This could become useful.

Per 9to5Mac, Apple has been making efforts to offer deep social network integration in its mobile operating system, first offering Twitter integration in iOS 5 and then Facebook integration in iOS 6. Apparently, Apple will expand its social network integration even further with iOS 7, including support for both photo sharing site Flickr and video sharing site Vimeo.

As with Facebook and Twitter integration, Vimeo and Flickr integration will allow users to be able to sign in to the social networks in the Settings menu. Those one-time sign-in credentials will be usable across iOS, providing comprehensive sharing options and easy integration with other downloaded apps.

With Flickr integration, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch customers will have the ability to share photos stored and/or taken on their devices to Flickr with a single tap from the system-wide share menu. Flickr has been integrated into the paid iPhoto iOS App Store app and OS X Mountain Lion since 2012, but iOS 7 will represent the first time in which the photo sharing service has been integrated deeply into the entire iOS operating system.

While Apple continues to allow direct video uploads to YouTube from its camera app, Vimeo integration will give iOS 7 users an additional option for video uploads. As with Yahoo, Apple has an existing relationship with Vimeo, having offered integration with the service in OS X Mountain Lion.

As noted by an unnamed source, though Flickr and Vimeo integration is currently in the works, as with all beta software, there is a risk that it could be removed before the public release of iOS 7.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Ok, now this is interesting.

An article over on MarketWatch points out that Apple’s repair costs to fix an iPhone 5 with a broken screen have jumped to US$229 – more than the US$200 price of the device with a two-year contract, and more than a third of the US$650 cost of the phone without a contract. Select Apple stores offer the option of a US$149 repair. And for those who paid US$99 for AppleCare insurance, the replacement is just US$49.

The piece then cites that the replacement components for the iPhone 5 are much more expensive than similar parts for prior models — so expensive in fact that many independent repair services cannot compete. “Due to the high cost of replacement parts, we are not yet offering iPhone 5 repairs,” according to a statement on ComputerOverhauls.com, an online repair shop. “Currently, the Apple Store is the least expensive option for repairing damaged iPhone 5s.” Other services charge as much as US$250 for the repair.

Given current numbers, nearly one-third of iPhone users damaged their devices during 2012, according to a recent study by gadget insurer SquareTrade. Repairs have cost consumers nearly US$6 billion since the iPhone was launched in 2007 and apparently iPhones get abused more than iPads, only 10% of which were damaged, per the survey.

Despite this, iCracked — an independent firm that has technicians across the U.S. — charges half as much to fix an iPhone 4S screen (US$79 to US$99) as to fix an iPhone 5 (US$169 to US$199) thanks to tight control on iPhone 5 components in the market, Forsythe says. “Market forces determine the price,” he says. “Apple sells about 300,000 iPhones a day and, as the repair market grows, prices will get lower.”

“Apple controls everything from the manufacturing to the gear for the iPhone 5,” says Jeff Haynes, editor at deal site TechBargains.com. As the iPhone 5 is larger than the 4, the cost for replacement parts rises, he says. “Apple is trying to get people to sign up for Apple Care for US$99 and to rely on their services at the Apple store,” he says, “If you don’t, that cracked screen could cost you at least US$230.”

Thanks to do-it-yourself kits, it’s possible to replace the screen on an iPhone 4 for less than a quarter of that price. Adam Carey, a New York-based mobile development consultant, bought a DIY kit on Amazon.com for US$25 and followed instructions on iFixit.com, an online repair manual. The procedure took him two hours. “It’s not like snapping on a cover,” he says. “It’s like performing surgery. You need pretty steady hands.”

If you’ve been repairing iPhones and noticed a jump in component prices, please let us know about your experience in the comments section.

This could turn into something pretty nifty.

Per 9to5Mac, Google announced on Wednesday via its Chrome blog that a new update will soon be rolling out to its Chrome app for iPhone and iPad that will allow users to access voice search features previously limited to the Google Search app. Using the same omnibox currently included in the app, Google will soon allow users to tap a microphone icon to search using only their voice with a UI similar to the recently redesigned voice search on Mac.

Google said the updated Chrome app should be landing on the App Store in the coming days.

Google also noted that the updated iOS app would provide faster reloading of web pages and an option for third-party apps “to open links in Chrome and then return to the app with just one tap.”

Earlier today Google began rolling out revamped voice search functionality in the Chrome app for Mac users.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Microsoft announced its upcoming Xbox One console yesterday.

And threw in some interesting iOS cooperation with it.

Per Mac|Life and Wired, Microsoft’s new gaming console will be “fully integrated” with Xbox’s SmartGlass application, thus allowing users of iPhones and iPads to connect seamlessly with the next generation of Microsoft’s popular console series.

Introduced last year and allegedly downloaded by over 10 million people, SmartGlass currently allows users to interact with their Xbox 360 consoles in a number of limited ways, such as using the iPhone’s keyboard to type onscreen (a significant improvement over the hunt-and-peck nature of gamepad-based input), watching videos, and navigating menus.

Currently, it’s not too clear what Microsoft’s “fully integrated” service entails. Future versions of SmartGlass will apparently let users turn their iPhones or iPads into a “skeuomorphic remote control, able to emulate any other control device.” The Xbox One will also supposedly allow more devices to connect at once for multiplayer and shared experiences”.

Further details are expected to be revealed at this year’s E3 conference in Los Angeles from June 11-13.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

You can’t knock an application that’s updated this frequently.

On Wednesday, Google released version 27.0.1453.93 of its Chrome web browser. The update, a 49.8 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:
- Web pages load 5% faster on average

- Chrome.syncFileSystem API

- Improved ranking of predictions, improved spell correction, and numerous fundamental improvements for Omnibox predictions. Please see the Help Center for more information on our updated policies.

Security fixes:
- [235638] High CVE-2013-2837: Use-after-free in SVG.

- [235311] Medium CVE-2013-2838: Out-of-bounds read in v8.

- [230176] High CVE-2013-2839: Bad cast in clipboard handling.

- [230117] High CVE-2013-2840: Use-after-free in media loader.

- [227350] High CVE-2013-2841: Use-after-free in Pepper resource handling.

- [226696] High CVE-2013-2842: Use-after-free in widget handling.

- [222000] High CVE-2013-2843: Use-after-free in speech handling.

- [196393] High CVE-2013-2844: Use-after-free in style resolution.

- [188092] [179522] [222136] [188092] High CVE-2013-2845: Memory safety issues in Web Audio.

- [177620] High CVE-2013-2846: Use-after-free in media loader.

- [176692] High CVE-2013-2847: Use-after-free race condition with workers.

- [176137] Medium CVE-2013-2848: Possible data extraction with XSS Auditor.

- [171392] Low CVE-2013-2849: Possible XSS with drag+drop or copy+paste.

Google Chrome 27.0.1453.93 requires an Intel-based Mac with Mac OS X 10.6 or later to install and run. If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback to offer, please let us know in the comments.

On Tuesday, software company Delicious Monster released version 3.0.2 of the shareware favorite, Delicious Library. Delicious Monster allows Macs with webcams to scan the bar codes of any book, movie, music CD or video game, then creates an archive based on background information from the Internet. Additional features help keep the library organized and reseller’s tools allow for items to be quickly posted for sale online.

The new version, an 80.3 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:
- Items without a cover show title and creator on shelf.

- Synopses can be added and edited. Custom synopses imported from Delicious Library 2 now display.

- Many changes to make details more sensible. You can now open the details window and keep it on the right, for behavior like Delicious Library 2.

- “Paste” changes the cover of the selected item.

- Added help manual (also on our website).

- Add “Export To: Delicious Library 3″, to back-up and merge libraries.

- Add two-word cloud charts.

- Bug fixes and other improvements.

Delicious Library 3.0.2 retails for US$40 and requires OS X 10.8 or later to install and run.

If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback to offer, please let us know in the comments.

There may be some life in Flickr (and its current owner, Yahoo) after all…

Per Mac|Life, the Flickr Blog announced Monday that the cloud photo service would be making a big change, effective immediately, combining 1TB of free storage with a beautiful new look and feel for the web app.

“At Flickr, we believe you should share all your images in full resolution, so life’s moments can be relived in their original quality,” the blog post reads. “No limited pixels, no cramped formats, no memories that fall flat. We’re giving your photos room to breathe, and you the space to upload a dizzying number of photos and videos, for free. Just how big is a terabyte? Well, you could take a photo every hour for forty years without filling one.”

The hefty storage bump is absolutely free for everyone, as Flickr has done away with its Flickr Pro upgrades entirely in favor of only two paid options: US$49.99 per year to remove all ads, or US$499.99 per year to double the storage space to 2TB.

Flickr now features a new look for web browsers, which places the emphasis on photos with a minimum of white space around them. The site now offers support for full 1080p HD videos up to three minutes long, and users can fill their entire 1TB of storage with them, should they choose to do so.

Finally, Flickr pushed out an overhaul to its existing Android app, which brings a similar look and feel from the web app to mobile. While the company hasn’t confirmed whether or not the iPhone will receive the same treatment, it’s a good bet that it will — and here’s hoping it will arrive alongside a native iPad app as well.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Your Wi-Fi is about to get faster.

Which is never a bad thing.

Per 9to5Mac, additional evidence has surfaced indicating that Apple’s incoming next round of MacBook Air/Pros would contain 802.11AC Gigabit wifi chips, not the least of which was code we found referencing ’802.11AC‘ in 10.8.4 Betas.

Reader TonyMacx86, found some interesting parts on Chinese VR-Zone that could be the next 802.11AC boards in Macs, widely expected to be announced at WWDC next month. The Broadcom BCM94360CD PCI-E mini custom combo WLAN+Bluetooth card supports IEEE 802.11ac, the next standard in wireless computer networking. Interestingly, it also looks like it may fit in current MacBooks which could mean aftermarket updates could be possible.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

This could prove useful.

Per The Unofficial Apple Weblog and The Verge, wireless carrier AT&T has indicated that all iPhone subscribers will be able to use FaceTime via a cellular connection by the end of 2013, as stated below:

“For video chat apps that come pre-loaded on devices, we currently give all OS and device makers the ability for those apps to work over cellular for our customers who are on Mobile Share or Tiered plans. Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry have chosen to enable this for their pre-loaded video chat apps. And by mid-June, we’ll have enabled those apps over cellular for our unlimited plan customers who have LTE devices from those three manufacturers. Throughout the second half of this year, we plan to enable pre-loaded video chat apps over cellular for all our customers, regardless of data plan or device; that work is expected to be complete by year end. Today, all of our customers can use any mobile video chat app that they download from the internet, such as Skype.”

AT&T was initially reluctant to enable FaceTime over cellular connection due to bandwidth concerns.

This past January, AT&T announced that it was enabling FaceTime over cellular to subscribers of its tiered data plans. Now, with its most recent announcement, iPhone users on AT&T who have grandfathered-in unlimited data plans will also be able to FaceTime to their hearts content.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Handbrake, Eric Petit’s incredibly useful open-source DVD ripping/conversion utility, has been updated to version 0.9.9.

The new version, a 9.1 megabyte download, offers the following fixes and changes:

General:
- Improved HandBrake pineapple icon by Matt Johnson.

- Improved Retina-resolution icons within the application, by Nik Pawlak (http://nikpawlak.com).

Core:
- Blu-ray (PGS) subtitle support.

- Works with Foreign Audio Search.

- Can be Burned-In.

- Can be passed through to MKV (but not MP4).

- Additional video framerates (30, 50, 59.94, 60 fps).

- Double framerate (“bob”) mode for the deinterlace and decomb filters.

- Better audio remix support.

- Additional mixdowns: 6.1, 7.1, 7.1 (5F/2R/LFE).

- CLI users should note 6ch becomes 5point1.

- Better-than-Stereo sources can be upmixed to 5.1.

- Discard one channel from Stereo sources.

- Mono (Left Only), Mono (Right Only).

- Allow the selection of higher audio bitrates where appropriate.

- Allow the selection of lower audio samplerates where appropriate.

- 8, 11.025, 12, 16 kHz.

- Audio dithering (TPDF) when converting to 16-bit FLAC.

- Use libavcodec for DTS audio decoding (instead of libdca).

- DTS-ES 6.1 Discrete support.

- All graphical interfaces: support for x264′s preset, tune and profile options alternative to the Advanced panel (which is still available).

- HandBrake-specific option to ensure compliance with a specific H.264 level.

Updated built-in presets:
- Take advantage of x264 preset/tune/profile support.

- Removed increasingly suboptimal and irrelevant Legacy presets.

- Assorted bug fixes and improvements to the core library (libhb).

Updated libraries:
- x264 r2273-b3065e6.

- Libav v9.6.

- libbluray 0.2.3.

Windows:
- User Interface has been re-written in WPF.

- Includes many small UI enhancements.

- Switched to .NET 4 Client Profile (smaller download for those who don’t have .NET 4 fully installed).

Mac:
- Assorted bug fixes including better support for Retina displays.

- Prevent sleep during encoding and scanning for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

- Drag & Drop files onto the Main window or application icon to scan.

- Nicer progress indication on the dock icon.

- Preview window improvements and bugfixes.

- Updated Growl to 2.0.1.

- Notification Center support (when Growl is not installed).

Linux:
- Assorted bug fixes and improvements.

- Use some system libraries rather than bundling (fontconfig, freetype, libxml2, libass, libogg, libvorbis, libtheora and libsamplerate).

Command Line Interface:
- Audio option (-a) will ignore invalid input tracks and encode with only the valid ones.

- Allow use of hh:mm:ss format when specifying p-to-p start/stop time.

Advanced audio options:
- Enable level normalization when downmixing (disabled by default).

- Disable audio dithering or select a specific algorithm.

HandBrake 0.9.9 requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.6 or later to install and run.

If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback, please let us know in the comments.