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May 09 2012
Facebook Introduces App Center
Facebook has introduced App Center, a new way to distribute Facebook apps to more than half a billion users in order to centralize existing apps and easily allow developers to publish new ones in the future.
Today, we’re announcing the App Center, a new place for people to find social apps. The App Center gives developers an additional way to grow their apps and creates opportunities for more types of apps to be successful.
With today’s introduction, Facebook has opened a beta phase for all developers. Starting today, developers can create and lay out their app’s detail page within the App Center (see example above) using predetermined guidelines. If you’re really fast and submit a finished layout before May 18, your app will be listed with higher priority when App Center launches. The submitted apps are checked and controlled with fixed quality perceptions in mind, and if they get approved, they’ll be available at the initial launch of App Center — Facebook didn’t specify a fixed launch date though.
Additionally, there’s a new feature added to their statistics app Insights: it’s a user feedback monitoring tool that uses a new, visual app ratings metric (see image below).
App Center will also go mobile through the iOS app, using a layout comparable to its possible future competitor, Apple’s App Store:
The App Center is designed to grow mobile apps that use Facebook – whether they’re on iOS, Android or the mobile web. From the mobile App Center, users can browse apps that are compatible with their device, and if a mobile app requires installation, they will be sent to download the app from the App Store or Google Play.
To make your app ready for iOS or Android, the app just needs to use Facebook login. For the first time, there will also be the possibility to offer paid apps through App Center.
Many developers have been successful with in-app purchases, but to support more types of apps on Facebook.com, we will give developers the option to offer paid apps. This is a simple-to-implement payment feature that lets people pay a flat fee to use an app on Facebook.com.
As of now, developers can visit the new App Center tab on the developer website to create their app’s detail page for the new Facebook App Center.
10.7.4 OS X Update Now Available: Fixes “Stuck Reopen Windows” Bug [Update: Safari 5.1.7 also Released]
Apple has released 10.7.4 for OS X, which brings significant bug fixes, network improvements, and Safari 5.1.6 (a performance and stability update). Release notes for the 730 MB download can be found on Apple’s support pages.
Download links for the 10.7.4 update have been posted below:
- Client update (692.68 MB)
- Client Combo update (1.4 GB)
- Server update (738.71 MB)
- Server Combo update (1.49 GB)
The OS X Lion v10.7.4 Update includes fixes that:
- Resolve an issue in which the “Reopen windows when logging back in” setting is always enabled.
Improve compatibility with certain British third-party USB keyboards.- Addresses permission issues that may be caused if you use the Get Info inspector function “Apply to enclosed items…” on your home directory. For more information, see this article.
- Improve Internet sharing of PPPoE connections.
- Improve using a proxy auto-configuration (PAC) file.
- Address an issue that may prevent files from being saved to an SMB server.
- Improve printing to an SMB print queue.
- Improve performance when connecting to a WebDAV server.
- Enable automatic login for NIS accounts.
- Include RAW image compatibility for additional digital cameras.
- Improve the reliability of binding and logging into Active Directory accounts.
- The OS X Lion v10.7.4 Update includes Safari 5.1.6, which contains stability improvements.
Also released, contrary to the 10.7.4 release notes, is a separate download for Safari 5.1.7. This update disables out-of-date versions of Adobe’s Flash Player to address security concerns, but a manual fix is provided if you’d like to reenable the outdated Flash Player installed on your system. Information about Safari 5.1.7 can be found on the following support page. You can check Software Update, or download 5.1.7 from Apple’s website.
Safari 5.1.7 for OS X Lion and Safari 5.1.7 for OS X Snow Leopard disable out-of-date versions of Adobe Flash Player.
Out-of-date versions of Adobe Flash Player do not include the latest security updates and will be disabled to help keep your Mac secure. If Safari 5.1.7 detects an out-of-date version of Flash Player on your system, you will see a dialog informing you that Flash Player has been disabled. The dialog provides the option to go directly to Adobe’s website, where you can download and install an updated version of Flash Player.
#MacStoriesDeals – Wednesday
We’re back! Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on hardware, iOS, and Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
Hardware & Amazon Deals
- New! Refurb Apple iMac Roundup: Core i3 Dual 22″ for $929 + free shipping
- Leather Flip Case for Apple iPad 2/3rd Gen iPad w/ $2 credit: $14 with coupon code ‘ipadconvertibles’
- Griffin Threadless Cases for Apple iPhone / iPod touch: $10
- Refurb iPhone 4S 16GB for $150 + free shipping, 32GB for $250, 64GB for $350
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Mac Software
- New! Portal 2 for Mac downloads for $7, Portal 1 & 2 for $8
- New! Tagalicious: $14.99 -> $9.95
- New! Snapheal: $19.99 -> $9.99
- New! Hand Drawn font: Stacked by Denise Chandler: $8 or less
- New! iPad Programming Course: $99 -> $49
- The Graphic Design Studio Combo: $340 -> $69
- iOS Games Workshop: $179 -> $79
- iRest iPad Stand: $60 -> $40
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iBookstore, Audio and Video
- O’Reilly’s Publishing with iBooks Author – An Introduction to Creating Ebooks for the iPad: Free
- Stephen Hackett’s ‘Bartending: Memoirs of an Apple Genius’: $8.99 -> $4.99 (review)
_________________________________________
Mac App Store
- New! Lume (Games): $4.99 -> $.99
- New! Webbla (Reference): $22.99 -> $9.99
- Kids vs Goblins (Games): $4.99 -> $2.99
- MacFonts-TechFonts (Graphics & Design): $.99
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iPhone Apps
- New! NowPlayer (Music): $1.99 -> $.99
- New! Battleship: Alien Invaders (Games): $1.99 -> Free
- New! Lume (Games): $1.99 -> $.99
- New! StarMap 3D (Education): $.99 -> Free
- New! Instacast: $1.99 -> 99¢ (2.0 review)
- New! Skylight for iPhone (Productivity): $4.99 -> Free
- New! Stress Check Pro by Azumio (Healthcare & Fitness): $.99 -> Free
- TouchArcade: Free (review)
- Shares (Finance): $.99 -> Free
- CarTunes Music Player (Music): $2.99 -> Free
- Paper Munchers (Games): $.99 -> Free
- Beyond Ynth (Games): $.99 -> Free
_________________________________________
iPad Apps
- New! Lume HD (Games): $2.99 -> $.99
- iBird Pro HD (Reference): $9.99 -> $.99
- Toy Defense HD (Games): $2.99 -> $.99
- Beyond Ynth HD (Games): $2.99 -> $.99
_________________________________________
Universal Apps
- New! Wolfenstein 3D Classic Platinum (Entertainment): $1.99 -> Free
- New! Crow (Games): $2.99 -> $.99
- Death Rally (Games): $.99 -> Free
Latest Evernote Updates Show A Promising Future
Yesterday, Evernote rolled out two major updates for its iOS and Mac apps. As a daily Evernote user who relies on the app to research posts, save PDFs, annotate images, and generally archive just about anything through IFTTT, I was pleased to see the improvements made in these versions are taking Evernote into a direction I like.
First, the iOS app. Focused on iOS 5 and the iPhone version, Evernote 4.2 brings a more accessible way of applying rich text and switching between editing and composing. Prior to version 4.2, users had to select text and hit a button in the top toolbar to bring up rich text editing — a process that was cumbersome and not as responsive and stable as one would expect from a top-notch iOS app. Evernote 4.2 abandons the separate text editing workflow and interface for a better, more integrated way of displaying text controls alongside the system’s keyboard. A new button will now let you easily switch between typing and editing, while retaining the same options that made Evernote a must-have among note-takers looking for rich text support. I like how selected text will remain selected if you switch between the keyboard and text formatting panel; surprisingly, however, Evernote still hasn’t managed to fit a Cancel button into the note editing screen.
(Old Evernote, Evernote 4.2 for iPhone)
In this new version, Evernote claims they made the app’s note taking capabilities “more powerful”, and, in real-life usage, I can attest this change is reflected in faster performances, generally more reliable edits synced to Evernote’s servers, and decent support for checklists and bulleted lists. Often, previous versions of the app would let typing “slow down” as the software was syncing changes back as you typed; it was a strange effect, and I saw it happening a lot especially on the iPhone and iPad. The glitch seems to be gone from Evernote 4.2, which I found to be smoother and more responsive at accepting text input and applying changes.
I don’t use checklists in Evernote — I very much prefer TaskAgent and Dropbox for that — but it’s nice to see the company implemented a solution to add checkboxes with new lines automatically. Checkboxes can now also be indented, though I’m not a fan of the manual process required to do so. As for bulleted lists, which I use on a regular basis for MacStories articles, v4.2 doesn’t add new bullets with new lines — a bug that annoyed me to no end is finally gone from Evernote (both on iPhone and iPad, as this post written from Evernote on iPad last night seems to confirm).
The new Evernote for iPhone puts great emphasis on the redesigned attachments bar at the top. The updated placement of buttons (camera, images, audio, info) should make it easier to attach files to notes, and check out detailed information in the (also redesigned) Note info screen. The audio recording interface has been redesigned: as you tap the microphone icon in the toolbar, an audio recorder will gracefully come up on screen, displaying elapsed time, volume changes, and a “Done” button to save your recording. Surprisingly, there is no Cancel option here either, so once saved, audio attachments will have to be manually removed with the keyboard (they can also be played inline within a note). As for image attachments, Evernote now lets you import photos from the Photo Stream system album, and it gives you an option to prevent snapshots taken in-app from being saved into the Camera Roll.
The 4.2 update to Evernote for iOS takes the iPhone app into the right direction for note-taking, whether it’s rich text, media, plain text, or a combination of all of them. There are still some glaring omissions — such as Cancel buttons — and Markdown-oriented note takers might still prefer a more classic approach with Dropbox-enabled apps, but I believe the improvements brought to the iPhone make for a really solid mobile note taking app. Where I do believe Evernote still needs to make serious improvements, though, is the iPad version of the iOS client. With the exception of Cards view and rich text, the core of the app is virtually unchanged since the first version, and it’s beginning to show its age especially when compared to text editing software like Writing Kit. The lack of real full-screen editing is distracting, the app doesn’t take advantage of gestures to enhance navigation between notes and notebooks, and, overall, managing a stack of multiple notes and tags feels clunky. I look forward to Evernote making important changes to its iPad app; I also hope the company is working on a new method to quickly capture text on iPhone, as Drafts showed a better way to effortlessly save text is possible.
On the other hand, Evernote for Mac keeps getting better on each release, adding new features, refinements, and fixes aimed at improving users’ workflows for getting data in and out of Evernote. One of the biggest criticisms Evernote faces, in fact, is the way its puts data into a single database that doesn’t allow for simple exporting options to get your content out of Evernote’s “closed” system. Data ownership is a fundamental right in today’s connected age, and fortunately the Evernote team has been making changes to address the complaints of those willing to let their documents free.
Evernote 3.1 for Mac comes with a new “Save all attachments” option that takes all attachments from one or multiple notes, and exports them to the Finder as single files. You can select multiple notes containing images and export all those images to the Desktop; you can select notes containing audio, PDFs, and images (which I did), hit Save, and find the respective files in your preferred Finder location. The new UI to manage multiple notes is very attractive, with additional options to merge notes, move them to another notebook, email them, and tag them.
The “Save all attachments” feature works nicely with the new Cards view of Evernote 3.1. Inspired by iPad, Cards view provides a new take on thumbnails (two sizes are available) with large previews that show the first line of a note and possible embedded images. Cards can be sorted and grouped through a menu in the upper left corner; by hiding the Account sidebar listing your notebooks, tags, and saved searches, you can turn Cards into a beautiful, non-full screen visual mosaic of your notes that, especially for image-heavy notebooks, makes for quicker and more intuitive browsing. For instance, I have a “MS Design Ideas” notebook full of screenshots and ideas for the next redesign of our site, and Cards view allows me to quickly run through my “notes” by combining the convenience of snippets view (only bigger) with more thumbnails while not in full-screen mode.
Cards view also comes with a split interface that combines browsing and editing in a single window. I like how text automatically wraps inside the right panel, and I think this editing mode would be perfect on the iPad with a browser view displayed on the left as it would make for a great blogging environment (I often need to quote or reference web pages while writing in Evernote). In general, even if not necessarily web views, I do hope Evernote is considering turning this updated “split mode” into something more powerful.
Evernote 3.1 has some other interesting improvements in the area of note taking: there are new keyboard shortcuts to quickly enter the current date and time, and the app finally displays word and character counts inside a popover menu (also accessible with a keyboard shortcut). HTML output seems to be improved as well, as in my tests, rich text written in Evernote was successfully pasted into the WordPress visual editor without visible errors or inconsistencies.
Yesterday, I wrote that Evernote needs to build a solid foundation of connected apps now. While waiting for the company to come up with better ways to integrate their recent acquisitions into the Evernote ecosystem, I appreciate the changes made to the official clients in order to future-proof them even just a little more. Text editing keeps on getting better, and the improvements made to the data exporting features confirm Evernote cares about letting its users get information out of the “anything bucket” and into other sources.
As I mentioned above, I look forward to seeing the iPad app getting a major overhaul in terms of note management and navigation; in the meantime, you can find the updated Evernote apps on the App Store, or on Evernote’s website.
Rovio: Angry Birds Games Reach 1 Billion Downloads
With a blog post and a video published this morning, Finnish game maker Rovio announced the Angry Birds franchise has reached 1 billion game downloads across all platforms. Just two weeks ago, Rovio said the latest entry in the series — Angry Birds Space — had become the fastest growing mobile game to date with 50 million downloads in 35 days. Today’s numbers mark an important milestone for Rovio, which earlier this week revealed its financial results for the year 2011 for the first time, hinting at a possible IPO in the future. In 2011, the company reported revenue of €75.4 million ($106,3 million), with earnings before tax of €48,0 million ($67.6 million) or 64% of total revenue in 2011, and hired 196 people.
Angry Birds downloads had reached 648 million by the end of 2011, confirming the company saw an additional 352 million downloads across all platforms in the first five months of 2012. The original Angry Birds for iPhone was launched in December 2009, and it took 6 months to reach 5 million downloads. Angry Birds is, according to Apple, the top paid iPhone app of all time, with other entries in the top free and paid charts for iPhone and iPad as well.
Angry Birds games are now available on a variety of platforms, including iOS, Android, OS X, Facebook, Google Chrome, and Sony’s PSP and Play Station 3. In November 2011, Rovio announced Angry Birds games had reached half a billion downloads.
May 08 2012
New iPad Launches In 30 Additional Countries This Week
Off to a “tremendous start”, Apple’s new iPad has also become the company’s fastest rollout to date, adding 56 launch countries in 42 days, and, later this week, 30 additional countries with two separate rollouts during the weekend. As confirmed by Apple’s Latin America website (via MacRumors), the new iPad will launch in 23 countries on Friday, May 11; MacRumors also examined other international Apple websites in the Middle East, and confirmed Apple will also roll out the new iPad in 7 countries (including Egypt and United Arab Emirates) on Saturday, May 12.
As usual, here’s a recap of the iPad’s launch dates, plus units sold until Q2 2012.
March 16 (10 countries): United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland and the UK.
March 23 (25 countries): Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
April 20 (12 countries): South Korea, Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela.
April 27 (9 countries): Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand.
May 5: Turkey (quiet launch).
May 11 (23 countries): Argentina, Aruba, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar, Malta, Martinique, Mauritius, Morocco, Peru, Taiwan, Tunisia and Vietnam.
May 12 (7 countries): Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

With this week’s launches, the new iPad will be available in 87 countries worldwide (including Turkey) after 57 days. With 12 million units sold in the past quarter, Apple said the new iPad is “off to a great start”.
Instacast 2.0: Still the Best Podcatcher, with Pro Features
It’s not hard to talk about the latest and greatest features of Instacast 2.0 when the developer has dutifully written his own epic walkthrough of his app’s new features. Instead of having to decipher release notes and a summary of bullet point features, Martin Hering of Vemedio has already published an in-depth write-up of everything “version two” has to offer, which includes a couple pro-tips here and there for those who aren’t skimming paragraphs and looking for bolded words. The mini-manual will be a handy reference for getting adjusted to Instacast’s tap-and-hold friendly UI and advanced features.
With the features already explained in great detail, I don’t feel the need to recap everything Instacast 2.0 has to offer or explain how it works, but I do want to share some of my experiences with the app post-upgrade. There are lots of little changes that have been made and thus lots of little habits that had to be relearned. While some of the changes take some getting used to, others have been improved upon so well that I could not think of going back to an older Instacast. Upgraded player controls, playlists, and bookmarks add a new pro-layer of control without dampening the player’s aesthetic or user experience. Additional sharing features strive to strengthen online discussion around podcasts thanks to commenting and an HTML5 audio player.
I don’t miss the Reeder-like icons. The newly added tab bar conveniently relocates previous filters like Favorites and Downloaded episodes to new smart playlists that are accessible through the Playlists tab. It’s easier to navigate Instacast 2.0 as text labels provide ample direction for discovering the podcatcher’s new features. Overall, I think the new navigation scheme is better than before.
The three icons are physically replaced by contextual information along the bottom of the display. This contextual information varies depending on the tab, but for Subscriptions and Playlists, it displays information regarding the number of subscriptions or playlists you’re subscribed to and how much information has been cached (or downloaded) locally to your device. This area doubles as a download manager; when podcasts are being downloaded, a progress bar will appear that can be tapped on to reveal the download manager itself. Finding the download manager isn’t obvious, but once found it provides much more functionality than before. Sorting the download queue is the biggest enhancement to be found.
With Instacast 2.0, my habit of tapping and holding on an episode to start had to be changed. The previous instant-play feature has been replaced by a contextual menu instead, adding a second tap to the process. The contextual menu also includes options to mark an episode as played/unplayed or as a favorite, replacing previous gestural swipes that are now used to simply archive episodes. Interestingly, only available in the Playlists tab is individual podcast artwork that will immediately start or resume the episode if tapped — this jumpstart isn’t available in the Subscriptions tab. While I’m still getting used to the former, I do like having the ability to archive old episodes — it can be performed manually or set up automatically in the settings. Archiving makes all podcasts available, but hides played or older podcasts from view.
Playlists, in combination with per subscription settings, are powerful tools that showcase the potential Instacast 2.0 has for podcast management down the road. Smart playlists are fundamentally based on played status and sort order, while playlists are simply named containers that you can manually or automatically add podcasts to. For each podcast, you can set up individual settings that override global settings. For example: new Hypercritical episodes can be added to a 5by5 playlist and downloaded automatically in contrast to other podcasts that are not downloaded automatically. Sorting options per playlist aren’t available, but continuous playback options should currently solve your want for a certain play order in the pre-created playlists.
When continuous playback first launched in Instacast 1.3, I wasn’t a big fan of the feature. You could flip it on and off, but there wasn’t a lot of choice in how continuous playback behaved. With Instacast 2.0, its integration into the updated player controls has made it one of my favorite features. The right and left arrows signify forward and backward, telling Instacast whether to play the subsequent episode in the current playlist or subscription. Having the ability to reverse the play order for newer-sorted playlists has made continuous playback very useful on long trips and traffic congested evenings — being able to tap it on and off has also made a world of difference.
Instacast’s new player controls are well done. The volume slider, AirPlay, playback speed, a sleep timer, and sharing options accompany continuous playback in a mock multitasking tray by sliding up the player like the lock screen camera. Each control is sized just right and make for easy-to-tap touch targets. Web links from show notes available for the episode can be found by tapping on the album artwork, and you can create bookmarks to mark important or must-listen-to points in the podcast. Sharing pauses the podcast, but it’s done so Instacast can grab your current position in the episode. You can tweet a link or copy a URL, with the resulting link taking you to a web interface where you can listen to the discussed segment of the show.
The web interface for sharing and discussing podcasts via Instacast is really good. An HTML5 compatible audio player avoids Flash, and there are links that let you continue the podcast in Instacast or visit the original show page. Twitter is used as a main feedback medium, but comments are nicely included alongside the player (which works just as well in Safari on iOS).
Syncing over iCloud is much improved with Instacast 2.0. It’s fast, so far flawless, and has certainly made transitioning to Instacast HD on the iPad easier when I have downtime. Perhaps even bigger architectural improvements can be attributed to Multi-Format podcasts and Podlove Deep Linking. Multi-Format podcasts work similarly to RSS feeds — if you’ve ever clicked on the RSS button in Safari and have gotten an option to select one of a few feeds in a pop-up menu, it works the same way with podcasts. Vemedio provides the best use case: choosing between quality streams. Deep linking, when supported, allows for specific episode segments to be played back (there’s both a start and a stop position). Podcasters can check out Podlove for more information on these specifications.
Flattr has been a big point of focus in Instacast and Instacast HD recently, and it’s hard to not to love anything that potentially puts some extra change into the pocket of podcasters you love. Flattr was around before Readability, but it works on the same principles. A pool of money is put into Flattr, and each time you click a Flattr button on a website or tap on a Flattr button in an app, a percentage of that is given to the website or podcast at the end of the month. Unclaimed clicks are put into a pending state and reserved until the owner claims it. In this context, it might be of concern that money in Flattr won’t get to the podcasts you want to donate or contribute to. What alleviates some of this is that Instacast informs you of the podcasters who are regularly accepting payments from Flattr — rest assured you will be notified that the podcaster isn’t collecting money if you tap the Flattr button. The precautionary alert that pops up is an excellent measure, providing users with a sort of safety net Readability doesn’t have.
Edit 4:56 pm: Niels in the comments below clarifies how unclaimed clicks work in Flattr. If you give clicks to unclaimed things, the clicks will be set aside for later until those clicks are claimed. Once claimed, the claimant will receive an amount based on their total clicks vs. the overall clicks out of the current month. Niels explains this very well below. In summary, Flattr itself doesn’t want to hold on to money and instead distributes it based on who’s actually claiming stuff at the time.
Instacast has reduced the entry fee of their app from $1.99 to $0.99, giving everybody access to base features for just a dollar. An additional $1.99 in-app purchase adds per-subscription settings, the ability to add playlists, bookmark features, and true push-notifications for new episodes via an in-app purchase. The IAP (dubbed Instacast Pro) allows the developer to maintain Instacast, its web service, and the backend required to maintain push-notifications and the podcast directory.
Lots of negativity has cropped up around the IAP model. From what I can tell, asides from sorting in the pre-created smart playlists, no features have been removed or supplanted by the IAP (you’re not paying for an old feature again) — you’re only adding additional functionality. Push notifications in particular seem to be a hot topic of discussion. Push notifications were first added to Instacast HD on the iPad — local notifications on the iPhone prompted users about podcast status. Instacast 1.x on the iPhone simply notified users if new episodes were available via a notification if they left the app while it was refreshing subscriptions in the background. I haven’t had post-upgrade problems during my review, but I know the developer is adamant on solving any issues (which seem to be with older iPhones from what I saw on Twitter).
I get asked a lot (especially in comments) about why I use Instacast over other podcatchers. Apple’s podcast solution, which I used before Instacast, was sorely lacking in every capacity. Apple’s podcast player is good for playing a podcast or two, but is empty of any management features. At the time, I did not like managing podcasts through iTunes or downloading episodes from the iTunes Store. Competitors challenge Instacast on price and features, but none of them have an interface I’m happy with. Many readers have me asked me to review other podcatchers — I’ve tooled with them — but Instacast has always been the app that I’m really happy with. I’m not saying other podcatchers are bad, but I am saying that Instacast has a great interface and provides the quickest path to streaming podcasts for me. The same arguments apply to my choice of RSS reader and Twitter client. Instacast’s developer has been the most vocal about pushing podcast standards recently, and I’m behind both the push towards better podcasts and the openness on Vemedio’s blog.
Instacast 2.0 is a solid update that provides a solid foundation for listening to podcasts exactly the way you want to. I couldn’t be happier with my 5by5 playlist for example: playing After Darks immediately after each show is made much easier thanks to per-subscription settings and improved continuous playback. Ninety-nine cents is an incredibly low entry price to get most of what Instacast has to offer, while an additional $1.99 adds pro features that may segment the user base, but give every customer the option of choosing whether or not they need extra features (a user who streams three or four podcasts irregularly may never need to use playlists). Instacast 2.0 is available in the App Store, while pro features can be purchased in the settings.
#MacStoriesDeals – Tuesday
We’re back! Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on hardware, iOS, and Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
Hardware & Amazon Deals
- New! Leather Flip Case for Apple iPad 2/3rd Gen iPad w/ $2 credit: $14 with coupon code ‘ipadconvertibles’
- New! Griffin Threadless Cases for Apple iPhone / iPod touch: $10
- New! Refurb iPhone 4S 16GB for $150 + free shipping, 32GB for $250, 64GB for $350
- Refurbished Apple iPad 2 Price Drops: 16GB WiFi: $319 + free shipping
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Mac Software
- New! MainMenu Pro Family Pack: $29 -> $19.49
- New! HyperPdf: $17.99 -> $9.99
- New! Icons4Coffee. 250 Royalty free Glyph and .PNG icons: $9 or less
- The Graphic Design Studio Combo: $340 -> $69
- iOS Games Workshop: $179 -> $79
- iRest iPad Stand: $60 -> $40
_________________________________________
iBookstore, Audio and Video
- O’Reilly’s Publishing with iBooks Author – An Introduction to Creating Ebooks for the iPad: Free
- Stephen Hackett’s ‘Bartending: Memoirs of an Apple Genius’: $8.99 -> $4.99 (review)
_________________________________________
Mac App Store
- New! Kids vs Goblins (Games): $4.99 -> $2.99
- New! MacFonts-TechFonts (Graphics & Design): $.99
- Mos Speedrun (Games): $3.99 -> $1.99
- CourseNotes (Education): $7.99 -> $4.99
- Snapheal (Photography): $18.99 -> $9.99
- Fresh Feed Pro (News): $5.99 -> Free
_________________________________________
iPhone Apps
- New! TouchArcade: Free (review)
- New! Shares (Finance): $.99 -> Free
- New! CarTunes Music Player (Music): $2.99 -> Free
- New! Paper Munchers (Games): $.99 -> Free
- New! Beyond Ynth (Games): $.99 -> Free
- 4Eyes ~ search tool (Productivity): $.99 -> Free (review)
- The Sims™ Medieval (Games): $2.99 -> $1.99
_________________________________________
iPad Apps
- New! iBird Pro HD (Reference): $9.99 -> $.99
- New! Toy Defense HD (Games): $2.99 -> $.99
- New! Beyond Ynth HD (Games): $2.99 -> $.99
- SNOOD for iPad (Games): $4.99 -> $1.99
- Pictureka! for iPad (Games): $4.99 -> $1.99
- CourseNotes (Education): $3.99 -> $2.99
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Universal Apps
- New! Death Rally (Games): $.99 -> Free
- iBird Explorer PRO (Reference): $29.99 -> $.99
- Highway Rider (Games): $.99 -> Free
The Story Behind The “Steve Jobs as Franklin Delano Roosevelt” Video
The Story Behind The “Steve Jobs as Franklin Delano Roosevelt” Video
Michael Markman has published an interesting blog post detailing the backstory behind the rare Apple video featuring Steve Jobs as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
I called Chris in L.A. to outline what we were thinking. War movie. Stock footage from the D-day landings. Chaplin as Adenoid Hynkel hanging on the wall. Mac marketing team in cameo roles. And the topper: Steve as FDR. He said he’d start looking for a director (or maybe he had one in mind).
Glenn, Mike, and I marched into Steve’s office to give him the pitch. Pretty much the way I outlined it in the previous paragraph. Steve’s eyes were sparkling through it all. By the time I got to, “and you as FDR,” I had made the sale. In the binary universe of Steve Jobs, something is either a zero or a one. This was a one. Instantly. Definitively.
The “1944″ video was aimed at rallying Apple’s sales troops and the Mac division against IBM, which was taking the majority of PC market shares back at the time. Check out the full story here, and the video on YouTube.
Archive Blood Pressure Results Easily With Bloodnote
Nobody likes being ill, but thanks to software, nowadays we have a series of better options and tools to ease the process of logging our health. When it comes to heart attacks and related issues, obviously the first thing to measure is the blood pressure. It lays out the overall situation of our body and is a good measure to compare the health over time. Most people who need to check their blood pressure over a longer period of time use paper notebooks or little post-its for that — at some point this method is doomed to result in chaos. To ease up this process of archiving blood pressure results and to allow for easy comparisons, Peter Bajtala and Matt Ludzen developed Bloodnote for iPhone.
Bloodnote is designed as minimalist and simple as possible and does not need any big tutorial or explanation for its feature set. It saves your blood pressure results for later and you can fetch them again, whenever you like or need to. It features the standard division into systolic and diastolic pressure as well as the pulse frequency. You can flick through the past results and view them with a single tap. These are basically all features the app has to offer; they’re certainly useful, but when reviewing Bloodnote for a design series, it’s much more interesting to analyze how these features are embedded into the app’s UI.
The three values are displayed using differently colored (red, blue and green), nearly full circles. The whole app is — besides the colored circles — designed in various shades of beige, and within the circle, a darker area is indicating optimal results as a benchmark. A legend at the bottom of the screen connects the color to their respective values (red for systolic, blue for diastolic pressure and green for pulse frequency). Tapping and holding one of them dims the colors of the other circles to focus on one specific value. To enter a new value, you just tap the respective circle, drag up or down until the indicator (which automatically pops up) shows the right value. The dragging interaction is sensitive and pretty smooth, and it’s very easy to get exactly your currently measured value. Tapping the date indicator at the top brings up a slide calendar to move to a specific date in the past and take a look at the respectively measured results.
Bloodnote is a really thought-out iPhone app. Its design just serves the functionality and makes it both simple and — if you can say that — fun to a certain extent as well. It makes recognizing the different values as well as changes over time very easy, and therefore is a very good and time-saving way to enter and archive blood pressure results. You can get Bloodnote for $1.99 on the App Store.
Review: TouchArcade for iPhone
Part of Arnold Kim’s other sites, AppShopper and MacRumors, TouchArcade is one of my favorite weblogs: I read it every day. Whether I’m reading about upcoming iOS games, news, or searching the forums, TouchArcade is simply one of the best resources for iOS gaming available. They’ve been around for 4 years, and for a website that’s a lifetime. I jumped when I was asked to help be part of the beta team for an iPhone version, and today, TouchArcade has released their very own iPhone app with the help of Flexibits and Bartelme Design.
When you first launch the TouchArcade app you will see a featured story on top along with a navigation list below for News & Reviews, Top Reviews, Hot New Games, Watch List, and Forums. On the right is a flickable list of their Hot New Games section with icon previews, and this is one of my favorite features of the app. If you’re looking for a great game to purchase this is the first place to look, and the list is constantly being updated too.
Every section of the app looks and feels consistent throughout with shades of grey and contrasted with white type that is easily readable. Articles have colored “tags” that help the eye differentiate between the types of posts as well. The built-in push notifications will keep you up to date for featured stories, news, or updates to your watched list. Don’t worry, the TouchArcade app has notification times so you don’t get alerts while getting your precious sleep.
News & Reviews is sorted by dates but Top Reviews and Hot New Games has advanced sorting, much like the AppShopper app — hotness, time, genre, and price point. TouchArcade’s forum board is one of the most important aspects of the site, as it gives a voice to all of its members. There is discussion for everything from device specific games to price drops, MMO codes, Mac App Store games, and general discussion. The forums have been integrated very well into the app: you can post, rate, comment — just like the website.
Application detail screens show which device a game works with, price, inline videos and screenshots (together at last!), description, and app activity (much like AppShopper). TouchArcade’s review ratings and forum comments are also shown in this screen. There is a sliding button under the price with binoculars that when activated will add any game to your watch list, so anytime the app is in the news, updated or on sale, you get a push alert and it is indicated with a blue led in the Watch List section. At the very bottom of the detail screen there is a button that links directly to the AppShopper iOS app letting you open it there as well. Detail screens can also be shared via the upper-right share button; email, copy, tweet, and many other options are there.
One may ask why do they need the TouchArcade app if they already have AppShopper on their iPhone? Well, this is much more than a ‘discovery app’: it contains news, reviews, and a huge user-based forum. The two can easily be used in tandem, as I have been doing for a while. They complement each other very well — I use TouchArcade for discovery and opinions, AppShopper for price drops, releases, and app update information.
A little secret for our readers: AppShopper for iOS is getting a major update as well, and I can’t wait to see what Arnold, Eli and their team have in store for it.
You can really see all the hard work that was put into the TouchArcade app. It’s very fluid and has a ton of information cleverly disguised inside a clean, beautiful iOS app. The app is free and available now on the App Store.
Why My iPad Is Not My Laptop
Why My iPad Is Not My Laptop
John Carey, who you might know from all the excellent photographs he posts on his (equally awesome) fiftyfoodshadows blog, today wrote a piece entitled “Why My iPad Is Not My Laptop”. It’s effectively a counter-argument from Carey on why the iPad just isn’t a laptop replacement for many people, particularly those in the professional creative community – yet.
I would say a good 90 percent of the debate on the iPads usefulness as a computer is coming from writers and casual users and this is where I find the debate getting a little one sided. Of course a writer would like the iPad. The tools most needed to get their work done are right there for the taking, you can hunt and gather all day long and it does make a fantastic, distraction free space to write in.
Carey doesn’t dispute that the iPad is a ‘personal computer’ – in fact he asks “what is there to even to debate” on that question and he says it’s all about the software, not the input device. For creatives, he says there are a number of nice apps for sketching, image editing and so on, but they don’t have anywhere near the “horsepower or precision that it takes to complete a finished product” – likewise for others such as web designers, coders, industrial designers and so on.
When it comes to many jobs within the professional creative community the iPad is still more or less incapable of handling any honest workload. At least as far as things stand at this point in time. There are no designers that I am aware of using it to create much outside of concepts.
Some might question Carey’s premise, is the iPad ever meant to replace a laptop for such professional tasks? Perhaps that is why the laptops (or trucks as you may call them) are going to stick around for the key purpose of satisfying these people. But I’m not so sure, I think the iPad can evolve to be a suitable PC for most of these tasks undertaken by creative professionals – I don’t think it will completely replace the need for a laptop or desktop, but I think it will eventually replace the laptops of these professionals. As Carey said, it’s all about the software and whilst we have made giant leaps and bounds in just over two years — we have a long way to go.
But when it comes to honest creative work I can not help but find the iPad as little more than a sidekick. I can say with certainty though, that this is far from the last word on this. I can clearly see a future where touch screen devices such as the iPad become more and more viable for the kind of things I have discussed here today. It is still new territory being explored and I for one can not wait to see where it takes us.
One particular point that Carey talks about quite a bit in his piece is about the filesystem – or rather lack thereof in iOS. His arguments resonate with me, particularly surrounding photo management on iOS which in some ways has gotten worse with iPhoto – “a black hole within a hole where edited photos from your “camera roll” somehow end up in limbo within the app and you have to send edited versions back to the photo roll to do anything else with them”.
For such a supposedly simple to use device the iPad it sure makes it complicated to move files around. In this case, Apple is entirely responsible with their rebellious idea to avoid traditional file structures. I can not fathom why it would be so difficult to have a system level file management area that is as convenient to use as the notification system they have so diligently been working on. Something which is not so flawed and cumbersome as the hidden data that lives within each app.
You may not agree with everything Carey says, but I encourage you to read his full article, I think he makes some very good points and the personal examples of where he has tried to use the iPad as a laptop are an excellent addition.
May 07 2012
Ivy Bridge Macs
Ivy Bridge Macs
Alex Brooks at World Of Apple has published an interesting and detailed analysis of Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors and Apple’s possible timeframe for Mac refreshes this year.
In 2012 Intel’s new architecture is named Ivy Bridge, on a technical level the architecture marks a huge leap from the previous Sandy Bridge taking advantage of a 22 nm die shrink process. Some other headline improvements over Sandy Bridge include PCI Express 3.0 support, integrated USB 3.0 and the use of tri-gate transistors (sometimes known as 3D transistors) which offer the same performance as their “2D” counterparts but are said to offer up to 50% less power consumption. Apple may choose not to be cutting edge with all the technologies available in Ivy Bridge as the company tends to enjoy setting its own trends.
Brooks’ post includes a list of candidates for the new CPUs in the Mac mini, iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro product lines. Check it out here.
This year’s much rumored Mac hardware upgrade would be, according to ongoing speculation, a thinner, completely redesigned 15-inch MacBook Pro that was originally reported last year ahead of the iPad 2′s launch. The rumor of a 15-inch MacBook Air/redesigned MacBook Pro has constantly surfaced throughout 2011, with most recent rumors indicating such machine carrying an Ivy Bridge CPU was “inbound” for April. Meanwhile, tests performed on the Ivy Bridge processor likely to be used in the MacBook Pro family showed significant improvements.
For first impressions on Ivy Bridge, check out AnandTech’s review of Intel’s Core i7 3770K CPU.
Twitpic Releases iPhone App
Twitpic Releases iPhone App
Popular Twitter photo sharing service Twitpic announced today the release of its first official iPhone app, available for free on the App Store. Unsurprisingly, the app comes with a dedicated “editing” interface to apply filters to photos.
The built-in photo editor allows you to craft your perfect photo with simple editing tools and photo filters.
I have tried the app, and it is very streamlined. Because a number of Twitter apps in the past used Twitpic by default, it is likely you already have several photos uploaded to Twitpic (which automatically connects to Twitter). In accessing Twitpic with iOS’ Twitter integration, Twitpic automatically pulled old photos I used to upload to the service years ago. Photos come with captions, comments (as tweets), and views. From the Timeline view, you can check out Twitpics from the people you follow on Twitter.
The shooting process is also simple, but somewhat custom in the way Twitpic implemented camera controls on screen. An “add effects” button hidden in the upper right corner of a photo (you can take photos or videos, or import them from the Camera Roll) lets you quickly crop, rotate, or enhance an image before posting, and it’s powered by Aviary.
Twitpic for iPhone is free on the App Store. [via The Next Web]
Invy Is An Iconic Date Planner For iPhone
What do you prefer when it comes to apps: functionality or ease of use? Most people would answer “a combination of both, a good compromise”. It might be true in many cases, but sometimes the balance between those two sides is not the right goal, and to meet a specific niche you need to move into more extreme directions. Invy, a new iPhone app by Bread & Pepper, helps you to set up meetings or dates and inviting friends, family or colleagues to them, and it’s a good example how such a hard decision can turn out pretty well.
Creating appointments and inviting other people to them is nothing new; it’s more or less integrated in any sophisticated calendar or even mail application. Because of this, often developers cannot focus on functionality while creating new apps in this area anymore; they either need to create a gorgeous design to convince users to buy their product, or they need to make one specific feature a must-have. Here lies the reason why I chose writing about Invy: it has got both.
When firing up Invy for the first time, you’ll need to register your email address from which you’ll send out invites to other people. To create a new event, just tap the create button at the top, set the date’s description and location, invite recipients, set day and time and hit send. Within seconds, everyone you invited will get the same information in their inbox (emails are designed similarly to the app; see image below). Invitees can accept or refuse to participate: those who have Invy installed on their iPhone will be brought to the app, while everyone else can confirm the date via the Invy website.
All your set dates are displayed in a very elaborately designed list view in the app’s main window. By tapping one of them you can investigate all the attached details and how many people already answered the invite. If you set up the date, you can modify and fix it, and Invy automatically saves the appointment in iCal — and thus on every device with iCloud sync. Invy is intuitive and serves exactly one need: setting appointments and dates easily, and with style.
Responsible for Invys good UX is its clean and bright design, which is centered around the use of big, colored sans-serif typography and white background to automatically focus on the most important information: the dates you set. The big date descriptions change their color when they go through the process of sent invites, answered invites and fixed dates moving from a light blue (just sent) to red (fixed and saved date). This doesn’t just look good, it also ensures a fast recognition of whether a date already is important to you or not.
So Invy is a great date planning app, but nothing more. It has a really focused feature set, and serves those features in a fast, easy and good-looking way. I recommend Invy as a way to plan dates within small groups of people, like in businesses or families, especially when all members have got an iPhone and are likely willed to pay $1.99 for Invy on the App Store.
#MacStoriesDeals – Monday
We’re back! Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on hardware, iOS, and Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
Hardware & Amazon Deals
- New! Apple iPod nano 8GB MP3 Player w/ $20 gift card: $120 + free shipping
- New! Apple iPad 2 16GB WiFi Tablet + pickup at Micro Center: $360
- New! Used Apple iPad 32GB WiFi + 3G Tablet: $220 + free shipping
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Mac Software
- New! The Graphic Design Studio Combo: $340 -> $69
- New! iOS Games Workshop: $179 -> $79
- New! iRest iPad Stand: $60 -> $40
- New! Folder Brander: $9.95 -> $4.95
- New! cSupport Premium Plan for 6 Months: $49 or less
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iBookstore, Audio and Video
- O’Reilly’s Publishing with iBooks Author – An Introduction to Creating Ebooks for the iPad: Free
- Stephen Hackett’s ‘Bartending: Memoirs of an Apple Genius’: $8.99 -> $4.99 (review)
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Mac App Store
- New! Mos Speedrun (Games): $3.99 -> $1.99
- New! CourseNotes (Education): $7.99 -> $4.99
- New! Snapheal (Photography): $18.99 -> $9.99
- New! Fresh Feed Pro (News): $5.99 -> Free
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iPhone Apps
- New! 4Eyes ~ search tool (Productivity): $.99 -> Free (review)
- New! The Sims™ Medieval (Games): $2.99 -> $1.99
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iPad Apps
- New! SNOOD for iPad (Games): $4.99 -> $1.99
- New! Pictureka! for iPad (Games): $4.99 -> $1.99
- New! CourseNotes (Education): $3.99 -> $2.99
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Universal Apps
Apple Releases iOS 5.1.1 [Direct Links]
Apple has just released a new version of iOS, 5.1.1. The new version is showing up now on iTunes, and should be propagating shortly to Apple’s servers. iOS 5.1.1 includes “improvements and bug fixes”; as reported from the official changelog:
- Improves reliability of using HDR option for photos taken using the Lock Screen shortcut
- Addresses bugs that could prevent the new iPad from switching between 2G and 3G networks
- Fixes bugs that affected AirPlay video playback in some circumstances
- Improved reliability for syncing Safari bookmarks and Reading List
- Fixes an issue where ‘Unable to purchase’ alert could be displayed after successful purchase
Apple’s last major update to iOS, version 5.1, was released in March.
Direct Links
iOS 5.1.1 direct download links below (build number 9B206).
- iPhone 3GS
- iPhone 4 GSM
- iPhone 4 CDMA
- iPhone 4S
- iPad
- iPad 2 (also iPad 2 AT&T and iPad 2 Verizon)
- iPod touch 3rd gen
- iPod touch 4th gen
- iPad 2,4
- iPad (3rd gen)
- iPad 3,2 (AT&T)
- iPad 3,3 (Verizon)
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