If you’re anything like me, now that you’ve pre-ordered your new iPad, you’ll be obsessing over its order status. You know it’s not going to arrive until March 16, but once every hour you’ll logon to the Apple online store to see how your package is getting on anyway.
It’s even easier to do this with the free Apple Store app for iPhone. Here’s how.
Yesterday we told you that the newly-released iPhoto for iOS wasn’t using Google Maps data to provide map tiles for geotagged pics. The news was particularly shocking because Apple has always used Google Maps in the past to provide mapping data in its apps.
As it turns out, the Cupertino company is actually using open-source technology from OpenStreetMap to provide custom map tiles in iPhoto for iOS.
We’re two weeks away from launch day, the day Angry Birds boldly goes where no bird has gone before. I’m of course talking about Angry Birds Space, Rovio’s next Angry Bird iteration which looks to turn the series upside down. To prepare us for the challenges of launching a projectile in a weightless environment while compensating for the gravity fields of neighboring planetary bodies, NASA astronaut Dan Pettit gives us a quick physics lesson while aboard the International Space Station.
Along with announcing the new iPad and Apple TV (and related iOS and app updates), Apple released a new tool for managing iOS devices in business and education. The new Apple Configurator app is a free download in the Mac App Store for Macs running Lion. Although it takes the sting out of managing iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches for smaller organizations, it won’t replace more full feature mobile management solutions for mid-size or larger companies.
Here is the new Pages for iOS, as announced by Apple last night.
Not a huge amount has changed here, to be honest, but there are one or two nice additions, stuff that help Pages retain its top spot in the small world of word processing on iOS.
A very interesting factoid has been revealed in the newly-released iPhoto for iOS: Apple isn’t using Google Maps. More specifically, Apple is using its own mapping technology to provide map tiles in its brand new photo editing app.
There have been rumors for many months saying that Apple is working on proprietary mapping technology to replace Google Maps, and it looks like the rumors are true.
We told you that Apple announced the stunningly beautiful iPhoto for iPad today during the keynote, and it’s already available for download in the App Store! The $5 app is actually a universal download for the iPhone and iPad, so you get even more bang for your buck!
Apple has released iOS 5.1 to the public. The update is available for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad owners running iOS 5. Check Software Update in your Settings app to download.
This update includes Japanese support for Siri, an always-visible camera shortcut on the lock screen, a redesigned Camera app for iPad, and the ability to finally delete individual photos from Photo Stream.
Report after report, same old, same old: Android and iOS continue to kick everyone’s arse in the mobile market. The latest comScore report is out, and once again, these two remain the only ones gaining any market share. Android continues to lead the pack with 48.6% (up 2.3 percentage points) while iOS remains in second with 29.5% (up 1.4 percentage points). Everyone else continues to lose market share with RIM holding the third position at 15.2% (down 2 percentage points. After that it’s Microsoft with 4.4% (down 1 percentage point) followed by Symbian with 1.5% (down .1 percentage point). Overall Android and iOS occupy 78.1% of the market with no signs of slowing down.
In a move that would surely have Steve Jobs — the man willing to go thermonuclear war against Android — rolling over in his grave, Apple has apparently offered licensing deals to Samsung and Motorola in an attempt to settle ongoing and future patent suits. According to sources speaking with Dow Jones Newswires, Apple has offered licensing deals in the tune of $5 to $15 per device or the equivalent of 1% to 2.5% of net sales per device. Interestingly enough, these fees are on par with what Apple deemed “unreasonable” after attempts to license patents from Motorola.
If there’s a buzzword for here at the first CITE Conference, it would have to be trust. Virtually every discussion I’ve had over the past two days has boiled down to the level of trust between IT and users.
Trust may be the foundation of all healthy human relationships, but it isn’t something that comes easily to IT professionals in the workplace. That’s the underlying tension that IT staffers have when it comes to the consumerization of IT. It isn’t about devices or public cloud services. It’s about trusting the users that you support.
What do IT staffers and execs want to see in the iPad 3? Pretty much the same things as everyone else.
Apple is the pink elephant in the room at the CITE Conference in San Francisco. The company isn’t participating but the company’s products, particularly the iPad, are constantly being discussed. In talking to attendees about tomorrow’s iPad 3 launch event, there isn’t a specific IT-oriented feature that they want to see.
Fans of Monty Python, gather your dead parrots and your stuffed John Cleese plushies: today is your day to celebrate the official launch of Monty Python: The Holy Book of Days for iPad, an app that gives faithful Python followers everything they could ever wish for on a plate, with strawberries on top. The rest of us might be left wondering what the fuss is about, though.
Did you know that the Calculator app built into iOS has a hidden swipe gesture that allows you to delete those digits that you tap accidentally? No, neither did I until this morning, when I discovered this nifty little backspace trick by accident.
The patent saga continues with U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner in Chicago ruling that Motorola and Google must provide Apple with information regarding Android development as well as information about the impending merger. It’s unclear exactly what specific “information” must be provided and while everyone goes ahead and assumes it’s some sort of top secret documentation, I’m betting it’s nothing of the sort and Apple won’t be gaining any trade secrets out of this. It’s all ridiculous and will only end as all of these patent suits have ended, with nothing more than a software update.
I picked up my first iPhone around three months after the device launched way back in 2007, and I’ve been an iPhone user ever since. I’ve dabbled with Android devices throughout the years, and I even tried webOS on the HP Pre, but I didn’t like either operating system as much as I like iOS on the iPhone.
When Microsoft first introduced Windows Phone, I was instantly attracted to it. I liked the look of the user interface, I liked the way the system worked, and I actually liked the fact that Microsoft was in control of the Windows Phone Marketplace. (One of the things that I dislike most about Android is that the Android Market has no approval process.) I’m not a fan of the Windows desktop operating system, and I’ve stayed as far away from it as possible after purchasing my first Mac. But I felt compelled to try Windows Phone.
So I did. I swapped my iPhone for a HTC TITAN running Windows Phone Mango for one month. Here’s how I got on.
IOS runs HTML5 games a crazy three times faster than Android, according to a study by Spaceport.io. The tests were run on various hardware and software combinations, both for Android and iOS, and the results are pretty startling. And there’s an even more amusing data point: The Blackberry Playbook beat every Android device.
Android and iOS users will now be able to quickly access the places they have searched for on Google thanks to Google’s new “Recent” icon on their mobile search page. Any user who has Web History enabled and is logged into Google when searching for a place will have that search saved and accessible via the “Recent” icon. Searches will be saved for approximately 24-hours and will give users the convenience of starting searches from their desktop and later pulling up that information while mobile.
A little over a week after pulling Battlefield 3: Aftershock from the App Store for connection issues and a truly disappointing gameplay experience, EA has pulled The Simpsons: Tapped Out, for much the same reasons.
Stock of the Apple TV has been quickly dwindling across Apple retail stores in the U.S. in recent months, fueling speculation that the device will soon be replaced by a new model with the “J33” codename that recently popped up in the company’s iOS 5.1 beta software.
One report claims that 98% of Apple retail stores in the U.S. now have no Apple TV stock at all.
Mass Effect 3 lands on consoles in the U.S. today, but if you prefer to do your gaming on an iOS device, then you should definitely dedicate your evening to Mass Effect Infiltrator. From the makers of Dead Space for iOS, this title is an all-new and original Mass Effect storyline made exclusively for mobile devices, and it promises to “boost your Galactic Readiness Rating within Mass Effect 3.”
So the 25 billionth download from the iOS App Store was none other than Where’s My Water? Free. It brought its owner a shiny $10,000 iTunes gift card and worldwide fame for 15 minutes. But will it bring you anything? The short answer is probably: no.
The consumerization of IT is about more than just a handful of users bringing their own devices into the office. That’s the big take away from the first morning here the CITE Conference in San Francisco. The real story is that movement may have started out with people taking their iPads to work and and checking Twitter throughout the workday, but it has become something much much greater.
At heart, this movement isn’t so much about devices, social networks, or cloud services – it’s about how these technologies have changed the relationship that people have with technology. Apple and other companies have made most people comfortable with technology and shown them an experience of solutions that just work.
Fuzel is another one-dollar photo collage maker for iOS. There are dozens of others, so what marks this one out?
Well actually it’s rather impressive. To start with, it has a lovely natural interface that begins with the faux-textured front cover of a photo album, with your most recent creation poking through a hole. Swipe this aside, and keep swiping through your creations, just as you would with a real album.
Apple is yet to strike a deal with China Mobile over the iPhone, but that hasn’t stopped the Cupertino company from supporting China Mobile customers who want to use its latest smartphone with the carrier unofficially. Just a month after Apple confirmed that the iPhone 4S has issues with China Mobile SIM cards, it has fixed the device to eliminate signal issues.