the power butotn, the volume rocker, the micro SD card slot, the IR blaster (for Samsung’s Smart Remote software), and the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Surprisingly, unlike the rest of the device, the buttons are made very well. There is no “mushy” feeling when you press them down; instead, they give a satisfying click every time, which is very nice considering how awfully the rest of the device is made.

Screen

I’ve used a number of screens throughout my time reviewing devices, and I can say without a doubt that this isn’t a very good one. Colors are decent, but the screen doesn’t get ultra bright and the incredibly low resolution for a tablet this size and this new is simply jarring.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, viewing angles are horrible, too. It’s a TFT LCD screen, which means that viewing angles aren’t very big. If you look at it at an angle, chances are something will look even worse than it does when you look at it straight on. In fact, the slightest move of either your head or the tablet’s position will likely throw the colors off-balance and make you rearrange yourself so the screen looks somewhat decent.

If there’s one silver lining to the dull, grey cloud that is the Galaxy Tab’s screen, it’s that touch responsiveness is very good. It’s not as good as an iPad’s screen, but the overwhelming majority of touches do register, which makes for a pleasurable experience when you’re doing tasks that the tablet can handle.

Software

As I said at the beginning of this review, the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. This was the first version of Android that was designed to run across a wide array of screen sizes and resolutions. Specifically, Google wanted a way to tie together phones and tablets so it was a bit easier for developers to make apps for both, thereby increasing Android’s rather dismal selection of tablet-optimized apps.

Unfortunately, Android is already on 4.2 Jelly Bean, and still, the Play Store’s tablet-optimized selection is not good. Compared to Apple’s selection of 275,000 iPad-optimized apps, Android may only have a few thousand, if that.

I used to give Google a bit of leeway on its lack of Android tablet apps. Before Honeycomb, Google never officially said that tablets were a part of Android’s future. Then, as we know, Honeycomb and the Motorola XOOM hit the market, and that’s when Google really stepped up its game in terms of pushing Android on tablets.

The release of Honeycomb was in February of 2011, about 22 months ago. There’s no excuse, then, for a nearly two-year-old platform to have such a small selection of software. If you can remember when the iPad was launched, the App Store had already crossed the 2,000 iPad-optimized app mark. And Windows 8, the operating system some people thought would be a total flop, already has more than 20,000 apps in the Windows Store.

Google hasn’t ever officially released the number of tablet-optimized apps that are on the Play Store, likely because it would be too small to even bother with. Because of this, I can’t recommend any Android tablet, even if it was the fastest, most well-designed thing the world has ever seen. Without apps, what’s the point of speed?

Aside from Android 4.0, this Galaxy Tab is also running the latest version of Samsung’s TouchWiz skin, peppered with a number of preinstalled Sprint apps. The combination of TouchWiz and Sprint’s apps, along with not a whole lot of tablet apps on the Play Store, make the software experience fairly unfortunate for a tablet of this price.

Still, there are some fairly cool things in TouchWiz, despite my negative feelings towards the majority of it. For example, there are mini apps that you can run on top of other apps. Unfortunately, there aren’t many of them, but it’s certainly a cool concept. Considering that Samsung has done the same thing with some of its other products, I think it’s safe to say that as time goes on the company will improve the feature so its tablets can be true multitaskers.

Performance

Regardless, the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is a rather slow piece of hardware, anyway. There is noticeable lag when you swipe from homescreen to homescreen, and apps take a while to launch. Despite how fast Sprint and Samsung claim the 1.5GHz dual-core processor to be, there are some things that it just can’t do very speedily. Ice Cream Sandwich by itself, of course, was very smooth; I’m blaming the lag on TouchWiz and Sprint’s preinstalled apps.

Games, on the other hand, ran very well on the tablet. That’s likely due to the low-resolution display, but games are always really fun to play on large tablets, regardless of the resolution – especially when the touch response is quick and accurate. Other small tasks like web browsing and video watching were fast enough for daily use, too.

Benchmarks

Benchmarks aren’t always a great way to measure real-life performance, but some people really like to see how one device stacks up against others. As as Pocketables’ typical way, here are four popular Android benchmarks:

Quadrant

Vellamo

Linpack Single thread

Linkpack Multi thread

Antutu

Connectivity

In addition to 802.11b/g/n connectivity and Bluetooth, the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is also capable of connecting to Sprint’s 3G and “4G” LTE networks. Typically, cellular connectivity would be considered a good thing to have, but this is Sprint we’re talking about. It’s no secret that Sprint’s network is one of the worst in the United States. Speeds are rather dismal for 3G and LTE is hard to find, making this cellularly-connected tablet almost the complete opposite.

It should also be mentioned that Sprint doesn’t offer unlimited data for tablets. Instead, the carrier offers tiered data plans for its tablet customers: 3GB, 6GB, and 12GB for $34.99, $49.99, and $79.99, respectively. Considering that the network is quite bad, it’s probably not worth spending the money each month to get just a fraction of what you’re paying for.

However, even though its cellular connectivity doesn’t work very well, WiFi and Bluetooth do. I was able to connect to my car’s Bluetooth to listen to some music, as well as my home WiFi network without any troubles.

Camera

The front-facing camera shoots at a VGA (640 x 480) resolution, which makes it useful for very little. Video chats are fine, but you shouldn’t use it to take pictures that you plan to frame. Around the back, there is a measly 3MP camera which, honestly, doesn’t do much better at taking videos or pictures. Samsung says that the rear-facing camera is capable of shooting 720p HD, but it’s not a very good 720p. After all, it’s still a 3MP camera.

I’m not really a fan of putting rear-facing cameras on tablets anyway, but if a company is going through the trouble of adding one, I believe it should be worth using. Samsung hasn’t followed my belief with this tablet, so keep that in mind if you’re planning to take lots of pictures with your next tablet

You can view the gallery below for the rear-facing camera, and the gallery below the first one to see pictures taken with the front-facing camera.

Battery Life

If I had to pick my favorite part of this Galaxy Tab, it would be its battery life. Inside, Samsung threw in a 7000 mAh ion lithium battery that the company says is capable of 14 hours of active use time. Thankfully, that’s spot on – I used the device on 3G and LTE on a trip this past week and didn’t even think twice about saving any battery for later. My third-generation iPad doesn’t even come close to the Galaxy Tab’s battery, and my iPad isn’t even connected to its cellular service anymore! I was very impressed with how long the Galaxy Tab was able to keep a charge day in and day out – I just wish I could be impressed with the rest of it, too.

Conclusion

Even with its stellar battery life and good gaming performance, this is not a good tablet. I don’t think I’d go so far as to say it’s the worst tablet on the market, but you will certainly notice its shortcomings should you buy this device.

And then there’s the price. At $449.99 with a two-year contract with one of the worst carriers in the United States, the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is a particularly hard pill to swallow. And if you don’t want to sign a two-year contract with Sprint, it’ll cost you an extra $100 to get it into your hands. At that price, you could get an iPad mini with cellular connectivity, a Nexus 7 with cellular connectivity, or any one of a number of other tablets, too.

Because of everything that is wrong with this tablet, I can’t recommend that you buy it. If you’re in need of a cellular-connected tablet, look somewhere else – there are plenty of usable options from other manufacturers and carriers that you’d be much happier with.

If you would still like to try one out for yourself, you can get one through Sprint’s website for $449.99 on-contract, or $549.99 off.

The post Review: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 for Sprint appeared first on Pocketables.

Today, the makers of Canabalt and Solipskier released a new game called Hundreds. It’s quite a simple app: you must grow circles in the screen to a total of 100 points – all while keeping them away from each other while they’re growing. If you don’t, it’s all over.

The game – which was just released today – is 40% off as a sort of launch special. Instead of the normal $4.99, the app is only $2.99 in the iOS App Store. When you purchase it, you can use it on either your iPhone or iPad, as it is designed for all of Apple’s iDevice screen sizes.

You can play a bit of the game online at the link right here, though it doesn’t even start to compare to the iOS version. If you do, however, find yourself falling in love with the online version – and you own an iDevice – I suggest hitting up the download link below and getting your game on while it’s relatively cheap to do so.

Download: iTunes

[Kotaku | Mac Rumors]

The post Deal alert: Hundreds app 40% off until Thursday, January 10 appeared first on Pocketables.

On New Year’s Day, quite a few iOS device owners were exposed to an iOS 6 bug – one that disabled the newly-added Do Not Disturb feature. The feature, naturally, allows calls and messages to go through to your device without bothering you in any way.

Unfortunately, the feature stopped working yesterday, and Apple has reached out to a variety of publications to confirm the bug and let everyone know that it will continue on until January 7. On that day, according to the company, the bug will fix itself automatically.

Here’s Apple’s “resolution” for the problem:

Do Not Disturb scheduling feature will resume normal functionality after January 7, 2013. Before this date, you should manually turn the Do Not Disturb feature on or off.

Apple’s iOS seems to always have an issue around the New Year, but luckily the company is good about fixing them. For users of the feature, it is disappointing that the fix won’t happen for another five days; but it is good that it’ll go away at all.

Are you upset that your iOS device’s Do Not Disturb feature isn’t acting correctly? Or does it not matter that for another five days, your calls and messages may vibrate your phone in your pocket?

[Mac Rumors]

The post PSA: Apple’s iOS Do Not Disturb bug to fix itself on January 7 appeared first on Pocketables.

With the holidays coming to a close, chances are you’re looking for ways to accessorize any new device that you may have received, or maybe burn a little of that holiday cash on something fun. Luckily, a large number of retailers are currently having their after holiday sales, including ThinkGeek with its iCade Jr. for the iPhone 4, 4S, or 5.

Normally, the miniature iCade accessory – which allows you to have an arcade-style joystick and array of buttons with which to play video games on your iPhone – costs $49.99. However, during ThinkGeek’s Winter Clearance sale, the iCade Jr. can be yours for just $9.99 – just 20% of the original price.

There are over 150 apps on the App Store than currently – and officially - have built-in support for the accessory. More are sure to be on the way, and since it uses Bluetooth to connect to the iPhone, I’m sure there are other apps that will also be compatible with the iCade Jr.

ThinkGeek’s iCade series has received a lot of praise. They’re well-built, fun little accessories that ultimately make playing your favorite iPhone games just a little more fun. And for just $9.99, there’s really no reason to not get one.

Hit up the source link below if you’d like to order yours.

[ThinkGeek via Mac Rumors]

The post Deal alert: ThinkGeek iCade Jr. for iPhone on sale for $9.99 appeared first on Pocketables.

The holidays gave me a lot of free time to do a lot of things that I’ve been missing out on, specifically catching up on and playing the latest games across all of my devices. After searching through all the deals on the App Store on both my iPhone and my iPad, I found a number of fantastic games – but I think my favorite one is a free matching game called Chip Chain.

The premise of the game is quite simple: you need to match at least three of the same chip by placing them near each other in any way except diagonally. When you do, they will all combine to make a single chip of the next number. You continue to do this until the round is over, which will occur when you can’t play anymore, you run out of chips, or you run out of time, depending on the mode you select.

Regardless of the mode, gameplay is very much the same. You are given chips of varying numbers that you can place wherever you wish on the board; you are given cards that you can buy to manipulate the chips that are currently on the board; and you earn gems at the end to buy more items such as cards and modes.

You can also make in-app purchases of more gems, but I feel that aspect kind of ruins the fun. Part of my love of this game came from strategizing my chips and cards to ensure that I got the most gems possible from each and every round. Still, that becomes long and tedious; if you’re a person who likes to progress as quickly as possible, an in-app purchase is likely necessary.

The animations and graphics are beautiful, and the game itself is incredibly fun to play. One of the best parts is that, since the app is free, only three of the five modes are available to play on any given day (provided that you haven’t purchased the unlock that gives you every mode every day). While that seems a bit stupid at first, it’s actually quite the opposite. My favorite mode (and the one I play the most) is Long mode – which, as its name implies, allows you to play as long as you can until you can’t make any more moves. If that was unlocked all the time, I would likely never play any of the other modes on offer and, as time went on, I’d get bored of the app and move on to another. In other words, the game stays fun and keeps you interested for a long time.

Chip Chain is free for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch on the App Store. The price of in-app purchases varies depending on what you want to buy – but honestly, I haven’t purchased anything in the long amount of time I’ve played the game and I’m still having a blast. The game and the ability to play the game is completely free, so if you’ve been looking for a fantastic game for a quick play or a hardcore gaming session, I recommend you give Chip Chain a play. Hit up the download link below to get your game on.

Download: iTunes

The post App review: Chip Chain for iOS appeared first on Pocketables.

As you probably have already realized, I am a huge fan of the Humble Bundle. I can pay any amount of money that I would like to pay, and in return get a number of great games and other various types of media – all while supporting great charities. That’s why I always make sure to write up a post about the service: I’m very much in love with what the team behind it does, and I want to help spread the word even further (even if it’s already become incredibly popular).

Today, as a sort of holiday treat, the Humble Bundle team added an additional three games to Humble Indie Bundle 7 package that already included six games and Indie Game: The Movie. Those games are: The Basement Collection, Offspring Fling, and Cave Story. Additionally, the purchase of those games also includes both their MP3 and FLAC soundtracks. To get the new additions and Dungeon Defenders and Legend of Grimrock, you have to pay more than the current average.

As with the rest of the bundle, the three new games are cross-platform compatible with Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. All files – be it games, MP3s, FLACs, or movie files – are DRM-free, as well. If you wish to get the games through Steam, you can pay $1 or more to get a key in addition to the DRM-free files.

If you’re interested in getting some great games and a fantastic movie and helping out the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Child’s Play Charity, and the Humble Bundle itself, hit up the source link below to put your order in.

[Humble Bundle]

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We hope everyone had a fantastic extended weekend! Most of us are back to work today – except the iTunes folks at Apple, who are still on an even longer extended break. That basically means that Apple can’t take app updates or submissions, or even change the prices until its employees are back.

What that means for you is quite good: every company’s sales will continue on until Apple resumes business as usual. If you received any money or iTunes gift cards over the holiday season, you have a few more days to spend it on some great, discounted apps.

As the title to this post suggests, employees will be back this Friday, December 28. When they do come back to work, developers will likely return apps to their normal prices and end the plethora of sales that have been offered through the past week. Some deals include Grand Theft Auto III for $0.99 and every Rovio HD title for the same price.

If you want to take advantage of any of the sales, I suggest heading to the App Store on your iDevice and downloading or buying some apps as soon as possible so you don’t forget!

The post Reminder: App Store app sales are still going on, will end December 28 appeared first on Pocketables.

Today, I finally got around to playing with the latest update to Angry Birds: Star Wars, the one that adds Hoth levels from Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Naturally, I messed up quite a lot and had to restart the level – which, of course, brought me to the pause screen and subsequently showed me this little price alert.

Right now in the App Store, all Rovio HD titles are being sold for just $0.99. That’s a discount of $2 from the normal price of Rovio’s HD apps, which are sold exclusively for the iPad on Apple’s App Store. And luckily, if you’re not a big fan of the Angry Birds franchise, the sale also extends to Rovio’s other titles: Amazing Alex and Bad Piggies.

I’ve been a longtime fan of Rovio’s amazing games, and this is the perfect opportunity for me to make sure I complete my collection. As of right now, my iPad has three of the seven HD Rovio games; for four more dollars, I could have the complete suite of Rovio’s games.

It’s very enticing for me – and I’m sure for some of you, too – so if you’re interested in picking up a few new games for the holiday weekend, hit up the source link below, which shows all of Rovio’s HD titles in the App Store.

[iTunes]

The post Deal alert: Rovio HD titles for $0.99 on App Store appeared first on Pocketables.

AppyFridays is a relatively new service that is designed to offer Mac users deep discounts on popular apps from the Mac App Store every Friday. Today just so happens to be a Friday, and AppyFridays is back to offer a few apps at a discount of up to 80% off the original asking price.

What makes this Friday more special (aside from the whole “end of the world” thing) is that this week’s deal also offers a free app with the purchase of any of the discounted apps. In addition to the free app, AppyFridays is also extending the offer through December 28 due to the taking off of time throughout the holidays by Apple’s app review team.

The apps that are being offered this week are as follows:

• Cookie Cutter – Select one of the 50+ shapes, place it on your photo, and seconds later you have the perfect cut out.
• Marked - Beautifully designed previewer for MultiMarkdown, Markdown, Text and HTML files. Adds an ideal ”live” Markdown preview.
• Music Recorder - Stylish and feature rich audio recorder, which empowers you the ability to record computer audio,microphone and other audio input device in a single click. Plus more great tools.
• Startrail - Give your boring mouse pointer some soul. Startrail turns it to animated arrow to impress everyone around.

Music recorder is $4.99, while the other three are $0.99. If you want any of those apps – in addition to the free one that the company is offering – head on over to the AppyFridays link below to buy and download them.

[AppyFridays]

The post Latest AppyFridays deal cuts prices by up to 80%, offers free app with purchase appeared first on Pocketables.

At the beginning of December, T-Mobile’s parent company Deutsche Telekom announced that it would start selling Apple products in 2013. Naturally, neither company said exactly which iDevices would be offered, but it seems silly for a cell carrier not to carry one of the world’s most popular phones – meaning that some iPhone will likely be offered to T-Mobile customers come next year.

Since one of the reasons that T-Mobile took so long to carry the iPhone was having a GSM network that was different than AT&T’s, the former company is putting forth many resources to make its network compatible with Apple’s successful handset – including opening up new, iPhone-compatible HSPA+ networks in a variety of cities. Today, the company added 14 new cities to the existing list of cities with T-Mobile HSPA+ networks.

In my opinion, T-Mobile is the most interesting carrier in the US today. Not only did the company introduce a truly unlimited data plan earlier this year, but it’s also putting some quality handsets into its portfolio at an amazing rate – all while keeping its amazing plans.

The list of new cities is below. Are you a lucky resident of one of them?

• New York, including The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island
• Newark, N.J., including the surrounding cities of East Orange, Elizabeth, Jersey City, North Bergen, Paterson and Union City
• Boston and Cambridge, Mass., including the surrounding cities of Amherst, Andover, Arlington, Bedford, Belmont, Billerica, Braintree, Brockton, Brookline, Burlington, Canton, Chelmsford, Chelsea, Chicopee, Dedham, Everett, Framingham, Hadley, Holbrook, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lexington, Lowell, Ludlow, Lynn, Malden, Marblehead, Medford, Melrose, Metheun, Milton, Nahant, Natick, Needham, Newton, Quincy, Reading, Revere, Salem, Saugus, Sommerville, Stoneham, Swampscott, Tewksbury, Wakefield, Walpole, Waltham, Watertown, Weston, Westwood, Weymouth, Wilmington, Winchester, Winthrop and Woburn
• Springfield, Mass.
• Providence, R.I., including the surrounding cities of Cranston, North Providence, Pawtucket and Warren
• Philadelphia
• Detroit and Warren, Mich., including the surrounding cities of Dearborn, Romulus, Royal Oak, Sterling Heights and Troy
• Dallas, including the surrounding cities of Arlington, Carrolton, The Colony, Denton, Farmers Branch, Flower Mound, Frisco, Garland, Grand Prairie, Irving, Lancaster, Lewisville, McKinney, Mesquite, Plano, Richardson, Rowlett and Southlake
• Fort Worth, Texas, including the surrounding cities of Keller and Mansfield
• Austin, Texas including the surrounding city of Round Rock
• San Antonio
• Tampa, Fla., including the surrounding cities of Clearwater, Largo, Safety Harbor, St. Petersburg and Vinoy Park

[T-Mobile via 9to5Mac]

The post T-Mobile prepares 14 more cities for future iPhones with HSPA+ upgrades appeared first on Pocketables.

Just three weeks after the last bundle was offered, Humble Bundle is at it again with the Humble Indie Bundle 7.

Like previous Humble Indie Bundles, this latest one offers up great indie games at whatever price you want to pay for them. However, this one adds something new to any bundle, not just the Indie one: a movie. Included with Snapshot, The Binding of Isaac, Closure, and Shank 2, you will get Indie Game: The Movie at any price, too. It’s a 2012 documentary that follows the production of such games as Super Meat Boy and Fez.

If you pay more than the average, you’ll also get Dungeon Defenders and Legend of Grimrock.

Every file is DRM-free and compatible with Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. You can also download the FLAC and MP3 soundtracks to the games and the movie – and speaking of the movie, the Humble Bundle is offering you both 720p and 1080p files.

As always, your money helps out the Child’s Play Charity and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as the developers who made whatever it is you’re purchasing. You can split up your payment into three parts: Charity, Developers, and Humble Bundle. The first two parts can be split up between each individual game or charity, too.

[Humble Bundle]

The post The Humble Indie Bundle 7 is now live appeared first on Pocketables.

About three weeks ago, I bought a new car. For those of you who love cars in addition to pocketable technology (like me), then you might be interested to know that it’s a 2012 Mazda3 hatchback.

It’s a wonderful car with tremendous gas mileage to boot, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in saving as much money as possible when I do have to fill it up. In fact, quite the contrary has happened: I’ve become incredibly aware of how efficiently I’m driving, and how much gas is in the different parts of the state that I may have to drive to.

Still, I’m a forgetful human being. No matter how many mental notes I make about gas prices in each city, I will inevitably forget them and end up spending just a little more on gas than I wanted to – or than another station was selling it for. Luckily, I have a smartphone and there are plenty of apps to help you find the best gas prices around. I’ve used plenty of them, but my absolute favorite is GasBuddy.

The premise of GasBuddy is very simple: it finds your location, looks for gas stations near you, and then looks up the prices that are entered by other GasBuddy users.

To find gas near you, all you need to do is either enter your zip code, state, or city; or, more easily, you can simply hit the Find Gas Near Me button and have your device automatically find gas stations that are near you.

After it’s loaded up the nearest gas stations, you’ll be presented with prices and how far away the station is. All prices are entered by users of the app, and you can also see how long ago the prices were updated. For the most part, prices are incredibly accurate, no matter how long ago they were updated.

GasBuddy is a free app – and I’m sure most of you use (or have used) it – but it’s a powerful tool in my arsenal of iOS apps and it is definitely worth a mention – I don’t know any car owner who likes to spend more on already-expensive gasoline, and I’m sure none of you like it, either.

You can download the app through the QR code or download link below. Are there any other money-saving apps that you use?

[Download]

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