Launched last spring, Angry Birds Space surpassed 20 million downloads in its first week.

Both the iPhone version ($0.99) and HD versions ($2.99) are free and Angry Birds Space joins Angry Birds Seasons and more recently Angry Birds as free App of the Week picks. Not much to say here other than to get downloading.

Download Links: 

• Angry Birds Space
• Angry Birds Space HD

Apple’s Free App of the Week: Rovio’s Angry Birds Space is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

The company says customers will have access to over 1 million apps, games and books, which include over 300,000 exclusive titles in the Kindle Store.

Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle said “Kindle Fire HD is the #1 best-selling item in the world for Amazon since its launch, and we’re thrilled to make it available to Canadian customers.”

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ is available for pre-order starting at $284 and the Kindle Fire HD 7″ starts at $214 for 16GB models. The Source and Staples will also carry the devices.

It was just yesterday Amazon Cloud Drive was launched in Canada and we alluded Kindle Fire HD tablets could make their way to Canada shortly after. This seems like a fast turnaround. Canada is part of a new wave of Kindle Fire launches around the globe, as the tablet is now available in over 170 countries.

The Kindle Fire pricing looks to disrupt other Android tablets as Amazon has clearly stated it wants to make from selling content to customers, not on its hardware. When the second generation Kindle Fire HD launched last fall, you may recall Amazon targeted Apple’s iPad mini on its homepage as its direct competitor.

Anyone going to pre-order a Kindle Fire? You can learn more about tablets over here at Amazon.ca.

Amazon Launches Kindle Fire HD for Pre-Order in Canada, Coming June 13th is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

As Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune recalls, Joe Nocera has a long history with Apple. Lately he has made it “his business to be the fiercest critic of what he sees as shady business dealings at the company’s highest levels.”

Nocera accuses Tim Cook of telling a “whopper” and a “flat-out lie” while under oath. He backs up his claims with several documents and news articles. But according to Elmer-DeWitt, he is probably wrong.

Here are some highlights of what Nocera thinks about Tim Cook’s testimony:

• Even though the company appears to pay about 10 percent of its pretax income in taxes — when the federal corporate tax rate is 35 percent — Cook said, “We pay all the taxes we owe — every single dollar.” He added that Apple had never shifted any of its American profits to an offshore tax haven when, in fact, that is basically what it has done, routing tens of billions in pretax profits to a shell corporation in Ireland that exists solely to avoid taxes in the United States. He even said that the low taxes Apple pays overseas is on the profits of its overseas sales. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this was a flat-out lie.

• Here is another whopper from Mr. Cook on Tuesday. He said that his company not only doesn’t violate the letter of the law, that it doesn’t even violate the spirit. He may be right on the first part, but he is wrong on the second.

• Question for the government of Ireland: Do you really want your country to be known as an offshore tax haven? Indeed, at a time when your citizens are dealing with the pain of an austerity program, how can you justify allowing Apple to pay virtually no taxes on a subsidiary established solely to avoid taxes in the United States? Just wondering. [The Irish government denies these claims. You can read about this here. ]

In fact, the essence of Nocera’s relationship with Apple can be captured in a phone call he had with Steve Jobs back in 2008, according to Elmer-DeWitt:

“This is Steve Jobs,” [Jobs] began. “You think I’m an arrogant [expletive] who thinks he’s above the law, and I think you’re a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong.”

Joe Nocera of NYT is Skeptical of Tim Cook’s Tuesday Testimony is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

Microsoft has launched a new ad titled “Less talking, more doing” targeting Apple’s iPad–using Siri’s own voice to verbalize what the iPad ‘can’t do’ when next to it its Windows 8 competitor. Check it out below:

The 32 second ad highlights how the iPad does not have real-time widgets, multitasking support within apps and lacks Powerpoint. The kicker at the end throws in price points where a 64GB iPad costs $699 compared to $449 for a 64GB Asus VivoTab Smart tablet.

It’s interesting how Microsoft is touting other tablets from its hardware partners instead of its Surface tablets, which have had lacklustre sales–less than 2 million. The Surface Pro starts at $899 with half the battery life of the Surface RT and was also formerly criticized for having the OS take up too much free space, as advertised 64GB models only had 23GB of usable storage according to the company.

What do you think? Maybe Microsoft should stick to showing off the Surface as a skateboard?

[via The Verge]

Microsoft Windows 8 Tablet Ad Thrashes the iPad Using Siri [VIDEO] is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

If you have been holding out for the Apple smart watch, the latest research report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (as noted by MacRumors) believes the ‘iWatch’ will debut in mid-2014, rather than this year. The reason for the said delay is due to a possible lack of resources Apple may have to develop its smart watch version of iOS:

Apple may not have adequate resources to develop an iWatch version of iOS because it may require big changes to iPhone and iPad iOS this year. In addition, wearable device components aren’t mature. For these reasons, we think mass production of the iWatch is more likely to begin in 2H14, not 2H13 as the market speculates.

As for iWatch hardware details, Kuo predicts a display size of 1.5 to 2 inches, but also believes Apple will use technology (GF2 touch technology and application processor) from its iPod nano to implement into the watch based on their similar physical and computing abilities; the watch is also believed to focus on biometrics, which should increase security and help expand the growth of health apps.

Kuo’s reports have been accurate in the past in regards to Apple’s product road maps, and if this report follows suit we may not see an iWatch until next year. Wearable computing appears to be the latest trend, as watches such as the Pebble have exploded in popularity while head gear such as Google Glass looks to change the way we stay connected.

Just a couple days ago a report claimed Apple had allegedly sent a trial batch of 1000 watches to Foxconn for testing, while a related rumour said Apple had ordered 1.5-inch OLED displays with one-glass-touch sensors from RiTdisplay.

Apple ‘iWatch’ Seen to Launch in 2014 with iPod Nano Touch Technology is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

OtterBox today has announced it has acquired San Diego-based accessory maker, LifeProof. The former will begin to integrate LifeProof products into its line up over the next month. OtterBox CEO Brian Thomas said the following:

“The joining of OtterBox and LifeProof is a way to combine two great brands and provide customers with even more great products, services and choices for smartphone accessories,”

OtterBox is essentially nabbing up a competitor here, as LifeProof made similar cases that offers protection for iOS devices and other electronics. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed, but LifeProof’s 250 employees now join the OtterBox family (which sits at 650 employees worldwide) and remain in San Diego. Congrats to the LifeProof team.

Last November, OtterBox acquired Wrapsol, a protective film company that also makes protection for iPhones, iPads and more.

Yesterday, we posted about some huge savings on OtterBox iPhone and iPad cases over at Amazon.ca.

OtterBox Acquires Rival Accessory Maker LifeProof is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

As the blog post reports, you won’t need to type any letters into the search field. You’ll just tap the microphone and speak as you do now with Google Now, using the same omnibox you currently see in the app.

The update will also enable the app to reload web pages faster, a result of a more efficient cache use in the event of a slow network. But they didn’t stop there! Another welcome feature will be the option to open links in Chrome and return to the app with a single tap.

Although we don’t have exact information as to when will the update will land, both Yusuf Ozuysal and Milan Broum who sign the blog post say it should be available soon in the App Store.

Download Chrome [App Store link]

Chrome for iOS Soon to Get Voice Search is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

A passionate Canadian indie iOS developer, Adam Bell Adam Bell, has got his hands on Google Glass himself, and by taking advantage of Google’s Glass Mirror API (which is essentially a REST API) and “abusing” the iOS notifications, he managed to forward all iOS notifications from iOS to Glass (via 9to5Mac).

What this means is Google Glass users will get the benefit of receiving the system-wide notification — Facebook, Instagram, iMessage etc. — on their Glass, and take their iPhone out to respond to it.

As you can see from the video below, the tweak is working well, despite being in early stages only. Also, the tweak is currently available for jailbroken devices, due to the limitations of iOS. Bell says he will upload the tweak to GitHub shortly and eventually release a fully developed jailbreak tweak in Cydia.

Developer Hack Sends iOS Notifications to Google Glass [VIDEO] is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

According to Forbes’ sources, Gartenberg will report directly to Apple’s head of global marketing, Phil Schiller.

Gartenberg’s name will sound familiar for those who read Computerworld, Engadget, Slashgear and Macworld. He has written columns for the aforementioned technology blogs.

However, his departure has a precedent: back in February 2007 he joined Microsoft for a job he described as “to act as a bridge between Microsoft and end users.” But the euphoria last only three weeks, so he resumed his former job at Jupiter Research in March of 2007.

According to his blog, he was ranked by TechnoBabble as among the top 50 most influential analyst bloggers. He is the only analyst ranked in the top ten of both most influential as well as most engaging analyst categories on Twitter, according to Edelman’s TweetLevel.

Apple Hires Tech Analyst Michael Gartenberg, Joins Marketing Team is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

Accoridng to the official blog post, Zite will now gray out articles that have already been read and make publications’ titles appear in a ‘topic drawer’. “We wanted to give people enough of what Google Reader offered that they could plausibly transition,” Zite CTO Mike Klaas said. The updated Zite app, which was originally created to fix the flaws found in Google Reader, uses preferences and the articles users tend to read in order to get smarter and surface new content they may like.

It’s been a few months since our last iOS release, so we’ve got plenty to announce with the advent of Zite 2.3:

• We’ve made some changes to the product to serve Google Reader customers without straying from the core philosophy of Zite
• Zite welcomes new publishers into the fold
• New users will find their onboarding process streamlined
• Zite’s power is in our ability to personalize news to your tastes and interests and we’ve made a number of changes to our core algorithm that will further allow you to discover great content

The seven new publishers added to Zite are Atlantic Media (The Atlantic and Quartz), Business Insider, Fast Company, GigaOM, Salon, SAY Media (Remodelista and ReadWrite) and Serious Eats.

Download Zite 2.3 For iPhone, iPod touch & iPad [Direct Link]

Zite 2.3 For iOS Brings New Publishing Partners & Google Reader-like Features is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource