This week: CTIA Best Of Show Winners, Apps for Students, Apple Rumors, iPad Productivity Suites

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iPhone Life Magazine CTIA 2013 Best of Show Award Winners By Noah Siesmen Congratulations to the winners of the iPhone Life magazine CTIA 2013 Best of Show awards! Best Speakers ZAGG ORIGIN - 2 in 1 Desktop & Portable Speaker System Best Portable Speakers Scosche boomBOTTLE – Weatherproof Wireless Speaker Best Battery Case mophie mophie juice pack plus® - iPhone 5 Best Minimalist Case Moshi iGlaze Armour for iPhone Most Innovative Case ROKFORM Family of versatile case & mount platforms Most Eco-Friendly Case Toast Certified regrowth wood cases Most Protective Case OtterBox Defender Series READ MORE » Making the Grade: 4 Free Study Apps for Students By Carolyn Grayson Summer is almost upon us, but before we can have fun in the sun or long days lounging on the beach, students must go through the right of passage known as the final exam. Technology has opened up the world of education, offering students various ways to study, prepare, and improve their GPA. But with limited funds and limited time, it can become a daunting task to find exactly what you need to help you cram. READ MORE » Rumors: Lighter iPad, Multicolored iPhone, iWatch, iRadio, iTV By Jim Karpen Many rumors have been circulating in recent days, a lot of them credible. A post on AppleInsider confirms the eariler rumor saying the next iPhone will be available in multiple colors. Photos of multicolored SIM trays, the iPhone component holding the small card that identifies your phone to the carrier, have been leaked to BGR, strongly indicating the forthcoming iPhone will go beyond black and white models. When will we see this new phone? No one knows, of course, but I'm guessing the iPhone 5S will arrive in September. READ MORE » iPad Productivity Suites For Mobile Workplace By Jim Karpen Walt Mossberg, who writes about technology for the Wall Street Journal, posted a helpful review of iPad productivity suites last week on All Things D. People are increasingly leaving their laptops at home these days when they travel and are using an iPad instead. But that typically entails having some relatively robust software to play the role of those familiar desktop applications: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. No app is going to have all the features of the desktop applications, but most are good at opening and editing files created using these software programs. READ MORE »

Last Chance to Enter our June 3rd Giveaway This is the official announcement of the iPhone life Biweekly Giveaway! Be sure to enter the giveaway at iphoneLife.com/giveaways to win prizes, which we'll announce June 3! We are raffling off tons of great apps and accessories for FREE. Here's how it works: Every other Friday we will announce the prizes we're giving away through iphonelife.com, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. To enter the giveaway, go to iphoneLife.com/giveaways. On the following Monday morning, we will randomly select the winners. If you win an app, we will email you the promo code to redeem the app for free. If you win an accessory, send us your address we will mail it to you. 1. square jellyfish EAR BUD CASE AND STAND: Retail Price $9.95 Travelling on a plane or train? Sitting at your desk? With Square Jellyfish, anywhere you have a table you have a hands-free viewing station for your smart phone, iPod, iPhone, 7 inch tablet or even an iPad with a case. When you’re ready to go, simply store your Apple classic earbuds, with or without microphone, in the tiny case. Each Square Jellyfish case and stand comes with a premium-quality polishing cloth to keep your screen clear of fingerprints and smudges. Note: Earphones are not included with the case.. 2. Packing Pro: Retail Price $2.99 Packing Pro is a super-enhanced version of Packing with great iCloud syncing & other sharing options, display customization, a huge catalog, lots of sample lists, & additional, built-in Expert assistance. Questions or Comments? Email leigh@iphonelife.com. Good Luck and remember to visit iphonelife.com/giveaways to enter! The next contest is June 3rd. Click the READ MORE link below to enter. READ MORE »

iPhone Biosensor Cradle Brings Us One Step Closer to Having Tricorders It seems like every day we're getting a little bit closer to having tricorders, and today's no exception. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have designed hardware and software that turns the iPhone into a powerful biosensor that's useful for toxin and pathogen testing as well as medical diagnosis. The package consists of a cradle that contains an assortment of lenses and filters which line up with the handset's camera, along with an app that guides the user through the testing process. At the core of the device is a photonic crystal slide which basically turns the iPhone into a high-resolution spectrometer. READ MORE » AT&T Prepaid Plans Now Support iPhone 5 AT&T's prepaid GoPhone brand will now support the iPhone 5 and other LTE/HSPA+ devices. Although iPhone users have been able to sign up for voice service using GoPhone, this is the first time AT&T is opening access to the data network for those customers. This is also the first time the company has offered LTE support for its prepaid GoPhone SIMs. AT&T offers three service plans that support the iPhone and other LTE/HSPA+ devices, but only the $65 a month plan includes data (1GB a month). READ MORE » Apple Files $53 Million Settlement With Customers Upset Over Wet iPhones, iPod Touches Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has filed a $53 million preliminary class settlement agreement in Santa Clara County Superior Court in California, potentially allowing $200 refunds to iPhone and iPod Touch customers who claim they should be covered under warranties but were not because of liquid indicators in their devices. A group of four class representatives were upset over Apple's liquid damage policy prior to Dec. 31, 2009, in which the company would deny coverage under the standard warranty and purchased AppleCare Protection Plan for an iPhone whose headphone jack or dock connector was pink or red, indicating water contact, and for an iPod Touch with the same description before June 30, 2010. READ MORE » iPhone 5S Near? Best Buy Offers $50 Off iPhone 5 The first rule of iPhone is that it never, never goes on sale. The second rule of iPhone is that when iPhone does go on sale, it’s only last year’s model, or even older. The third rule of iPhone is that when this year’s model goes on sale, a new model is coming soon. Best Buy is putting the iPhone 5 on sale starting Sunday. Two plus two equals? According to a report by AllThingsD, Best Buy is planning to offer $50 off the iPhone 5, 4S, and 4 models starting Sunday and lasting for four weeks. The electronics retailer is also planning to offer discounts on older Android smartphones from Samsung and HTC … but not the just-released and hot-selling Samsung Galaxy S4. READ MORE »

Totems Timecode, $0.99 by Eric Pankoke I’ve long been a fan of strategy games, but the more engrossed I become in mobile gaming, the less I have the desire to play a game where one “round” or “mission” takes a half hour or longer. Thankfully, some mobile developers understand that, resulting in strategy games like Totems ($0.99). They may be simple in mechanics and short on play time for an individual match, but they still provide a sufficient mental challenge and sense of accomplishment when you win. In the case of Totems, I also like the whole tribal animal theme. The Basics The goal of Totems is simple: score as many points as possible. While this usually translates to conquering the most land, it doesn't always, depending on the number of players in the game. To take over a piece of land, you simply drag one of the animal totems from your hand at the bottom of the screen to your desired section of land. The land will change to your color, as will any adjacent lands with the same totem. The more lands in the same grouping you own, the higher your score becomes. Once each game, you are allowed to “swap” your hand, discarding all the totems you have left and getting new ones from the remaining selection. At any point during the game you can click the skull in the lower left side of the screen to see what totems are still either in your opponents’ hands or in the pile left to play. Unfortunately, you don’t know which is which, but it can still help you plan your next move. There are a total of four maps to choose from. The first map allows only two players, while the other three give you as many as four slots for you and your opponents. The first map has three different totems, the second has four, and each map after that adds two more totem types. Each map after the first also has barriers, which can block you in certain areas from taking over another territory even if you set a totem next to another of the same type. There are five different computer opponents to choose from, each with its own ELO rating, which is a measure of how well the opponent plays. You have an ELO rating as well, which goes up and down depending on whether you win or lose a match. Multiplayer Options In addition to playing against the computer, there are several multiplayer options including the option to play with your friends or connect with random players over a local (WiFi or Bluetooth) Internet connection. If you select the “Play With Friends” option, you can have as many players as the map supports. When you play local, you can fill extra slots with AI opponents if you don’t have enough real players. Surprisingly there is no hot seat mode, which I would rarely use anyway, but seems like it would work well with this game. Game Center provides Leaderboards to keep track of the ELO ratings, and it also offers 16 achievements for you to earn. It would be nice to see some more maps eventually, but otherwise there is certainly plenty to do in Totems. User Experience I really like the visual style in Totems. There’s nothing overly detailed about the design, but it’s clean and sharp and the interface looks pretty slick. There’s a cool layer of clouds drifting past in the background, and it is fun to watch your color sweep across the land as you take over multiple territories. Each animal makes a unique noise when you place it on the board, and the other audio elements are a mixture of ambient sounds and an occasional burst of music. I think I’d like a more consistent soundtrack, but overall the aesthetics work really well. There’s nothing overly deep about Totems, which is what makes it work so well on a mobile platform. Matches are fairly quick and the fact that the tide can turn in an instant makes for some tense moments. The game looks stylish and sounds good, and there are enough options to keep things feeling fresh for quite some time. This is no Axis & Allies or even chess for that matter, but in some ways it can be just as satisfying. Overall Score: 9/10

Back up Your iPhone Data to iCloud You can back up your phone's contacts, settings, email, etc. to iCloud every time your phone is charging and connected to WiFi. Go to Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup to enable this feature.

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