There’s been a lot of news stories this year about iPhone and iPad use by U.S. federal agencies. Most of those stories have been reports of agencies ditching BlackBerries for iPhones and/or iPads.
This week’s news from the FAA is different in that the FAA already has iPads in the hands of employees and the agency is planning to expand their user dramatically – to the point where employees will be offered a choice between an iPad and a laptop as their mobile computing device.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA810ce4eLM
After teasing the game way back in October, Criterion will finally release Burnout Crash! for iOS tomorrow, April 12. The top-down racer will be Criterion’s first mobile game, and it’s already shaping up to be a huge hit. Even David Hasselhoff loves it, as you can see from the clip above.
Adobe Reader for Android and iOS received a hefty update today, adding a slew of new features and enhancing performance across the board. We’ll highlight these new features for you below and then send you over to the Adobe blog where they have done an excellent job at explaining what has been added and improved in the latest Adobe Reader update.
Whispers have been circulating for months about Apple releasing a larger iPhone later this year. Since the original iPhone launch, Apple has kept the iPhone’s essential dimensions intact, and we still have the same 3.5-inch display size Steve Jobs demoed at Macworld in 2007. While the rest of the smartphone industry has been experimenting with all kinds of crazy screen sizes and aspect ratios, Apple has stuck with a simple 3:2 aspect ratio and 3.5 inches.
There have been plenty of arguments made for why Apple will release a 4-inch iPhone in the future, but one smart forum user has put together an argument that trumps the rest.
Today CloudOn released the first major update to its cloud-based Microsoft Office solution. Like OnLive Desktop, which recently made changes to comply with Microsoft’s Windows licensing model, CloudOn delivers virtual copies of Windows versions the three core Office tools. Unlike OnLive, however, CloudOn doesn’t provide a virtual Windows desktop and the company doesn’t provide its own cloud storage for user documents.
Instead, CloudOn integrates with Box and Dropbox to provide document storage and sharing. The interface of the company’s iPad app provides a simple launcher and file browser. When one of the Office apps (or the newly added Adobe Reader app and File Viewer) is launched a virtual instance of that app is provided from the CloudOn servers.
Right now, every Mac fan is looking forward to the major next revision of OS X, Mountain Lion, which will continue what Lion started and keep on blurring the line between Apple’s Mac and iOS ecosystems. But what’s the end goal here?
Cult of Mac reader Cameron Leask put his design chops to the test to imagine what a completely unified OS X / iOS experience would look like. The result: OS XI, an operating system that merges OS X and iOS’s best features while finally ditching the Mac filesystem and embracing an iOS-like approach to data and apps.
It certainly looks sleek, but we’ll let you be the judge of that. After the jump, take an imagination-fueled tour through the future of the Mac with OS XI. Let us know what you think in the comments.
2012 hasn’t been shaping up to be a good year for RIM. The company has already lost some major enterprise customers, developers have publicly announced they’re shuttering BlackBerry support, and the new iPad sales beat the total number of BlackBerry PlayBook shipments three times over in one weekend.
The one bright moment, if you can call it that, came during the company’s recent quarterly financials call when RIM’s newly minted CEO Thorsten Heins told investors that his first action on the job was to seriously evaluate RIM’s business. After months of delusional pep talks, his very sober assessment was like a burst of lucid thinking. Unfortunately, the company’s executives seem to be covering that lucid moment with more of the delusional spin that’s become typical of RIM
The latest bout of RIM denying its situation involve comments by executives on the state of the BlackBerry in government.
We reported last month on the legal and licensing issues surrounding OnLive and its OnLive Desktop for iPad, a freemium offering from the cloud gaming company that offered iPad users a full Windows 7 desktop experience complete with Office and the ability to watch Flash content. The company made a big entrance into the Windows/Office on iPad space in January and announced its premium and business plans the following month.
More recently, however, Microsoft announced that OnLive was violating its licensing agreements. Microsoft even went so far as to accuse OnLive and any OnLive Desktop users of illegally pirating Windows 7.
OnLive appears to have learned the error of its ways. Over the weekend, the company quietly adjusted its service to be compatible with Windows licensing.
There’s nothing worse then prepping your app for launch and then finding out you missed one crucial step to ensure it looked solid across all platforms. Keep in mind that just because you’ve “built” a mobile app, that doesn’t mean it is going to be ready for market. Without testing, your app’s not going to cut it. Not in the least.
This is why we’ve got a video course put together by Robert V. Binder that will teach you ways to test out your software to make sure it’s ready for your audience. The great part? This video course is applicable for Android, Blackberry, iPhone, iPad, Windows Mobile, Palm OS and mobile apps using HTML5. So you’re covered on all fronts. And no background in programming or software testing is required.
The even greater part? It’s available from Cult of Mac Deals for only $49 — a savings of $80 off the regular price!
Facebook just announced on its blog that the company has purchased the popular photo sharing app Instagram for a cool $1 billion. The news comes shortly after Instagram just launched its popular Android app, which has seen great success.
But the real success of Instagram is over on iOS, where the app has exploded to be one of the top apps on the iTunes App Store. Before its release on Android, Instagram boasted over 30 million users and added 1 million the day Instagram launched on Android. Check out Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerburg’s announcement:
Apple’s e-textbook initiative, which the company launched in January along with iBooks Author and a revamped iTunes U service is aimed at K-12 schools rather than higher education. Higher education has a different set of needs when it comes to textbooks, study, and reference materials. There are also big differences in device/platform selection between K-12 and the college market.
In fact, these differences are probably a big part of why Apple decided to focus the majority of its e-textbook (and, by extension its iPad in education) effort on the K-12 market. It’s a market that yields Apple more growth opportunities now and down the road.
It’s pretty clear that digital distribution is going to play a large role in the future of magazines and newspapers. That doesn’t mean, however, that print editions are going away any time soon. For the foreseeable future, we’re likely to see print/digital hybrids while consumers and publishers test the waters of both digital products and distribution channels.
The road to digital hasn’t been a smooth ride for many publications. Part of the reason is the lack of resources being devoted to creating engaging and immersive digital content that doesn’t feel as if you’re simply reading a PDF of the print edition.
One big area where publisher are still failing is advertising – despite excellent interactive ad systems like Apple iAd, publishers are still stuck in a print mentality when it comes to ads. In fact, according to a new study, publications often simply toss the exact same print-formatted ads into digital editions that run in their print counterparts.
Papermill launched on Android several weeks ago. Developed by Ryan Bateman and designed with the help of Matt Legaspi, the app is a beautiful Instapaper client for Android devices. Papermill received high praise from the community and widespread media coverage when it launched, and the developer has since broken down its success based on sales. The conclusions he draws about Android users in general are particularly interesting.
Bateman says that, “Android users not being willing to pay for an apps whose focus is quality and whose price reflects this.” Is this true only for the average Android user, or should the average iPhone user be considered as well? How can one make the blanket argument that people don’t want to pay for quality apps? I think it comes down to the basic issue of supply and demand.
As a Mac user, I’ve always been a fan of Activity Monitor. It keeps track of RAM and hard disk memory, CPU and Disk usage, and Network activity. It’s a handy app to have, on my Mac.
But what about the iPhone? Doesn’t it deserve some sort of activity monitor of it’s own? Well, todays’ tip offers one such app, called Activity Monitor Touch.
Grand Theft Auto III for iOS and Android was introduced earlier this year for $2.99 with much fanfare. Today, we have more exciting news from game maker Rockstar, who has announced that Max Payne Mobile is launching for iOS on April 12th and Android April 26th.
One of the mobile news items this week was the discovery by developer Gareth Wright of a vulnerability in the Facebook apps for both iOS and Android. At issue in the iOS version of the Facebook app is the fact that a user’s login data is stored in a clear text .plist file. Copying that file to another device will allow full access to a person’s Facebook account.
Facebook was quick to point out that this file could only be copied directly from an iOS device if the device had previously been jailbroken. Wright responded by saying that the portion of the iOS file system where the data is located can be accessed by connecting any iOS device (jailbroken or not) to a Mac or PC running iTunes and creating a backup. With the right tools, its fairly easy to search an iOS device backup or even the filesystem on a connected device.
This brings up an important issue for businesses deploying iOS devices or operating a BYOD program – iOS backups made through iTunes can be an attack vector to retrieve business data.
A security researcher has discovered a serious flaw with the Facebook and Dropbox apps for both Android and iOS that puts all of your sensitive personal data at risk.
Anyone with access to your device can use a free piece of software that’s easily available on the internet to retrieve an unencrypted, plain text file from your device that provides access to your entire account — without requiring a jailbreak.
MyWi is widely regarded as one of the best jailbreak utilities for the iPhone, allowing users to turn their smartphone into a Wi-Fi hotspot and share its data connection with other devices without paying additional carrier charges. Its latest 5.5 update brings iOS 5 compatibility (finally!), faster speeds, Wi-Fi sharing, and more.
You can add another name to the list of companies dropping Google Maps in favor of OpenStreetMap. When Wikipedia announced its new app for iOS today, they also announced that they would be using OpenStreetMap exclusively for the nearby view in both their iOS and Android mobile apps. Wikipedia feels this change will be a better fit for their goal of making knowledge available in a free and open manner to everyone.
This also means we no longer have to use proprietary Google APIs in our code, which helps it run on the millions of cheap Android handsets that are purely open source and do not have the proprietary Google applications.
While many federal agencies have been defecting from RIM’s BlackBerry to iOS devices, the Department of Veterans Affairs seems poised to make a much more dramatic transition. The agency recently canceled its participation in Microsoft’s Software Assurance program. While the move isn’t likely to mean the VA is replacing all of its PCs with Macs, it may signal a significant transition to non-Microsoft mobile devices like the iPad.
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There are plenty of stories out there about schools that have already launched large-scale iPad programs or that are considering them for next year. Many U.S. school districts have yet to determine an iPad strategy, however, and are still moving forward cautiously.
In a small survey of public school IT managers, research firm Piper Jaffray identified the iPad as a new technology being tested by the majority of public schools. The survey also offered insights into the the pros and cons that school IT managers are weighing when it comes the iPad and some competing technologies.
Marine authorities estimate that there are only 350 to 550 whales left in the world, making the mammal an endangered species. Those that are left are at risk of being killed by deadly collisions with ships, but conservationists are hoping Apple’s iOS devices can help save the species from extinction.
When the App Store first launched on iOS, the need for an alternative marketplace quickly arose. Jailbreakers and power-users wanted a way to download and install apps that gave them more control over their devices than what Apple would allow.
That was how Cydia was born. Created by Jay ‘saurik‘ Freeman, the Cydia app store allows users with jailbroken devices to not only install apps that bypass a number of iOS’s built-in restrictions, but to more easily discover them.
On the Mac, there’s obviously no jailbreaking, but given the sandboxing restrictions placed upon App Store developers, there’s still a need for a Cydia-like alternative: an easy-to-use, curated catalog for apps that give power-users too much control over their systems for Apple’s comfort.
Enter the HackStore, which hopes one day to be as synonymous with user-empowered Macs as Cydia is with jailbroken iOS devices.
Ticket to Ride has become one of the most popular board games adapted for iOS devices, selling 800,000 copies and picking up a whole host of accolades since its debut back in November 2011. It has now made the leap from iOS to the Mac and is available to purchase from the Mac App Store from today.