iOS - page 107

Apple has announced a long-overdue App Store category addition today to developers. A dedicated “Food & Drink” category will be added to the iOS App Store “in the next few weeks,” according to Apple. A category for cooking apps already exists, but related apps like OpenTable will be included in this new category.

As Apple continues to enhance the App Store with new improvements and curated series like Editor’s Choice, this new “Food & Drink” section will surely be a welcome addition when it goes live.

The iPhone and iPad have essentially created one more day’s worth of work for most Americans. That’s the big headline from a study by mobile security and management vendor Good Technology. The study, which involved 1,000 of Good’s customers, found that during off hours, the average American will put in seven hours worth of work each week, or, one extra workday.

Concerns about maintaining a healthy work/life balance are nothing new. The mobile devices that make knowledge workers more productive have the downside of creating a situation where most of us can be reached very easily whether we’re on the clock and in the office or we’re at home in bed. This always-connected lifestyle has even given rise to mental health issues like nomophobia – the fear of being without one’s phone.

The tendency to work well past the end of the workday is so prevalent that 80% of us do so on a regular basis.

One thing Apple has done really well over the past few years is eliminating fragmentation in its operating systems. The install base of iOS 5 is over 75%; OS X Lion is around 50%. That’s in less than a year for both operating systems.

To put those numbers in perspective, consider this. Google’s latest operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich, still runs on just 1% of all Android devices after a year, and Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system hovers at around 50% after almost three years.

Apple’s secret is simple. They charge as little as possible for their operating systems, giving it away free if they can. It’s a good strategy that prevents Apple from having to endlessly support older OSes. And now, Microsoft’s finally going to take a page from Apple’s book.

When Apple announced the terms for Newsstand and digital subscriptions, many publications felt that the company was being too hard on them. Apple’s requirement that publishers offer the same deals through the App Store that they do elsewhere while still taking its typical 30% cut of the income ruffled a lot of feathers in the publishing world. While there was a lot of angry discussion about the policy when Apple announced and implemented it, many publications decided to accept the policy – at least initially.

Since then, however, a handful of publications have decided to abandon their presence on iOS devices. Some are planning to build a web app as their only iOS or mobile presence. Others are looking to create deals with various news aggregators. Regardless of their plans, Apple’s terms are one of the key reasons that publishers are getting out of the App Store.

Almost every major company has plans to develop a range of iOS apps (if they haven’t created some already). In fact, one of the reasons that enterprise app stores are becoming as popular as they are in business is that they fulfill two critical needs. One of those is to easily distribute internal apps to staff members. (The other is to point users to suggested or required apps from Apple’s App Store.)

One thing that every company developing an internal app needs to keep in mind is that users are becoming more tech savvy and comfortable selecting and using iOS apps. That can be a good thing for the whole enterprise app store concept. It let’s users choose and manage their selection of apps on their own without help from IT.

It also means that most iOS users are sophisticated enough to know when an app is poorly designed. That places an extra burden on anyone developing iOS apps, particularly if there are equivalent public apps that users can install as partial or complete replacements for a poorly built internal app.

Dateline: Instagram website updated to allow comments and likes. The system goes on-line in July 2012. Mobile requirements are removed from the service.

Instagram begins to grow at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, July 29th. In a panic, Facebook tries to pull the plug.

Apple’s new Podcasts app, with its skeuomorphic tape reels and beautiful interface, is an absolutely brilliant way to discover, manage, and listen to podcasts. And on our newest CultCast, we’ll tell you how Apple’s new gem will finally bring podcast entertainment out of the shadows and into the hands of the masses.

And then, did you know Google just released their beloved Chrome browser for iOS? We’ll tell you what we think and if it’s going to give Safari a run for its money.

All that and our answers to your Twitter questions on an all-new CultCast! Subscribe now on your shiny new Podcasts app, then catch the show notes after the jump!

Earlier this month we reported that MacPhun squeezed their outlandishly colorful Color Splash Studio Mac app onto the iPhone. Today, they’re giving away free copies of the Mac app, with one small catch: You have to send them something you created on the iPhone version of the app.

When Google announced Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), they showed off the new voice actions as well as search cards. Naturally, everyone soon became curious about how the new voice actions compared to its Apple competitor and voice assistant Siri. While most Androidians didn’t have a spare iPhone 4S on hand, one blogger for TechnoBuffalo did, and was kind enough to put them to the test.

You’ve got an iPad. You were so taken with this magical device that you decided to write the next great American novel that doesn’t involve sparkling vampires using Pages or another word processing app for the iPad. One problem: How to print it.

The Brother MFC-J825DW is one of the latest Brother printers to join HP, Lexmark, Epson and Canon as a capable Airprint printer. So how does it work with the iPad?

Here at Cult of Mac, we love Google’s new Chrome browser for iPhone and iPad… love it so much, in fact, that for many of us, we’re now using it as our default browser on our jailbroken devices using a Cydia tweak.

That’s all well and good if you’ve got a jailbroken iPhone or iPad, but what if you’re living on the straight and narrow? How can you make using Chrome as your default browser an easy experience when iOS wants to open every link in Safari instead?

It’s easy, with this Mobile Safari bookmarklet.

Read enough articles about NFC and its potential for mobile payments and you’ll find yourself thinking the technology is the inevitable mobile payment platform. Every major mobile platform except iOS already includes or will include support for NFC-enabled devices. There are lots of partnerships being announced between key players like device manufacturers, carriers, and banking or credit card companies. It also just seems to make sense that this is the future.

Until you look up from all the stories about what NFC and look at what’s really happening in the  world. You don’t see much evidence of NFC payment systems in everyday life. NFC isn’t yet emerging into mainstream commerce, but there is ample evidence that mobile payments are taking off without it. Those options becoming mainstream are decidedly low tech by comparison, but that’s precisely why they’re succeeding.

After a day of dumb product names (Adixxion, Shoqbox), I’m glad to be able to bring you an app named Mc Loud. You’ll see how clever that name is when I tell you what it does: Mc Loud streams music and movies direct from your Dropbox account.

Technology in the education sector, particularly for K-12 schools, often poses unique challenges not seen in business or enterprise organizations. The iPad is a great example. As we noted yesterday, BYOD is generally not a good idea for school environments. That means effective iPad deployments are typically managed by schools and education IT staff.

There are plenty of stories out there about schools moving forward with one-to-one iPad deployments (we’ve run two this week – one about the massive iPad investment by San Diego’s school district and one on East Alton’s decision to lease iPads instead of buying them). One-to-one initiatives, in which each student gets his or her own device for use in class and at home, are generally considered a much more effective and ideal model than when students sharing devices during to school hours.

One-to-one programs, which were first established for laptops, can be challenging because such programs need to take into consideration that the iPads will be used at home. One area where this creates problems for schools is the need to comply with filtering regulations.

Google finally released its hugely popular Chrome web browser for iOS yesterday, and just as we had expected, it’s the best third-party browser so far. In fact, in many ways, it’s also better than Apple’s built-in mobile Safari browser. And you can now use Chrome as your default browser on your jailbroken iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, thanks to the BrowserChooser tweak.

Ever wondered if aluminosilicate glass surface of your iPad would make a great dance floor? Now you can find out.

Apple firmly positioned the iPad as an education solution during its education even in New York five months ago. Even before that, many schools and districts had begun pilot programs of full on iPad deployments. The iPad provides many opportunities in education as well as some challenges.

One of those challenges is cost. That’s not a surprise, considering the number of iPads required in order to give one to each student in a district. The San Diego school district, for example, recently spending $15 million as part of its massive iPad plan that includes nearly 26,000 devices.

Given the cost of such deployments and the attention that BYOD programs have gotten in both the tech and mainstream media over the past year or so, it was only a matter of time before someone in the education technology sector began to talk up the idea of BYOD in education as a way to cut the costs associated with such deployments.

Google launched their shiny new version of Chrome for iOS today, complete with syncing and many other features Chrome users on the desktop have been longing for. We dug into Chrome for iOS to see what all the hype was about, and upon first glance, it’s definitely an interesting experience. You can check out our full hands on video after the break.

If you live overseas, you can now download Google Chrome for the iPhone and iPad at the link below. It’s on the Danish store only right now, but it’s obviously in the process of rolling out, so keep on refreshing, and watch for our early look and video tour of Chrome shortly after it hits the US App Store.

Update: It’s now available in the U.S. Store! Get downloading!

Source: iTunes

Gameloft promised a June 28th launch for their Amazing Spider-Man mobile game, and sure enough, it’s now available. If you’d like to get your web slinging on, it’ll cost you $6.99 — a price I was fully expecting from Gameloft. The game is available now on Android and iOS and features:

Apple’s 2007 launch of Leopard Server was the beginning of a new business strategy for the company. Leopard Server included a number of new features – shared calendaring with iCal Server, Apple’s wiki-based collaborative tools, and streamlined Podcast creation and hosting through Podcast Producer were some of the highlights. The biggest new feature, however, was the introduction of a simplified setup assistant and Server Preferences – a utility designed to look and feel similar to System Preferences that enabled easy management of key server features for smaller organizations with limited technical knowledge or resources.

Fast forward nearly five years to today and you can see the focus that Apple introduced in Leopard Server has become the core of Mountain Lion Server. You can also see that many features that used to be OS X Server staples are gone (or at least are being handed their hats and coats). What remains is a very inexpensive but still relatively powerful server OS with a focus on easy setup and management as well as collaboration.

Announced in early May, Amazing Alex is Rovio’s first venture away from Angry Birds since the title became a huge hit on iOS many moons ago. Based on the company’s previous success in the mobile gaming space, we’re all itching to see how its next release turns out, but the new teaser trailer Rovio released today gives us very little to go on.

In addition to the 20-second clip, however, the Finnish firm has also announced some more details about the physics-based puzzler.

If you’re a New York Times subscriber, you’ll be pleased to know that you can now enjoy full access your favorite content via Flipboard, one of the best news readers available on iOS. Even those who don’t subscribe still get a little treat: free access to the publication’s “Top News” section.

Various reports indicate that Apple is working on a major overhaul of iTunes that it plans to launch later this year. Those reports indicate that the update will be focused on consumer-oriented features like improved app/content discovery, music and media sharing, and greater iCloud integration. There’s also the possibility that Apple might split out some iTunes features into separate apps much like the company has done in iOS – the most recent example being the Podcasts app that it launched earlier this week.

Splitting iTunes into discrete parts is an attractive prospect, particularly for businesses and IT professionals. iTunes has become a bloated hodgepodge of functionality over the years. As a result, IT departments typically face a conundrum about whether to support or even allow employees with iOS devices to use iTunes on workplace computers.

Apple is said to be preparing an iTunes overhaul that will deliver the largest change the online music store has seen since its debut back in 2003. Set to be unveiled by the end of this year, the refresh will reportedly bring better iCloud integration and file-storage for users with multiple iOS devices, as well as new features for sharing music with friends.