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The alphabet is the core of the English language. Reading and writing start with knowing each and every letter, how they sound, and the words that they’re associated with. This is why it is so important to teach the alphabet to our children at an early age. Any App that helps do that, and keeps my 5 year old twins interested at the same time catches my attention. AlpaTots does just that. With the interactive activities attached to each letter, and the alphabet sing along, this is a great App to help in the learning process.

Keep It Interesting

Keeping a child’s attention is one of the hardest things to do. My children (they’re 5 years old) have the attention span of a gnat. They don’t stay tuned in to any one thing very long. Even TV doesn’t put them in a trance like it does some other children. AlphaTots manages to keep their attention for a long period of time; sometimes as long as an hour. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is an accomplishment for my children believe me. The way this App does it is by offering so many different “things to do” within it.  Each letter has an activity attached to it. This means that there are 26 different “things” for my children to do which keeps them entertained. Each activity is associated with the particular word that they chose to represent that letter. For example, U is represented by the word “unlock”. For this they show a chest and tell the children to unlock the chest. To do this they have to line up the shapes in three separate wheels (similar to a slot machine). This keeps them doing something fun, and also helps with shape identification and matching! This isn’t a new concept within children’s learning Apps, but the simplicity and effectiveness is second to none.

The ease of use is found throughout the App. The letters are easy to navigate to from the home screen. Advancing to the next letter after completing the activity is intuitive and simple, and there are words of praise throughout the entire process.

The Alphabet Song

When I was a little kid, no one thing helped me learn my letters more than the alphabet song, as I’m sure it has helped millions of others. Knowing this, AlphaTots included the alphabet song into the App. Tapping on the music notes in the lower right hand corner of the screen brings up a new screen that not only plays the alphabet song, but also displays the letters as it sings it to your child. My children can sing the song word for word, but they still enjoy this feature of the App and play the song at least once every time they are using the App.

The Bottom Line

You can’t go wrong with a children’s App that not only teaches your child the alphabet, but helps them enjoy the learning process while they’re doing it. This App will help your child learn their ABC’s very, very quickly.

You can get AlphaTots for the iPad from the iTunes store for $1.99 here:
You can get AlphaTots for the iPhone from the iTunes store for $.99 here:

Apple’s new multi-touch 3D patent reveals a next-generation approach to gesture control that is featured on the iPad in schematics. But Apple’s new focus on this technology could also involve increasing the screen size of the iPhone 5 as well.

In an article this week, PCWorld took a close look at a fascinating new Apple patent that could dramatically revolutionize the gesturing experience on mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone. Writer Eric Mack explains: “The focus of the patent is gesturing by making motions with the fingers across a multi-touch screen, but it also mentions 3-D gesturing using a device’s front-facing camera. This could bring technology similar to that employed in the Microsoft Kinect to iOS devices.”

In layman’s terms, Mack associates the new patent to the same investigative tools employed by Tom Cruise’s character in the landmark film The Minority Report. Ever since that film was released, its sci-fi depiction of fluid, holographic-based gesture control has set the bar for what tech users hope the consumer electronics industry will someday develop.

In the patent, Apple is clearly using the iPad as its vehicle for this kind of new technology, most likely imagining that the 9.7-inch screen dimensions of its tablet device. But it would stand to reason that Apple will continue to strive to create parity between the iPad and iPhone — I expect Siri to make its debut on the iPad 3. In the same way, there is no reason to believe that Apple will not equip the iPhone with the same breakthrough gesture controls as the iPad in the years and models to come.

In this way, I can imagine more justification that the iPhone 5 will feature a larger screen.

Many iPhone enthusiasts believe that the long-running larger screen rumor for the iPhone 5 will eventually come true by virtue of users calling for it. I argue, however, that Apple is not committed to increasing the size of the iPhone’s screen simply to compete with the likes of top-tier Android smartphones; they will need a better reason than that to beef up the size of the screen.

But a revolutionary new 3D approach to multi-touch gesturing could be a worthwhile justification.

Bear in mind that this new multi-touch gesturing patent is unlikely to show up on the iPhone 5 — patents can take years to develop and implement. However, if this patent reveals the direction that Apple is moving in from a design perspective, it would stand to reason that bumping up the screen size of the iPhone could be just around the corner.

There have been a few reports going around lately about people having problems with battery life after upgrading to iOS 5 or to the new iPhone 4s. While I haven’t had any real issues myself with the iPhone 4s, it’s great to know whether or not if an App has run a muck and is chewing up system resources. One sign of this is if your iPhone or other iDevice is all of a sudden warm to the touch. This usually means that the processor is working overtime. When that happens you can try things like quitting some of the Apps running in the background or a simple reboot of the device. However, I would like to do more than just solve this problem temporarily, I’d like to know which app in particular is causing the problem?

System Activity Monitor shows what’s going on in real-time

This App is similar to the Mac OS Activity Monitor in that it shows you in real time which apps or processes are running and more importantly which ones are running with high amounts of processor time. If you’re not playing a game or doing something else that would task the processor then your device should be running with the majority of the processor count in “idle.” If it’s not, you can quickly identify which App or process is causing a problem.

I highly recommend System Activity Monitor as a troubleshooting tool!

You can get System Activity Monitor for $0.99 here from the 

I’m happy to announce an important update to my Learn the Adobe Creative Suite with Terry White App. Most importantly this update addresses a video playback bug introduced in iOS 5 that prevented you from being able to see the video and only hearing the audio. This update also adds:

• Retina Display Graphics
• A new tab bar interface
• Swiping to the left and right from the episode detail page will go to the next or previous episode
• UI enhancements
• Faster show loading
• Minor bug fixes

Thanks for your patience and support! You can get the App as a free update if you already have it or for $1.99 here from the 

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Tapper World Tour HD Review: A high-speed challenge to keep the local watering hole running smoothly. Imagine yourself as a lone bartender with a room full of demanding patrons. Your job is to keep them happy by sliding a beverage down the bar for each of them. You’ve got multiple stations to manage, as well as empties and tips to pick up. The game starts off relatively easy, a few patrons here, a couple over there. But it quickly gets to be nearly as fast-paced as any real-world hot spot would be. You’ve got to be quick and be able to see things coming ahead of time while you jump between stations and race to pick up empties and tips. On top of needing to see things almost before they happen, the game gets more complicated as you go along. Patrons have special requests, they become more demanding.

Tapper World Tour HD Review: Serving Up a Roomful of Fun

Digitimes’ Daniel Shen and Steve Shen report that competition among handset vendors for a bigger share in the US LTE-enabled smartphone market is poised to intensify in 2012 when Sprint Nextel starts kicking off its LTE services at mid-year, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

Mid-year also happens to be when Apple holds its annual World Wide Developer’s Conference, which has traditionally (although not in 2011) been a launch pad for announcing iPhone upgrades and revisions. It’s a reasonable guess that the WWDC would be a logical time for Apple to roll out the next iPhone, whether it be an iPhone 5 or perhaps an iPhone 6 if it gets an A6 chip, which will be a possibility if Apple gets an A6-powered iPad 3 out the door in late winter 2012 as expected.

Consequently, there’s probable cause to anticipate that if things do unfold in that sequence, the next iPhone should have 4G/LTE capability.

Digitimes’ Shen and Shen say that according to Sprint’s roadmap, the company plans to launch 15 LTE-enabled end devices, including smartphones, tablet PCs and mobile data cards, for some designated areas in mid-2012 initially, according to their industry sources. They note that among smartphone vendors, HTC, Samsung Electronics, Motorola Mobility and LG Electronics already offer LTE-enabled models, with HTC currently taking up a 60% share of US 4G-compatible smartphone sales. However, what they’re hearing from insider sources is that Apple Nokia, RIM and Sony Ericsson are all expected to join the LTE club in 2012 as more telecom service providers around the globe launch LTE services in the coming year.

However, if Apple is to join the LTE club, it will require some technological advances in order to address what now Apple CEO Tim Cook described at Apple’s quarterly financial results announcement last April as first-generation LTE chipsets forcing “a lot of design compromises” that the company was unwilling to make at that time, and evidently still unwilling to make half a year later, since the iPhone 4S does not support LTE.

However, more indication that we can look for an LTE iPhone at WWDC 2012 in a recent CNET report citing Will Strauss, president of wireless chip market research firm Forward Concepts, who said current implementations of LTE in phones like the HTC ThunderBolt are still too kludgy for Apple’s tastes, but does anticipate a 4G iPhone reaching consumers next year. “They’re saving iPhone 5 for the LTE version and that won’t be out until next spring,” Strauss is quoted commenting.

Bluetooth file sharing is a feature that Apple left out of their iOS lineup that jailbreaking helps bring to us on a silver platter. We will be telling you about a very major Bluetooth file sharing application in the near future, however, today we will be showing you and walking you through a new Bluetooth file sharing application called AirBlue Sharing by iOS developer Eric Day. Bluetooth file transfer is an easy way to transfer files between phones or machines from short distances. For some, methods like Dropbox might seem more

MMi received a credible tip tonight that Target is updating its system to reflect the iPad 3 market introduction in early March. The source in question is intimately acquainted with the retail giant’s web presence and confirms that the third generation Apple tablet will roll out next month.

Just 48 hours ago, AllThingsD reported that Apple will hold a media event in San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts within the next four weeks, most likely before the first ten days of March have passed.

“No word yet on a street date for the iPad 3 (assuming

Evidence supporting the imminent announcement and release of Apple’s iPad 3 continues to mount with many retailers reporting iPad 2 supply constraints.

According to 9to5Mac a source “familiar with Apple’s product distribution channels” is claiming supply shortages for Apple’s iPad 2 extend beyond Apple’s own distribution channels. United Kingdom retailer Carphone Warehouse is reporting shortages for five of their six 3G iPad 2 models (all except the 3G 64GB iPad 2). Orange is reporting shortages on half of their 3G iPad 2 models as well according to the source.

Florian Mueller revealed today some additional information regarding Apple’s latest patent lawsuit against Samsung over auto-correct and screen unlock patents.

The big revelation is that Apple is targeting Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone and is seeking a preliminary injunction against the sale of Google’s flagship Android 4.0 device. Apple’s lawsuit parallels a complaint filed last year, but according to Mueller Apple’s new complaint differs in a few essential areas.

Apple made the error of asking for a sales injunction against Samsung last

Many of us like the idea of having the ability to get Notification Center on our lock screens. One popular way to do this is by using IntelliScreenX, a $9.99 application that not only adds Notification Center to your lock screen, but also has multiple other extensive options. If that price is too high for you and you aren’t in need of the extensive options, then there is a new, much cheaper package now available dubbed Bulletin by iOS developer Ma Jun. Setting you back just 99¢, Bulletin puts Notification Center, as is, on your lock

It’s no secret we love Just Mobile products. Everything they do is engineered and designed with Apple’s sense of style in mind. Just Mobile creates products that complement your Apple products so well you’d think they’re made by Apple. They’re based out of Taiwan, and are always quick to respond to emails – they even call us up before major events to see if we’re coming. Personal touches like this speak to their attention to detail, which spills over into their products. <br

Apple seems to be head hunting when it comes to legal matters recently. The company filed a lawsuit against Samsung
over auto correct as reported previously and now another lawsuit against Motorola over their use of Qualcomm technology emerges. According to Apple, Motorola seems to have breached a contract pertaining to their use of a Qualcomm patent license. The Cupertino California company is attempting to protect itself from being sued over the issue in Germany by

Shortly after discontinuing the white plastic MacBook once and for all, Apple seems to have replaced it with a MacBook Air designed specifically for educational sales. The 13-inch model MacBook Air costs the same $999 as the MacBook it replaces. Furthermore, it will only be sold to educational institutes and will be sold at the same price as the entry-level 11-inch MacBook Air sold to consumers.

The 13-inch MacBook Air model will have the same specs as its 11-inch counterpart: 1.6 GHz Intel i5 Processor, 2GB of RAM (which is non-upgradable), and 64 GB of on-board flash memory.

Facebook’s recent Initial Public Offering (IPO) filing helped surface some interesting information. It seems that the company has hired former Apple marketing executive Rebecca Van Dyck.

She started working at Apple in January of 2007 and was involved in the marketing of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Van Dyck served a similar role at Levi’s in the period after she left Apple as well. She was approached by AdAge last year and asked what she learned about Apple where she noted that with the iPhone, “it was first and foremost about the user experience. And that’s how I approach marketing, that theme