Switchy's double-row of app shortcuts

The most obvious change in Switchy is that it makes the app switcher bigger. Not only does it have space for an extra row of tiles, it also brings the page indicator lights to the bar making it two and a half times bigger. Switchy puts all the music controls on one page, and includes a brightness slider as well as a button for clearing apps from the background.

Settings, Brightness, and Clear Apps

Switchy is available in Cydia under the BigBoss repository for $1.00, and warns that it is not compatible with the iPad.

There are other apps which offer some of Switchy’s functionality. SBSettings (FREE) has a downloadable toggle called Remove Background, which will end all backgrounding tasks and remove them from th task switcher. Music Control Pro adds an Activator enabled control bar which includes album art, forward/backwards buttons, and volume on the same pane and can be set to activate alongside the app switcher (Music Control Pro costs $5.99, but offers a ridiculous number of other features like video app backgrounding, notification center plugins, and bluetooth control). That said, they don’t make use of the app switcher bar itself, like Switchy does.

Switchy's music controls are on a single pane

What’s the verdict? Is Switchy the app you’re looking for? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

App Store Daily Deals for Wednesday, May 16th, 2012:

Download Midi Studio - $10.99 -> $3.99

Download Photo Power - $2.99 -> FREE

Download Knowtes - $2.99 -> FREE

Download PodcastVideo - $2.99 -> FREE

Download Smart Pad w/Cloud Sync - $19.99 -> $9.99

Download TypeDrawing for iPad V3.0 - $2.99 -> $0.99

Download Zombie Band - $0.99 -> FREE

Download iMuscle – iPhone edition - $1.99 -> $0.99

Download FX Photo Studio HD - $2.99 -> $0.99

Download DrawRace 2 HD - $2.99 -> $0.99

Download Grinder - $2.99 -> $0.99

Download Pocket Universe: Virtual Sky Astronomy – $2.99 -> $0.99

Do you not see an application that catches your interest? Search the App Store directly from iJailbreak.com to find a more well-suited app for you!

Let us know what you think of these App Store deals in the comments.

Get ready for some manufacturing "DRAM-a"

On Tuesday DigiTimes reported that Apple was buying a lot of DRAM from the Japanese company Elpida Memory; half the Hiroshima based factory’s capacity. As usual, the Taiwanese newspaper cited “industry sources,” whoever they may be. Elpida has filed for bankruptcy, and according to Digitimes may be acquired by Micron Technology.

According to Lim Dol-yi, an analyst at Solomon Investment & Securities who was interviewed by Reuters, “a merged Micron-Elpida could pose a significant threat to South Korean memory chipmakers [such as Samsung], and Elpida’s huge order from Apple was the spark that triggered these worries.” As a result of this news, Samsung’s stock value fell $10 billion yesterday.

Apple and Samsung have been involved in litigation since early 2011 over intellectual property infringement, while Apple simultaneously relied on Samsung for manufacturing. The sheer amount indirect damage that a rumor of Apple seeking orders from another DRAM supplier was able to do makes me wonder (if any of this is true) whether Apple is just scoping out its options for getting out of bed with Samsung, or if Cupertino’s decided to twist some screws.

Samsung Galaxy S photo, from Wikipedia; look familiar?

What do you think? Is this just a case of jittery investors panicking because of a rumor? Is Apple innocently backing away from a company it’s tangling with it court? Or is this malicious activity? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Pictured: The iPhone is different than its competition!, and other valuable insights

The iPhone 4S has a smaller screen when compared to its competitors, especially the Samsung Galaxy S III which features a 4.8″ AMOLED screen. The iPhone’s current screen is also at an odd aspect ratio for video content (3:2), causing fullscreen (4:3) and HD wide-screen video (16:9) to require either cropping or letterboxing. That said, introducing a new aspect ratio would introduce fragmentation into the app store, requiring more work from developers to combat compatibility issues for current phones. Even enlarging the screen at the same resolution could throw off design and interface elements.

Apple has the option of chasing Samsung’s feature-set with a larger screen, but Apple would be exposing itself to the same issues that developers programming for Android already have to contend with. As Apples phones are now, if a developer codes an app with the iPhone 3G in mind, it can be expected to display correctly on the iPhone 4S, and vice versa in many cases.

Admittedly the iPhone 4S' aspect ratio is... kind of awkward for media.

Would you like to see an iPhone with a larger screen, even if it means that apps might not be 100% compatible between older and newer phones? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Although you could manage your Facebook pages from the web UI, this new application will help bring a more native experience while maintaining your Facebook pages on iOS. The only disappointing factor with this new app is that it does not support the iPad.

You can take a look at some screenshots of Facebook Page Manager below…

At this time you can only download Facebook Pages Manager (FREE) from the New Zealand App Store (click here). We will let you know when the app is available to download in North America by updating this article. Until that time please stay tuned and leave your thoughts about the application if you managed to download it in the comments section.

With OS X Mountain Lion expected to be introduced at the WWDC 2012 Apple needs to be vigorously testing the new operating system and ironing out all of the bugs. In fact today, Apple has begun seeding an update to the third developer preview of OS X Mountain Lion that was released in April. At this time the changelog for this update is not available and thus the changes are not known. For those of you that are running OS X Mountain Lion however, you will indeed notice an update via the Mac App Store.

The only sort of information we have about this update is from and email sent by Apple:

A pre-release version of the OS X Mountain Lion software is now available. If you have build 12A178q or higher installed, the new build of OS X Mountain Lion is available through Software Update.  A new Server build will be available later. Detailed Instructions for installing this build can be found in the OS X Mountain Lion discussions.  Please review these instructions completely before attempting to install the software.

Important:  MacBook Pro 3,1 is not supported in this build of Mountain Lion. Future developer previews will restore support for this configuration.
Installation

A pre-release version of the OS X Mountain Lion software is now available via Software Update in the Mac App Store. You will need to have build 12A178q or higher installed in order to see the update. Once the update is complete, your system will be at build 12A206j.

1) Click on the Apple menu, then click on the Software Update.  The Mac App Store will launch and display your available updates.  Note: You can still access the Software Update in all of the same ways, only now the Mac App Store will launch and open the Updates tab.

2)  In the section with the Mountain Lion icon, titled “Software Update,” click on the “…More” link.

3) Find the update called “Mountain Lion Developer Preview Update 10.8″, and click the corresponding Update button for this update to install.  The update will begin downloading, and when prompted, click “Restart” to install the update.

We will let you know once more information about this update becomes available. Until that time please stay tuned…

John Boehner with his iPhone, presumably playing Angry Birds

While the photographs don’t go into specifics on what policy issues the two were talking about (Anti-trust regulations? Tax exemptions? Positioning Apple as an official contractor for government phones?), the second of the two photographs shows, “John Boehner discuss[ing] his iPhone with Apple CEO Tim Cook.”

According to an article in the Huffington Post, Apple’s CFO Peter Oppenheimer cited US tax policy as the reason why Apple’s earnings abroad won’t be brought back to the States. (And that’s a fair bit of cash trapped abroad! Here’s a visual breakdowns of Apple’s finances.) An article in Bloomberg says, Apple (along with Google and other tech companies) is lobbying for a “tax holiday,” like the kind seen in 2004. It’s possible that Cook was looking for Boehner’s support on such legislation.

Tim Cook, John Boehner, and at least one other party engaged in a talk.

I would think that the most valuable company in the world could afford to pay their taxes, especially considering America’s struggling economy and high unemployment rate.

What do you think Tim Cook and John Boehner spoke about? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Anton Kudin's fold to unlock concept

In the fold to unlock concept, instead of sliding a bar across the iPhone’s lock screen, the user pushes the lock screen away. The screen folds up like a map. Though Kudin presented the most aesthetically pleasing example of an accordian-style lock screen that I’ve seen so far, it’s actually one example in a recent line of mutations of UI designer Guillame Gaubert’s Unlock Concept (which only features one fold and a different lock screen design).

Guillaume Gaubert's earlier folding unlock concept

Although Kudin didn’t pioneer the concept, I really like the multiple folds in his renderings, as well as the subtle drop shadow underneath which gives the folded lockscreen a powerful illusion of depth. While this is only a concept, and will likely never see an official release from Apple, I would be willing to do terrible, unforgivable things to make this concept a reality on Cydia (or I’d be willing to play $2.99, whichever comes first).

We really need to get Kudin talking with someone like Chpwn (the developer behind Zephyr, which includes a number of interesting UI tweaks).

Is Fold To Unlock a concept you’d be willing to use? Or do you think it’s a showy and pointless waste of the iPhone’s resources (battery, GPU rendering, etc)? Will it bring back the MAD Magazine fold-in? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Chart adapted from ACSI's May 2012 press release

The American Customer Satisfaction Index gave Apple the highest score for customer satisfaction out of all the phone manufacturers it sampled for its May 2012 report. The ACSI derives their scores from interviews with a company’s customers, selected at random, and measures for customer expectations, perceived quality, perceived value, customer complains, and customer loyalty, and assigns a score out of 100. According to their FAQs, for each company’s index rating they interview 250 customers.

While Apple received the highest score of 83, Research In Motion was saddled the lowest score of 69. The report cites RIM’s hardware and software issues, as well as server lapses which caused email/messaging outages as explanations for RIM’s poor customer satisfaction index rating. Coinciding with this is RIM’s recent share price collapse. As we’ve reported, RIM’s stock hit an eight year low earlier this month. (Although that coincided with the unveiling of BlackBerry 10.)

On Apple the report says, “no other cell phone company has ever broken into the 80s.” Second place is a three-way tie between Nokia, LG, and HTC at 75. Motorola declines from last year’s rating of 78 to 73 and Samsung drops from 75 to a below-average 71. It looks like even with the Lumina, Apple trumps Nokia in customer satisfaction.

Apple’s phone score of 83 is actually below the customer satisfaction score given to Apple for its Mac and iPad products (which is 87 according to their report from September, before the 3rd generation iPad was released). It seems Macs and iPads make customers happier than any phone.

This is the first year that the ASCI tested Apple, LG, HTC, or RIM as cell phone manufacturers, so this test isn’t able to compare this year’s results to a previous year’s. (What took them so long? Apple’s been a significant player in the smartphone game since the iPhone launched in 2007. RIM’s been in the game before there were smartphones.)

My biggest problem with these neat indexed scores is that they don’t include any indication of a margin of error. These are samples and not measures of Apple’s consumers (or Nokia’s, or RIM’s). There’s has to be a margin of error (probably 6% for a sample size of 250), as well as respondent biases for people who are willing to answer telephone surveys about their phones. Although even with a ~6% mathamatical margin of error for a sample size of 250, Apple seems to have a significant lead.

Do you think these reports accurately reflect the attitudes of Apple’s customers? How about for Nokia and RIM? You can provide us with the most accurate feedback possible for the sample size of “you” in the comments section below.

The beautiful Xperia S phone came with Android 2.3, a freakin’ old software. Furthermore, there were no immediate plans on pushing an Android 4.0 update. Luckily, that’s all about to change…

A representative has posted in the official Sony forums that Xperia S users can expect an Ice Cream Sandwich update sometime between late this month and early June. This info also matches with the details given by Sony recently.  We’re hoping to hear more details as we near the supposed roll out date. Stay tuned!

Developers usually complain about the fragmentation in Android, on the other hand, the users feel blessed with a wide range of choices. Meanwhile, on the parallel iOS universe, you just have the iPhone. This diversity is a bane for the app developers, as it takes much longer and more hard work to create and test apps for every Android device on the planet. For the customers, it’s a boon, as they get to choose devices based on their criteria. There’s different screen sizes, different hardware, different displays and a lot more to choose from in the Android universe.

OpenSignalMaps conducted a study using 681,900 devices that downloaded their app and found out that there were about 4,000 different Android devices. They created this chart that shows all the different models, the most prominent being the Samsung Galaxy SII.

That’s a lot of devices right there, and a lot of testing to be done! However, the app development process is much simpler in the iOS universe. Sure, Android users get to choose from different screen sizes and what not, but we all know that the fragmentation is only going to get worse and that it will lead to problems in the future. You can read the complete study on their website and learn more about how the fragmentation can also be good.

What do you think of this? Would you call it fragmentation or would you call it diverse?

The new networks will light up today and will bring blazing fast speeds to your smartphones! The full list of new LTE markets includes:

Houma/Thibodaux and Lake Charles, La.; Hyannis/Mid-Cape, Mass.; Benton Harbor/St. Joseph, Mich.; Biloxi/Gulfport/Pascagoula and Oxford, Miss.; Atlantic City/Toms River, N.J.; Dickinson and Williston, N.D.; Ashtabula, Bucyrus and Defiance, Ohio; Eugene/Springfield, Ore.; Lancaster, New Castle, Northern Cambria County, Oil City/Franklin, Somerset and York, Pa.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Mitchell, S.D.; Paris, Texas; Burlington/Northern, Vt.; Fredericksburg, Harrisonburg, Martinsville and Staunton/Waynesboro, Va.; and Sheridan, Wyo.

Verizon will also be expanding its LTE markets in:

Denver, Colo.; Dover, Del.; Fort Myers and Lakeland, Fla.; Hagerstown, Md.; Canton, Lima, Mansfield, Toledo and Youngstown/Warren, Ohio; and Erie, Pa.

Are you in any of the cities mentioned above? How are you enjoying your new speeds? Let us know in the comments section below!

Thus, Flipboard v1.9 brings a bunch of updates making it even better and easier to use for users. For instance, you can listen to your favorite music from SoundCloud, podcasts coming from The New Yorker, shows from Radiolab and more. Flipboard has finally integrated quality audio into their app, and they also intend to add video features in the future. For now, this is a good step.

Our Content Guide is now chock-full of some of the best sounds we could find. We’ve launched new partnerships with NPR and PRI and scoured SoundCloud’s massive community of sound creators to bring you some of our favorites—artists like Snoop Dogg and Diplo; music labels like Atlantic Records and Ninja Tune; podcasts from The New Yorker and Slate; and segments from shows like Radiolab and Science Friday.

Apart from that, Apple’s VoiceOver also plays an important role in the latest update, which makes it easier for visually impaired users to use the app. They can tap on the title or text to read it out loud and all of the gestures to control the app are changed. Plus, Japanese users can now download the fully localized version of Flipboard from the Japanese App Store.

Download Flipboard v1.9 for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad [iTunes Link]

Do you like the latest update for Flipboard? Try out the new audio features and tell us what you think.

T-Mobile is preparing for another round of layoffs where 900 more employees will end up losing their jobs. These job cuts follow 10 consecutive quarters of reported losses, something the company hopes will end soon.

The layoffs will apparently not affect those in retail stores but in other departments instead. T-Mobiles CEO Philip Humm will be sending emails to the unlucky employees this week with the following message:

Dear colleagues,

Since the beginning of the year, T-Mobile has stressed that 2012 is a rebuilding year for the company. A vital step in that process was announced in March with the consolidation of our call centers. This week, T-Mobile is taking the second essential step. We are announcing a new structure that further aligns our costs with our revenue realities, enables teams who support our field organization to act and react with greater speed and effectiveness to customer and market opportunities, and better positions us to return to growth.

The new organization required difficult decisions that will impact some of our employees. This week, news will be shared personally with employees and teams who are directly affected by the restructuring. Changes will include some position eliminations and changes to individual roles and responsibilities. It is important to emphasize these impacts to employees result from business decisions. We have tremendous employees here at T-Mobile and we truly wish we could retain all our talent, but our business realities require hard choices. For affected team members, we are providing generous transition support including severance, assistance with COBRA continuation coverage, and outplacement services. As mentioned in the March announcement, customer service representatives in the remaining 17 call centers, technicians in engineering, and frontline employees in our T-Mobile corporate-owned stores will not be affected.

Our rebuilt structure enables T-Mobile to realize significant savings, allowing us to invest in future growth – in particular modernizing our network to LTE, repositioning the T-Mobile brand, and aggressively pursuing the B2B segment where we plan to add 1,000 positions over the next few years.  We gain the agility to put resources where the current opportunities are, grow in areas where potential is greatest, and act on emerging opportunities quickly and rationally.

The restructuring provides a sustainable organizational model, centered on our T-Mobile Values, with the following attributes:

• A greater focus on driving Customer Delight by reducing the layers between working teams and executive leadership, and shifting and consolidating groups in the field sales regions and the FSC to minimize redundant work – resulting in more effective coordination and communication.
• A renewed emphasis on Best Place to Perform and Grow:
• Enhanced people manager spans of control (number of direct reports), enabling faster decisions, more ability to execute, and more empowerment of employees at all levels.

• Evolution of our leadership model from player-coach, where more time is spent on daily tasks than on planning and guiding, to leader-coach, where time is focused more strategically on coaching, developing, delegating, and motivating.

We approached the restructuring process and decisions with care, rigor and cross-functional alignment. A team comprised of top leaders, with support from industry-leading subject matter experts, worked closely together over the past few months to develop an effective and sustainable structure. We strongly believe the organizational principles we applied are lasting ones. More details on the new organizational structure will be shared in department and team communications this week and more broadly after that.

I want to assure you we will move through the communications this week very thoughtfully, but also as quickly as we can while preserving the quality of the conversations that need to happen. As always, our T-Mobile Values will guide our actions.

Thank you for your patience as we work through what will be a difficult week. Thank you for your continued commitment.

With sincere appreciation,

Philipp Humm

CEO & President

T-Mobile USA

[Via TmoNews]

Considering how well of a job Sorkin did with “The Social Network,” it gives me high hopes for Sony’s version of the Steve Jobs biopic. It is my only wish that Sorkin does not change the history of Jobs’ life just for entertainment, as he did with “The Social Network.”

This is what Sony had to say about hiring Aaron Sorkin:

Steve Jobs’ story is unique: He was one of the most revolutionary and influential men not just of our time, but of all time. There is no writer working in Hollywood today who is more capable of capturing such an extraordinary life for the screen than Aaron Sorkin; in his hands, we’re confident that the film will be everything that Jobs himself was: captivating, entertaining, and polarizing.

Do you think having Sorkin right the screenplay for “Steve Jobs: The Movie” was a good idea? Share your responses and further thoughts in the comments section below…

What the DictationPad Cydia tweak does is add voice dictation functionality to your older generation iPad. Upon installing the DictationPad Cydia tweak you will find a new mic icon on the left side of the space bar on your iPad’s keyboard. Upon holding down this mic icon the status bar on your iPad will turn red indicating that your voice is being recorded.

The only requirement with the DictationPad Cydia tweak is that you must have Siri working (Spire Cydia tweak) and must be on at least the iOS 5.0 firmware. Other than that, enabling voice dictation on your iPad 1G or iPad 2G is as easy as installing DictationPad.

If you are interested in the DictationPad Cydia tweak you can find it through the ModMyi repo for FREE.

There is not really much else to say about this tweak. There are no options to configure and no icons will obviously be added to your SpringBoard. If you want to disable this tweak you will have to manually remove it by going into the package manager in Cydia.

For those that are interested in HomeSpringPage you can find it through the BigBoss repo for FREE. Let us know what you think of the tweak if you decide to try it in the comments section below…

App Store Daily Deals for Tuesday, May 15th, 2012:

Download Mirror’s Edge™ for iPad - $9.99 -> $4.99

Download Super Crossfire™ - $0.99 -> FREE

Download Slot Racing HD - $2.99 -> FREE

Download Super Crossfire™ HD - $2.99 -> $0.99

Download Standard Swim - $1.99 -> FREE

Download Ballistic SE - $1.99 -> $0.99

Download Armorslays - $0.99 -> FREE

Download MotoHeroz HD - $2.99 -> FREE

Download MotoHeroz - $0.99 -> FREE

Download Fireball SE - $1.99 -> $0.99

Download Amazon: Hidden Expedition (Full) – $2.99 -> $0.99

Download Skeleton System Pro III – iPhone Edition – $5.99 -> $0.99

Download Mega Recorder+ by Pink Zebra - $0.99 -> FREE

Do you not see an application that catches your interest? Search the App Store directly from iJailbreak.com to find a more well-suited app for you!

Let us know what you think of these App Store deals in the comments.

Then again, I paid full price for a physical copy of The Orange Box...

What I don’t like about the Diablo III Collector’s Edition is that it’s a collector’s edition for a single player game which will inevitably die with Blizzard’s server, rendering the game’s installation DVD an inert plastic disc. It’s not likely to keep for 40 years when you can sell it for a tidy profit on eBay along with all your old comics and action figures.

Diablo III’s also in an odd situation when it comes to reviews. Review sites like PC Gamer, GameSpy, and IGN didn’t get access to Diablo III in advance. They had to wait like everyone else, and as a result they’ve got “reviews in progress,” a questionable sort of liveblog/review hybrid. The reviews seem to be both positive and full of nit-picks; PC gamer’s Tom Francis complains of the presence of server disconnects in a single player game.

Diablo III is out now. You can try it for yourself on Mac or Windows, either by picking a copy up at retail (good luck with that) or online at Blizzard’s Battle.net site for $59.99.

Did you pick up the retail or digital copies? Let us know in the comments section.

Apple's comparison between the iPhone 3GS' display and the iPhone 4S' Retina Display. Click for full size.

I want a huge magazine-quality display on my desk as much as the next tech blogger. I really do. But will we be seeing 26-27″ displays with absurdly high display resolutions? One one hand, Apple managed to scale the iPhone 4/4S’ Retina display to iPad proportions. On the other, I can’t imagine the yield rates of a 27″ Retina panel being terribly good. There are just so many pixels to potentially botch.

The new iPad (right) versus the iPad 2 (left). Smooth, print-like text is one of the benefits of higher pixel density.

That said, there’s still the matter of HiDPI display modes embedded into Apple’s recent versions of Mac software, along with high resolution icons, all seemingly tailor-made for fullsize Retina action. Either Apple’s planning long-term for Macs with Retina displays or it’s somewhere in Cupertino’s pipeline.

Apple’s delivered on “impossible” before. According to Rhoda Alexander of iSuppli in an interview with Wired, the iPad had a display panel reject rate of 50% “at the point when the iPad 1 was released.” Lets not forget the Retina displays that Apple has produced, first on the iPhone and then on the larger iPad. Apple may push for the technology.

What would you do with, say, a 5120 by 2280 screen (double the 27″ iMac’s resolution)? Cue up some vector graphics? Watch HD Netflix in 4 windows? Cringe when you Skype with your friends at VGA resolution? Let us know what you’d do, in the comments section below.

With OneByOne Safari you can delete individual items from your browsing history

To use OneByOne Safari to delete individual portions of your browsing history, go into Bookmarks, select History, and from there you can swipe to delete entire days of browsing history, or go into the folders to delete individual pages. As an added bonus, OneByOne Safari also allows for the quick removal of unwanted bookmarks.

It doesn’t end there. OneByOne Safari allows you to delete saved search results, right from Safari’s search bar. Just swipe your finger over the entry and press the red delete button. Your friends will never know you were looking up foot fungus remedies!

And you can also comb through your search history without deleting all your cookies and browsing data

You can find OneByOne Safari in the Cydia package manager under the BigBoss repository. It’s a FREE package and it offers functionality should be default behavior in Mobile Safari, but isn’t. This makes the choice to install OneByOne Safari a no-brainer in my book. Get it.

What tweaks do you need to make Mobile Safari perfect? Let us know what you’d like to see in the comments section below.

An unnamed developer has spotted three users running iOS 6

There’s still no word on when iOS 6 is due. We previously reported on rumors of iOS 6 features such as a Siri API for developers, as well as iOS 6′s Google-free 3D maps app. In addition to new features, there’s also the concern that the new firmware will close up exploits needed for Pod2g’s upcoming jailbreak. We will release more information about iOS 6 as the story develops.

What iOS version are you running? Let us know in the comments section below.

The iPhone's built-in method of contact removal is inconvenient

With OnebyOne Contacts installed, just swipe the contacts from the list (in either the Phone or the Contacts app) and press the red button that says “Delete.” There is an option under Settings to enable a dialog for confirmation when you delete apps, and you can enable an edit button that allows you to select apps by tapping on them instead of swiping.

With OneByOne Contacts installed, just swipe and delete

OneByOne Contacts is available for FREE in Cydia in the BigBoss repository. The app does not list any system requirements, but works properly on my iPhone 4 running iOS 5.0.1. OneByOne Contacts does not install an icon to the SpringBoard, but has a few options which can be toggled in Settings. To disable the tweak, just uninstall it from Cydia.

Would you find this interface helpful? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Part alarm clock, part toaster, with built-in stereo sound

The Day Maker is a KickStarter project developed for people like me. The KickStarter page asks, “Do we enjoy being startled, confused, commanded, jostled, and yelled at in our most fragile and impressionable state? Are we all secretly masochists?” The Day Maker is an alarm clock in toaster form, but I’m not entirely sure what that has to do with masochism. What I do know is you slot your iPhone into the Day Maker when you go to bed, and in the morning your phone pops up to wake you to your own music collection and a fully charged iPhone.

Although the Day Maker works with the iPhone’s default clock system, its designers will also be offering a free app which allows users to customize a playlist, as well as see the weather and day planner when you first wake up. The Day Maker also has an optional mode for comparing your sleep cycle with users around the world, as well as the number of times you pop the iPhone back in to snooze.

That’s right, you pop the iPhone back into the Day Maker for a snooze, like a piece of bread which hasn’t been toasted quite enough. It’s official. The Day Maker wins KickStarter.

Alternatively there's the "single slice" model, if you want to keep your phone on your own night table.

The Day Maker costs $125 and is expected to ship in February 2013, although it may be released as early as the holiday season. It all depends on when the next iPhone is released, as they want to make the Day Maker compatible with the new phone. The Day Maker will also be compatible with the iPhone 4, 4S, and the last two generations of iPod Touches. If you buy a Day Maker from KickStarter, you will have the option of ordering two “single slice” versions instead (which do not include the clock or internal speakers of the full model).

The Day Maker is a measly $34,017 toward its ambitious goal of $275,000 needed for production and has 39 days to go and needs all the support it can get. If you like the design, you can also vote for the project on the William McSchane Fund’s website.

What sound track would you use to wake you up in the morning? Let us know what you’d use in the comments section below.

When the app was released in March, it did not pack a lot of features other than a better UI and better email filtration. The developers did promise better features in future updates and Sparrow 1.2 does just that. The latest update to this amazing email client app brings features such as a landscape mode, swipe gestures for navigation and more. You can swipe up or down to browse between emails, create/edit/delete labels from within the app and compose emails in landscape mode. Sparrow 1.2 now supports French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Russian, and Chinese languages.

One important feature still missing in this update, is the push notifications. According to the Sparrow team, they are working on implementing push services on an yearly subscription basis and it may be included in a future update. Apple still won’t let Sparrow use push notifications as it’s against their rules. The app is available in the App Store for $2.99 and is, still a better email app than the stock Email.app or Gmail iOS app.

Download Sparrow 1.2 for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad [iTunes Link]