Daily Tip: How to clear icon badges with BadgeClear [jailbreak]

Despise notification icons on your apps but not sure how to quickly get rid of them? Disabling them completely is one thing, but being able to selectively clear them when you’ve reached the point of overload is another. Luckily, there’s a Jailbreak app for that and we’re going to tell you about it, after the break!

BadgeClear is pretty much made for people who despise icon badges. Until iOS 5 drops (and a jailbreak for it), we don’t have the option to disable badges for every single app — Apple doesn’t allow you to clear badges for a lot of default apps like Mail — but if you’re jailbroken, BadgeClear makes it easy to clear any and all app icon badges with just a few taps.

Just hold down any icon until they start jiggling (just like you would to delete an app) and tap on the badge you’d like to clear. BadgeClear will ask you if you want to clear it and just tap yes.

This is nice for annoying apps that have badges for no reason really. I have a couple of those. My banking app always sends me push notifications about 10 days too late and leaves an annoying little badge. This is much easier than digging through the app and viewing the notifications. Any apps you have this may be useful for?

$0.99 – Cydia Search Link

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

TinyChat iPhone app

TinyChat has released its first iOS app: TinyChat FB. This innovative app allows users to have a video chat with up to 12 Facebook friends through the iPhone.

Unlike other video chat apps like Fring, Tango or Skype, users will not have to have the app installed in order to take part in the chat. Moreover, users can log-into the app via Facebook. Once the app has been downloaded, it will display a complete list of the users FB friends. Users can then invite their friends by clicking on their names, which will send them a message reading “I’m video chatting on my iPhone, click the link to video chat with me”, with an accompanying link. Friends can be removed from the list through the users tab.

The TinyChat FB app is compatible with the iPad 1, iPad 2, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4. The only requirement is that you have 12 friends who are able and willing to have a video conference call with you. On a personal note, as a frequent user of Skype it is important to note that even conference calls with a handful of people could quickly become messy, and one could wonder how 12 people can actually maintain a coherent video conference. However, the creators of the TinyChat FB app insist that it is already becoming a major hit amongst teenagers since it take socializing to a completely new level. It also makes FB a more viable platform against the emerging Google+, which also provides video chat for multiple users.

The app seems to be steaming ahead with over 30 million minutes of video chat and 100,000 additional users per day. The app has also become a hit amongst various celebrities including P.Diddy and Lady Gaga.  The central appeal of the app will still be the fact that it is designed for complete mobility. However, despite its vast capabilities, one could only wonder how many chats actually exceed about 5-6 people.

Free iPhone apps that help you manage your fuel costs

Information is key to keeping costs down. If you can manage all the relevant data, then you can get an accurate picture of how much you are spending and then manage your budget accordingly. This is where mobile phones in general have caused a bit of a revolution. They make the exchange of information nearly instantaneous, which helps people save money. Smart phones have certainly enhanced this whole effect and there is now a host of apps to help you monitor and reduce costs in virtually every part of your life. The following are some innovative apps for the iPhone that are designed to help you reduce fuel costs.

AAA TripTik Mobile: This app helps you find the lowest prices in the local area or while travelling. It shows information for all grades of fuel. Moreover, it also provides directions to other interesting places like hotels, restaurants or local sights. The best part is that it even allows you to call these places for reservations. Similar apps include Gas Buddy and Local Gas Prices.
 

CarEconomy: This app calculates your car’s average fuel economy. If you upgrade the app, it will show you fuel economy information in real-time.

 
Gas Cubby: This app calculates the gas mileage and vehicle maintenance cost. It then displays information like MPG, gas prices and fuel/maintenance costs in a chart format. You can also use the app to provide you with helpful reminders.

Gas Manager: This app automatically tracks fuel economy, fuel cost and distanced travelled. It can even crunch through this data to provide a picture of your carbon footprint. It can also locate gas stations, hotels and service centers within the local area.

Road Trip Lite: This is great for all those users who have multiple vehicles. Like the others, this app can calculate a car’s fuel economy, maintenance and fuel costs. It also allows users to import and export data to Microsoft Office.
 

Skype WiFi for iPhone now available

Skype has released their newest app, Skype WiFi for iPhone. It allows you to connect to 1 million different WiFi hotspots around the world and pay with Skype Credit.

Details and screenshots after the break.

[iTunes link]

Get online at over 1 million WiFi hotspots around the world. Pay per minute with Skype Credit. The must-have app for trips abroad and international travelers.

Skype WiFi is available on the iPhone for free.

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Apple CFO: $12.5 billion is a lot of money for Google to spend on Motorola

Apple Chief Financial Officer, Peter Oppenheimer, was asked what he thought about Android maker Google’s intent to purchase handset maker Motorola Mobility during a Gleacher & Company conference call. Oppenhemier’s response?

“$12.5 billion is a lot of money.”

Indeed.

[Cult of Mac]

iPad rivals still can’t find a tablet market

Apple has proven time and time again that they’re driven to innovate regardless, that they can successfully compete against themselves, but nothing drives them to innovate and compete faster and in a more focused fashion than a successful rival. Sadly, when it comes to iPad, rivals are proving anything but successful at the point.

Meanwhile the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from Samsung can now once again be stocked in the EU, but the Motorola Xoom LTE update has been once again delayed, this time until fall, and we’ve yet to get sell through numbers in any meaningful volume for any of the them.

Part of this is certainly the unbaked nature of virtually all iPad competitors to date, so perhaps the race should now switch from who can ship a rival tablet first, to who can make a much better, much more compelling tablet at a much better value first?

Bad news for everyone if the answer to that continues to be “nobody”.

Griffin Announces iPhone-Controlled Toy Helicopter

Prior to today, you could not get a decent remote controlled helicopter, or any other -esque toy, if you will, for the iPhone without also anticipating the hefty price tag that it would come accompanied with. Though today, Griffin announced, via a mass media message, that an iPhone-specific helicopter will soon be launching. All accessories and such included for the arguably cheap price of only $49.99 – a real steal for what the product seems to do.

All of those toy helicopter sim application on the App Store, I guess, have now become reality. The Griffin HELLO TC, officially speaking, is flown from your iPhone using an application from the App Store as well as the “Flight Deck”, which is an accessory/control pad/transmittor on which you dock your iPhone (see target="_blank" href="#UniqueName">here for compatibility).

As long as the coders sitting over at Griffin are good at making responsive virtual joysticks and also at implementing an accurate calibration system, then flying the helicoper itself shouldn’t be too much of a biggie. There are two control methods, which is the one that utilizes an on-screen joystick and another tilt alternative. Apart from the initial mastering of the technique that will most probably be needed, flying the thing will undoubtedly be a blast!

Check out Griffin’s official YouTube video that showcases some of the helicopter’s features as well as adds a bit of humor to the overall mix:/> width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/t29xKIzXnGM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

If you fancy quirky toys, or cool gadgets you could easily wile your time away using, then be sure to pick up the HELLO TC once it’s released. No official dates were announced in Griffin’s PR email that they sent around to their clients, though the email did not fail to mention the “holidays” multiple times. You would have been able to pre-order the helicopter, via its onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/store.griffintechnology.com/helo-tc');" target="_blank" href="http://store.griffintechnology.com/helo-tc">official page, but I guess the widespread media coverage has made that option fairly popular; in other words, the estimated/anticipated amount of pre-orders that Griffin was going to receive was too low on their part. You can sign up to receive notification once more units become available and can also download the onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/itunes.apple.com/app/helo-tc/id435802394?mt=8');" target="_blank" href="http://itunes.apple.com/app/helo-tc/id435802394?mt=8">HELLO TC application from the App Store and just pretend that you’re flying the helicopter. Try it out, it’s quite fun if you get past the fact that you’re using your imagination to be flying a nonexistent helicopter!

The HELLO TC will be available for $49.99. For images, information and other related specifications and such, visit the official page that was linked to earlier.

name="UniqueName">Compatibility/> The HELLO TC is compatible with the following Apple devices, and Apple devices only:/> onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.ipadngravy.com');" target="_blank" title="iPad" href="http://www.ipadngravy.com">iPad 2/> iPad/> iPhone 3G/> iPhone 3GS/> iPhone 4/> iPod Touch 3rd generation/> iPod Touch 4th generation

Slide Releases New Photo Sharing App For the iPhone

Slide’s free app is out of beta and available for iPhone owners to download via Apple’s iOS App Store. The new photo sharing app is being described as “Instagram meets Piictu, with a bit of Twitter thrown in,” or as the tagline reads “plant a photo, watch it grow.”

Users can upload various pictures to Photovine’s “vines” which are basically public picture collections under various tags like “cats.” You can start your own vine, “Like” other photos, and share them with family and friends on Facebook or Twitter.

I’m not sure why Google, Slide’s parent company, thinks people need a public photo sharing app for the iPhone. Who likes to spend their time looking at pictures taken by strangers? Or who wants to use a second app to share photos on Facbook, when Facebook offers its own photo sharing service in the first place? Now you have to pretend you care about your crazy aunt’s cat on Facebook and Photovine! Count me out.

Maybe that’s why Slide decided to release Photvine for the iPhone and not Android. They wanted to watch it bomb on their competitor’s platform instead of their own?

[via onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/17/googles-photovine-launche_n_929153.html#s331946&title=Getting_Started_Four');" target="_blank" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/17/googles-photovine-launche_n_929153.html#s331946&title=Getting_Started_Four">Huffington Post]

Skype WiFi Gets You Online For Skype Credits

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If you’re anything like me, your Skype Credits probably don’t get up to much, as everyone I need to call has a copy of Skype installed, and we can chat for free. Skype has just released the app href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skype-wifi/id444529922?ls=1&mt=8#">Skype WiFi, and now you can use those credits to get online at a million hotspots around the globe.

href="http://blogs.skype.com/en/2011/08/skype_wifi_-_now_available_on.html">As detailed in their blogpost, this is an update of the service that used to be known as Skype Access, and the nice thing is you only need to pay per minute rather than buying out an entire hour or day of service. If you’ve ever really needed to just jump online for 15 minutes to send an email while at an airport, but had to pay for an hour, you’ll know why this can be useful.

The only problem? Look at that demoed price, that’s the equivalent of around $0.20 a minute. That adds up. Fast.

[via href="http://gizmodo.com/5831779/skype-wifi-gets-you-online-at-a-million-hotspots">Gizmodo]

Apple Store Gets Facebook And Twitter Sharing

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Today the Apple Store went down for a period, and while everyone frantically crossed their fingers for a stealth update of some hardware, everything seemed identical when it came back up — except for a very small new feature. href="http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/17/apples-online-store-gets-more-social-with-twitter-and-facebook-links/">MacRumors spotted that two items in the store have a new option — sharing on Facebook and Twitter. href="http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro">The Mac Pro and href="http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/ipod_classic">iPod Classic both have drop-down menus where you select the version you want, and you can share the model to Twitter or Facebook.

While it appears to be only these two for now, I’m sure this feature will roll out to other choices soon.

I guess this means you could share something on sale I suppose. I’m just scratching my head over why you’d want to share the price of a Mac Pro with everyone you know.

Daily Tip: How to rearrange your status bar icons with ArrangeStatusBar [jailbreak]

Maybe you’re used to the signal bars being on the right of the screen like they are in Blackberry OS, and are curious how to rearrange the status bar icons on your iPhone? Good news — there’s a Jailbreak for that! And we’ll show you how after the break!

ArrangeStatusBar is a simple little tweak that allows you to rearrange your status bar icons to whatever your liking may be. This may be great for users that currently migrated from another OS and are used to a different configuration.

Once installed, just hold down on a status bar icon and move it in whatever position you’d like. And if you ever want to restore to the default arrangement again just go into Settings followed by ArrangeStatusBar and tap Reset StatusBar and your status bar icons will fly back to the normal positioning.

One update I’d like to see made is an option to completely remove icons from the status bar. I really have no need to see the iPod or carrier banner. I’d rather replace it with something more useful.

Any other updates you’d like to see?

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

The week in iPhone, August 17, 2011

Missed a compelling piece of iPhone news, a great review, or a killer how-to? We’re not collecting absolutely everything in iPhone here — you can hit up TiPb.com/iPhone for that! — but we’re carefully picking what we think is the best of the last 7 days and presenting it here for your review.

And hey! — these double as show notes for our iPhone Live! podcast tonight at 9pm Eastern. So join us at TiPb.com/live and follow along!

New and updated iPhone and iPad apps for Wednesday, August 17

Every day, TiPb gets flooded with announcements for new and updated iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games. So every day we pick just a few of the most interesting, the most notable, and simply the most awesome to share with you!

Yodel-Oh!: He wants to climb the mountain. They want to shove him off. And your challenge is simply to score as many points as possible before Hans takes a header off the cliff. [$0.99 for iPhone - App Store link] [$0.99 for iPad - App Store link]

Smarter Shopping: Loaded with unique recipes, nutrition analysis, reviews of new products, and many other resources to help you understand your food, health, lifestyle, and shopping options. [Free for iPhone - App Store link]

Verbs: Now with Facebook chat! [$0.99 for iPhone - App Store link]

GENESIA: A turn based strategic game. Several crafts are at your disposal to build this New World : farmers, lumberjacks, blacksmiths, carpenters, soldiers… But all of this won’t be done easily for other Governors are striving just as you, on other territories. It’s your economy’s development, your military force and technological advancement that will lead you to the term of your engagement. [$6.99 for iPad - App Store link]

Wikipanion: Now you can browse and find supported third party mediawiki-powered wikis! [Free for iPhone - App Store link] [Free for iPad - App Store link]

Any other big app or game releases or updates today?

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Translate between languages with SpeechTrans Ultimate for iPhone, iPad

SpeechTrans Ultimate is a translating app powered by Nuance. It knows 13 different languages and has speech recognition for many of them. One of the new features is Facebook chat with Speech Input and Voice Translation Output.

Details and screenshots after the break.

[iPhone App Store link] [iPad App Store link]

SpeechTrans Ultimate is the absolute best app if you need to instantly speak English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Polish, Chinese, Korean, Swedish, Dutch or Japanese. Now you can seamlessly communicate with Facebook users all around the world! SpeechTrans is here to eliminate all language barriers and provide you with an accurate spoken translation in the selected language.

SpeechTrans Ultimate is available on the iPhone for $19.99 and on the iPad for $19.99.

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Enter to win Snapseed, Apple’s iPhone and iPad app of the week

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This week, Apple’s  iTunes “App of the Week” distinction goes to Snapseed, a fantastic looking photo app for both the iPad and iPhone. Now anyone can enhance, transform and share their photos with ease using incredibly advanced features. Snapseed retails for $4.99, but we are giving away two copies and making it super easy to enter.

To enter, simply post a comment to this article and let us know that you’d like to win.

It’s that simple. Please just one post per person. There is no bonus for retweeting, liking or Google plusing, but it would be very awesome of you to share this contest with others.

href="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/ipad.png">class="alignnone size-full wp-image-23127" title="ipad" src="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/ipad.png" alt="Snapseed for iPhone and iPad" width="322" height="294" />

Make sure you fill in your email address correctly, since we’ll use that to contact you should you win. Next Wednesday, we’ll randomly select (2) winners who will receive a copy of Snapseed.

Here’s more information on the app and why you’ll want to enter.

Snapseed makes any photograph extraordinary and is brought to you by href="http://www.niksoftware.com/snapseed/usa/index.php?view=intro/main.shtml">Nik Software, the recognized leader in digital photographic products and technologies. Whether you use an iPad, iPhone, or both, you’ll always have Snapseed at hand.

Enhance your photos with one tap. Tweak photos to perfection with Tune Image or selectively adjust only a part of your photo with revolutionary Control Points. Add incredible effects with innovative filters like Drama, Vintage, and Grunge. Share photos with your friends and family with social network support, or print your photos directly in Snapseed.

Google’s Photovine Goes Live

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Google’s newest entry into the world of social media is an app called Photovine, which we first heard href="http://www.everythingicafe.com/is-photovine-googles-iphone-photo-sharing-app/2011/07/12/">word of in July, and was originally only available href="http://www.everythingicafe.com/googles-photovine-goes-live-if-you-have-an-invite/2011/07/14/">via invite. Now the app and service are available to all and sundry as a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photovine/id447965023?mt=8">free download from the App Store.

The app is a sort of low level photo-sharing tool. Rather than just taking an image and getting everyone to look at it, you create a “vine”, a theme which your friends submit their photos to, riffing on a theme.

Right now it’s pretty bare. Even after scouring my Facebook and Twitter accounts, no one I know is on it yet, but you’re able to add to public vines, even without knowing the people on them.

[via href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/17/photovine/">TechCrunch]

Daily Deal: 50% off Seidio Inno Dock Jr. for iPhone!

For today only, the TiPb Store has the Seidio Inno Dock Jr. for iPhone on sale 50% off. That means no more removing your case before charging and syncing your iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, iPhone, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4! Just pop it on this innovative cradle and power up! Now go get it before it’s gone!

Don’t Panic, Your iPad Is Now The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!

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The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy has been an audio play, a series of books, a TV show, a computer game, a movie, and will now be able to add iOS title to that list. Coming this fall, href="http://www.thenewhitchhikersguide.com/">H2G2 (as it’s affectionately known) will be coming to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

We’re still not entirely sure what the app is — if it’s the original text adventure game, or the novel, or what, but it looks like it’s an actual attempt to be the guide itself. That’s right, an actual guide to the galaxy — well, the wonderfully weird galaxy of Douglas Adams.

We’ll see if the app maintains the humor and wit of the original when it debuts.

Full press release after the jump:

id="more-23116">

Hothead Games today announced that an interactive edition of the beloved The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will be released this fall for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy app is an authentic experience, allowing fans to feel like they’re holding the device that Douglas Adams described over thirty years ago. Users can learn all about the importance of towels, vogons, Milliways, the Babel Fish, a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, how to survive in space, and more, all in this friendly app.

“We really focused on taking existing Guide entries and presenting them in a new, interactive way,” commented Joel DeYoung, Hothead Producer. “We have so much respect for the original that we had to stay true to the style of Douglas Adams, and deliver an app that feels familiar to fans, but updated for today’s devices.”

For more about the upcoming The Hichhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy app, visithref="http://www.thenewhitchhikersguide.com/">www.thenewhitchhikersguide.com

[via href="http://io9.com/5831478/new-app-turns-your-ipad-into-the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy">io9]

State of the Jailbreak: iOS 4.3.5 and iOS 5 beta

We’re getting a lot of questions from Jailbreakers and would-be Jailbreakers both on iOS 4.x and iOS 5 so we figured it was time to once again take a look at the state of iPhone, iPod touch and iPad Jailbreak. Here it is:

If you still have an untethered Jailbreak on iOS 4.3.2 or below and want to stay untethered, don’t upgrade just yet.

If you’ve already updated and you currently have a tethered jailbreak on iOS 4.3.5, you’ll probably have to stay tethered until the release version of iOS 5 drops this October.

Why not? Because if they release an untethered Jailbreak based on an exploit in iOS 5 beta, Apple could easily patch it in the next beta and it’s back to square one.

I’m currently on iOS 5 beta and personally can’t wait to have my jailbreak back. iOS 5 is a major improvement but I still miss apps like Mail Enhancer and SBSettings. I’d much rather wait and have an untethered jailbreak for the iOS 5 final release than a quick fix now that Apple kills off during the beta.

LinkedIn App Gets Total Overhaul

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Despite the contant invitations from your aunt, LinkedIn is set up to be a social network for business contacts, keeping you in touch with the people you’ve worked with over the years. As useful of a service as it can be for maintaining business contacts, its abysmal iPhone app has been a disappointment.

LinkedIn has href="http://venturebeat.com/2011/08/16/linkedin-mobile-app/">just released an update for their app, and completely overhauled its look and feel. The new redesign is far more modern, and works perfectly with the limited screenspace of a mobile device.

It’s not just the iOS version of the LinkedIn app that’s gotten a facelift. The mobile web version and Android editions have both been spruced up too.

This is almost enough to actually make me use LinkedIn more than once a year!

Apple raising the bar on Apple Store design. Again.

There have been some fantastic Apple Store designs already, everything from the glass cube in New York to the glass cylinder in Shanghai, but some recent designs for a massive glass roof in Santa Monica, a redesign of the glass cube on 5th Ave., and a spectacular design for Grand Central Station — not to mention the enormous new Mothership in Cupertino — show that Apple’s ready to take things to another level.

Apple already makes some of the best phone, tablet, and computer hardware in the word — precision crafted aluminum and glass. Do they really have to push the envelope in architecture and retail design as well? No, but they want to. They could spend less on the stores. They could do less. But they consider it an investment. They believe it matters. That’s what makes Apple, Apple. They’re dragging us, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the future.

Now if I could just get them to build one of those giant glass tower Flasgships in Montreal’s Old Port. Where would you want one?

Check out the pictures after the break.

[Curbed via Macrumors, Gothamist via MacStories, The Real Deal via MacRumors]