Full category list for displayed posts: iTunes, Mac, Music, Tips & Tricks
Here’s a good resource to take a look at if you plan on upgrading to OS X Lion this month. Roaringapps.com is a crowd sourced application compatibility database for OS X Lion. The site depends on user input about the compatibility of existing applications running on Snow Leopard or whether or not apps will need Rosetta.
The first travel guide apps for Cuba are arriving in iTunes as a record number of Americans visit the country.
iCuba is billing itself as the first travel app for the island nation. In truth, it arrived in iTunes about a month after the Cuban Beaches in HD app, which offers hotel as well as beach info, and the Havana Travel Guide which promises an augmented reality feature. There are also a number of map apps for Cuba.
iCuba is offered in English, Spanish and Italian for $5.99. There are a few hiccups — notably, the English translation offers a category of “luxory” hotels — and other tourism info looks scarce. Still, the maps are available offline which makes consulting them easier when traveling and you can make hotel reservations via the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch versions.
The Havana Travel guide for $4.99 offers up to five days of itineraries, hotels and restaurants by budget range, nightlife info, public transport and safety tips.
Havana Good Time, by resident expat author Conner Gorry, promises to “open doors to the forbidden city” with 160+ entries that will have you living like a local. If you want to check out the $2.99 app, though, you’ll download it in the U.S. iTunes store before you go — since restrictions will keep you from getting it when you are actually local.
The bump in travel to the communist-ruled island is attributed to the U.S. government easing some travel restrictions to Cuba, mostly for “purposeful” travel (family, some business and religious activities). However, a battle is currently ensuing to turn back restrictions to the Bush-era bans.
Via iPhone Italia
Once again, Apple has fallen back on its developer guidelines as a reason for pulling an app that caused a public-relations catastrophe.
In just about 24 hours after a letter of complaint from an Israeli minister, it removed the Third Intifada app from the iTunes store.
“We removed this app from the App Store because it violates the developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people,” an Apple spokesman said Wednesday evening.
The same reason was cited as cause for removal of the “gay cure” app back in March after it unleashed a huge protest.
The question remains: doesn’t anyone at Apple read these guidelines first?
You could (and for the purpose of discussion, please do) substitute or Baby Shaker, iSlam Muhammad — both apps Apple had to remove after a predictable public outcry.
It’d be so much easier if they vetted the apps instead of approving, then yanking them.
UPDATE: CEO Joe Scott retracted the statements made in the press release quoted below. That story is available here.
When Apple sidelined new apps that were tipping off tipsy drivers about DUI checkpoints, we wondered what would happen to the apps that were already in the iTunes store.
Some of them — like Trapster — pulled the DUI alerts while continuing to offer info on speed traps.
But PhantomALERT just issued a press release boasting about how it stayed in iTunes “defying” the senators who pressured Apple to ban apps with DUI checkpoint info.
Cloud Engines announced their new, software-only personal streaming service today for PogoPlug. While the free version of PogoPlug is pretty nice, their Premium service adds a few extra features, like being able to stream music and movies to your iOS device. Running out of room for new movies and music on your iPhone or iPad is always a downer, but PogoPlug ensures that will no longer happen. Lucky for our readers, PogoPlug graciously gave us a whopping 200 Promo codes for free Premium PogoPlug accounts.
We already gave out a couple codes to our loyal Twitter followers this morning, but we’re now opening the floodgates to all of our readers so that the first 195 people to come will get a free PogoPlug Premium account. Here’s how to get your promo code:
A company got in touch with Cult of Mac after our story about Apple enforcing the ban on iPad giveaways. Their apps were being held in limbo — see email above — during the iTunes approval process due to a contest they were running.
Stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place, they opted to pull the iPad contest. (The giveaway had been a major way, they told us, to get the apps better known.)
“What? No way, that’s not my Enrique Iglesias track. How’d that get on my iPhone?” Have you ever had your musical tastes harshly criticized by a friend who’s browsing through the music library on your iPhone? Apple’s now enabled users to avoid those awkward moments of friends discovering your guilty pleasures by allowing you to delete songs from your iPhone or iPad.
Bowing to pressure from lawmakers after a recent U.S. senate hearing, Apple has updated the review guidelines to sideline new apps that might be seen as aiding drunk drivers.
Section 22.8 of the updated App Store Review Guidelines reads:
Apps which contain DUI checkpoints that are not published by law enforcement agencies, or encourage and enable drunk driving, will be rejected.
Some of the apps in question are, however, still available in iTunes for download.
Apple has now made iTunes 10.3.1 available to download an incremental update to iTunes 10.3 released earlier this week. In case you missed it here’s what’s new!
We’ve been giving out free stuff all week via Twitter, and while today is no exception we’ve decided to spice things up by having a Twitter Trivia Giveaway. If you’d like to join our two other winners and receive a free iMainGo X we’d be happy to have one sent to you as long as you play by the rules.
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