ABC Aquarium ($3) by Peapod Labs is yet another release in the company’s ABC family of universal iOS education apps. Each app has brought a new theme, complete with an alphabet’s worth of new photographs, videos, and simple rub-on-the-picture activities, plus small user interface improvements. Aquarium leverages all of the prior titles’ UI tricks to provide a relatively seamless look at dozens of different fish and animals you’d…

Q: The Find My Friends app would be really great if it did not require the iPhone passcode lock to be turned on. It is a real hassle having to put in the Apple ID to use the application. Turning on the passcode lock for the iPhone just to get faster access to Find My Friends is a far greater hassle. Is there really no setting in the Find My Friends app so that a password does not have to be input if the user does not wish to do so? Some of us have…

Unlike the 1500mAh Juice Pack Helium and 1700mAh Juice Pack Air, Juice Pack Plus arrives with enough battery capacity to rival top options we’ve seen from other developers: this one packs a 2100mAh battery, which on paper is roughly 46% larger than the 1440mAh cell inside the iPhone 5. Despite that seemingly excessive capacity, real-world testing has established that the iPhone 5 needs between 2100mAh-2300mAh of external power for a full recharge.…

Apple is reportedly planning an “increased presence of third-party social networks” in iOS 7, and more specifically, a deeper integration of photo and video sharing services Flickr and Vimeo. According to a 9to5Mac report, users will be able to sign into Flickr or Vimeo using iOS 7’s Settings application. Users could log into and use Flickr and Vimeo as simply as they currently use Facebook or Twitter for iOS. However, the report…

Best known for its iPhone keyboard cases, Nuu has expanded its product lineup to include Splash ($99), a waterproof Bluetooth wireless speaker. Having earned an IP55 rating, it's capable of withstanding splashes, dust, and more. It looks essentially the same as many of the Jambox-like portable wireless speakers on the market right now, offering users the choice of a silver, red, or black aluminum casing. The internal battery is rated to last for seven…

If you’ve updated to the latest version of iTunes, you may have noticed a change in the way app updates are now handled. In place of the update button traditionally found in the bottom right corner of the apps listing, an “Updates” tab now appears along the top navigation bar, taking you to an iTunes view of apps with available updates, rather than an iTunes Store page. An “Update All Apps” button appears in the bottom…

In front of the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Apple CEO Tim Cook reiterated the company’s claim that Apple uses no gimmicks to avoid paying U.S. taxes. “We pay all the taxes we owe. Every single dollar,” Cook said. Under the country’s current tax system, Cook argued that it would be expensive to bring money earned from international sales back to the U.S. As in the pre-released testimony, Cook…

Unlike Logitech’s earlier UE models, which were all based substantially on Logitech’s earlier, non-UE speaker designs, UE Boom is a completely new product. Offered in six different color choices, it’s shaped like a tube, standing 7” tall with a 2.5” diameter, just slightly bulging thanks to a rubber grip that runs on one edge from the speaker’s top to the bottom. Up top are small power and Bluetooth buttons, each…

tgxmedia.com’s Wordify ($4) is just plain cool. The Mac App Store title serves one specific purpose: it turns a picture of your choice into “typographic artwork,” replacing dark spots in a photo with text you supply. The result is a vectorized PDF, ready in seconds. ...

Google’s new music subscription service Google Play Music All Access doesn’t yet have its own iOS app, but an existing app may add support for the service in the near future. An update for gMusic, a $2 Google music player app, has been submitted to the App Store to support Google Play Music All Access. If accepted, the update will let users access Google’s new service through the gMusic iOS app. [via Wired] ...

The U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations claims Apple has avoided paying billions of dollars in U.S. income taxes by using offshore entities. “Apple wasn’t satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven,” subcommittee chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said in a statement. “Apple sought the Holy Grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars,…

Joining the pack of Jawbone Jambox alternatives this week is UE Boom ($200), the latest speaker from Logitech's Ultimate Ears division. As nice as the tube-shaped speaker looks in photos, it feels even better in your hand thanks to a wrap-around fabric front grille that changes in color to match or complement the rubberized plastic frame, with contrasting accents used for a UE logo tag and giant volume buttons. Like a couple of other recent Bluetooth…

Believe it or not, Juice Pack Plus ($120) is actually the third all-but-identical iPhone 5 battery case in Mophie's extended rollout of the line. As the name suggests, it offers a larger capacity battery than either Juice Pack Helium or Juice Pack Air; this one is packing 2100mAh, and Mophie claims that it offers up to 120% battery life -- our prior tests suggest that it'll come in considerably lower than that. Physically, it looks a lot like the…

AT&T has made a statement suggesting the carrier will allow all mobile video chat apps over cellular on its network by the end of the year. In a statement made to The Verge, AT&T said that pre-loaded Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry’s video chat apps will be enabled by mid-June “over cellular for our unlimited plan customers who have LTE devices from those three manufacturers.” Additionally, “Throughout the second half…

Apple has released a document containing CEO Tim Cook’s testimony ahead of his scheduled appearance tomorrow before US Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Responding to questions about the company keeping more than $100 billion overseas, Apple used the testimony to state that it does not use tax gimmicks, and “has substantial foreign cash because it sells the majority of its products outside the US.” The company…

Apple has introduced incentives to make the iPhone more affordable for customers in India. Indian students who trade in an old smartphone will get 7,777 rupees ($144) toward a new iPhone. Non-students will earn the equivalent of $130 toward an iPhone purchase. Additionally, customers who use an American Express credit card to purchase an iPhone will receive ten percent cash back — a maximum refund of $111 to customers who purchase an iPhone 4, 4S…

Trü-Fit arrives in a 4-inch wide, 7.75-inch tall cardboard box; it’s about a quarter of an inch thick, compared to the flat envelopes we’re used to seeing. You tear a perforated tab across the top to open the box, which unfolds into a cross shape. On the left of the main panel are the installation instructions, below there’s a list of the contents, and to the right, there’s a pocket holding the film and accessories. Right…

iCarrier’s appeal comes from three key factors. While the battery originally carried an MSRP of $120, it now officially retails for $70; most alternatives around this price point offer half as much battery power. In fact, New Trent’s 12,000mAh cell is one of the largest in the industry, eclipsing options from better-known brands we’ve covered over the past few years. Moreover, unlike almost all of its rivals, New Trent includes not…

At this point, we just have to accept the fact that Blu-ray drives won’t be built into Macs; in fact, all optical drives are being phased out of Apple’s computers at this point. But if you have an older iMac or Mac mini, and want to be able to play Blu-ray discs, MCE Technologies is about to offer a new solution. The Internal Blu-ray Player/SuperDrive ($80) is the first internal player we’ve come across for the iMac or Mac mini.…

Apple is testing a 1.5” OLED display for use in its smart watch, according to a report in Taiwan’s Economic Times. Reportedly, the company was looking at a 1.8” display, but decided for some reason that it was too big. For comparison, the sixth-generation iPod nano contained a wearable 1.5” touchscreen. Another report from the same publication notes that Foxconn has received a small-scale order for the smart watch for about…