Apple applied for a broad patent on location tracking services back in September 2009 — the kind of location tracking that is now causing a storm of controversy.
The patent application, entitled “Location Histories for Location Aware Devices,” throws some light on the iPhone tracking issue, which is soon to be the subject of a Senate hearing.
Earlier this week, I was interviewed by a Russian TV crew about Apple. They were a bit surly and aggressive, not like polished, ingratiating TV people here in the U.S.
They kept asking strange questions about Steve Jobs, as is if he were a crooked oligarch. “Vy does Steve Joybs vant to be dictator? Vy does he vant to dominate ze vorld?”
Remember Comic Life – the awesome application for creating comic books out of your photos that used to be bundled with Intel Macs? Well, now it’s available on the iPad; taking the latest functionality from the desktop application and wrapping it up into an easy to use touch interface.
Comic Life for iPad has everything you need for creating and sharing comics, including fun and quirky templates, stylized image filters, and an easy-to-use drag and drop placement. You have full control over the design of your comics with a huge selection design options – colors, fonts, gradients, balloons, captions, panels and more.
Create comics out of the photos in your device’s photo library, then add balloons, captions, lettering and templates to tell your story; while the smart text layout and image filtering functions ensure your projects always look fantastic.
Use the integrated e-reader to view your creations in fullscreen, and when they’re ready for the big time, share them with your friends via Facebook and email. You can also print your comics via AirPrint and share them between other iPads with the intuitive ‘drag & drop’ feature.
Comic Life from Plasq is currently on sale for a limited time to celebrate its App Store release. Grab it now for $7.99!
To celebrate his third wedding anniversary, Sean Ohlenkamp of Toronto, Canada, placed a folder on his wife’s desktop.
When she clicked “Click Here,” she discovered a message written using folders nested within folders. See for yourself. It’s charming and clever:
How did she react?
“She liked it. Wasn’t too happy about me clearing all her icons off her desktop but she liked it. :) We enjoy doing things with or for each other instead of buying gifts.” Ohlenkamp wrote in the comments on YouTube.
If you haven’t gotten your fill of Royal Wedding Memorabilia yet, and want something that lasts and communicates your feelings, consider the Royal iPhone Collection from Goldgenie. The 32GB Royal iPhone is available in three versions – Platinum, 18 Ct. Gold and Rose Gold and includes a VS1 8.50 ct. diamond and sapphire bezel and embellished Apple logo.
Apple has released an update to its Mac OS X 10.7 Lion beta. The 1.24 GB update is third build of the new operating system, which is expected to be shown off at WWDC in June and released to the public in the summer or fall.
The update is available to registered Mac developers running Lion Developer Preview 2. It can be downloaded through Software Update. The release contains no release notes and appears to contain only minor UI tweaks, according to tweets crossing the wire. It’s unlikely to be a big update. That will come with Developer Preview 3.
Although I’m a loyal Chrome man on the desktop, I tend not to care much for competing browsers on iOS… not because they don’t often do functionality better than Mobile Safari, because let’s face it, they often do. However, Mobile Safari’s privilege of being the default browser on iOS means there’s a lot of functionality you just can’t really do with an alternative browser.
It’s a pity, because if not for that, Terra for iPad would get a sensational recommendation: not only does it have an attractively minimal interface that supports tabbed browsing (as well as nifty full-screen functionality that quickly whisks the tabs out of the way when you want to be immersed), but also a very intuitive library of multitouch gestures. Best of all, it’s free. Give it a shot.
Yes, Virginia, Apple did indeedpurchase the iCloud.com domain from Swedish cloud computing company Xcerion. But when it launches, don’t expect it to just be a locker for your streaming music. It’ll also encompass all of the functionality currently provided by MobileMe, and more…
If you’re willing to trust a company by the name of CompuExpert with your Mac peripheral needs, the Wow-Keys dock is a pretty nifty idea: an iPhone dock embedded right into a working keyboard. Just by loading up the Wow-Keys app, you can use the docked iPhone as a num pad or function keys to your desktop Mac, while keeping your media files synced and your iPhone fully charged.
The only drawback? Sort of expensive at $99.99, sort of ugly with that Windows key and sort of unavailable for sale until May 24th.
[via Redmond Pie]
Epic Games, in co-operation with Chair Entertainment, brought us Infinity Blade, one of the most graphically impressive, no-compromise game on the App Store. Infinity Blade costs $9.99, and not only is it worth every penny, but for the price, it’s graphically equal to many games on modern consoles like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360…. and Epic sees app games as possibly killing off consoles once and for all.
Steven Levy‘s new book about Google In The Plex revealed a few juicy nuggets about the relationship between Apple and Google.
At first, Larry and Sergey wanted Steve Jobs as their CEO. Then the two companies had a long honeymoon, sharing board members and collaborating on groundbreaking software. But then it all soured when Google released Android, and Steve Jobs hid the iPad from Eric Schmidt, even though he was sitting on Apple’s board.
We had a chance to ask Levy for more detail and insight into the relationship between Apple and Google. Here is our exclusive Q&A:
More signs today that the pad may be overtaking paper as the preferred way readers get their literary fix. According to a survey by iSuppli, e-books will grow at an annual rate of more than 40 percent between 2010 and 2014. That’s a marked difference over printed books, which the survey predicts will fall five percent during the same timespan.
Traditional readers of print books may find the results “frightening,” says analyst Steve Mather. Total book revenue by U.S. publishers “will fall to $22.7 billion in 2014, down from $25 billion in 2010,” according to the survey.
Talk about unhealthy communication: a hospital uses GE call systems for patients, Philips Emergin as an electronic interface for notifications, Cisco wireless to connect communications devices within the hospital and Siemens for its main phone system.
Enter an iPhone pilot program for nurses, which helps them monitor patients and communicate with each other quickly across all of those platforms.
Lest it be construed that they were afraid to go head-to-head with Apple on domestic shores, Samsung has just filed suit against Cupetino in United States federal court, claiming that Apple is infringing upon ten of their patents concerning “fundamental innovations that increase mobile device reliability, efficiency and quality, and improve user interface in mobile handsets and other products.”
An aging line of smartphones coupled with shaken credibility led to Research in Motion shares falling 13 percent Friday morning. The slide was prompted by RIM Thursday cutting its shipment and sales forecast amid heated competition by Apple and Google’s Android.
“This further damages already low credibility, making them the ‘poster boy’ for a show-men story from here,” RBC Capital Markets’ analyst Mike Abramsky tells Bloomberg. RIM announced BlackBerry shipments would likely reach the low side of its previously-forecasted 13.5 million to 14.5 million units. Likewise, quarterly sales would be “slightly below” its earlier projection of $5.2 billion to $5.6 billion.
The iPad as well as older cousin the iPod Touch have been adopted in schools like they were the next no. 2 pencils.
We’ve been following the roll-out in schools as well as the on-going woes that parents are having with in-app purchases – so a story about schools waiting to see how the lawsuit brought against Apple caught our attention.
As we move into the touch computing era and our fingers again become the primary pointing device, it’s interesting to look back at the beginnings of earlier forms computer control. Dan Knight has posted a nice retrospective of the first few decades of mouse design over at Low End Mac:
The first computer mouse was carved from a block of wood and used two wheels to track its motion. The first commercial mouse was the Telefunken Rollkugel, an accessory for Telefunken’s computers that replaced the wheels in Engelbart’s design with a ball, making it essentially an inverted trackball.
Early mice started out with more buttons than later models – first three, then two, then whittled down to a single button with the Apple Lisa and Macintosh. It’s inverted cousin, the trackball, had a similarly downward growth trend over time:
…the first trackball used a 5″ Canadian five-pin bowling ball. The trackball first came to popularity with Missile Command, an Atari arcade game introduced in 1980 that used a 4″ ball.
For more see the full story at Low End Mac: Mouse Design 1963-1983
Woe be the PC maker. That seems to be the message coming from a number of analysts, slashing expectations in the face of growing tablet demand. The latest to adopt shrinking expectations is Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty. Huberty cut her PC growth estimates for 2011 to two percent, down from seven percent. Tablets will cut 29 percent of PC demand, she estimates.
Acer, maker of many low-cost netbook PCs, could be the hardest hit. According to IDC, the PC maker’s first quarter 2011 U.S. shipments fell 42 percent, compared to the same period in 2010. Dell, who Huberty says faces the “greatest risk” due to falling commercial demand and rising supply costs, saw first-quarter growth fall 11.8 percent.
There are plenty of accessories for the iPhone that can enhance our experience with the device, such as the huge variety of musical docking stations, fancy protective cases with built-in bluetooth keyboards, in-car chargers, stylus pens, the new Square credit card reader, and even guitar connection kits.
But what about the accessories that are yet to be invented? Here’s a list of 8 accessories that we wish were real, including an electric shaver attachment, a laser pointer and smudge-proof screen spray:
TV Tuner
There might be applications in the App Store that allow you to catch up with your favorite TV shows, such as Netflix and Hulu, but there aren’t many ways to watch live TV on our iPhones. The iPhone TV Tuner (pictured above) would allow us to do just that, with no data connection required.
Apple has surpassed Microsoft in quarterly profits for the first time ever, bagging $760 million dollars more during the first calendar quarter of 2011. Microsoft announced today that its net profit for the past quarter – the company’s third fiscal quarter – is $5.23 billion. Last week, Apple reported profits of $5.99 billion over the same period, which is its second fiscal quarter of 2011.
Six months ago, Apple’s excellent performance in recent years was highlighted when the Cupertino company surpassed Microsoft in quarterly revenue for the first time in nearly 15 years. Despite this, Microsoft continued to hold Apple off when it came to profits, largely due to the high profit margins it achieves with its software business.
Apple’s latest accomplishment is now the third time the company has trumped Microsoft over the past year. In May of 2010, Apple first surpassed Microsoft in market capitalization, then went on to surpass Microsoft in quarterly revenue in October, and has now surpassed Microsoft in quarterly profits.
Apple’s market cap is now nearly $100 billion higher than Microsoft’s. It’s no wonder Apple has enough cash reserves to keep the company going until 2018, without selling another single product.
[via MacRumors]
A new patent discovered by Patently Apple reveals that Apple is working on its own fitness center application for the iPhone.
The patent titled “Systems and Methods for Accessing Personalized Fitness Services Using a Portable Electronic Device” was originally filed in October, 2009, and describes an app that can benefit its users by helping them with their diet; suggesting when they should go to the gym and what exercises they should do; and allowing them to compete with friends and be ranked on their performance.
Services are broken down into four categories: New Customers, Getting There, In the Gym, and Post Workout; which will help users find their nearest fitness center and motivate them to actively attend, encourage them to workout and suggest different exercises, and provide post-workout motivation and fitness tracking features.
As we are all well aware by now, yesterday saw the launch of the white iPhone 4 in 29 countries around the world. What you may not be aware of, however, is that the white iPhone is ever so slightly thicker than the black model, as discovered by some early adopters of the device.
A MacRumors reader was one of the first to discover the difference, and emailed the site to let them know:
Just picked up the white iPhone 4 and realized it doesn’t fit into my Incase slider case. It appears that Apple has increased the size of the plastic that borders the glass on both sides by about 1mm
Ryan Cash of Marketcircle also discovered the difference, but it didn’t take an ill-fitting case for him to realize: Cash claims to have noticed simply by picking the device up:
A colleague of mine just picked up a 16 GB iPhone 4 in white. I was a bit surprised when I picked it up off his desk (I had my black 32 GB in my other hand at the same time) – it immediately felt thicker. We placed them side-by-side on his desk, and sure enough, the white iPhone was a hair thicker.
It has been a long 10 months, but the long-awaited white-colored iPhone 4 is shipping and for sale today in the US and 28 other countries. Therefore, you would expect that people would be excited to get their hands on one of these babies, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for Apple Stores in the US.
The stores I checked in the Houston, Texas area didn’t have lines forming — like you would normally expect for a product launch. China on the other hand was a completely different story as long lines were reported there.
Seeing the latest installment of the Fast & Furious franchise, Fast Five, this weekend? You may want to check Fandango’s iPad app before you try to book your tickets.
A feature called “The Pulse” shows realtime ticket sales (more or less), indicating what movies are going to be hot over the weekend — and which screens will be empty.
Bad news for Fast Five fans: It looks like the movie, which opens on Friday, is going to be sold out. It’s already shaping up to be the biggest pre-sold movie of the year to date, says Fandango’s Harry Medved, who shows us how The Pulse works:
For more fun, see The Onion: Today Now! Interviews The 5-Year-Old Screenwriter Of “Fast Five”
Here’s a peek at Al Gore’s new book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” which has been turned into a very cool interactive iPad app.
The former vice president’s book features text, images, interactive infographics, documentary video and audio commentary.
It looks like a great, immersive experience (and probably pretty scary, given the subject matter) — the climate change equivalent of the beautiful The Elements app.
Check it out:
The app ($4.99 on the App Store) was designed by Push Pop Press, a San Francisco startup by a pair of ex-Apple engineers, including Mike Matas, who helped design Delicious Monster. Push Pop Press is working on a Mac desktop application to create similar eBooks, which will be “very affordable” when it eventually ships. Reporter Brian Chen has more detail at Wired.com: Gore, Ex-Apple Engineers Team Up to Blow Up the Book
Here’s another video showing Gore’s app/book in more detail: