Facebook Launches AppLinks To Make Deep Linking Between Apps Easier

At its F8 developer conference today, Parse CEO and co-founder Ilya Sukhar announced the launch of AppLinks.org, a new initiative that will make deep-linking between native apps easier for developers.

“It’s a shame that the URL is not a big deal on mobile right now. If I try to open third-party apps, I’m stuck in the web browser where I have to log in again,” Sukhar said. “There is no unified way to navigate to links across all the platforms.”

So with this new scheme, you just pass the app a web URL and if a compatible mobile app is installed, it will automatically load that app instead of the web version. AppLinks will learn which links are handled by which apps. “We crawl the web for you. You don’t have to do it – but you can, you just don’t have to,” Sukhar said. Developers simply mark up their web pages with a few new meta properties. Facebook also offers a Parse module and an API to support these features.

Facebook’s own apps already support AppLinks today, but the company has also partnered with a large range of third-party services that now use the service, too.

Linking between iPhone apps is currently a pretty difficult proposition that often involved a number of steps. Google does this for its fleet of iOS apps, for example, but there is no standard for invoking third-party apps that all developers can hook into. Now, developers just add a few lines of code to allow users to link between apps.

As Vijay Shankar, a Facebook product manager involved in this project, noted during an afternoon session at F8, the best part of these kind of app links is that the scheme is cross-platform compatible. It’s meant to be a truly open standard that isn’t bound to any specific platform.

Historically, the iPhone always made data sharing between apps difficult and, as such, linking between apps was hard, too. Over the last few iterations, Apple loosened some of these restrictions and — in the process — also made linking between apps easier.

New Yahoo mail app for iPhone delivers other content as well

Yahoo is rolling out a new mail app for iPhone and iPod touch designed to deliver more than just messages.

The new mail app, announced on Tuesday, will provide a familiar Yahoo mail experience while adding access to other content like news, weather and stock tickers, according to the company.

YAHOO

When users open the app they will see their Yahoo mail inbox, but with a new panel at the bottom with icons marked “Mail,” “News” and “Today.” Tapping on the “news” icon gives users articles about a variety of topics, from celebrity gossip to politics.

The Today icon gives a snapshot of other information that is personalized to the user, such as local weather, stock quotes or sports scores.

Incorporating those other content streams into the mail app aligns with the vision of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer of providing services for people around a range of “daily habits.”

“This is where all your news, information, and communications come together in one integrated experience,” Yahoo said in its announcement of the new app.

Yahoo has been on a redesign streak over the last year, revamping many services like Flickr and Mail on the desktop. Mobile has been a key element in Mayer’s efforts to turn Yahoo around. But the company still faces major challenges in monetizing its new apps and growing its advertising business.

The new mail app is free and will be rolling out to Apple’s App Store over the next couple of weeks to U.S. users, Yahoo said.

Apple iPhone 6 Release Roundup: China Stage Set, Top Features, New Touch Sensor for 3D, Indoor Navigation and More

Reuters
The gold colored version of the new iPhone 
5S is seen after Apple Inc's media event in 
Cupertino, California September 10, 2013.

Apple has been setting the stage for the release of the iPhone 6. According to recent reports, the company has been doing well in China posting strong iPhone sales. This means the tech giant has penetrated the market successfully offering more potential for upcoming releases like the iPhone 6. Recent patent sightings also indicated that Apple may include a touch sensor, indoor navigation and mapping system. 

According to a report by Reuters, Apple has been performing well in the Chinese market. The company recorded strong profits on its current product lineup. Analysts believe that the company stands to gain more following the release of the iPhone 6 and other offerings. 

The report also noted at least 15 brokerages changing their price targets from $60 up to $700. Company shares also went up 8.5 percent at $569.49 last April 24. RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani noted that several factors will drive the company's stock higher. These include a bigger iPhone 6, bigger dividend, expanded share buyback and new products. 

There are several things people may find in the next iPhone release. According to latest reports, the upcoming smartphone may feature the following:

Indoor navigation and 3D positioning - Apple just got a patent describing use of WiFi access points for navigation and mapping instead of the standard GPS. Apple's patent is entitled "Determining a location of a mobile device using a location database." It goes by the No. 8,700,060.
Curved display and all-aluminum rear shell - According to MacRumors, the iPhone 6 will ditch the rear glass antenna breaks. Apple will go for an all-aluminum design.
The sapphire glass is also still part of the reported specs. There are also reports saying that Apple will launch the iPhone with the iOS 8. The iOS 8 will feature health apps that can monitor the user's health stats. Likewise, the iOS 8 will also have better mapping system. Apple will have to make an official announcement yet about its upcoming products. 

COMIXOLOGY REMOVES STOREFRONT FROM IPAD, IPHONE APPS

The convenience of buying comics directly from your iPad through comiXology's app is a thing of the past. The company, which is being acquired by Amazon, announced today that users can no longer purchase comics on iOS devices.

In a post on their Tumblr account, comiXology revealed they are "retiring" their current app for iOS systems and have replaced it with a "new reader app." The new app is, as the name implies, just for reading comics – the storefront is gone. Users will have to purchase comics at comixology.com and then sync their purchases to the new app.

The change apparently only affects the comiXology app -- the individual publisher apps for Marvel, DC, Image and others don't appear to be affected at this time.

The post says that "all your purchased books will be readable in the new app once you’ve downloaded it" and have set up a comiXology account. If you haven't done that in the past, you'll need to do so on comiXology's website or in the original app, and then sync your purchases to it from within the old app. Once you've downloaded the new app, you can use the "InCloud" tab to download comics you've already purchased. The post also notes you can continue to read any comics you already have downloaded in the old app.

Customers will have to download a new app to read their comics.

The move comes less than a month after the announcement that Amazon has reached an agreement to acquire the digital comics company – but before Amazon actually takes ownership of comiXology. That deal is expected to close this quarter. The change puts comiXology's sales method in line with Amazon's Kindle app for the iOS, which also allows you to sync previously purchased books but not actually purchase them through the app – which means Apple doesn't get a cut of the sale. Both Apple and Amazon are competitors in the tablet market.

While initially this may affect sales as customers get used to buying in a new way, ultimately this potentially means publishers will make more money as they're no longer sharing revenue with Apple, depending on the deals. It also means the possibility of greater variance in price point -- Apple set their price points at variable of $X.99, and now you could potentially see $1.59 comics or $.59 comics, if comiXology and the publishers wanted to go that route.

ComiXology hopes to "ease this transition" by offering a $5 credit to comiXology users, which will automatically be applied to accounts today. Customers using the Android Comics app can still purchase comics through it, but now it will be through a new comiXology in-app purchase system rather than through Google Play.

iPhone scammers allegedly use homeless to profit in Apple stores

In a scheme designed to prey on the poor and defenseless, scammers working in a Colorado Apple store persuade them to sign up for phones in exchange for cash. The phones are resold. The contracts, however, belong to the disadvantaged.

Are Apple store employees involved?

KUSA screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

It all seems so blatant.

In footage, all shot on an iPhone, we see what are said to be homeless people or the very poor walking into Apple stores and buying iPhones.

For this, they are allegedly rewarded in cash.

The phones, as KUSA in Denver reports, are sent overseas, where, unlocked, they fetch far more money.

Those who signed the contracts, however, are stuck with them.

If they cannot pay, their credit score suffers. Perhaps that's not the worst thing if, as one interviewee says, he lives in a park.

Each of those interviewed said they simply needed cash. They didn't think through, or perhaps care about, the consequences.

The footage was shot at the Cherry Creek Mall in Denver and the suggestion is that an Apple store employee was involved in the scheme.

Moreover, Apple store staff reportedly removed the KUSA journalist, rather than addressing any possibility of nefarious behavior.

I have contacted Apple to see if the company has any comment about such apparent scams happening within its doors and will update, should I hear back.

KUSA says that despite being confronted with evidence, the Apple store did nothing. It was the mall that finally contacted police, and the alleged scammers haven't returned.

Acompli is the powerhouse email app for iPhone that Outlook users have been waiting for

For all the advances the smartphone has brought us, our email is still largely chained to the desktop. Stock email apps have never had half the features of their desktop counterparts, and they’re all but useless when it comes to scheduling meetings or finding your files. They were built under the assumption that you would rarely want to do more than check your messages and send the occasional reply while on the go, saving the real work for when you were in front of a larger screen and physical keyboard. And in the early days, that assumption was right.

But since the dawn of the App Store, developers have been trying to break email free of the desktop. Last year the stylish Mailbox arrived in the App Store, drawing cheers for the way it made inboxes easy to process even on a smaller screen. Swipe gestures made it fun to archive messages by the dozens, and a lightning-fast infrastructure made sending messages feel as fast as texting. Nearly 400,000 people signed up to use the app before it was even available. A month after launch, Mailbox was acquired by Dropbox, and its team has continued to build features aimed at making the unending burden of email more bearable.

But over the past month, a new buzz has emerged from some of the same early adopters who first fell for Mailbox. They're saying that Acompli, a new free email app launching today on iPhone, represents the next step in unchaining email from the desktop. It’s a professional-grade email solution with a host of features that should appeal to office workers: Microsoft Exchange support on day one, one-tap integration with your calendar, and a dead-simple way of accessing recently emailed files and people. In short: it’s the Outlook for iPhone that Microsoft hasn’t yet built.

Javier Soltero didn’t start off wanting to do email. A former chief technology officer at VMware, he quit at the end of 2012 to become an entrepreneur in residence at Redpoint Ventures. Like many developers, he hoped to create an app his users would return to every day. Satish Dharmaraj, a partner at Redpoint, encouraged him to think about email. Soltero says he was skeptical at first — another email app? But the more he researched it, the more discontent he found with mobile email — particularly from people whose offices use Exchange servers.

When it comes to alternative email clients for their mobile devices, Exchange users have been underserved. Silicon Valley, where many email apps are built, tends to view Exchange users with derision, Soltero says. (You still can’t add an Exchange account on Mailbox, for example.) "People here do not fathom the possibility of anyone using Exchange," he says. "Next thing you know you’ll be wearing sweatpants and a fanny pack! But we know, because we looked at the data, that there are close to 800 million Exchange inboxes out here. And curiously enough, it continues to grow at a 6 percent clip. Exchange is planet Earth’s preferred email delivery system. And that’s perfectly fine!" (Acompli also supports Google accounts.)

With stock apps limited largely to sending and receiving messages, Soltero saw a business opportunity. Acompli helps you avoid desktop email in two ways, both of which get their own tab at the bottom of the inbox. First, an integrated calendar lets you scan upcoming appointments and set meetings without ever leaving your email app. The calendar also appears in the message-compose window, and tapping it will pull up two options: you can either send your availability, highlighting times with a couple taps, or create a calendar invitation for a specific time. All of it can be done in seconds, with your thumb, while you’re eating a salad.

Acompli’s second move away from the desktop lies in its approach to files. A significant number of the files we need for work are already sitting on our email servers, but good luck finding them with a stock email app. Acompli puts your recent files in a tab, letting you scroll through them quickly and attach them to messages with one tap. It takes a similar approach to your contacts: instead of making you look them up in a separate app, it has a people tab that keeps a rolling list of your recent contacts. In effect, it’s a dynamically generated list of your most important contacts, and when it works it’s great. (Unfortunately, it considers marketing emails from e-commerce sites and social media to be "contacts," and includes them in the people tab, making it less useful.)

Taken together, Acompli’s design encourages you to start thinking of your iPhone as a workstation in its own right. There’s something highly satisfying about responding to an emailed request for a meeting with a couple of taps. No more switching between several apps and exchanging multiple emails to find a time that works — now you can do it in a single place. And anyone who emails lots of files will likely appreciate having them available at their fingertips.

After a month testing Acompli, I’m still not sure it’s the email app for me. I do three things with mobile email, and three things only: check for crises, fire off quick replies, and aggressively archive anything that doesn’t need a response. Mailbox’s big buttons and ridiculous speed make it ideal for my needs. But there are almost as many ways to do email as there are people receiving it, and my hunch is that a good chunk of them will see Acompli as the email app they've been waiting for. For those who use complex labeling schemes and filters, mobile email is still a long way from replicating the best desktop experiences. But it’s finally starting to catch up.

8 GB iPhone 5c Rolls Out to More Countries, 'Flop' iPhone 5c Outsold Others in Q4

Apple's price cut lower-storage 8 GB iPhone 5c has now rolled out to other countries. It is currently available in over 15 countries.

Recently, 8 GB iPhone 5c has been launched in the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic and Belgium. Apple's online store for these six countries has shown the lower storage 5c as a stock, ready to ship in 24 hours upon order.

The addition to 16 GB and 32 GB editions of iPhone 5c, Apple 8 GB 5c also rolls out in Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Luxembourg, Ireland, Hungary, Finland, Denmark and Austria. This variant was introduced by Apple in March in Australia, Germany, France, the UK and China.

But if you are an Apple loyalist in the U.S., the 8 GB 5c is unfortunately not yet available as Apple does not want the pricecut variant because there are famous subsidized phones in the U.S.

Consumers expressed more preference for the 5s over 5c. In January, CEO Tim Cook of Apple acknowledged 5s has more sales than the 5c.

Umeng, an analytics company in China, found 5c as taking 2 percent of the network traffic. iPhone 5 and 5s take 15 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

The birth of the 5c variant is one of the changes Apple made to counter the rise of devices that run Google's Android. Apple usually competes with Android devices in terms of price in September. For this year, a price cut smartphone has already come.

Meanwhile, the original 5c version which has been dubbed as a "flop" because of its low sales has been thriving well. Its notable record was seen in the last quarter of the preceding year, where it actually surpassed the sales of Windows Phone, BlackBerry and Android flagship phones, including Samsung Galaxy S4.

The tech industry has been complaining about 5c's "failure" as Cupertino was not putting much of its innovation zest into the model.

But Apple's current flagship 64-bit with touch ID iPhone 5s soared up in sales and performance globally. Apple sold 51 million iPhones in the winter quarter; 12.8 million of which were iPhone 5c while 6.4 million were iPhone 4s and 31.9 million were iPhone 5s.

What Apps Will Look Like On The 4.7-Inch iPhone 6

In the past, when Apple has grown the screen of an iOS device — for example, with the transition from the iPhone 4s to the iPhone 5 — Apple has taken pains to keep the pixel density the same. The Retina Display on the iPhone 5 is 326 pixels per inch, just like the iPhone 4s. This makes it easier for developers and helps prevent the widespread fragmentation seen in the Android operating system.

With many rumors pegging the forthcoming iPhone 6 as having a much bigger 4.7-inch display, a practical issue presents itself: what would that mean for resolution and pixel-density? If Apple increases the display size, will they increase the resolution to compete with the likes of HTC and Samsung’s 1080p Android smartphones? And if so, what does that mean for app developers?

Over on the Verge’s Apple forums, a user has a pretty good theory on what will happen if Apple releases a 4.7-inch iPhone 6. Citing a report by reputable analyst Ming Chi Kuo that says the iPhone 6’s 4.7-inch display will boast a 1,334 x 750 pixel display, the theory is this: even though it will have a bigger screen, Apple will keep the iPhone 6’s resolution exactly the same as the iPhone 5.

Noting that in the transition to the iPhone 5, Apple has been pushing developers to use iOS’s auto-layout tools, Verge user Pi is exactly 3 notes:

Even though it’s technically a marketing term, Apple has stated their “rules” for what kind of display they consider retina. For the iPhone being held 10-12’ away, 300ppi and higher is “retina”. Sticking to 326ppi on a bigger display, which would ideally be able to be held even further away, and thus require a lower pixel density, would also then meet the “retina requirements”.

So, how Apple gets to 4.7’ is simple: add pixels to each side of the display, and keep the pixel density the same. Non-updated apps get letter-boxed on all 4 sides (instead of 2 like the 4’ screen), and developers are further pushed to use auto-layout to target all 3 display sizes. One of the big differences here compared to other theories is that, rather than everything just getting bigger, UI elements stay the same size, there’s just more room for additional content.

In this approach, Apple wouldn’t worry about increasing resolution, and instead “letterbox” apps that hadn’t been updated to support the iPhone 6, surround a 4-inch app with padded borders. This would be similar to handle the iPhone 5 and above handles apps that have not been optimized for a 4-inch display, or how the iPad works when running iPhone apps.

Here’s what apps would look like:

The biggest danger here is that Apple would look behind-the-times compared to the competition, many of whom are boasting displays that put the Apple’s Retina Display to shame, at least according to pixel count. But there are other, more important factors in determining a display’s quality than just pixels, and Apple might even be able to make a marketing weapon out of it, arguing that their competitors are wasting battery life to power screens with pixels people can’t see anyway.

Facebook Adding Nearby Friends Feature To Apps For IPhone, Android

Facebook is officially introducing a feature it has toyed with in simpler form in the past, as the social network announced the launch of Nearby Friends in a Newsroom post, saying that it will be available to U.S. Android and iPhone users “in the coming weeks.”

Users of the social network’s flagship apps for Android devices and iPhones can choose to activate the Nearby Friends feature, after which they will be notified when friends who have also activated the feature share the information that they are located nearby. Friends can only see information of this type if it is shared with them, and the Nearby Friends feature can be deactivated at any time.

Product Manager Andrea Vaccari shared more details in the Newsroom post:

If you turn on Nearby Friends, you’ll occasionally be notified when friends are nearby, so you can get in touch with them and meet up. For example, when you’re headed to the movies, Nearby Friends will let you know if friends are nearby so you can see the movie together or meet up afterward.

Nearby Friends is an optional feature. You can choose who can see if you’re nearby (for example: your friends, close friends, or a specific friends list), and you can turn it on and off at any time.

Sharing your location with Nearby Friends goes two ways — you and your friends both have to turn on Nearby Friends and choose to share with each other to see when you’re nearby. Your friends will only be able to see that you’re nearby if you share this info with them and vice versa.

If you turn on Nearby Friends, you can also choose to share a precise location with the particular friends you choose for a set period of time, such as the next hour. When you share your precise location, the friend you choose will see exactly where you are on a map, which helps you find each other. Then you can meet up and spend time together.

When Nearby Friends is on, you can see when your friends are traveling if they’re also using this feature and sharing with you. You’ll be able to see the city or neighborhood they are in, including on their profile. When you see a friend visiting a place you’ve been, it’s the perfect opportunity to send a recommendation for a great restaurant. You can also make last-minute plans to meet up with a friend who happens to be in the same place you’re headed to.

In June 2012, Facebook briefly experimented with a Find Friends Nearby feature, which allowed Facebook users to meet new people in the area, or to more easily connect with people they already met.

The feature was originally called Friendshake, and the Facebook engineer who created it, Ryan Patterson, told TechCrunch at the time:

I built Find Friends Nearby with another engineer for a hackathon project. While it was originally called Friendshake, we settled on Find Friends Nearby for launch (the URL was a little bit of homage to the previous iteration).

For me, the ideal use case for this product is the one where when you’re out with a group of people whom you’ve recently met and want to stay in contact with. Facebook search might be effective, or sharing your vanity addresses or business cards, but this tool provides a really easy way to exchange contact information with multiple people with minimal friction.

However, the social network pulled the Find Friends Nearby feature within days of its emergence.

Facebook’s application for the BlackBerry 10, released in March 2013, also included a feature called Friends Nearby, which was described as follows:

Now, Facebook for BlackBerry 10 allows you to discover if your Facebook friends are nearby. You’ll be able to see when they’ve checked in on Facebook to a location that’s close to where you are.

Nearby Friends is obviously much more comprehensive than the Friends Nearby feature in the BlackBerry app.

Readers: Will you try out Nearby Friends on your Android or iPhone apps?

How to Switch and Quit Apps on the iPhone

From the day the app concept was invented, the iPhone desperately needed a handy way to switch among open apps. Maybe you want to copy something from Safari (on the web) into Mail (a message you’re writing). Maybe you want to refer to your frequent flyer number (in Notes) as you’re using an airline’s check-in app. Maybe you want to adjust something in Settings and then get back to whatever you were doing.

The key to switching apps is this: Double-press the Home button.

In iOS 7, what happens next has had some radical cosmetic surgery. Whatever is on the screen gets replaced by the new, improved app switcher.

You still see a horizontally scrolling row of icons, representing the open apps. But above them, you now see shrunken-down images of theirscreens. You can actually see what’s going on in each open app. In fact, sometimes, that’s all you need; you can refer to another app’s screen in this view, without actually having to switch into that app.

When you scroll horizontally to look through your recently opened apps (they appear in chronological order), you may notice that the icons and their screens seem to scroll at different speeds. It’s a little odd at first, but you get the point: They’re actually moving so that the icon is always centered under its much larger screen.

When you tap an app’s icon or screen in the app switcher, you open that app.

The task switcher also lets you manually exit an app, closing it down. To do that, flick the unwanted app’s mini-screen upward, so that it flies up off the top of the screen.

(The app will return to the lineup the next time you open it from the Home screen; it’s not really gone.)

Now, you’ll need this gesture only rarely. It’s not as though you’re supposed to quit every app when you’re finished using it, as you might on a PC. The iPhone is perfectly capable of managing its own memory situation. You may see dozens of apps in the app switcher, but you’ll never sense that your phone is bogging down as a result.

Instead, the force-quitting gesture is intended for use when an app is acting glitchy and simply needs to be restarted.

How to Switch and Quit Apps on iPhone

From the day the app concept was invented, the iPhone desperately needed a handy way to switch among open apps. Maybe you want to copy something from Safari (on the Web) into Mail (a message you’re writing). Maybe you want to refer to your frequent flyer number (in Notes) as you’re using an airline’s check-in app. Maybe you want to adjust something in Settings and then get back to whatever you were doing.

The key to switching apps is this: Double-press the Home button.

In iOS 7, what happens next has had some radical cosmetic surgery. Whatever is on the screen gets replaced by the new, improved app switcher.

You still see a horizontally scrolling row of icons, representing the open apps. But above them, you now see shrunken-down images of theirscreens. You can actually see what’s going on in each open app. In fact, sometimes, that’s all you need; you can refer to another app’s screen in this view, without actually having to switch into that app.

When you scroll horizontally to look through your recently opened apps (they appear in chronological order), you may notice that the icons and their screens seem to scroll at different speeds. It’s a little odd at first, but you get the point: They’re actually moving so that the icon is always centered under its much larger screen.

When you tap an app’s icon or screen in the app switcher, you open that app.

Force Quitting an App

The task switcher lets you manually exit an app, closing it down. To do that, flick the unwanted app’s mini-screen upward, so that it flies up off the top of the screen (facing page, right).

(The app will return to the lineup the next time you open it from the Home screen; it’s not really gone.)

Now, you’ll need this gesture only rarely. It’s not as though you’re supposed to quit every app when you’re finished using it, as you might on a PC. The iPhone is perfectly capable of managing its own memory situation. You may see dozens of apps in the app switcher, but you’ll never sense that your phone is bogging down as a result.

Instead, the force-quitting gesture is intended for use when an app is acting glitchy and simply needs to be restarted.

Readdle’s Calendar apps get new iPad UI, custom reminders on iPhone, & more

Readdle, the developer behind popular Calendar apps for iPhone and iPad, today updated both its free Calendars by Readdle and the $2.99 Calendars 5 with a number of notable new features.

First up, both apps get an updated iPad UI that includes a number of tweaks for improved navigation and layout. For iPhone users, version 5.4 of the apps brings the ability to create custom reminders, while both iPhone and iPad users gain Smart Input support in new languages including Italian, French, and Spanish. Those new features are in addition to a handful of other improvements and fixes that you’ll notice throughout both apps.

Calendars by Readdle is available for free on the App Store, while the more feature filled Calendars 5 sells for $2.99.

Yesterday Readdle’s popular Print Pro for iPhone app went free for 24 hours and quickly became the #1 free app in 15 countries.

What’s New in Version 5.4
- Smart Input now supports French, Italian, and Spanish.
- custom reminders on the iPhone
- lots of minor improvements

- updated iPad UI

Tips to prevent your iPhone or Android phone from being stolen and what to do if it is

The BBC's recent investigation highlighting how easy it was to sell, and therefore buy, a stolen phone is quite alarming. According to the UK's National Mobile Phone Crime Unit, between 250,000 and 300,000 mobile phones are stolen in the country every year and, by the looks of the investigation, the people that steal them have no problem making a buck from your misfortune.

While no one intentionally loses their phone or has it stolen, avoiding it is sometimes more than common sense so we have rounded up a few tips to prevent it, along with a few ways to check if a phone you are buying was stolen from someone else.

Common sense

The most obvious trick to preventing your phone being stolen is to keep it in sight at all times, but even that isn't always enough.

If it's in a pocket, then a front pocket is of course better and if it is in your bag, then make sure it is in a zipped up section and that you keep your bag within reach or where you can see it. Also, Police advise that you avoid waving it around when in the street. You might want to check your emails or the internet, but holding it out in one hand makes it an easier target.

Directly outside London Tube stations are troublespots for phone theft as many travellers often immediately check their messages as soon as they leave the Underground.

You should make a note of all your phone's information, which you can find on the box it comes in. Write down your number, the make and model of the device, its colour and what it looks like, your lock code and the IMEI number. Once you have all of these, you can report it easily if it is stolen.

Adding a security mark, such as your postcode, with an ultraviolet pen is also a good idea as it makes the device more easily identifiable if something happens to it.

Set up a PIN

Typing in a PIN every time you need to unlock your phone can be a little frustrating, but it will make your phone less valuable to thieves and they won't be able to access what you have stored on your SIM card easily.

Whether you have an iPhone, Android, Windows Phone or BlackBerry device, they all have the capacity to set up a PIN or lock code so make sure it is one of the first things you do when you get a new phone. With some modern phones, such as the iPhone 5S and Samsung Galaxy S5, you can also lock your phone using your fingerprint.

Download a tracking app

Downloading a tracking app should also be high on your priority list when you get a new phone, or after reading this feature.

It doesn't matter if you have the latest Samsung Galaxy S5 or a HTC from three years ago, if you lose your phone, there is bound to be some information on it that you don't want getting into the wrong hands.

There are a number of apps such as Andorid Lost, Android Device Manager and Find my iPhone that will not only help you track your device, but also wipe it if it does get stolen.

The Android Lost app for example, will let you remotely read sent and received SMS messages, wipe your phone, lock your phone, erase the SD card and locate the phone by GPS or network.

Android Device Manager on the other hand will help you locate a device that is associated with your Google account and enable you to reset your lock code or erase all the data on it.

For iPhone users, Find my iPhone will allow you to use another iOS device to show you where your phone is on a map, after which you will be able to protect your data by remotely locking it or deleting everything on it.

Windows Phone users can go to the My Phone section of the Windows Phone website where you will be able to ring, lock, erase or show your phone on a map from any internet-connected computer.

Finally, BlackBerry users can download BlackBerry Protect that will help you find your device and keep the information on it secure. If your phone is stolen, you can log in to the BlackBerry Protect website and lock your device, as well as delete the information on the phone itself and the microSD card.

Contact your network carrier

It's worth registering your device with your network operator if the option is there but aside from that, if your phone is lost or stolen, then report it to them immediately.

They should be able to block your phone and your account details so the phone won't be able to be used across any network even if the SIM is changed.

It's also an idea to make sure you have your phone number disabled at the same time so that no further calls or charges can be made. If your phone is stolen, inform the police straight away as this will ensure you have evidence if your network provider or insurance company needs it.

Check before you buy

If you are in the market for a new phone but you want to check whether the deal you are getting is too good to be true, you need to get hold of the IMEI number before you buy.

If a phone is blocked, it will either power up and you'll get no signal, or it will look as though it is working properly but reject calls when you try to use it. Either way, the phone is useless to you if it doesn't work.

The IMEI number can sometimes be found on the device itself - under the battery, for example - or you might need to dial *#06# (star, hash, zero, six, hash) on the keypad and press call to get the 15-digit number to appear.

Once you have the number, you can check whether it is stolen by visiting a number of websites such as CheckMEND. There are a couple of free sites too as CheckMEND will charge you £1.99, but it does offer you a full report on the device's background history, which could be more useful than you think. It's better to be safe than sorry as they say.

How to keep your old iPhone alive

Old school: The iPhone 4, once the hippest accessory, is now ancient tech. Photo: AFP

When reports appeared last month that the next iPhone would likely debut in September – complete with larger screen and higher resolution – I was giddy. But for my beloved but battered iPhone 4 (age 102 in smartphone years), September is a long way off.

Most of us treat our mobile phones as expendable, and for good reason: the average lifespan is 18 to 24 months, and the latest software isn't usually available after a few years. When iOS 7 was released last year, Apple only extended updates back to the iPhone 4 – the 3GS, which sold from 2009 to 2012, was rendered a dinosaur. Thanks to carriers' upgrade discounts and the dangers inherent in being a small object subject to constant abuse, many flit from one phone to the next without an eye on resources required or waste involved.

But prolonging your phone's life beyond the two-year average doesn't require the tech equivalent of an M.D. If you need your "legacy" iPhone to limp through to September and beyond, there are methods to keep it on life support. It's time to break out the bandages, scrub in, and patch up your patient by following these steps.

Triage the patient. It may seem obvious but it's worth repeating: purging unused apps and downloading those selfies to your computer can give your phone an extra spring in its step. Removing several gigs' worth of music, podcasts, and unused apps seems to be the best thing I've done to improve my phone's performance.

Check its vitals. Battery life is the problem child of every smartphone. With life cycles never quite seeming to reach the purported number of charges, batteries do not age gracefully. BuzzFeed and Gizmodo both had good, overlapping guides for diving into your phone's innards to squeeze out more battery life. But in a wonderfully sharp post on iPhone battery woes, former Apple Genius Scotty Loveless approaches haemorrhaging battery life with a scalpel rather than an axe. Loveless recommends examining your phone's usage (Settings > General > Usage) to get a feel for your phone's battery performance before looking at settings for specific apps (such as Facebook) that can stress a battery more than others. Loveless and others have also noted that manually managing multitasking (hitting your home button twice to get the list of open apps, then swiping up to close ones you don't need) isn't necessary to preserve battery; Loveless actually discourages it, which took this multitasker by surprise.

Juice! If your battery still won't last the day and you're tired of lugging around an extra cord or jousting for outlet time at the coffee shop, a few third-party products offer options for charging a draining battery. Chargers, such as the Mophie Juice Pack or Skiva, act as both a protective case and can charge your phone's battery in a pinch. But until the 30-second charger hits the market, there's also an array of portable chargers available if you don't want to shell out for a battery replacement.

Bring out the crutches. When I found Assistive Touch a few years back, I found the black circle always hovering over the app I wanted to open to be more annoying than useful. Then my iPhone's home button died. Hidden under Accessibility features (Settings > General > Accessibility), Assistive Touch works as a makeshift home or power button. It's not seamless, but it helps you navigate when one of your smartphone's essential parts is out of commission.

Go back for checkups. Many iPhone 4 users complained that the iOS 7 upgrade did more harm than good to their phones. Unfortunately, once you've upgraded, you might be stuck. But if you pulled the trigger on iOS 7, do keep installing updates. They fix critical security flaws and can sometimes help increase speed in small bits.

Let it rest. Just as a quick reboot of a desktop or laptop solves the majority of computer problems, a regular reboot of your phone can free up memory and help it run more smoothly.

Call in the crash cart. Restoring your phone to its just-out-of-the-box settings is a hassle, but it's one option for dealing with persistent or drastic problems. Make sure all your valuable data – photos, music, purchased apps, and so forth – are synced before pulling the trigger. Plus, starting anew means you can decide what gets to go back on the phone, so your spring cleaning is built in.

Announce time of death. Sometimes, they just can't be saved. Your phone had a good run. Mourn its loss, and move on. Don't just shove it in a drawer, though – many carriers and other services allow you to trade it in or recycle it (just make sure you erase it first). Then congratulate yourself on being the hippest tech consumer – for the next six months. That's a decade in smartphone years.

Insane iPhone battery drain? Disable Facebook app's location services

If your new iPhone's battery always seems to be running low on power, one way to fix it may be to turn off some of the privileges for the Facebook app.

That's the advice given by Scotty Loveless, who claims one of the most vexing issues he faced as an Apple Genius Bar employee for two years was fixing battery issues.

Loveless has published a myth-busting guide for people who are obsessed with checking the battery percentage on their beloved iOS devices in which he cites Facebook as a prime suspect for excessive power drainage problems.

Loveless explained that he used Apple's Xcode, a desktop developer tool, to reveal what's happening inside an iOS device, much in the same way as Android devices display how much memory and processing power each app is using.

"During this testing, Facebook kept jumping up on the process list even though I wasn't using it. So I tried disabling Location Services and Background App Refresh for Facebook, and you'll never guess what happened: my battery percentage increased. It jumped from 12% to 17%. Crazy. I've never seen that happen before on an iPhone," Loveless wrote.

For the record, disabling Location Services is one of Apple'sown top recommendations for saving power on iPhone batteries; however, Background App Refresh didn't make its list. 

As Loveless noted, the whole concept of multitasking in iOS 7 and the feature that enables Background App Refresh can be tricky for consumers to understand. Although apps appear to be running in the background (which is suggested by the thumbnail images of apps that appear upon double tapping the home button), they're actually in a suspended state wherever the user left the app. They will however run in the background if the user enables Background App Refresh.

There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as playing music, using location services, and recording audio. But, as Loveless noted, "the sneakiest of them all" are messaging apps like Skype that check for incoming VoIP calls and do so without displaying an icon to show that they're still running in the background.

But what many people don't know is that Facebook, along with a host of other messaging apps including Facebook's recent acquisition WhatsApp, also have the ability to check for VoIP messages. 

"Apps that can make or receive calls, like Skype, Viber, Tango, Whatsapp, and Facebook are able to check for incoming calls without notifying you. I believe these types of apps sometimes abuse this exception and could have possibly influenced Apple to add Background App Refresh as the sanctioned method for this type of behaviour," Loveless noted.

"I think this is why disabling Facebook's background services is so influential on battery life: I speculate they are abusing the fact that they have VoIP call features to run in the background more than they should. It would provide a better experience for people using Facebook, sure, but people would never know Facebook was the cause of their battery life issues, and would definitely blame the device or iOS itself."

NBC’S IPAD AND IPHONE APPS NOW SUPPORT APPLE TV

NBC, one of the earliest supporters of cord cutters, has updated its iPhone and iPad apps with Airplay support, allowing Apple TV owners to stream the network’s content to their TVs. The update makes the notion of dumping one’s cable company in favor of Apple TV more appealing, particularly because NBC grants unfettered access to full episodes for free without requiring a cable subscription. 

The app contains episodes of the network’s most popular shows, like Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, The Voice, The Blacklist, and Community. Aside from full episodes, the app also has highlights and previews from late-night shows. So far, the service is only available in the United States, so the rest of the world is out of luck.

This kind of convenience was previously reserved for subscription services such as Hulu Plus. If you were wading in the abyss of truly free content, your options were to watch NBC shows online via the small screens of your phone, tablet, or laptop. Unless, of course, you connected your computer to your TV with an HDMI cable, but that is so 2009. If you don’t have Apple TV, you’re not completely left out. There are existing workarounds to watching NBC shows on your TV, such as tab-casting on the Chromecast. 

Facebook is probably killing your iPhone’s battery – here’s how to fix it

Facebook is easily one of the most popular third-party iPhone apps on the planet. As it turns out, it might also be one of the biggest culprits of iPhone battery drain, according to recent findings brought to light by a former Apple Store Genius. The good news, however, is that it is remarkably easy to stop Facebook from eating up your iPhone’s battery, and in this post we’ll show you how.

First things first: Why is the Facebook app killing your iPhone’s battery life?

According to ComputerWorld, Facebook runs several processes in the background for a few reasons, the most interesting of which may relate to an upcoming effort to launch a new mobile VoIP calling service tied to its app.

Whether or not that’s the case — the more obvious answer may be that the background processes relate to Facebook’s in-built messaging service — a former Apple Store Genius ran some tests and confirmed that the Facebook iPhone app regularly runs processes in the background and eats up precious battery charge.

But don’t despair, iPhone users. There’s a simple fix.

As is the case with any app that might be a drain on your battery when it’s not in use, adjusting two simple settings will completely eliminate the background battery drain.

First, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services and disable the toggle next to Facebook. Then do the same for the Facebook listing in Settings > General > Background App Refresh.

Microsoft Just Used An iPhone On Stage At Its Developer Conference

                                                                 

Microsoft is hosting its big developer conference in San Francisco this week, and one of the big themes is how much nicer Microsoft is toward iOS and Android under its new CEO, Satya Nadella.

The company even did several demos on stage using iPhones. This would have been unheard of just a few years ago.

Plus it announced a new foundation for open-source projects, where apps and projects are freely available for anyone to use, the .Net Foundation. Those projects will help developers write apps for "other platforms," not just Windows, said Microsoft's Scott Guthrie. Guthrie is the new cloud and enterprise chief, the job that Nadella was doing before he became CEO.

On top of that, it released new tools that help programmers write Android and iOS apps hosted on Microsoft's cloud, Azure.

Interestingly, it didn't show any actual Microsoft employees holding an iPhone. And Nadella was nowhere near these demos when they happened. (His keynote was yesterday.)

Instead, it invited Grant Peterson, CTO of a company called e-signature company DocuSign, on stage during Guthrie's keynote. DocuSign and Microsoft are partners who just signed an agreement that lets Office 365 subscribers sign documents without leaving Microsoft's Office apps.

Peterson showed off an iPhone document-signing app that uses Microsoft's cloud, Azure.

He held up the iPhone and joked, "Here's a device I never expected to show on stage at a Microsoft conference."

A few minutes later, another iPhone app was demonstrated by Miguel de Icaza of Xamarin, a company working to bring Microsoft software development tools work with non-Microsoft technologies.

This is the second year in a row Microsoft used Apple devices during Build. Last year, before Nadella was CEO, he chose to use a Mac in a demo, not touching it himself, but having others show off how Microsoft's cloud could be used to create an iPhone app.

Given skyrocketing sales of non-Windows devices, it's critical to Microsoft's cloud to win over all sorts of developers, especially those writing iPhone apps.

The Mac demo last year shocked people at Microsoft, one former employee told Business Insider. Nadella was making the point that using another company's technology, even in public, shouldn't matter. That's a big shift in Microsoft's culture, and a smart one.

Here's a photo of the DocuSign iPhone demo during Build 2014.

Julie Bort/Business Insider

iPhone demo at Microsoft Build

Here's a closeup of the DocuSign iPhone app that runs on Microsoft's cloud.