Maybe I’m just a greedy bastard, but if I found a shiny new iPod wedged in between couch cushions at a hospital waiting room, I might ask around if it belonged to anybody, but I probably wouldn’t make the effort to return it to someone who lives thousands of miles away. Dalton Williams is 14 years old, and he’s also a better person than I am because he didn’t just make a weak effort to return a lost iPod to someone nearby, he tracked down the owner who was living 6,000 miles away in Iraq.
Four years ago, I wrote a column about the incompatibility between Apple and China . And four years later, that observation is proving to be truer than ever.
What do I mean by “incompatible”? Countries have cultures. And companies have cultures, too. And the cultures of China and Apple are diametrically opposed to each other.
As recent events have demonstrated, Apple is incompatible with China’s business culture, legal system and worker culture.
The SmartShell relaxes in its fur and vinyl den. Photo Charlie Sorrel CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Never have I felt worse about buying a gadget accessory than I did buying the Speck SmartShell, a flimsy plastic cover for the back of the iPad 2 which Speck somehow summons the stones to sell for $35. Worse, I bought it in Europe, where it goes for €30, or $40. After a few months of use, though, it turns out to be the best iPad “case” I own (and I have rather a lot).
You might have suspected that the right music – whether it’s thrash metal or Mozart – keeps you more focused or relaxed.
Now a trio of brain researchers have studied the effects of playlists on the brain, resulting in a nifty little book called Your Playlist Can Change Your Life. In the book’s 200-or so pages, they explain how to use specific playlists to alleviate anxiety, promote concentration, get happy or move into a flow state thanks to Brain Music Treatment or BMT.
If you can’t make it to New York for BMT therapy, for $9.99, you can also download a Common BMT File. Created from more than 2,000 people’s brain waves with the help of evidence-based BMT tech, they say it acts as a kind of aural “first-aid” before you get your own playlists together.
Intrigued (my current nightstand read is Mark Changizi’s excellent Harnessed about music and the brain), I talked to author Dr. Galina Mindlin about what playlists have the most impact, cleaning up your music collection and her current heavy rotations.
A week ago, it was discovered that the popular social networking app Path uploads users entire address books to their servers. They’ve since apologized and nuked the data. But Path’s not the only ones doing this: other high profile companies like Twitter are also doing it. And Apple’s letting them.
Not so surprisingly, Congress isn’t liking what it’s hearing about the address book security issue. In fact, House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and Commerce Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee Chair G.K. Butterfield have written Apple a letter asking some hard questions about how Apple has allowed this to happen, and “whether Apple’s iOS app developer policies and practices may fall short when it comes to protecting the information of iPhone users and their contacts.”
Printer use and paper sales have both dropped since the iPad launched
If you think about it, printers are probably the worst-designed gadgets in our homes (unless you own the same awful Samsung Behold as I do). But despite the mythical advance of the paperless office, nobody has been able to kill them off. Until now. A new survey says that the iPad has finally doomed the printer, and is even saving trees.
You'll look like a nerd, but at least you'll be a stylish nerd
Oh, man. We’ve seen some dorky iPad accessories in our time, but none has managed to be both embarrassing and stylish at the same time. The GoPad performs this seemingly impossible feat, and adds a little bit of campness at the same time.
As most recently referenced in Tim Cook’s comments on worker safety at Goldman Sachs yesterday, Apple is spending a lot of effort in 2012 trying to solve allegations of abuse in their supply chain. This initiative has most recently culminated in Apple going to the unprecedented step of asking the Fair Labor Association to audit their factories.
The FLA’s report isn’t due until March, but already, the Fair Labor Association’s president Auret van Heerden has spoken out, saying that at first blush, Foxconn’s facilities appear to be “first-class” in comparison to the garment factories the association usually monitors.
No, Clear isn’t the only App Store release that is worth getting excited about today. League of Evil 2from Ravenous Games is also on the list. This is the sequel to the popular platformer that became a huge success on iOS last year, and it’s on sale for launch at just $0.99.
For once, there's an Android photo app to make iPhone users jealous
When you’re snapping a tacky, cliched vacation photo, isn’t it annoying that all those other tourists are buzzing around and generally getting in the way of that monument/handsome plaza/amusing statue? Short of climbing up into a bell tower and, well, you know what, there’s little that you can do to remove these scampering human ants. You could take a sequence of photos and buy Photoshop just to paint out the milling hordes, or you could try Scalado’s Remove app. If you had an Android phone.
Apple’s iAd hasn’t received much in the way of attention since it’s announcement as part of iOS 4 almost two years ago. The platform was designed as a way for advertisers to create powerful interactive mobile ads and to make it easy for app developers to integrate those ads into their products. Of course, it was also intended to help Apple take a big slice of mobile ad spending.
Despite a big introduction in 2010, iAd quickly fell off almost everyone’s radar. Apple initially set a high barrier of entry by requiring iAd campaigns to commit $1 million. The company later cut that in half and this week lowered the required initial investment to $100,000 – one tenth of its original requirement – something that speaks volumes about the company’s mojo when it comes to selling ads.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that unauthorized iOS apps obtained from the likes of Cydia aren’t as careful with your personal data as those approved by Apple for sale in the App Store. In fact, the opposite is true. Jailbroken iOS apps respect your privacy more than those obtained from the App Store.
Beyond the sheer number of devices sold, one of the biggest ways to Apple and Google try to position themselves as having the top mobile platform is by comparing the number of third-party apps available for users to download. Apple usually takes the number of apps available one step further when comparing iOS to Android by pointing out how many apps take advantage of the iPad’s tablet features such as screen size.
This is one of the reasons that an active and developer community is crucial a mobile platform’s success. Although Android entered the app race after Apple had begun to establish a successful developer community, the platform began to catch up quickly. All that seems to have changed over the past year, with a new report showing iOS developers are now creating three apps for every single new Android app.
ZOMG! Never lose your iPhone again with the ZOMM Wireless Leash Plus, a hardware/software combo that wirelessly ties your iPhone to a needy dongle that cries whenever the two are separated. It can help you to remember your phone, your keys, or even where you parked Grandma.
With a quick thumbing of Command+Tab, the built-in OS X Application Switcher is a great way to navigate apps for when your hands are just too busy to leave the keyboard.
One annoyance, though, is that no matter what, Finder is always listed in the Application Swticher, which you may not want to constantly have to be navigating against to go from, say, your e-mail and iTunes. Luckily, for advanced users, removing it from the Application Switcher for good is only a terminal command away.
LaCie's new 2big drives show at least somebody got the Thunderbolt memo
It’s taken a while, but it seems that the dried up tear-duct that was the supply of Thunderbolt accessories is about to turn into a torrent of high-speed, daisy-chainable tears of relief. Hard drive supremo LaCie will at last sell you a 2big Thunderbolt Series external drive.
Ever wondered how come iOS titles make it into the App Store’s top 25 list? Some iOS developers have been using download bots to purchase their own apps and manipulate the App Store’s top 25 list, according to a new report from Inside Mobile Apps. The software has been in use for over 12 months to fraudulently promote iOS titles, and some marketing firms charge up to $15,000 a time for the service.
Proview Technology, which is currently suing Apple for its use of the “iPad” trademark in China, revealed yesterday that it is seeking a ban on all iPad shipments into and out of China. If successful, the move could delay Apple’s iPad 3 launch with the device unable to leave the Chinese factories in which it is assembled.
However, according to Chinese customs, Proview has no chance of blocking iPad shipments because customers just love it too much.
While Apple’s trademark dispute with Proview Technology rages on, the iPad continues to feel the strain in China. Following its ban in one Chinese city, the device has now been pulled from Amazon China and the retailer has frozen all orders.
Makego is a cool new app that makes your kids’ real world creations come to life.
The two-dollar app comes with three virtual vehicles – a racing car, an ice cream truck, and a river boat. All you have to do is make one (out of Lego, paper, or anything else you can think of), plop your device inside, and run the app.
Rumors of added Siri language support have been swirling for a little while now. As it turns out, the digital assistant herself thinks she can already speak Japanese, despite the fact that the language isn’t officially supported yet.
Fingerprint smudges. You probably hate them just as much as we do, but the solution to avoiding them has eluded iPhone users for the past 5 years. Well if you can’t avoid them entirely, you can at least get rid of them in style with your own personalized screen cleaning cloth from Mobile Cloth. Considering it only cost $6.99 for a pack of two, the Mobile Cloth is a very effective screen cleaner. A quick polish with the cloth removes all the gunk which is much more effective than wiping it on your jeans or tshirt — my previous preferred method of cleaning my iPhone. You don’t even need to use water (unless the grot is completely dried on).
The Mobile Cloth is made from a unique microfiber material, with the fibers split and woven into “nubs” that act like tiny “suction cups,” pulling grease and germs away from the screen, according to the company. What sets Mobile Cloth apart from competitors is the company’s ability to quickly print and ship personalized clothes with your image on them (ordering a pack of 200 personalized cloths retails for $359).
Today we’re giving away 10 packs of two Mobile Cloths to our Twitter followers.
It has taken me a couple of weeks to refresh and recharge from my first Macworld experience (now known as Macworld | iWorld, of course). But during that time of getting clear I had the opportunity to give the latest offering by RealMac Software (Rapidweaver, LittleSnapper) in collaboration with Milen and Impending, Inc. a thorough “beta” test drive. Coincidentally, the iOS app is called Clear, and it is one of the more compelling list-makers/task managers I’ve seen for the iPhone.
The innovative thing about Clear is that it is entirely gesture-based in execution. There are no visible buttons or sliders; you use a series of gestures to interact with it, and that is what makes it stand apart from other iPhone list apps and task managers.
AT&T has been sending out text messages to those they consider to be among the top 5 percent of heaviest data users. These messages seem to only pertain to those still on the “unlimited” plan and warn them that they may be subjected to “reduced data speeds.” This throttling of data speeds is a direct attack against the “unlimited” plans and the users grandfathered into them. The worst part about it is most “unlimited” users have not changed the way they use their phones, yet they are now finding themselves to be alienated and penalized as being a part of the 5%. The whole thing is outrageous, and while many customers have been ranting about it for a while, you’re going to want to see what happens when Fox News anchor Shep Smith receives one of these AT&T messages. Let’s just say someone’s not happy.
Impending and Realmac Software have released Clear, the highly anticipated to-do app for the iPhone, in the App Store. For an introductory price of $0.99, you can get your hands one of the most innovate task manager applications around.
