Technology, Iphone App | featured news

Smartphones are powerful tools, and with the right apps and accessories, they can become even more so. A California-based tech company has launched a tool that turns a regular iPhone 4 or 4S into a powerful biometrics scanning tool. AOptix has unveiled its app and a wrap-around device for turning the smartphone into a portable iris, face, fingerprint and voice scanner.

It's about time someone came up with a tech-savvy way to determine the optimal taxi route.As hard working as they are, some cab drivers may take a slower, more congested route to run up the fare, but the free Taxi Turvi app strives to help passengers judge whether their drivers are taking the best course possible.

An app created by a UK teenager has been acquired by web giant Yahoo in a deal the BBC understands to be worth "dozens of millions" of pounds. Seventeen-year-old Nick D'Aloisio's Summly app summarises news stories from popular media companies.

App developers have turned cellphones and tablets into powerful tools, spawning a multibillion-dollar industry but making huge sacrifices in the process.

The furor over Apple's faulty mapping software reached the Silicon Valley company's highest echelons Friday, prompting an apology from Chief Executive Tim Cook and opening the way for rival Google to capitalize on the misstep.

Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company is "extremely sorry" for the frustration its Maps application has caused and it's doing everything it can to make it better. In the meantime, he recommended that people use competing map applications to get around... "While we're improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app," Cook wrote.

...Apple released an update to its iPhone and iPad operating system on Wednesday that replaces Google Maps with Apple's own application. Early upgraders are reporting that the new maps are less detailed, look weird and misplace landmarks... One Twitter user quipped that the lines of people queuing up to buy the iPhone 5 on Friday will be shorter, because the buyers will be misled by the new Maps.

YouTube is being reprogrammed for the iPhone and iPad amid the latest fallout from the growing hostility between Google and Apple. The changes are being made because Google Inc. and Apple Inc. didn't renew a five-year licensing agreement that established YouTube's video service as one of the built-in applications in the operating system that runs the iPhone and iPad.

In Steve Jobs fashion, Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco with a handful of key stats about its app ecosystem, which Cook called “an economy in itself.”

Did "sexting" just get safer? Maybe, but probably not. A free and increasingly popular iPhone app called Snapchat allows users to take a picture, send it and control how the message is visible – between 1 and 10 seconds.