Saturday, May 30, 2015

Staybridge Suites Coming to Austin Landing

Staybridge Suites Coming to Austin LandingWith the success of Hilton Garden Inn at Austin Landing firmly established, Austin Landing Associates LTD., has submitted plans to Miami Township for a second hotel at Austin Landing.  “We’re so pleased that Doug Steinke, Tom Shoemaker, and their group will be bringing another high end hotel to Austin Landing. The same partners opened the [...]

Friday, May 29, 2015

Popular Calendar App 'Fantastical 2' Coming Soon to Apple Watch [iOS Blog]

Flexibits, the developers behind the popular Fantastical 2 calendar app for iOS and Mac, today released a teaser suggesting the app will be expanding to the Apple Watch in the near future. A new page on the Flexibits website reads "It's almost time" before transitioning over to the Apple Watch depicting a screenshot from the new app.

Little can be determined about the upcoming Apple Watch app from the screenshot, but it appears to have a clean design with a useful timeline-based calendar for tracking daily appointments and events. A Fantastical app for the Apple Watch will be a welcome addition, as Apple's own Calendar app is limited in functionality.

fantasticalapplewatch
Fantastical 2 is one of the premiere Calendar replacements available on Mac and iOS, popular for its simple interface, Reminders integration, and its ability to parse event entries based on natural language input.

Flexibits has not given information on a specific date, but in a tweet, the company says the app is "almost here." As with all Apple Watch apps, the Fantastical app will be introduced through an update to the existing iPhone app.

Fantastical 2 for iPhone can be downloaded from the App Store for $4.99. [Direct Link]







MacRumors Giveaway: Win a Ztylus Limited Edition Camera Kit for iPhone 6/6 Plus [iOS Blog]

For our next giveaway, we've partnered with Ztylus, a maker of smartphone cases with interchangeable accessory attachments. Ztylus is graciously offering one limited edition Rose Gold Camera Kit for the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus that retails for $149.95.

ztylus-iphone-6-gold_cropped

The Ztylus Rose Gold Camera Kit consists of a full-coverage case and a 4-in-1 lens attachment. The case itself has a textured leather finish that features an integrated kickstand and a unique disc mount system for the lens attachment. The lens attachment contains a circular polarizer lens and fish eye, macro, and wide angle lenses that flip out into position over the iPhone's camera lens. Ztylus makes its attachments compatible with all of its other cases so that when you switch to a new phone, you only need a new case and can keep using the same attachments.

To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter your email address. Your email address will not be given to any third party and will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winner. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page. Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older are eligible to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


This contest will run from today (May 29) at 12:00 pm Pacific time through 12:00 pm Pacific time on June 5. The winner will be chosen randomly on June 5 and will be contacted by email. The winner has 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address. The prize will be shipped to the winner for free.

Ztylus is also offering a coupon code to MacRumors readers that will take 25% off all purchases from the company's online store. Use code RUMORS25 at checkout at Ztylus to take advantage of this generous offer.







Toxic Brew Co. Two Year Anniversary Block Party!

Toxic Brew Co. to Host a Two Year Anniversary Block Party Focused on Local Art, Music and Craft Beer

TBC_oval_carbon_4

With the craft beer scene ever on the rise in the Dayton region, Dayton’s first brewery in over 52 year has big plans for how they will celebrate this growing movement. Toxic Brew Co. is planning a birthday bash that will shut down Jackson St. in the Oregon District and focus not only on craft brews but the scene at large by including live music, live art and food trucks.

Toxic 2 Year Web

“Two years is a massive accomplishment for any small business and we are just grateful for all of the support the community has shown us and the craft beer scene in general.” Shane Juhl, owner of Toxic Brew Co., said. “Craft beer is not just about the brews. It embraces the idea of small independent groups showing off what can be done on the local level. That’s why we have always had local artists on our walls. This block party will showcase artistry on many different levels” Shane continued. If you walk into Toxic Brewery today you will find the art of Ben Riddlebarger, Tiffany Clark and many other adorning the walls.

Talking about community building, The “Toxic Two Year Block Party” promises to include special craft beer tappings every hour, live music from Skratchmatic, artist ETCH, food trucks, street performers, and more. “We love to draw from the local community whenever we have a special event.” Brian Johnson, Toxic’s marketing manager, said “The Oregon District is the region’s largest grouping of independent businesses and we always include those that support this district when planning an event. It gives us the opportunity to showcase the huge amount of raw talent that exists here” he continued.

brewery4

For those interested in attending Toxic’s Two Year Anniversary Block Party, it will be held June 28th from 12-9 pm on the north side of Jackson St. in the Oregon District. More information can be found on their Facebook page facebook.com/ToxicBrewCo

Event Details:
Toxic Two Year Anniversary Block Party
June 28th, 12-9 pm
North Jackson in the Oregon District

iOS Text Bug Begins to Affect Twitter and Snapchat Apps [iOS Blog]

The iOS bug that was discovered earlier in the week and causes an iPhone to crash after receiving a specific string of symbols and characters, today expanded to both the Twitter and Snapchat iOS apps (via The Guardian). The bug not only crashes an iPhone, but causes the Messages app to repeatedly crash after being opened to anything other than the conversation in which the string of characters was located in.

messagescrashingbug
Although the issue was known to be routed in banner notifications when it was discovered, thus opening a wide range of apps that could be hit by the malicious text, today's news confirms that third-party apps can successfully transfer the bug. In Twitter, any direct message or public mention that includes the string of characters will cause a recipient's phone, with notifications turned on for Twitter, to crash immediately. A similar situation occurs when sending text chat via the Snapchat app, permanently crashing an iPhone when the user goes to read the message.

As noted in the original story, and just last night confirmed by Apple, a temporary fix for the bug remains in place in which a user can use Siri to reply to the malicious message thread in order to prevent Messages from crashing every time it is opened. The company promises that they "will make a fix available in a software update," but a time frame for any such fix wasn't given. Given that third-party apps are now becoming affected without as clear of an easy fix, Apple will probably try to put that update out as soon as possible before more permanent damage befalls any users.







Thursday, May 28, 2015

Google's Free, Unlimited Google Photos Service Now Available on iOS and Web

At its I/O developer event this morning, Google announced a new Google Photos platform that's designed to compete with both photo sharing sites like Flickr and cloud services like iCloud Photo Library. Google Photos is cross platform and available on iOS, Android, and the web.

Both the iOS app and the web service are now live, letting those in Apple's ecosystem make full use of Google Photos. The service is free for high-quality photos and it lets users upload an unlimited number of photos (up to 16 megapixels) and videos (up to 1080p).

Google Photos
Photos with resolutions that exceed 16-megapixels will be downscaled to 16MP, and videos with resolutions higher than 1080p will also be downscaled. Google offers an option to store photos and videos in their original quality, but only with the 15GB of free storage that comes with any Google account. Additional storage is priced at $1.99/month for 100GB or $9.99/month for 1TB.

16-megapixel downscaling is suitable for most camera phones and point-and-shoot cameras, but the free storage option may not be as appealing to DSLR users who need to store original-quality images. According to Google, photos uploaded with a 16-megapixel resolution or lower will look "essentially" the same when uploaded to the site using the free plan.

Google designed Photos around three central ideas: a "home" for all of your photos, deep organization, and easy sharing. On iOS, Google Photos is not unlike the default Photos app that Apple offers. It includes a main photos view that's organized by when a photo was taken, and it's possible to zoom in and out to adjust the view using pinch gestures.

You can organize your photos and videos into albums, but Google has also built in its own organizational tools. Google Photos will group images based on the person in the photo, an item in the photo (like a dog) or the place where it was taken. Google demonstrated the facial recognition features on stage at Google I/O, showing how it was able to recognize the same child at multiple ages, starting from birth.

In the iOS app, there are tools for quickly enhancing photos to improve color, lighting, and more, plus it's possible to create collages, animations, and movies using the app's tools.


Google Photos has quick selection tools for grouping up multiple photos, and this feature works alongside the app's photo sharing tools. Users can create a link to any number of grouped photos, sharing all of them by simply sending the link. It's not necessary for those who view the photos to log into the Google Photos app, but doing so allows the shared photos to be downloaded to one's own library.

Sharing is also bolstered by a built-in Photos Assistant. This tool automatically makes videos, GIFs, and collages out of a series of photos, which can then be shared if so desired. Google Photos also includes tools to share photos to numerous social networks.

Google Photos for iOS can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]