Buster Hein - page 200

iOS 7 received some mixed looks at first glance when it debuted on the iPhone. Maybe you hate Jony’s new icon grid or love it, but Chris Harris decided to see how the new interface faired on the old iPod Nano screen.

Even though the sixth gen iPod Nano doesn’t run full iOS, upgrading the layout to to the new grid wouldn’t look too bad. Here’s what Chris had to say about his mockup:

“I am not a ‘designer’ and I always choose clarity above style when I have my App Director hat on. Notice how the overly enlarged Safari circle, which some have called wrong, actually works really well in this particular situation.”

Source: Code Into Light

With over 50billion apps downloaded though App Store, we’ve always known competition is tough to set yourself apart and make it to the Top 10 charts, but how much money do you actually bring in per day to break the Top 10 grossing apps?

According to a study by Distimo, the magic number is $47,000 per day. If you just want to crack the Top 10 paid apps on the App Store then you’ll need to get 4,000 downloads per day. 

Not only can you finally put Newsstand in a folder in iOS 7, but a newly discovered glitch also makes it possible for users to place apps inside Newsstand.

Dom Esposito at App Advice discovered the new glitch this morning which makes for a great way to hide the default apps you never use. To get an app inside Newsstand, simply press and hold an app icon till it wiggles, then drag it above the Newsstand icon, after a second or so Newsstand will blink and you can drop  app down into the Newsstand folder.

The only way to get apps out of Newsstand afteward is to either delete them, or reboot your iPhone.

Here’s a GIF of how it works:

Apple resellers in China and India will try almost anything to get people to buy an iPhone but one premium reseller in India is taking it to an all-new level by offering customers a free upgrade to the iOS 7 beta with the purchase of an iPhone 5.

Don’t want to have to buy a new iPhone 5 just to play with iOS 7? The store says they’ll also let you pay to just upgrade to the iOS 7 beta for $20 if you have an iPhone 5 but it’ll cost you $23 for an iPad.

iOS 7 is in its second round of beta testing with developers and won’t be released until Fall 2013. The reseller’s Facebook posts advertising the promo have already been taken down, so we wouldn’t be surprised if Apple already put the kibosh on iCentre India’s new marketing strategies.

Source: iCentreIndia

Via: Techzei

The biggest pain about Netflix is how long it takes to finally decide on what to watch. You can scroll through the Netflix movie library for hours before settling on something so Netflix announced today that it is rolling out a new discovery tool called ‘Max’ that’s sort of like a cross between Siri and iTunes Genius.

Max helps users make a movie selection by asking a few questions first to gauge mood and taste, and then suggests a movie for you based on Netflix’s algorithms that predict what you might want to watch next.

Max is only available on on the PS3 Netflix app, but the company teased that it will probably come to the iPad next:

Apple is stil the top smartphone maker in the U.S. according to the latest quarterly report from comScore. While HTC, Motorola, and LTG continued to lose marketshare in the U.S. over the last three months, Apple and Samsung have continued to outpace the competition.

As of May 2013, comScore found that the iPhone now accounts for 39.2% of the U.S. smartphone marketshare. Even though Apple has the lead in hardware, Android is still the top ranking smartphone platform in the U.S. with 52.4 percent market share.

Here’s how Apple stacks up against the competition:

Google made a big splash into wearable tech with Glass and even though they haven’t sold a single unit in stores yet, Google already has its sights on making a smartwatch – similar Apple’s rumored iWatch – and a videogame console powered by its Android operating system.

The Wall Street Journal reported this afternoon that Google is developing the products on its own in an effort to combat the rumored iWatch and the possibility of an updated Apple TV that could support third-party apps. 

Apple may or may not be making a smartwatch, but that’s not stopping its partner, Hon Hai Precision Industry – better known by it’s trading name, Foxconn – from making an iPhone compatible watch of its own.

Hon Hai unveiled it’s first smartwatch today at a shareholders meeting. The device can connect wirelessly to an iPhone and provides data on users’ vitals, such as heartbeat and respiration. The smartwatch can even check phone calls and Facebook posts.

Oh, and remember how the iPhone 5S might be getting a fingerprint sensor? Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou said they’re working to add that to their smartwatch in the future along with some other health features.

Instagram’s new video feature has taken off like wild fire as more than 5 million clips were uploaded in the first 24 hours alone. Many of those new 15-second Instagram videos are all over Twitter, but depending on the Twitter client you’re using, you might not be able to view them.

Tapbots announced today that it has added Instagram video support to its popular Twitter app, Tweetbot. The update is available on both the iPad and iPhone apps which run $2.99 a piece in the App Store.

Source: iTunes

Whether you love or hate iOS 7’s new parallax’d, flat and layered look, there’s no denying that most apps will need to undergo some big redesigns to fit in with the new UI Jony Ive’s presented.

iOS 7 doesn’t come out until later this fall, giving developers plenty of time to update their UI to the new vision. Rather than wait to see what developers come up with for iOS 7, one Tumblr account has started collecting iOS 7 redesign ideas for some of the most popular apps on the App Store.

Here are what some of your favorite apps might look like once they get an iOS 7 makeover:

Twitter’s #music app for iPhone is supposed to become one of the best ways to discover new and popular music. To help users fine tune their discovery needs, Twitter updated #music today to include  a new Genres feature for its charts.

The new Genres feature expands the number of areas users can select to search for music. You can now browse for music in country, hip-hop, pop, R&B and more. Twitter’s also included new categories for Superstars, Popular, Emerging, Unearth and Hunted charts.

Here’s what’s new:

AOL launched a new iPad app today that gives users access to the company’s wide-variety of content for news, mail, weather and video. The magazine style app is similar to Flipboard in that you can choose from a wide variety of topics to customize your own news stream, except there’s a ton of junk in-between because hey, it’s AOL.

The app is iPad only right now and can be downloaded from the App Store for free.

Here are the full release notes:

We have high hopes for PopCap’s long anticipated sequel to Plants vs Zombies, but it looks like gamers will have to wait a little while longer before the game hits the App Store.

PopCap announced today that Plants vs Zombies 2 has been delayed and will miss its targeted launch date of July 18th. The launch date will be pushed back to some date “later this summer” according to the game’s Twitter feed.

Plants vs. Zombies 2, originally slated for a July 18th release, will now be released later in the summer. Stay tuned for more details.

— Plnts vs. Zmbies (@PlantsvsZombies) June 26, 2013

Google published a big update for it’s Google Earth app for iOS today. The new version includes an improved UI with a left hand panel that makes it easier to enable different layers of information.

Along with the refreshed UI, the Google Earth update adds Google Maps Street View to the service so you can explore the world in 3D flyover or at street level. Improved directions and search were also added to the list of new features.

Here’s what’s new:

Square has quickly risen to popularity thanks to its clever credit card payment system for iPhone and iPad that has been adopted by small businesses across the country. To compliment its payment system, Square  launched the Square Register last month, and today it just introduced its new eCommerce portal called Square Market.

Square Market is an online marketplace for businesses to list and sell their goods across the U.S. (think Etsy or eBay). Anyone can open a store for free with items photos and a profile of your business. You can even post items directly to Twitter to generate interest in your business.

Here’s what Square’s Director of Discovery, Ajit Varma, had to say about the launch:

In a landmark victory for same-sex marriage, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the bill passed in 1996 that ruled same-sex marriages are unconstitutional. After voting 5-4 in the decision, the Supreme court justices threw out part of the law that denies federal benefits same-sex couples.

To celebrate the decision, Apple released the following statement to All Things D regarding the Supreme Court ruling:

“Apple strongly supports marriage equality and we consider it a civil rights issue. We applaud the Supreme Court for its decisions today.”

In a statement earlier this year, Apple had the following to say about DOMA:

“DOMA hurts legally married same-sex couples and prevents companies from treating all employees as equals. Apple strongly supports marriage equality and we hope the Supreme Court will declare the law unconstitutional.”

The Supreme Court also handed same-sex marriage advocates another victory by clearing the way for gay and lesbian couples in California to marry, by voting 5-4 to dismiss a Prop. 8 appeal over same-sex marriage on jurisdictional grounds.

Source: All Things D

JetBlue is the latest airline to ditch its flight manuals for iPads. The budget airline received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to give its pilots custom-equipped iPads to replace heavy paper manuals and serve real-time information to the cockpit during the flight.

Over 60 pilots have been involved during the trial phases of JetBlue’s iPad program, but JetBlue will give all 2,500 pilots a fourth-gen 16GB Wifi-only iPad. The company has been approved to use PC-based laptops in the cockpit for 10 years now, but the company says the iPad will offer new capabilities as JetBlue implements Ka-Band satellite Wifi.

During the WWDC 2013 keynote, Apple made sure to note on several occasions, that the new Mac Pro will support multiple 4k displays. As the current Thunderbolt display is due for an update, many have wondered whether Apple will update the Thunderbolt Display to 4k to go along with the new Mac Pro when it comes out in late 2013.

Shortages at third-party retailers can occasionally indicate whether Apple has a new product in the pipeline, so Glenn Künzler at MacTrast researched the current supply of Thunderbolt displays at third party retailers and found that supplies are beginning to dwindle. One retailer even confirmed that Apple is no longer allowing them to order the Thunderbolt displays.

Here’s are the retailers that are out of stock:

G4Games has posted a photo from the Chinese blogging site Weibo which allegedly shows the iPhone 5S front display on an assembly line.

We’ve seen a few pictures of the iPhone 5S front display, but until now, no one has seen these parts actually on an assembly line.

While the pictures are surely a sign Apple is making progress on the manufacturing end of the iPhone 5S, that does not guarantee iPhone 5S launch is coming within the next few weeks. It takes months of lead time to make enough iPhones for a launch, so we have no reason to expect an earlier iPhone launch than the currently rumored timeframe of this Fall.

Source: G4Games

It’s been hard to miss Apple’s new ‘Designed by Apple’ ad campaign that has taken over TV the past few days. Apple isn’t content with just a TV commercial, though, as the company has begun to publish two-page advertisements in newspapers to push the campaign forward.

Today’s edition of the Toronto Star features a two-page Apple ad of a man wearing an iPhone armband while exercising, with the monologue for the ‘Designed by Apple’ commercial printed above. We expect similar ads to pop-up across the U.S. over the next few weeks.

Source: MacGasm

Image: Drake Shipway

iTunes U hasn’t been redesigned to mesh well with iOS 7 just yet, but Apple is still putting out a few feature updates for its educational app.

Apple released a new version of iTunes U in the App Store today that adds pull to refresh, improved language support, bug fixes and more. The new update is available in the App Store for free.

Here are the release notes:

Earlier this month it was discovered that Plex can be added to Apple TV without jailbreaking the device, and now a Russian blog has discovered how to add Russia’s UnliMovie digital TV service to the Apple TV by using the device’s Trailers app.

Popular group messaging service, HipChat, announced today that its Mac app is finally out of beta and ready for primetime. The good news doesn’t stop just there, though, as the HipChat iOS app has been completely redesigned too.

Both HipChat 2.0 for Mac and HipChat 2.0 for iOS are available now for free. HipChat for Mac finally runs natively on the Mac rather than being powered by AIR, and new features include better performance, vertical tabs, Retina support, Notification Center alerts, and more.

Here are the release notes on the iOS app:

We’ve seen a lot of what iOS 7 will look like on the iPhone, but for the past week there has been little info on the iPad version other than this video. The iOS 7 beta for iPad just came out though so we’ve already dug in and started to explore Jony Ive’s vision for the iPad.

Here is what iOS 7 looks like on an iPad:

WWDC 2013 came and went without Apple saying anything about the Voice Memos app that was noticeably absent from the first iOS 7 beta. With the release of the iOS 7 beta 2, Apple revealed a completely redesigned Voice Memos app that comes installed on iOS by default.

The new app ditches the old skeuomorphic look of the microphone in favor of a UI that’s more consistent with the flat, parallax look of the other iOS 7 default apps.

Here’s a GIF of how the new Voice Memos works: