Folt  (Free)

iPhoneLife Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Folt is a beautiful little puzzle game by Nonverbal that embodies the “easy to learn, hard to master” school of game design. You are trying to match three or more tiles of the same color, unfolding step by step, and trying not to box yourself in. The tile colors come in a totally random order, like Tetris blocks, so you can't predict the outcome of the level through repetition; every time you try, it'll be a little different.

It's this last aspect which makes Folt both amazingly addictive and phone-breakingly frustrating. There are over 175 levels to play, and in each one you must do slightly different things—sometimes you must make a certain number of matches, but other times you need to just survive for a set number of turns or lay down 12 of a certain color of tile all at once. It's got a very lovely minimalist design, with a muted color palette of dark blues, greens, and taupes.

Like most games, Folt has a lives system; if you get boxed in or trapped, you lose a life and must start the level again. Folt also sets a timer on life regeneration; if you run out, you must either wait for your lives to return (which takes about 20 minutes per life) or pay a dollar to instantly restore them. There are also helpful powerups, like bombs which clear a small space around you or the ability to clear off an upcoming tile, and both of these (pretty vital) game elements cost money every single time you wish to use them. A couple of free bombs or color skips are handed out at random every fifteen to twenty levels, but there is no way to get them other than that. If you want them, you need to buy them.

As someone who very proudly avoided Candy Crush and basically never buys virtual non-renewable resources, this aspect nearly made me condemn the entire game. But the Candy Crush model is now the standard for free mobile apps; every single one has in-app purchases. And while it's annoying to know you're being milked for cash, it's understandable that developers have embraced it. I maintain that there should be at least some space for free players to wiggle; and in its original form, Folt was nearly impossible to play without purchases. I spent several days on just one level before the right combination of random tiles allowed me to win. I actually would have rated Folt lower, but a recent update has significantly balanced the difficulty and also offers a free endless-play mode where you can spend your time without spending your money. It's always nice to see developers tweak things when they realize there's a gameplay issue, and Folt is a unique variation on the old match-three-tiles format that is genuinely enjoyable in all the right ways.

Pros:

• Appealing visual design

• Easy to learn

• A challenging and interesting difficulty curve

• More levels than you'll ever need

Cons:

• Vital powerups cannot be earned, only bought

• Life system with a time delay forces you to spend $0.99 or stop playing for up to an hour

Final Verdict:

I do recommend Folt for those seeking a new distraction; you can knock off a few level attempts on the bus or during a break at work. The difficulty is tough enough to engage puzzle nerds like me without being impossible. I wish players had access to all aspects of the game without regularly paying to refill them, but it's still quite playable, especially after the most recent update in late June.

I use my daughters' upgrades at AT&T to keep my iPhone up-to-date. They get the previous generation. My youngest daughter, just graduating from college, was still on an iPhone 4. I went to the AT&T store for the upgrade, but we didn’t have one. No, I didn’t look online first, I just assumed as many do, that an upgrade was waiting somewhere.

Oh, and one other thing. We had recently switched to the AT&T Family Share plan, which discounts multiple lines with unlimited text and talk along with a pool of data. We opted for 10GB shared.

When I arrived at the AT&T store they quickly looked up the account and informed me we didn’t have an upgrade available among the existing accounts. Then it got a bit weird, and ultimately wrong, but still weird.

See, smartphone users have been well taken care of by deals between manufacturers and cellular carriers. A $199 16GB iPhone 5s isn’t really $199, that is a subsidised price (it is really $649.99, which, yes, is more than an iPad with the same memory). The subsidized phone requires a 2-year commitment. The rest of the phone’s price was included in what you thought rightly were rather high rates for something invisible, even if the invisible thing include talk, text, and data. Sure there is infrastructure and staff, but in reality, the consumer’s perception is that they are paying for a rather amorphous, invisible service.

The sales person started telling me all of this, with the caveat that given the new plan, the Family Share Plan, I was going to have to pay the full retail price (or their financed price with the AT&T Next program—yes, curiouser and curiouser and more complex). That is because the burden of phone pricing was moving to the customer. These lower service rates reflect actual service costs more closely (with a good bit of margin built in), so if you work out all the math, and who really is going to do that (well, that one girl in math class, but…), you end up finding it less expensive to buy a $650 phone and pay the lower rate than to get a higher-priced plan and then pay over time. And if you want to pay over time, you can with the Next plan, which works the price of the phone in the bill but keeps your rates lower. Want a $199 iPhone whatever, with a two-year commitment, sure, but AT&T will charge fees ($40 upgrade fee, or a $40 activation fee for a new phone) and don’t expect any discounts on the rate plan. The $15 dollar extra phone becomes a $40 a month extra phone. This extra fee only lasts for the period it takes to pay off the new phone (typically 24 months). Keep that phone and the rate reverts to the $15 a month fee (though note, none of these plans have been in place for 24 months).

The bottom line: you need to think about the life-time costs of your phone. you thought you were getting a deal on your phone, but eventually, if you have a $650 iPhone 5s, you will pay for the phone—that’s what termination fees are partly about. They gave you a deal on your phone. When you don’t want that phone or your current service and want to switch carriers, you have to pay off the phone that was figured into the payments.

Don’t want to spend the cash to make the transaction easy on the front-end, then you pay over time, and at least at the front end, you end up with some mental anguish as you attempt to figure out the convoluted mathematics of cellular phonery.

So here is what I learned. As a consumer service, if you don’t try to understand the details, the AT&T cellular business will give you service and set you up with a phone. Once you start trying to reconcile old programs with new ones, and once you try to compare various flavors of new plans, you might as well be in the backroom of a car dealership talking to “the guy” about your automobile loan. Because ultimately that is how you have to think about your phone. It’s a buy or lease and they have several programs that will get you into the phone you want for a price you are willing to pay. Just like cars, it’s about the upfront and the monthly. Don’t put as much down (as in buy your phone), and you end up with higher monthly payments. So next time you upgrade, think about your budget, not their programs, because that is ultimately what will really matter to you. The system is gamed and you can’t win, so don’t spend too much time trying.

(BTW, I eventually passed down my iPhone 5 to my daughter and procured an iPhone 5s for myself. This time I used my upgrade for one of the kids, sort of. The big question now is how I’m going to pay for the iPhone 6 when it arrives this fall).

The Swift programming language has a new feature called optionals that were not previously available in Objective-C. They are similar to optional types in Java and nullable types in the C# programming language. 

Why Use Optionals?

You may be thinking "I can ignore optionals—it's a feature I'll never use," but I recommend that you read further. You will find that you must use optionals in Swift if you ever need a value to be nil!

Optional values in Swift allow you to be more precise in your code by letting you specify when it's OK for a particular value to be empty (and when it's not!) This helps you avoid common programming errors that occur in your app when it encounters an unexpected nil value.

Swift's optionals also also help your app's code more closely mirror the ability you already have in Core Data to indicate that a particular entity attribute is optional. As shown in Figure 1, you can specify the type of an attribute (String, in this case) as well as indicate if the value is optional.

Figure 1 - You can specify that a Core Data entity attribute is optional.

Now Swift allows you to do the same with your properties and variables. Here is an equivalent optional declaration in Swift:

var middleName: String?

This declaration creates a variable named middleName of type String. The question mark (?) after the String variable type indicates that the middleName variable can contain a value that can either be a String or nil. Anyone looking at this code immediately knows that middleName can be nil. It's self-documenting!

If you don't specify an initial value for an optional constant or variable (as shown above) the value is automatically set to nil for you. If you prefer, you can explicitly set the initial value to nil:

var middleName: String? = nil

Now let's take a closer look at how nil is used in Swift.

nil in Swift

It may not be obvious at first glance, but only optionals can be nil. As stated in Apple's The Swift Programming Language book (available for free in the iBooks Store):

nil cannot be used with non-optional constants and variables. If a constant or variable in your code needs to be able to cope with the absence of a value under certain conditions, always declare it as an optional value of the appropriate type. 

This means you can't do something like this, because the firstName variable is not marked with a question mark to indicate it is an optional:

var firstName: String = nil

This code produces the following compile time error:

Type 'String' does not conform to protocol 'NilLiteralConvertible'.

It's also important to note that nil in Swift is different than nil in Objective-C. In Objective-C, nil is a pointer to a non-existent object. In Swift, nil simply indicates the absence of a value—it is not a pointer. This means that you can specify optionals of any type, not just object types. 

Accessing Optional Values

Unlike other programming languages, in Swift, you can't access an optional value directly. You must unwrap the optional first to access its underlying value. Take for example the following code:

var firstName: String = "Ryan"
var middleName: String? = "Michael"
var firstAndMiddleNames: String

firstAndMiddleNames = firstName + "" + middleName

The first three lines of code declare a firstName String variable, a middleName optional String variable, and a firstAndMiddleNames String variable. The next line of code concatenates (joins) the firstName and middleName variable values together with a space in between them. You may be surprised to find that this line of code generates the following compile time error: 

Value of option type 'String?' not unwrapped; did you mean to use '!' or '?'?

This is one of Swift's protection mechanisms. It forces you to acknowledge that a value may possibly be nil. So, how do you unwrap an optional? There are two main ways as described in the following sections.

Using Forced Unwrapping for Optionals

As suggested by the compiler error in the previous section, one way to unwrap an optional value is to use the exclamation mark (!) after the optional to explicitly unwrap it. For example:

firstAndMiddleNames = firstName + "" middleName!

This manually forces the value of the middleName optional to be unwrapped. However, if middleName contains a nil at run time, this will produce an EXC_BAD_INSTRUCTION run time error. So, you obviously wouldn't want to use forced unwrapping unless you are absolutelysure that the value is not nil.

Using Optional Binding to Unwrap Optionals

You can use a technique known as optional binding to test if an optional contains a value, and if so, store that value in a temporary variable or constant. To show how this works with our previous example, check out this code:

var firstName: String = "Ryan"
var middleName: String? = "Michael"
var firstAndMiddleNames: String

if let middle = middleName
(
   firstAndMiddleNames = firstName + "" + middleName"
}
else
{
   firstAndMiddleNames = firstName;
}

When the if condition is checked at run time, if the middleName variable contains a String value, the condition evaluates to true, the value contained in the middleName variable is unwrapped, stored in the middle constant and the code within curly braces of the if statement is executed. 

If the middleName variable contains nil, the condition evaluates to false, the optional value is not unwrapped, and the code in the curly braces of the else statement is executed.

Implicitly Unwrapped Optionals

Swift also has something called implicitly unwrapped optionals. These are optionals that do not need to be unwrapped using either forced unwrapping (!) or optional binding because they are unwrapped implicitly (automatically). They are declared using an exclamation mark (!) rather than a question mark (?). 

You often see implicitly unwrapped optionals in use when working with Cocoa Touch Framework classes. That's because every object in Objective-C can potentially be nil, so every API that contains a reference to an object must reference it as an optional. However, in cases where you know that an object will never be nil, it's nice to use implicitly wrapped optionals so you don't have to continually unwrap the values manually.

For example, if you create a new project in Swift, all of the AppDelegate methods use implicitly wrapped optionals. Here is the default application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method that automatically added to the AppDelegate class for you:

func application(application: UIApplication!, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: NSDictionary!) -> Bool {

   return true
}

Notice the application and launchOptions parameters have an exclamation mark (!) after the type, indicating that they are implicitly unwrapped optionals. This allows you to access the values these parameters contain without unwrapping them.

Obviously, if you're not 100 percent sure that a constant or variable contains a nil, you should use a regular optional instead. 

Conclusion

Optionals are a great new feature of Swift that allow you to safely handle nil values in your iOS apps. I recommend reviewing this post a few times to make sure you understand the basic concepts, and then go back to Apple's The Swift Programming Language book to learn more about how optionals are used in Swift. 

Since the iPhone 6 is expected to have a larger, 4.7-inch display, naturally it will need a battery with greater capacity. The question is how much larger the capacity will be. The iPhone 5s has a capacity of 1,570 mAh, and an earlier rumor pegged the iPhone 6 battery at between 1,800 and 1,900 mAh. Now the French site Nowhereelse.fr has posted photos of a battery alleged to be from an iPhone 6. The photo shows the battery has a rating of 1,810 mAh. That's interesting for a couple reasons. One is that this capacity is quite a bit smaller than other current smartphones. The Samsung Galaxy S5, for example, has a capacity of 2,800 aMh. Does this mean that the iPhone 6 will have a poor battery life? That's unlikely. What it means to me is that the rumored A8 chip expected to be in the new phone will indeed have the greater efficiency that's being touted, such that the phone can get by with a smaller battery. And that's the second reason why this is interesting. Apple wants their devices to be ever slimmer, and this small battery suggests that Apple has succeeded in keeping the iPhone 6 svelte.

In addition, it may help confirm the specs that were inadvertently leaked by Amazon Japan (as covered in this post). The specs showed that the iPhone 6 will be 7mm thick compared to 7.6mm for the iPhone 5s. In addition, a lower-capacity battery helps keep the weight down. The Amazon Japan specs show a weight of 113g for the iPhone 6 compared to the 112g for the iPhone 5s. So think about it: the phone will have a larger display, but will be thinner than the iPhone 5s and be essentially the same weight. So how does the Samsung Galaxy S5 compare in terms of thickness and weight? Whereas the iPhone 6 is expected to be 7mm thick and 113g in weight, the Galaxy S5 is 8.1mm thick and weighs 145g. The iPhone 6 will be both slimmer and lighter.

According AppleInsider, Apple has taken great pains to keep the dimensions of the battery small. It was even causing problems as Apple begins to prepare for manufacturing, leading to Apple's switching to a different supplier for the batteries.

As always, this is rumor. And we don't know anything for sure. But given past cycles, the convergence of rumors and the stream of photos of parts posted online eventually pretty much nail down what's coming.

This is the official announcement of the iPhone life Biweekly Giveaway! Be sure to enter the giveaway at iphoneLife.com/giveaways to win prizes, which we'll announce July 28th! We are raffling off tons of great accessories for FREE.

Here's how it works: Every other Friday we will announce the prizes we're giving away through iphonelife.com, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. To enter the giveaway, go to iphoneLife.com/giveaways and tell your friends to enter too! On the following Monday morning, we will randomly select the winners. If you win an app, we will email you the promo code to redeem the app for free. If you win an accessory, send us your address and we will mail it to you.

This weeks featured items are:

1. Speck HandyShell iPad Mini Case: Retail Price $49.95

Protect your iPad mini and enjoy it in ways you never imagined. This HandyShell iPad mini case features a sturdy flip-out handle that you can adjust for multiple standing, holding, and hanging angles, giving you the freedom to use your iPad mini around the house, at the office, or on the go.

2. Targus SafePORT iPhone 5 Case: Retail Price $39.99

The SafePORT Rugged Max Pro Case for iPhone is one of the best in smartphone security. Specifically designed to offer protection for the harshest environments, this case fits perfectly to absorb shock and other potential damage.

3. LifeCharge iPhone 5/5s Battery Case: Retail Price $79.99

LifeCHARGE Battery Case's sleek, streamlined design naturally fits to the form of your phone, allowing portability of your iPhone 5/5s. Never run out of power again with the built-in 2300mAh lithium-Polymer battery. It offers up to eight hours of added time on a 3G network, 10 hours of Internet use on Wi-Fi, 40 hours of Audio playback time or 10 hours of video playback time. Eye-catching LED indicators inform you what energy level you're currently operating under.

Questions or comments? Email Brian@iphonelife.com. Good luck and remember to visit iphonelife.com/giveaways to enter! Also check out our other contests at iphonelife.com/contests. The next contest drawing is July 28!

As anyone who has used to Siri to make calls, search the web, or send messages knows, Siri doesn't always understand what you say. This can be followed by increasing frustration levels if Siri fails over and over to understand your voice corrections. But when Siri gets it wrong, you don't have to repeat yourself. Instead, you can edit your query via typing.

Under the query text, tap on tap to edit. 

This will bring up a keyboard and allow you to edit your request by typing instead of voice. When you are finished typing, tap Done and Siri will respond to the corrected request.

Surveys and statistics can be used to suit any agenda, but one from Ranker.com suggests that cable companies, banks, and airlines have terrible service (no surprise) and that a lot of people think Apple is evil. The customer survey list includes notorious firms like Time Warner, AT&T, Bank of America, Walmart, American Airlines, Comcast, Citibank and more. Apple is ranked 22nd "worst" customer service, with 120 up votes ("worst") to 126 down votes ("not worst"), so it's almost a dead heat between haters and lovers.

People love to hate a lot of the companies in the Top Ten. Time Warner even jokes about it in their latest commercials, where Liev Schrieber's character learns that the cable guy is coming, so he figures he'll have all day without interruptions. Then the Time Warner guy shows up, on time. Hey, it could happen!

There's another list that ranks evil Internet companies.  Apple is currently right up there at number three. Perhaps the Android versus iPhone wars are part of the reason, and a lot of Android open source fans are making their voices known. Facebook and Comcast top the list, and obviously Facebook has angered privacy advocates. Perhaps the Comcast ranking is too low, if you listen to this phone call! If Time Warner and Comcast merge, it could be trouble for consumers. And a future Apple TV cable box could be limited by those firms.

While 20,000-plus votes have been cast so far, the numbers for any particular brand are pretty small, so a small minority can influence a brand's ranking. You can make sure your voice is heard over at Ranker.com!

As new iOS apps flood the App Store every day — recently topping 1,000,000 — we know it’s tough to tell which ones are worth their salt. But thanks to our Weekly Scoop, you can have the best for free! Here you’ll find a weekly roundup of the coolest apps free or at a discount for a limited-time only. Each week features the best and brightest from websites like Free App Report, AppsGoneFree, AppieDay, AppShopper and more.

Hurry! Get 'em while they’re hot!

1.InstaMail (Free from $1.99)

With this cool app you can now attach multiple photos and videos to email, SMS, and Facebook! You can access all of your albums within the app and then simply collect what you want to send! It's that easy. It's usually a big pain to send multiple things, but this app seems like it's going to be a real time-saver! And you can't beat the price!

2.Fodor's City Guides(Free from $1.99)

Get 22 travel guides for your iPhone and iPad, including discounted tickets for tours and attractions! I'm sure you're planning to travel someplace this summer, so this app might be just the thing you need to help you navigate around while enjoying discounts for tours and attractions. You can even book hotels and make reservations from within the app. What could be more perfect?

3.Happy Truck(Free)

Bounce, soar, and fly through a crazy course as you drive your truck to market. The fewer fruits you drop from your truck, the more you can deliver and the higher you will score in this fun, recently updated game.

Two rumors courtesy of a report in Taiwan's Economic News Dailyindicate that Apple is ramping up to begin production of the iPhone 6. According to the report, mass production of the 4.7-inch phone will begin this month (specifically, the third week of July), with mass production of the 5.5-inch phone expected to begin in August. 

While this sounds in line with other rumors for the 4.7-inch phone, along with the photos of parts that have been appearing, it hardly seems credible regarding the larger phone. We haven't seen any mockups or any parts yet. And a number of rumors have said we won't see this "phablet" until late fall or in 2015. 

Everything continues to point to a September launch of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, with September 19 and 25 both rumored to be the dates. I'm guessing Apple itself doesn't yet know, since it likely depends on how well mass production goes.

A second rumor passed along in the report, which reinforces the first, is that Foxconn is reportedly planning to hire 100,000 additional workers in China to meet the expected demand for the iPhone 6. Interestingly, the source given for this information is a China state-run news service. Also, they reported that Pegatron, which supplies parts for the iPhone, has begun recruiting 10,000 workers.

Those numbers are staggering. Foxconn, called Hon Hai in China and based in Taiwan, has over 1 million employees and hundreds of thousands in its factories in mainland China. It must take at least a couple hundred thousand employees to make Apple's products. This gives you an idea of the vast scope of Apple's manufacturing due to the huge numbers of products it sells. That's likely one reason why it takes so long to get a new product ready. It has to be perfectly ready to go in order to suddenly ramp up to millions of devices. The performance of every component needs to be thoroughly examined, and manufacturing processes need to be thoroughly tested. Once that's done, you hire 100,000 workers or so, and start cranking out phones. The scale is amazing. And one can see why such scale is almost necessarily done in China, given the numbers. You need a large population to quickly add 100,000 workers to your work force.

The iPhone's built-in flashlight can come in handy in all sorts of situations, such as digging through camping equipment while you look for a real flashlight during a power outage, cleaning up after your dog on late-night walks, or locating the eyeglasses you just knocked off your bedside table in the middle of the night without turning on a lamp and waking your spouse.

But since your iPhone usually goes to sleep while you are completing these tasks, opening Control Center to turn off the flashlight when you are finished can feel like too many steps—especially if you prefer not to allow access to Control Center from your lock screen. 

Fortunately, it turns out it's not necessary to open Control Center again to switch the flashlight off.

All you have to do is press the Sleep/Wake button or the Home button and then tap the camera icon on the lock screen to turn the flashlight off. 

Top image credit: Terry Underwood Evans/Shutterstock.com

One thing we hear over and over from iPhone Life readers is how much they love finding out about new tips and tricks for their iPhones and iPads. Some of them want to explore all the cool functions their device offers, others are trying to master the ins and outs of their iPhone's camera, and still others are looking for that one trick that will help them work around a longtime iPhone or iPad frustration.

In response to your requests, iPhone Life is launching a new Tip of the Day newsletter for our readers. Tips range from basic how-tos to cool tricks and hidden features. Recent tips have included how to use the different features of your iPhone's camera and how to turn off your iPhone's flashlight from the lock screen. Thanks to our generous sponsors these tips are completely free. And to celebrate our newsletter rollout, we are bringing back the top 10 most popular tips we've published this year—just in case you missed them the first time around!

So sign up today and start enjoying your free tips and tricks. We love hearing from our readers, so send us your feedback. And if you have a tip that you would like to share with everyone, send it to tips@iphonelife.com. Sign up for the Tip of the Day newsletter here!

Top image credit: Rawpixel/Shutterstock.com.

Thanks to iCloud, you can create things like shopping lists or to-do lists in Reminders at home on your iPad and then access and edit those lists on your iPhone while you're out running errands or shopping. But what if you want want your spouse to have a copy of the list on his or her device so they can add and check off items as well? Here's how you can share your shopping list with another person using iCloud.

Create a shopping list in reminders.

Log in to iCloud from your computer's web browser.

Click on the Reminders icon.

Click on the Edit Share Settings icon next to Grocery list.

Enter your spouse's iCloud email and click done.

Now you can both add or check off items on the list.

Please note, this only works if you both use iOS devices. If your spouse has a non-iOS device, you both will need to get a third-party app that will let you create and share lists across platforms.

Did you enjoy this tip? Sign up here to get the tip of the day delivered right to your inbox.

Top image credit: Tyler Olsen/Shutterstock.com

Apple's main competitor these days seems not to be other phones but rather the high expectations created by the rumor mill. I'm among those who've stoked the expectation for a sapphire display on the iPhone 6. But the latest scratch test of an alleged iPhone 6 front panel reveals that it's not pure sapphire but likely has a sapphire composite laminate on the display. As the test shows, it's definitely harder and more scratch-resistant than Gorilla Glass but not as hard as the pure sapphire used in the Home button. Marques Brownlee, whose earlier scratch-test video I covered in this post, explains in his newest video (embedded below) the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Minerals are rated on a scale of 1 to 10, with diamond being the hardest at 10. Simply, any mineral on the scale can scratch minerals rated below it but not anything rated above it. Gorilla Glass comes in at 6.8 on the scale. Sapphire is 9. The only thing that should be able to scratch sapphire should be diamond. But in his test he shows how both garnet sandpaper (rated 7) and emery sandpaper (rated 8) can scratch the iPhone 6 front panel, suggesting it's not pure sapphire.

But he also uses those materials to scratch the display of an iPhone 5s and shows that the iPhone 6 panel is much more resistant to scratches from garnet and emery than the iPhone 5s. However, neither garnet nor emery is able to scratch the sapphire covering of the Home button on the 5s.

In the video Brownlee notes that Apple has a patent for a laminate that uses a sapphire composite, so it's quite possible that this is what we'll see in the iPhone 6. We know that Apple definitely has something in mind for the material, given their major investment in the production facility in Arizona and their efforts to lock in other suppliers around the world.

Having a front panel more resistant than even Gorilla Glass will be a significant step and will be yet one more feature that will help the iPhone 6 stand out.

Buzz Aldrin, who inspired the name of Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear, has an Apple connection. He spoke at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference about three years ago. Now, with the 45th anniversary of his walk on the moon, with fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong, he's back in the news. Most recently, Buzz Aldrin offered up his own "Space Selfie," the first ever, taken back in 1966.  

From Ellen Degeneres' Oscar selfie to Webster's adding it to their official dictionary, clearly, this is the year of the selfie. But most selfies are poorly taken because the user's arm is in the picture and it's hard to line up the shot. Even the most beautiful people in Hollywood can look odd. Fortunately, there are some tools to help a user out.

HISY ($24.99) is a compact Bluetooth gadget, about the size of a few quarters, that you can keep in your pocket and use as necessary. It's small and unobtrusive but does the job. The HISY is available in assorted colors, so you can personalize yours and tell it apart from your friends'HISY. You still have to launch the camera app, and select between photo or video, but once that's done, the HISY can act as a shutter release.  

Not only can this result in better photos, because the user doesn't need their arm in the picture, but the rear camera can be used to deliver much better photos, as long as the shot is lined up first. This can be good for sports too, as a user can setup a skateboard move, or ski jump, etc., and get the image or video they want.

Instead of keeping the HISY in your pocket, the HISY can plug into the headphone jack, so you know where it is, and won't lose it easily. The HISY is for Apple only and comes in most of the colors the iPhone 5c does. Android users, don't worry, they have a version called HALO that works on Android and iOS, but it requires a special app and is only sold in black.

The HISY requires iOS 7.0, and leverages Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy. This allows the HISY to use a single CR2032 battery that the company claims will last two years. It's a pleasure not to have another device to remember to charge! If you do take (and post) a lot of selfies, $25 is a small price to pay for better photos and the ability to take them more easily.

I've backed a few projects on Kickstarter, but they're usually boring things like stands and cables. The other day I saw the MYBELL and had to put my money down. The MYBELL is a bicycle horn for the smartphone age. Obviously it mounts to a bicycle handlebar, though I might try it out on my scooter. What makes the MYBELL unique is that you can customize the sound that it plays, just like a custom ringtone on your smartphone. In fact, it will accept MP3 files via the included (weatherized) USB port.

The MYBELL has one button so it's easy to use, which is important when cycling—just push to play. And through a series of gestures that one button also lets you program it to control the sounds and lighting. The MyBell generates audio output upwards of 105 decibels. You can lower the volume and sounds digitally if that is too loud for you.  

The MYBELL uses LEDs that can reach upwards of 110 lumens and they are programmable too. That means that you can set pulse patterns of your choosing. Imagine a Knight Rider or old school BattlestarGalacticaCylon pattern! The MYBELL can make your riding safer, and certainly more fun. Speaking of fun, one of my own apps is a fun utility called AutoRingtone, and I've been so inspired by the MYBELL that I'm giving backers the ability to create custom ringtones for the MYBELL at http://autoringtone.com/mybell/. Imagine a "Studebaker Horn" followed by "Special Delivery! Get out of the way!" I can't wait to see (and hear) the ringtones people come up with for their digital bike horn.

Not all the Apple news is about sapphire screens and the pending iPhone 6. Apple is promoting their latest iTunes Festival, and this time it's based on London. You can win tickets to attend, or for the rest of us, stream the content using an iOS device, including Apple TV.

The iTunes Festival is a month long event, and this year it will be held in the Roundhouse in Camden (North London.) Even stalwarts like Robert Plant, Blondie, and Chrissie Hynde will be there! Apple might have a few surprises among the 60 acts expected. Kanye West revealed earlier this year that the acts don't get paid for the iTunes Festival, but the extra exposure and heavy rotation on iTunes helps them sell more content.

Apple is usually a stickler for detail, but I noticed an odd headline on their iTunes page.  "UIC.festival.evergreen.london_upsell_header" shows up instead of a real headline. Looks like Apple is pretty aware that, while the event is free, it offers an opportunity to "upsell" music and video from past iTunes Festivals!

UPDATE: Here's the revised image... 

Apple will be releasing their June quarterly earnings report tomorrow after the market closes, and will be answering questions from investors. Of course, investors are eager to know how Apple did, and expectations for this quarter are fairly high. But even more important for many is the guidance Apple will give regarding the September quarter. Wall Street always wants to know not only how Apple did, but how it expects to do in the coming quarter. And if, as everyone is expecting, Apple begins selling the iPhone 6 in September, that will certainly affect Apple's earnings forecast for the September quarter. So Apple's guidance should give a clue regarding what we'll see and when. Of course, Apple never explicitly says what's coming. If the guidance is especially high, it could mean we'll get something in addition to the iPhone 6 before the end of September.

In any case, market analysts are generally expecting that Apple will have strong earnings this past quarter, with many even suggesting Apple could report a record June quarter. One reason expectations are high is that analysts suspect that iPhone 5s sales have continued to be strong. Indications of this include the fact that sales of other devices have been tepid. In addition, increasing availability of LTE in some international markets, such as China, has likely led to increased sales. Also, in recent months Apple has expanded into many more markets.

Generally Wall Street is expecting Apple to have sold 35 to 36 million iPhones in the June quarter, compared to their record quarterly sales of 31 million a year ago. However, they also expect weaker sales of the iPad, with an average estimate of 14.4 million units compared to 14.6 million a year ago. But their estimates vary widely, ranging from 12.6 million to 16 million, so one gets the feeling they really have little idea what to expect. What are reasons for a possible decline? People tend to keep their iPads longer, and also there's a lot of competition in the market now. Plus, most people who want a tablet computer now have one, so the device is no longer a new category.

Of course, these overall high expectations create pressure on Apple. If Apple has a strong quarter, but less than the Street is expecting, the stock will likely fall. 

For more information on what to expect, check out this informative article on CNET.

Your ankles hate you. Go back to spin class. Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock

The other day, I was about to head out on the trails for my annual attempt at completing a couch-to-5K program, when I realized that my iPhone battery was almost out of juice. I didn't want to risk having my phone die while I was out on the relatively deserted trails (what if I got attacked by angry squirrels and needed to call for help?) And I needed to leave the house soon or I wouldn't be able to complete the workout before sunset.

Fortunately, there is a way to charge your iPhone more quickly: Just swipe up from the bottom of your homescreen to bring up Control Center and turn on Airplane Mode before you plug your phone in. With your iPhone's wireless radios and GPS turned off, the battery will charge faster.

In Airplane Mode I was able to charge my battery enough to get me through my workout with power to spare, and quickly enough that I was out of the woods before the sun went down.

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MacBook owners have (usually) appreciated the glowing Apple logo on the back of their MacBooks. It's a neat touch that shows Apple's attention to detail. Now iPhone owners might see something similar when they turn their phone around. The previously etched-in Apple logo on other metal iPhones may now be replaced by a plastic opening, according to the latest spy shots from Uswitch.com.

This design change leads to all kinds of speculation.  For starters, it could allow for an illuminated logo. MacBook owners have (usually) appreciated the glowing Apple logo on the back of their MacBooks. It's a neat touch that shows Apple's attention to detail. Now iPhone owners might see something similar when they turn their phone around. However, that seems like a waste of precious battery life, and could be a giveaway that you're using your device when you shouldn't! But it could also be a way to notify users of incoming messages, calls, etc. Perhaps it could even change color based on the contact, like a Philips HUE light!?

Another potential use of the plastic opening would be for an antenna. Apple suffered some embarrassment during "AntennaGate" when the metal design of the iPhone 4 interfered with transmission, leading to poor cellular reception. By using the Apple logo as a route for wireless transmission, they can use an otherwise all metal case and not hurt networking performance. So which antennas could benefit from this? Cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or perhaps an all-new NFC (Near Field Communication) wireless radio allowing for payments by touch or proximity? Still, there are plastic separations in the latest spy shot, so the antennas could already be accounted for.  

Whatever that logo is used for, it could throw a wrench in case makers' plans. If the logo is used for radio communication, the case must not interfere. Even if it's just for (a light) show, users will probably not want the glow covered up. OtterBox is one vendor that has often left an opening for the Apple logo. I expect more will follow suit if these leaked photos are accurate.

1. Plush Pals ($39.99)

These adorable plush animals are a must have for any music-loving kid (or adult). Plug Freddy, Manny, or Patch into your iDevice and they'll sing your favorite song, act as if they're narrating a cartoon, or mimic your video game. A bonus? They're soft and cuddly, apart from the battery area in the bottom. See the Plush Pals in action on their website or right here. 

2. Sphero (Sstarts at $79.99) 

Robot. Game. Pool toy. Dog toy (seriously!) Night light. The Sphero robot may look like just a ball, but it's so much more. 

Controlled by your iDevice, the Sphero robotic ball and game system can be controlled by over 25 different apps. You can race your Sphero against friends' Spheros on the ground or in the pool. Use it as a bright colored night light or a small disco ball. You can even get your dog to chase it. Take a look at the Sphero video to see all that it can do:

3. Kidz Gear Headphones ($19.99)  

Does your little one want his own pair of headphones? Kidz Gear has created wired and wireless headphones that are safer for kids because their volume limit prevents noise-induced hearing loss. The volume is limited by a patented KidzControl cable that sets the volume to approximately 88dB. Without the cable, the volume can go as high as 108dB.  

I love the durability of these headphones as well as the bright colors they come in. And the price? It really can't be beat. 

4. Romo ($129)

Romo the robot can help your child learn to code! Dock your iPhone or iPod and start by playing simple games. As your coding skills increase, you'll unlock more experiences. Another fun feature? Romo can connect your family via Skype or Facetime, and it can roll around the house catching everyone who wants to chat. 

5. 94fifty Smart Sensor Basketball ($249.95)

This regulation-size basketball can instantly analyze and improve your game, like a digital coach. The 94fifty ball measures any force applied to it including spin, acceleration, and arc. 94fifty's app can track the ball and up to five players at one time, and its battery lasts approximately eighy hours. 

Don't take it from me; watch the video yourself: