News

There's nothing more frustrating than typing in those long iTunes gift card codes, especially when you make a mistake and have to start all over again. Thankfully Apple has decided to make the process easier by adding the ability to redeem a gift card by using your device's camera. Twitter user Beau Giles discovered the new feature and tweeted the screenshot below. iTunes 11 gave the same feature to Mac users who can now use their FaceTime cameras to redeem gift cards also.

To use the new iOS 7 camera gift card feature, go to the App Store app, and tap the Redeem button at the bottom of the Featured page. You can then choose to enter the code the old way, or use your iPhone's rear iSight camera to snap a picture. The gift card needs to have a "gift card with a box around the code” for it to work.

I decided to cut Siri out of my life a long time ago by installing Google Search on my iPhone instead. Using Google's voice search or the Google search bar is a lot easier than asking Siri three times for an answer she's just going to Google anyway. But no matter how much iOS users ignore her, the Apple voice assistant refuses to go away. Siri has decided to get a makeover, learn a few new tricks, and become a man. If that's not a cry for attention, I don't know what is.

Apple announced at its keynote that Siri will feature a new female and male voice and promised it will deliver faster results and check more sources like Bing, Wikipedia, and Twitter. Not very exciting news if you ask me, however, Siri will also be able to return calls, playback your voicemail, and control iTunes Radio.

Case-Mate has rolled out another line of high-end cases for both the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S 4. The Case-Mate Acetates Collection features three new elegantly designed iPhone cases. The new designs include White Horn, Tortoise (w/ gold brushed aluminum), and Pewter. Each case features a two-piece design to protect the back and front of your device, and an interior patterned inlay for extra protection. The Galaxy S 4 cases only come in White Horn and Pewter. The Acetates Collection cases are $80 with free shipping.

If an $80 iPhone case is out of your price range, Case-Mate also offers more affordable designer and basic cases. Case-Mate's colorful line of Olo cases range from around $10 to $25, and feature sizes for all types of smartphones including the iPhone 4/4S.

One of the many iOS 7 features not mentioned but spotted at Apple's WWDC keynote was WiFi HotSpot 2.0. The Wi-Fi Alliance's Passpoint certification program made a quick cameo with several other new iOS 7 features towards the end of the event. You can see it listed on the right hand side under "Notification sync" in the image posted below.

Apple's new operating system will support HotSpot 2.0 which aims to make roaming public Wi-Fi networks easier. The new authentication system allows users to switch between Passpoint-supported hotspots without having to enter a password each time. This only works with Passpoint-enabled hotspots, but several large companies like AT&T, Boingo, CableVision, Comcast and TimeWarner are already conducting trials, according to ArsTechnica.

It's no secret that Apple heavily borrowed a few ideas from the jailbreaking community for iOS 7, and it looks like they also took a few notes from Google's playbook. iOS 7 will allow users to choose between motion or still wallpaper for their device's background image. iDownloadblog discovered several basic wallpapers, and two Apple created animated wallpapers in the iOS 7 beta. You can see from the video posted below, that the two bubble wallpapers gives your iPhone a lava lamp kind of look.

iPhone 5 users will also be able to use their favorite panoramic images from their Photo app as their Lock or Home screen wallpapers. The panoramic wallpaper effect is a lot like the Android option that allows you to pan your phone's background image left and right. It is unknown if Apple will allow third party animated backgrounds to be used, or if they will somehow make more of their self-created wallpapers available in the future.