Author: Leif Johnson

At this rate, owning an iDevice might be as essential to being a successful doctor as possessing a degree. Only a day after a British hospital reported that its practice of using iPad and iPods to monitor patents’ health had led to lower mortality rates, a new crowd-funded project has popped up on IndieGogo claiming that Apple’s iPhone might be able to help wipe out malaria on the Indonesian island of Bangka.

The team, known as IanXen, plans to use Bangka as a testing ground of sorts before tackling more ambitious projects over in Africa. The team will use a IanXen RAPID kit that will outfit an iPhone with a portable microscope, a lancet pen, and blood slides, thus allowing them to use the microscope to examine the slides with a microscope and make diagnoses within five seconds. The key attraction of the process is that it’s relatively cheap, and could therefore make more headway in regions ravaged by malaria than conventional equipment.

According to the project’s IndieGogo page, “3.3 billion people live at risk of malaria across 106 malaria-endemic countries. Although the risk is widespread, cases and deaths are concentrated in Africa. In 2010, over 80 percent of 216 million estimated cases and over 90 percent of 655,000 estimated deaths occurred in Africa. Prompt diagnosis and effective treatment are the cornerstones of malaria case management; patients recover rapidly if diagnosed and treated early.”

Sound like a cause worth fighting for? You can help out the team with a starting donation of £5 ($8.50), which will net you a mention on the project’s Twitter feed. You can, of course, donate even more.

Follow this article’s writer, Leif Johnson, on Twitter.

Streaming devices from Apple’s competitors might be gaining ground (hello, Chromecast), but ever undaunted, the Cupertino company continues to make Apple TV a device worth owning. The iPhone maker has spent the last year or so stuffing the device with …

Over in the United Kingdom, the word is that iPads and iPods are saving lives. Not through the power of their magic Apple logo, of course — as doctors and nurses Middlesbrough’s James Cook University Hospital claim (via the Gazette Live), the Cupertino company’s easily portable units allow the hospital to sideline the hassle of paper notes and focus on the information that demands immediate attention.

Using the iPod touch, for instance, medical personnel can monitor their patients’ health through the help of specialized apps that produce immediate reports on a person’s vitals and deliver alerts if something seems awry. The staff at the hospital also use networked iPads to check on each patient.

Via Gazette Live

“The key benefits of the system is the more rapid identification of deteriorating patients which in pilot sites has led to a reduction in hospital and critical care length of stay and a reduction in mortality — all of which are a huge benefit to both patients and clinicians,” said Tricia Hart, the head of South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Even more remarkable, the hospital is reporting such success just a few weeks after the program launched on June 23. The South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust obtained £1 million ($1.69m) for the project in March, and the use of Apple’s devices at James Cook marks only the first step in a much wider adoption of the project throughout Britain.

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Hotels often make a big deal about how much their premises make you feel “at home,” but according to the Wall Street Journal, Hilton’s upcoming app will let you walk straight up to your room after your arrival like you own the place. No more of that nasty socializing with the folks behind the counter business; you’ll be able to bypass human interaction altogether.

We’ve covered this kind of stuff before, but it’s always been for comparatively small regional chains or tests before wider rollouts. (Back in January, for instance, Starwood Hotels and Resorts implemented a similar program for two of its Aloft hotels in Manhattan and in Apple’s own Cupertino.) Hilton’s adoption of the feature marks one of the first steps to making the practice common at internationally recognizable hotel chains.

Hilton, in fact, is already halfway there. The current app for the influential hotel chain lets you check in through the app, but you still need to run up to the front desk if want your keys. That’ll change in the future, though — specifically, sometime next year. By 2016, according to the WSJ, you’ll be able to use your iPhone has your hotel key at all of the company’s locations worldwide.

Pity, then, that they’ll probably still charge you an arm and a leg for Wi-Fi.

Follow this article’s writer, Leif Johnson, on Twitter.

Apple held its quarterly earnings call today, and the report from CEO Tim Cook follows the general trend we’ve been seeing for some months now. Device sales are generally up for year-over-year, with the notable exception of the iPad (which has witnesses sales drops of 8 percent in the past 12 months). But there’s an important statistic among all these numbers—since 2008, the Cupertino giant has paid over 20 billion to its iOS developers.

Compare that figure to the $15 billion Apple reported just last January, and you’ll discover that that’s a increase of $5 billion just within the last half-year. TechCrunch, who drew attention to the figure, points out that Google reportedly paid out $5 billion over the entirety of last year. Push those numbers a few months further, and it’s suddenly apparent that Apple has paid out “nearly half” of the total $20 billion within the last 12 months along.

TechCrunch also points out that Apple’s cut of all this is approximately $8.5 billion, based on a calculation figuring in the iPhone maker’s 30 percent cut and thus bringing the total number to roughly $28.57 billion. If you weren’t already aware, in other words, it’s a good idea to focus on iOS if you design apps for mobile devices.

All total, Apple sold 35.20 million iPhones, 13.27 million iPads, 4.41 million Macs, and 2.96 million iPods during the last quarter. For the same quarter last year, Apple sold 31.24 million iPhones, 14.62 million iPads, 3.75 million Macs, and 4.57 million iPods.

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Today Apple secured a patent for a smartwatch from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (No. 8,787,006), providing some of the first direct evidence that the company is, in fact, working on a piece of wearable tech for the wrist. Here’s the thing, though—the patent filing dates all the way back to 2011, meaning that whatever Apple announces in the coming months (if they do) might not look anything like what we see on the paper.

Indeed, at this point, the concept described seems rather old fashioned. Rather than an integrated device, the filing describes a unit with sensors to be worn on the wrist that can be fitted with various peripherals. That’s only found in the details, though. The basic wording is so vague that the patent could likely be interpreted as applying to smartwatches in general.

Some of the language, for instance, reads as follows: “As an electronic wristband to be worn on a wrist of a user, another embodiment of the invention can, for example, include at least a central portion and at least one band portion. The central portion can include a touch screen display, control circuitry and a battery. The touch screen display can be configured to present visual information to the user and to receive user input from the user. The control circuitry can be configured to control operation of the electronic watchband, and the battery can be configured to provide power to the electronic wristband.”

And so forth. You can read the entire lengthy document here if you have around 15 minutes to spare. It also describes gesture-based controls in place on the swipes and taps we know so well from iOS, and it already includes information about the health and fitness sensors that have been a staple of iWatch rumors almost from the beginning. And how about that name? The patent filing calls the device “iTime,” which seems like a more elegant styling for such a device than the more prosaic “iWatch.”

Be sure to check out our roundup of existing iWatch rumors here.

Follow this article’s writer, Leif Johnson, on Twitter.

Apple today released the latest developer build of iOS 8, and while it’s full of little tweaks and tips, it doesn’t have any of the significant additions we’ve been seeing in previous releases. This new focus on polishing means that the Cupertino compa…

There’s not much in the way of breaking news about Apple TV from Apple itself, but Netflix today at last updated its channel for the diminutive entertainment device to support the “Up Next” or “Post Play” feature, which allows easy access to the next e…

Apple has been attempting to distance itself from Google for some time now, and the latest service destined to be cut appears to be the maps for the iCloud version of Find My iPhone. Google has always provided the maps for the service until now, but iP…

As hard as may be to believe in these days of rampant iPhone thefts, sometimes lost iPhones make their way back to their owners through sheer human goodness alone. Take the case of Kevin Whitney, a farmer in Chickasha, Oklahoma. As Gizmodo reports, Whitney lost his phone in a grain pit last October and he got it back after it made its way to the other side of the world.

Whitney accidentally dropped his phone in the grain pit, and gave it up for lost after it shot up into a container with 280,000 pounds of grain soon after. Nine months later, he got a call from a grain worker in Japan asking if he’d lost a phone inside 2 million bushels of grain sorghum.

Source: KFOR via Gizmodo

“It’s crazy — I can’t believe it,” Whitney said in an interview with KFOR, a news channel in Oklahoma City. “What really shocked me about it all was what a small world it is. There a lot of a lot of meaningful pictures on it so we are real glad to get the phone back.”

The phone’s total trip included a drive from his farm to a facility in Inola, Oklahoma, where it then traveled by barge down the Arkansas River and down the Mississippi. The grain was then loaded on a ship in Covent, Louisiana, after which it traveled through the Panama Canal and made its way to Kashima, Japan.

And it still worked, too, which is just as much a testament to the quality of the conditions grain is shipped in as the quality of the phone itself. There wasn’t a scratch on it, Whitney said, and all of his beloved photos were still accessible.

Follow this article’s writer, Leif Johnson, on Twitter.

Apple released the third beta build of iOS 8 today after a three-week lack of updates, and it’s full of tweaks that were neither in previous updates nor mentioned in the keynote at WWDC 2014. While there’s nothing earth-shattering about the update, it …

We’ve heard a lot about how strong the rumored sapphire crystal screens for the iPhone 6 supposedly are, but a new YouTube video from famed parts leaker Sonny Dickson today may have allowed us to see for ourselves for the first time. The “may” is impor…

It’s been a while since we’ve heard much substantial about Apple’s CarPlay system, but the company broke that silence today with an updated page that confirmed the support of nine brands (many of them from the Fiat-Chrysler group) — namely Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Mazda, and RAM.

That’s a significant addition to the existing list, although we likely won’t see CarPlay-compatible cars from the brands in question until 2015 or beyond. If you’re interested in picking up CarPlay this year, your best bet is to look out for the models on the this year from Hyundai, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and (supposedly, for now) Honda.

Originally called “iOS in the Car” at its demo during WWDC 2013, Carplay integrates iOS apps like Phone, Messages, Maps, and Music into the car’s built-in dashboard display. Drivers and passengers can control their iPhone 5s, 5c, and 5 units by touching the CarPlay interface itself or calling out commands to Siri. It’s a mixture of safety and convenience, as it allows control over your iPhone and without having to worry about taking your eyes off the road.

Fortunately for those of us who don’t want to go out and buy a new car to enjoy the service, aftermarket console makers Alpine and Pioneer are making their own CarPlay devices that will bring the technology to older and currently unsupported vehicles.

Follow this article’s writer, Leif Johnson, on Twitter.

Apple’s announcement last week that it would discontinue its beloved Aperture photo editing software came as a shock to many; it seemed as though the company was partially turning its back on the creative crowd that’s been faithful to it for so long. T…

Earlier today some owners of Apple devices with the two-step authentication process enabled started noticing that the service had been extended to their iCloud.com accounts, thus requiring them to enter a verification code before their they could acces…

Thin is in at Apple, and the Cupertino company is hard at work attempting making the iPhone thinner than ever. A new report from China Times (via GforGames) states that Apple plans to make its next flagship smartphone even less bulky by cutting the num…