Author: Blancer

Today we presents a collection of Illustrator tutorials.

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If you’ve ever used a Macbook Pro, you know that nothing beats the gesture recognition feature on the Macbook Pro trackpad. Swipe three fingers left on the trackpad to go back in the browser, swipe four fingers up to reveal the desktop, and swipe four fingers down to see thumbnails of all your open windows (the Mac OS X Exposé feature).

Well, rumor has it that the next iPhone home button may feature a gesture area with similar functionality. If the rumors are to be trusted, this home button gesture feature could signal the next revolution in smartphone technology.

With all the competition in the smartphone market, a gesture area on the iPhone home button would help the next iPhone stand apart from Android smartphones and other competitors. The iPhone screen already has decent gesture recognition — pinch to zoom, swipe left and right to move from one home screen to the other, etc. — but expanded gesture recognition would open up a new world of possibilities for the iPhone 5, or whatever the next iPhone is called.

Imagine swiping left on the iPhone home button to go back to the last app you had open, or swiping down to bring up a list of your recent notifications. The possibilities are endless.

What do you think? Would you consider home button gesture recognition a good capability to add to the list of potential iPhone 5 features?

Will the Next iPhone Home Button Feature Gesture Recognition? is a post from Apple iPhone Review.

With all the talk of “iPhone 5,” you have to wonder what the next iPhone will be called in reality. Keep in mind “iPhone 5″ is just a popular nickname for the next iPhone, which could very well be named something else.

Here are some predictions as to what the next iPhone could be called:

1. iPhone 5. iPhone 5 seems like the natural successor to the iPhone 4, no?
2. iPhone 4G. Perhaps the next iPhone will be 4G-enabled (as in upgraded from the 3G network), and thus be called iPhone 4G. Afterall, when the second-generation iPhone was upgraded from EDGE to 3G, they named it iPhone 3G.
3. iPhone 4GS. If the next iPhone arrives 4G-enabled and with an increase in speed, perhaps it will be called iPhone 4GS. When the third-generation iPhone arrived, it was called iPhone 3GS — where “S” stood for speed.
4. iPhone HD. There have been rumors that the next iPhone video camera will record in 1080p HD video, which is an improvement on the current 720p HD video. If Apple wants to highlight this feature on the next iPhone, perhaps they will call it iPhone HD.
5. iPhone Mini. There have long been rumors that Apple will unveil a mini iPhone. These rumors persist, however I am not sure how likely an iPhone Mini actually is.

What do YOU think the next iPhone will be called?

What Will the Next iPhone Be Called? is a post from Apple iPhone Review.

Today representatives from Conde Nast told AdAge that they are slowing the addition of any new Conde Nast magazines to the iPad. Why? According to AdAge, Conde Nast feels “conditions aren’t quite right yet to deliver the ideal app editions at the kind of scale that advertisers want.” In other words, sales aren’t stellar.

Sales won’t get stellar until magazine publishers wake up and reduce the per-issue prices of their magazines by 60-80%. An issue of GQ on the iPad costs $4.99, but the same issue of GQ through a subscription is priced at little more than a buck. Everyone knows magazines don’t make most of their money from selling issues to consumers; they make it from ad revenue, and that ad revenue is going to lack big time until more people start buying magazines on the iPad. That won’t happen until magazine publishers lower their subscription prices.

Continue reading Conde Nast decision exemplifies why publishers need to rethink iPad magazines

Conde Nast decision exemplifies why publishers need to rethink iPad magazines originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In this year’s NYC Big Apps 2.0 competition, there was a lot at stake for the developers behind the 57 app submissions. Not only were they up for cash prizes, but the recognition of their efforts to leverage the city’s data mine for the public good was certain to boost their profile in Silicon Alley, and possibly attract bigger investors (or customers!) to their offerings.

For the grand prize winner, Roadify, the increased awareness of their commuter-support platform means big improvements: more people participating and more/better data. The service, which depends on crowdsourced reporting of available parking spaces, bus positioning and subway arrivals along with public data on transit schedules and privately-sourced data on gas or garage pricing, becomes more useful as more users are sending in their information.

Roadify supports ‘giving’ and ‘getting’ parking spaces (or updating transit details) via SMS, but it’s with the iPhone app that the service really shines. Users can share and check transit information, traffic conditions, gas pricing and more — plus they can quickly find a parking spot in congested areas. Considering that New York City drivers sometimes find themselves circling and circling in the hopeless search for an open parking spot, any approach to cutting that time will save on gas, reduce pollution and make the Big Apple a happier place.

If you’re a frequent or occasional NYC commuter, check out the free Roadify app; you can also watch the Roadify demo video in the continuation of this post.

Continue reading Earth Day: Lower your carbon output (and blood pressure) with Roadify

Earth Day: Lower your carbon output (and blood pressure) with Roadify originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T has submitted a document to the FCC in the process of trying to get that T-Mobile merger approved, and it reveals that AT&T was overwhelmed by the amount of smartphone data traffic it had to push through with the arrival of the iPhone. 2010 saw an 8000% jump in data rates over 2007, according to the document, which adds that “a smartphone generates 24 times the mobile data traffic of a conventional wireless phone, and the explosively popular iPad and similar tablet devices can generate traffic comparable to or even greater than a smartphone.” The total apparently went up to 10 petabytes of data per month in 2010. Because of all that data, AT&T is trying to suggest that it “faces network capacity constraints more severe than those of any other wireless provider.”

And while AT&T says that connecting with T-Mobile will help both companies be better able to handle their data issues, things aren’t going to get easier. The company expects to deliver the same amount of data it served in 2010 in just the first five weeks of 2015.

Lest the FCC start feeling bad for AT&T and its predicament, don’t forget that by connecting with Apple for the iPhone in the first place, AT&T gladly took the bullet for all of that data. But yes, AT&T and other data providers have quite a goal in front of them, considering how fast consumer data consumption is growing thanks to Apple’s devices.

AT&T filing shows that smartphone data is facing huge growth originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s Earth Day. For 41 years, April 22nd has been a day to raise the awareness of people worldwide about the impact that they have on our planet. Our very own Megan Lavey-Heaton just provided a look at an eco-friendly laptop bag from Plaid Doctrine, and we review a surprising number of products that are made with thoughtful consideration for environmental consequences.

Here at TUAW, we’ve partnered with a group of Apple accessory manufacturers to give away products that are either made of recycled or natural materials, or that can be used to enhance your enjoyment of the great outdoors.

Continue reading this post on the next page to see these great products and for more details on how to enter the giveaway.

Continue reading Earth Day 2011 giveaway from TUAW

Earth Day 2011 giveaway from TUAW originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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About two weeks ago we told you about several websites that seemed to spring up overnight offering genuine iPhone unlocking. By “genuine” we mean the unlocks didn’t require any hacks or jailbreaks as the websites appeared to directly access Apple’s database and add IMEI device identifiers to it, which then told iTunes to unlock the iPhone the next time it was plugged in.

We also warned readers that they should be extremely careful if they take advantage of these services as there was no telling if Apple would relock the phone if it noticed unauthorized IMEIs being unlocked. Well, as of today, all those websites offering iPhone unlocks have mysteriously shut down.

Yes, mysteriously. Even the websites themselves don’t know what happened — or where the unlocks were coming from. “To tell you the truth, first our supplier told us there were server issues, then after that they just told us that they will not be offering the service anymore,” CutYourSim.com told Cult of Mac. “We are not sure where the service comes from, or whether it’s a contact through AT&T or Apple. We do know that the service is performed in the UK, but that’s about it.”

The fact that so many sites sprung up overnight offering these unlocks and have now shut down just as quickly leads one to believe that there was just one individual or small group with access to Apple’s databases. It’s possible that Apple quickly found out who this group or individual was and stopped their “services” cold.

Once they were cut off, since the websites that sold the service were acting as nothing more than a middleman, they had no choice but to cease the sale of all unlocking services. There’s no word yet on whether people who unlocked their iPhones through the service have found them locked again, but CutYourSim.com is offering refunds for those who paid and have not had their iPhones unlocked yet. The same site also notes that, in little more than a week, 400 people paid them for access to the unlocking service.

iPhone unlocking service providers shut down originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just in time for Easter, it’s finally here — our friends at Engadget have obtained actual pictures of the official white iPhone 4, which was purportedly sold by a Vodafone UK retailer to a tipster. It’s just what you’d expect it to be (like the iPhone 4, but, y’know, white), save for being one digit off on the model number. Vodafone has alerted its stores to not sell the phone until next week, but it looks like this one sneaked out.

9to5Mac also got hold of a memo from Netherlands smartphone retailer BelCompany, and though it’s since been pulled from the site (which perhaps lends even more credence to the authenticity), the memo purportedly said that the long-awaited White iPhone would finally be in stores as of next week, April 27. We’ve heard that the differently-colored handset would finally be available next week in the US, and since Apple has said before that the phone would arrive this spring, it looks like this is all finally going to happen.

If you’ve been waiting for a white iPhone 4 ever since it was announced back in June of last year, the wait is almost over.

UK has white iPhone now, Netherlands company memo suggests next week originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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